When my wife and I had said our goodbyes to everyone when we left GenCon this Sunday and as we walked back to where our car was parked so we could begin the 5-hour drive home, my wife looked at me and said: "You know we're doing this again next year, right?"
Wife lottery, won.
Right, so, in case the rock you game under is... fuck it, it was GenCon last week. You know it, I know it. Every gamer knows it, and that's one of the things that's cool about GenCon. As if it needed any more.
Going into GenCon, I knew that I'd have the chance to meet and spend some time with some awesome folks, but I had no idea how many. Or how awesome. I'm still having a hard time believing that it was all real.
I just deleted a whole bunch of this post because it came off as slightly sycophantic, star-struck and not very constructive. In short, it was hard believing that I was living through real events and not some kind of awesome dream. I met everyone in attendance who I had wanted to (except for Peter Davison, but it can be hard to really "meet" the media guest guys) and ended up gaming with most of them. Every night, the focal event was hanging out at the Embassy Suites bar with the DCC crowd, gaming with +Doug Kovacs, +Jobe Bittman, +Harley Stroh, +Wayne Snyder, +Dieter Zimmerman, +Doug Keester and so many other cool people who showed up to game, share a great time together and celebrate the games that we all love.
Yes, I picked up a ton of great gaming material, the wife & I spent a small fortune (a relative one, but she has a corset now, so she's happy), and much of it I'll end up talking about here on Kickassistan, but it wasn't the unabashed consumerism that made the weekend great. When they say "the best four days in gaming," for me, they really mean "the best four days period." It's not just that I got to game all the fucking time, it's that I got to game all the fucking time with some of the coolest and most fun people I've ever met. How does DCC attract such an amazing crowd, I found myself wondering. Well, to go back to something I've recently quoted from Lenny Bruce, "No artform ever attracts an opposite" or, as +Harley Stroh paraphrased me quoting Bruce, "like attracts like." Awesome people make an awesome game which attracts awesome people to it so they can all meet up and be awesome together.
My wife, for whom gaming was not the main attraction, came for the people, some of whom she's been slowly meeting through G+ for the past few months. She came for the cosplay. She came for the experience of being lost in a sea of geeks. She came to rifle through the anime vendor's wares. She came for the art. She came to find herself the perfect mini for... well, for pretty much whatever she wants to play. She came, she saw and she conquered.
So yes, we're going to GenCon 2014. We've already made our reservations.
Wife lottery, won.
Right, so, in case the rock you game under is... fuck it, it was GenCon last week. You know it, I know it. Every gamer knows it, and that's one of the things that's cool about GenCon. As if it needed any more.
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| That's Harley Stroh in the middle, wearing a Kickassistan t-shirt with Jon Hershberger on the left. Awesome guys! |
I just deleted a whole bunch of this post because it came off as slightly sycophantic, star-struck and not very constructive. In short, it was hard believing that I was living through real events and not some kind of awesome dream. I met everyone in attendance who I had wanted to (except for Peter Davison, but it can be hard to really "meet" the media guest guys) and ended up gaming with most of them. Every night, the focal event was hanging out at the Embassy Suites bar with the DCC crowd, gaming with +Doug Kovacs, +Jobe Bittman, +Harley Stroh, +Wayne Snyder, +Dieter Zimmerman, +Doug Keester and so many other cool people who showed up to game, share a great time together and celebrate the games that we all love.
Yes, I picked up a ton of great gaming material, the wife & I spent a small fortune (a relative one, but she has a corset now, so she's happy), and much of it I'll end up talking about here on Kickassistan, but it wasn't the unabashed consumerism that made the weekend great. When they say "the best four days in gaming," for me, they really mean "the best four days period." It's not just that I got to game all the fucking time, it's that I got to game all the fucking time with some of the coolest and most fun people I've ever met. How does DCC attract such an amazing crowd, I found myself wondering. Well, to go back to something I've recently quoted from Lenny Bruce, "No artform ever attracts an opposite" or, as +Harley Stroh paraphrased me quoting Bruce, "like attracts like." Awesome people make an awesome game which attracts awesome people to it so they can all meet up and be awesome together.
My wife, for whom gaming was not the main attraction, came for the people, some of whom she's been slowly meeting through G+ for the past few months. She came for the cosplay. She came for the experience of being lost in a sea of geeks. She came to rifle through the anime vendor's wares. She came for the art. She came to find herself the perfect mini for... well, for pretty much whatever she wants to play. She came, she saw and she conquered.
So yes, we're going to GenCon 2014. We've already made our reservations.