GenCon 2013 - Day 3 - Slaying With Dice

GenCon 2013 - Day 3

8/16/2013

The line on the right is for Palladium and the line on the left is for Fantasy Flight

Friday morning we headed down to the ICC. Sean and I had a seminar we wanted to attend at 9 AM. Dan was after a copy of the new Firefly Board Game from Gale Force 9, so he went to camp the door to the Exhibition Hall.

Our seminar was terrible. The people doing it were totally unprepared. After 10 minutes of hoping it was going to get better, we decided not to waste anymore time listening to supposed experts babble and we went to join Dan.

The masses were already forming up and anxiously awaiting the 10 AM door opening. When the doors opened Dan made a beeline for the GF9 booth, Sean a beeline for Palladium, and I made a beeline for Paizo. I was hoping to lay hands on a copy of the Pathfinder Card Game. Unfortunately, I was just a few seconds too late. Paizo only had 20 copies left on hand and I was going to be 22nd in line. I decided to head over to Palladium and meet up with Sean. On the way to Palladium, I passed the GF9 booth where a piranha-like frenzy of well over a hundred people was attacking the Firefly display. Luckily, Dan was one of the first to grab a copy before they disappeared.

I arrived at the Palladium booth and was surprised to find a huge line of people. Fortunately, Sean was pretty close to the front of the line and he was able to get the GenCon exclusive Robotech figures he coveted - many others did not.

I continued exploring more of the hall because I still had not seen all of it. Sean and I met up again at 11 for another seminar. This seminar was much better and had some good information. We could tell that theses folks had prepared. After the seminar we headed to lunch. Just outside the ICC were parked a number of food trucks, so we decided to give them a go for lunch. Lots of other folks were doing the same as us.

After a quick lunch while enjoying the great weather, we returned to the ICC. I headed back to explore more of the hall while Sean headed to another seminar. Over the next several hours I explored the myriad booths, took in the sights, and dropped some coin here and there.

While at the Indy Revolution booth I wanted to ask one of the people manning the booth a question. Just as I was about to speak to a lady working there, a figure darted in front of me and started chatting to her about a product. It took me a second to realize it was Wil Wheaton. My first thought was, "wow, it's Wil Wheaton how cool. I need to get a pic." I started firing up the camera, and then my next thought was, "Don't be a dick, ask the guy before you start going paparazzi on him from 2 feet away." So, I waited patiently while he finished, and then he began to dart out of the booth. "Mr. Wheaton," I called. He spun quickly made eye contact for a second and then someone else immediately pulled his attention away with a request for a picture. He responded, politely, that he was not taking any pics because he wanted to enjoy the show. Then he turned and rushed off into the masses with his bowed slightly to help conceal his identity. I then felt like a dick for for even thinking of bothering the guy while he was trying to be "normal." After witnessing how he had to move about so rapidly with his head down, I realized what a pain in the ass it must be to be in the midst of thousands of folks who wanted to pose with you like a tourist attraction. Still....it would have been cool to have a pic :)

After finally exploring all of the hall, except the artists alley, I met up with Dan over at the auction. They had a 2 hour block of nothing but old TSR rpg products. We had a great time reminiscing about these treasures and I grabbed a few of them up in the process. One that I had been wanting for quite some was a D&D "Red Box" and I was able to get one still in the original shrink. Better still, the auctioneer, Frank Mentzer, was the guy who wrote it.

We finished up the night with dinner at a restaurant close to the hotel, and then we returned to the hotel for some much needed sleep.