Gen Con Report: Part 2

Thursday

The day began with the State of the Hat Panel, featuring a number of folks from +Evil Hat Productions and Hat-adjacent. I was there to say hello and mention that I wrote Psychedemia. We heard some updates about previously announced products: Bubblegumshoe is in layout, for example. Then came announcements for new products. I'm especially excited about Fate Accessibility by +Elsa S. Henry, a supplement for bringing disabled characters into your game as well as making your game friendly to players with disabilities.

That panel kept me from getting lost in the mob waiting for the exhibit hall to open, but I was able to hit the hall for a bit. I picked up Fantasy Age and Titansgrave from the +Green Ronin Publishing booth, which I understand sold out very quickly. My wife also picked up the Dragon Age corebook, which is a thick, gorgeous tome that compiles and expands on the content of the three boxed sets. I'm a fan and like to collect signatures, and +Chris Pramas was kind enough to deface our books.

In the afternoon, I attended the Feng Shui 2 panel. I was happy to learn that the Kickstarter PDFs for Secrets of the Chi War (to which I contributed) and the Conversion Codex (which I wrote) just need final sign-offs before going out to backers. (I was also greeted with my copy of the FS2 rulebook the day after I got home.)

Thursday evening, I ran my first game: "Stealing Roswell," an original scenario for +TimeWatch RPG using the Time-Crime campaign frame I wrote for the Kickstarter. Characters included a gene-thief from 23rd-century Persia, the Comte de Saint-Germain, and a robot replica of Robin Hood. By the end of the session, they had caught the flying saucer in a gravity beam, rescued the lone survivor, defeated two parallel timeline versions of the same TimeWatch agent, and stolen both of their autochrons. It was a lot of fun to run, and I hope my players enjoyed it.

Friday

Friday morning, I hoped to play in a Feng Shui game with James D'Amato of +ONE SHOT Podcast. Of course, about 20 other people had the same idea. When the dust settled, I headed over to the exhibit hall for some more perusal. 

I was in the audience for the live recording of Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff, which was as much fun as you'd expect. Ken answered my question about what three historical set-piece battles he'd string together for a Feng Shui adventure.

At the end of the day, I ran a session of Feng Shui at Games on Demand. A series of very bad rolls meant the first, easier fight took twice as long as the harder final battle. I think everyone enjoyed the over-the-top descriptions the game encourages you to make, and I hope a good time was had by all.

Overall, Friday was a surprisingly light day.

To Be Continued

I will probably conclude my recap tomorrow, and then I'll talk about my pile of loot.