It's Been A While....

Oh do I fucking hate that song!

So yea, I apparently haven't posted anything since August, after Gencon, lol. Talk about a hiatus.... So what have I been up to since then? I'll give you the Cliff notes version.

So I started a 5th Edition D&D campaign that lasted all of one day. 5th Ed is awesome and I love it, but between being stuck on midnights and the holiday season being a living hell, I had absolutely no motivation to DM. I fell into WoW, again, because of that new expansion that came out. That lasted all of one month, fuck that game. Same shit over and over again but now with more Farmville thrown in! I got into the World of Warships beta and that's been a lot of fun. For the most part I've been doing a lot of PC gaming and pretty much zero tabletop gaming.

So Adepticon was last weekend, and I didn't go for the first time in 5 years. Since I haven't touched a tabletop in quite some time I didn't feel like burning all the vacation time to go (was scheduled to work that weekend). I also got sick on Saturday so that really screwed things up. Looking back I do regret not going, even if it was just for a few hours. I missed out on seeing all the people I normally hang out with at Adepticon, like Carl from the IC's, Phil from Firebase Delta (the Podfather), and Big Jim was even there! That's the part that sucked the most, missing out on meeting Big Jim :(

For some reason my interest in 40K and even Warhammer Fantasy slightly came back. Thinking about Adepticon made me go back to reading the Guant's Ghosts books that I still haven't finished. Those new Adeptius Mechanicus models looking freaking amazing, so I'm sure that had something to do with it as well.

The other thing that got me slightly back into GW are the rumors I read about Fantasy. One word in particular, SKIRMISH! Please be true, please be true! GW desperately needs to go in that direction. Their fanbase is just getting older, kids are not getting into WH as much as they thought and us older gamers don't have the time to paint 200 models or play 3 hour long games. So as you can see I really hope this pans out.

So I'll try to post here and there, depends on my gaming habits I guess.

Going to Gencon!

I know I said in an earlier post that I will probably take the year off from Gencon, oops! Guess not! I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and I finally decided that I should just go anyways. I have the vacation time already approved, have enough time to spend and hopefully will have someone to split the cost of the room with (looking at you Fletch!).

My brother will also be going to Gencon for the first time so I wanted to go so I could show him around. I also want to get him hooked on D&D. He's shown interest in it before and he's said he always wanted to try it but he would back out at the last second whenever I invited him. Now since he's going to the RPG mecha, there will be no way he can say no!

Which gets to the last reason why I want to go, D&D 5th edition! It'll be out right before the Con and they have a decent amount of events going on that I want to partake in. I just wish I made up my mind sooner so I could have gotten one of those WoTC Con passes that get's you into all WoTC games, along with swag. I did however sign up for quite a few events, 11 total, and hopefully I can get into a 12th with generic tickets. So here's what I signed up for so far...

Thursday:
Hitting up the vendor hall, hopefully I'll find my fill of stuff to buy before 3pm when my first event starts.
I have D&D Ready, Set, Play which is a basic intro to 5th ed and they go over rolling up characters with you. Should hopefully be pretty in depth since it's 2 hours. I'm dragging my brother and his friends to this because that should be a good intro to get them sucked it.
Cost: Only $2!
After that I have Story Telling in the Reams which is kind of self explanatory. The kicker to this is Ed Greenwood (creator of the Forgotten Realms) and R A Salvatore (my favorite author of all time!) will be there for 2 hours talking about Realms Lore and what's to come. Kind of hard to pass this up, especially considering the Ready Set Play takes place in the same room and ends right before Story Telling beings.
Cost: Free

Friday:
My day will start with the Tabletop Panel of Awesome. Cmon, it's Tabletop (Wil Wheaton's show) and it's in my hotel!
Cost: Free
I then have to walk over to the Crowne Plaza for Tyranny of Dragons with Wolfgang Bauer from Kobold Press (the guys writing the first adventure path for 5th ed). I'm really glad WoTC is letting other publishers make adventures for them again and this panel is supposed to shine some light on how Kobold got picked for this and what's to come in the future
Cost: Free
I then go back to the main Convention Center for Defiance in Phlan. This is 1 of the many D&D adventures that were written just for Gencon. I don't know if I can talk my brother and company into doing this with me because odds are we will be at a table with people we don't know, but I'll be willing to give it a shot. I've never done roleplaying at a Con before so hopefully my first time will be fun.
Cost $2
Later on in the night WoTC is throwing a Tyranny of Dragons launch party at that Georgia St area. It's like an outdoor festival area and there will be drinks there too! I've been to a launch party, but never a RPG launch party so this should be pretty fun. I'm sure all the big wigs and writers and designers will be there too.
Cost: Free

Saturday:
First I have Auntie Lisa's Story Hour. You might be thinking "WTF is that?" It's an hour sit down chat with Lisa Stevens, who is current CEO of Paizo and was in charge of D&D back in her WoTC days. As you can see, she's a pretty big deal so I jumped on the chance to sit and hear her story for an hour.
Cost: Free
I then have something called Play Better Games, Dammit! From what I've read it seems to be a panel discussion about making your gaming group and gaming sessions better. Problem solving, dealing with drama, etc which should help a n00b DM like myself. This might be one of the few events I would consider skipping if I'm too tired, hungry or still need to buy stuff
Cost: Free
I then get to see Mr Ed Greenwood again and this time he's bringing Erin Evans (another D&D author) with him and this is called Spin a Yarn. This goes over how to tell better stories. My goal as a DM is to weave awesome stories, not just facilitate combat and hand out loot and exp, so this is right up my alley. I also can't turn down another chance to listen to Mr Greenwood
Cost: Free
Now here is where I run from Crowne Plaza back to the main Convention Center to hopefully get into Corruption of Kryptgarden with generic tickets. This is a 3 hour mega rpg session with over 100 people total. This sold out pretty quick and was one of the main reasons to get the Con pass. From what I've heard, the mega sessions like this are pretty awesome and they are a must do. If I can't get in there's always next year I guess.
Cost: $18
Right after that WoTC is throwing some type of celebration thing. It's not listed on the events schedule but the Gencon forums mentioned something about this. I don't know what goes on at these, but hey, I'll swing by to check it out.
Cost: Free
Sunday
Only thing I signed up for (pickings are slim) is Secrets of Golarion. Golarion is the world setting made by Paizo for Pathfinder. Granted, I'm all about D&D right now but I still like Pathfinder and learning more about the world it takes place in is always a plus.
Cost: Free

As for any tabletop gaming, I'm taking a pass this year. I had a blast playing Dreadball last year at Gencon but it took a lot out of me. Tournaments just drain me, and there's so much to do at Gencon I would hate to wear myself out again on something like a Tournament. There's only 1 40K event going on (Apoc) which is 1 more then last year, lol. There is a lot of Warmachine, Malifaux and almost any other system you can think of going on at Gencon.

So as you can see once you get past the cost for the 4 day pass, travel, lodging and food most events that you can do at Gencon are free. Most of the seminars you can just walk into and nobody minds at all. They just think the more the merrier. I can understand the costs for the RPG sessions but that probably covers materials they give you. And in all honesty the prices aren't that bad. $2 to have people from WoTC teach me how to roll a character where the materials are provided? Sure I'm fine with that, it's cheaper than a bottle of water down there! $18 for a 3 hour mega RPG session? Sure why not, $6 an hour where I'm sure I'll get handouts and maps and stuff of the adventure, that's definitely reasonable.

The $150 for the WoTC Con pass seems a bit high. It was $100 last year and there was 28 hours or so of gaming that it covered and you got swag as well. This year's pass only covers 18 hours of gaming but you still get swag. Hopefully the amount of swag is worth the extra money. I'll be keeping an eye out for that.

So yea, I'm pretty damn excited! I'm kind of shocked I went from going to 1 event last year to 11 this year but I'm going in with a different mentality. I want to learn as much as I can from the pros, play with people I've never played before and hopefully get my brother and friends hooked on RPGs. I'll still be with the Screaming Heretic crew down there, but after 3 years of going and only attending 1 event, I really wanted to broaden my horizons.

This will hopefully prevent me from spending too much money in the vendor hall, which is easier said then done!

So what's been going on with me?

So, what have I been up to? Well over the past two weeks I've went to two conventions, Adepticon and Vapebash 3.

Let's start with Adepticon. To be honest, I was bored and extremely tired. I'm currently working midnights so I had to flip my sleeping schedule and it knocked me flat on me feet.

I was bored because I don't play 40K and don't really care about it. I signed up for some Dreadball and Deadzone but I was so tired I ended up backing out of all 3 events.

I even barely bought anything. All I picked up was 2 limited edition Warmachine figs (the Bombshell Bombardier and the Druid Gone Wilder) that I wasn't able to pick up at Gencon when they came out, some Victoria Miniatures packs (Female Trooper and Penile Legionare) and some Mantic Corporation Troopers that were 50% off.  That was a very very small score compared to what I've purchased there in the past.

The food was too expensive at the hotel and honestly I'm sick and tired of eating at Harry Carry's, I've had enough of it for a lifetime already. I ended up leaving to go eat at other restaurants in the area.

The annual Screaming Heretic party was on Saturday and it was ok. I felt there were too many people there for me. There was seriously about 75 people crammed into the Governor's Suite.  So I ended up spending most of the time sitting on the couches in the hallway in order to avoid the crowd and we ended up having our own smaller party there, which was fun.

The only thing that really irked me was for the third year in a row an Adepticon volunteer/staffer won the charity raffle. All I'm saying is that if I was running an event I would not allow volunteers/staff to be eligible to win. I would say the vast majority of events follow that rule and there's no reason Adepticon can't do the same.

All in all I felt (for me at least) that it was a bit mediocre. Will I go next year? Honestly, I don't see myself going. I much rather prefer going to Gencon for gaming conventions. I feel that if you're not into 40K then Adepticon is not for you where on the other hand at Gencon there is something for everyone there. I know Adepticon has plenty of other events but 40K is by far the main focus. I am also at the point in my life that if I'm taking time off from work it's for an actual vacation, not attending a gaming convention that's 40 minutes away from my house.

Now moving on to the next convention, Vapebash 3. First of all a little preface, I used to smoke for 16 years but I was finally able to quit by using E-Cigarettes. There's a community I'm part of called VapeTV which is pretty much a Facebook for vapers (what we call ourselves). Vapebash is sponsored by VapeTV and a ton of E-Cig vendors. This convention was at the Westin in Rosemont, IL.

I honestly had a blast!. I am very into E-Cigs and all the new goodies that are coming out and Vapebash is the place to go if you're into that. I also got to meet so many amazing people that I already knew from VapeTV and plenty of others that I have not meet until the convention. Just meeting other people that have gone through the journey of quitting smoking and how they got there and did it is fascinating.

Overall it was a much different vibe then something along the lines of Adepticon. Something like Adepticon at it's very heart is competitive. You're there to play games and win and have fun. Sometimes both of those don't happen. The thing with Vapebash is that everyone there is united in the fact that they used to smoke and they now vape instead. Everyone is willing to help out with questions or recommendations. Vapebash felt more like a family reunion than anything.

So now I'm still recovering from two conventions in two weeks. What will the future have in store for me? I don't really know. If I can get the days off I will be attending VaperCon West in Reno, NV in July. Cmon, who doesn't want to go to Reno? I know I sure as hell do. For some reason I love going out west, mostly because I've seen more of Europe than I have of the United States and I need to change that. The Con is at the Peppermill which I've heard is a really nice place to stay so it should be tons of fun. Gencon? Still thinking about it. I already took the days off for it but I might just need a break for a year, I've already gone 3 years in a row and Gencon get's fucking EXPENSIVE!

I know I will blog a lot more often. My podcast (The Eternal Warriors) hasn't recorded since August 2013 and who knows when we will record again. John lives much further away and I'm working midnights which makes things even more difficult. So hopefully things will fall into place because TEW is sooo much fun :D