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davywavyWell, GenCon has come and gone for another year and for the first time this century I can look people in the eye and say "Yeah, it was really good fun. I'd recommend people come next year" without being a vile liar for doing so. It was very good fun indeed.
It could, I admit, have gone badly wrong. Three days in a circus tent in October with thousands of geeks? Doesn't sound promising, does it?
Perhaps I'm just partisan. Perhaps I'm just a sucker for any social situation in which one of the best looking women I know strips to her underwear and gives me a massage, but then again perhaps the games were great and the socialising was tremendous fun. For the first time in years, I felt the stress involved was actually worth it.
Wednesday.
Having irritated my driver by singing the new GenCon song* all the way from London to Somerset, I arrive at Butlins early on Wednesday evening, and I'm duly appalled by it. Butlins got most of their holiday camps sites by buying up POW and army camps after the two World Wars, and it's plain they haven't changed architect since. Butlins Minehead is quickly dubbed 'Stalag Luft Chav'**. Butlins is indeed awful. The chalets have neither Spa baths or complimentary chocolates, and the wine list in even the best bar on site (not saying much) has Liebfraumilch as its centrepiece. If we hadn't taken the hamper from Fortnum & Mason with us, I'd've actually had to eat the foul stodge that they pass off as food.
As I was going to have a long few days, we headed for the pub. May as well get my drinking in good and early, I thought.
As part of their hospitality Butlins leave out tubsof crisps and popcorn in the bars and so, not wanting to drink on an empty stomach, I ate plenty of cheap Smoky Bacon flavour crisps whilst downing three pints of Grolsh, six G&T's, two large glasses of port and a large tumbler of lemon Vodka. Then I stumbled off to bed.
Thursday
9:00am. I wake up and am violently, violently sick.
Most of my week is spent writing furiously, tearing my hair out, and eyeing up Sarah so I'll skip over that and just talk about the stuff I ran.
Diablerie on the Orient Express.
The fourth time I've run this now, and I'm in the sad, painful position of having to congratulate![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cobraprime as being the first and only person ever to solve it. Not only did he solve it, he found a plot hole that I'd previously missed, the bastard. I hate to say it, but he deserved the bottle of Champagne I gave him.
I realise more and more that whilst DotOE may well be the most technically well constructed and complex thing I've ever written, it's weakness is it's seriousness - audience reaction is positive, but different to joys like running Hurrah for Saint Custards!. I'm unsure whether this makes me happy or not - people thank me for the complexity and skill of DotOE, but they don't laugh as much as they do with other things I've written.
Friday
Mars or Bust!
What can I say about the insane joy that this game degenerated into? Gemma as Queen Victoria, Torley as Benjamin D'Israeli,ukmonty as Harry Flashman, karohemd as Caractacus Potts, robinbloke as a hulking Martian, and cobraprime as the Mekon, plus many, many more.
It ran like a dream, complete with me getting photos which can be captioned things like: "Ming the Merciless, Otto von Bismarck and the Mekon plot the overthrow of the British Empire".
I'll get pictures and write more on this another time - there's much to say.
Saturday
The Going down of the Sun
It's the end of the world as we know it, and for the first time in history it's gonna start rainin' blood. We got given the Laserquest hall for this game and I was initially unconvinced that it was a good idea.
As it turned out, I was wrong.
The venue turned out to be nigh-perfect as the Black Dawn of the end of the world approached our hapless Vampire player characters. Caine, Lilith and Satan all turned up and rescued the lucky few who fit their criteria***, one person acheived final salvation, and one person stowed away on Tony Blairs flying saucer to escape.
One of the nicest thing about running this game was the reaction of some of the Cammies present - thanking me for giving them a dramatic, rewarding end of the world for characters who won't receive one in the Cam itself because the Cam will never run an integrated end of the world game.
Overall? Very positive - possibly the best-recieved larger game we've run since 2001.
See David beam.
Overall.
Great fun. I think the people who didn't come missed out on what was a great convention. Social, friendly, and fun - in short, for me, everything that Gencon used to be back in Loughborough.
As for next year? I have plans...Vietnam Bloodbath, the LARP... PORN:The LARP... The League of Ornery Gentlemen...Live Paranoia with real Lasers.
And then there's the start of the Saturday Night Requiem too.
Hope to see you there.
*You! I want to take you to some gamers!/ I want to take you to some gamers, gamers, gamers!/ We're going to have a game of Nuclear War/With the gamers, gamers, gamers/etc ad nauseum.
** What sort of person, I ask you, goes to Butlins in October for pleasure? Anyone?
***Or blagged. I mean you,robinbloke
It could, I admit, have gone badly wrong. Three days in a circus tent in October with thousands of geeks? Doesn't sound promising, does it?
Perhaps I'm just partisan. Perhaps I'm just a sucker for any social situation in which one of the best looking women I know strips to her underwear and gives me a massage, but then again perhaps the games were great and the socialising was tremendous fun. For the first time in years, I felt the stress involved was actually worth it.
Wednesday.
Having irritated my driver by singing the new GenCon song* all the way from London to Somerset, I arrive at Butlins early on Wednesday evening, and I'm duly appalled by it. Butlins got most of their holiday camps sites by buying up POW and army camps after the two World Wars, and it's plain they haven't changed architect since. Butlins Minehead is quickly dubbed 'Stalag Luft Chav'**. Butlins is indeed awful. The chalets have neither Spa baths or complimentary chocolates, and the wine list in even the best bar on site (not saying much) has Liebfraumilch as its centrepiece. If we hadn't taken the hamper from Fortnum & Mason with us, I'd've actually had to eat the foul stodge that they pass off as food.
As I was going to have a long few days, we headed for the pub. May as well get my drinking in good and early, I thought.
As part of their hospitality Butlins leave out tubsof crisps and popcorn in the bars and so, not wanting to drink on an empty stomach, I ate plenty of cheap Smoky Bacon flavour crisps whilst downing three pints of Grolsh, six G&T's, two large glasses of port and a large tumbler of lemon Vodka. Then I stumbled off to bed.
Thursday
9:00am. I wake up and am violently, violently sick.
Most of my week is spent writing furiously, tearing my hair out, and eyeing up Sarah so I'll skip over that and just talk about the stuff I ran.
Diablerie on the Orient Express.
The fourth time I've run this now, and I'm in the sad, painful position of having to congratulate
cobraprime as being the first and only person ever to solve it. Not only did he solve it, he found a plot hole that I'd previously missed, the bastard. I hate to say it, but he deserved the bottle of Champagne I gave him.I realise more and more that whilst DotOE may well be the most technically well constructed and complex thing I've ever written, it's weakness is it's seriousness - audience reaction is positive, but different to joys like running Hurrah for Saint Custards!. I'm unsure whether this makes me happy or not - people thank me for the complexity and skill of DotOE, but they don't laugh as much as they do with other things I've written.
Friday
Mars or Bust!
What can I say about the insane joy that this game degenerated into? Gemma as Queen Victoria, Torley as Benjamin D'Israeli,
ukmonty as Harry Flashman, karohemd as Caractacus Potts, robinbloke as a hulking Martian, and cobraprime as the Mekon, plus many, many more.It ran like a dream, complete with me getting photos which can be captioned things like: "Ming the Merciless, Otto von Bismarck and the Mekon plot the overthrow of the British Empire".
I'll get pictures and write more on this another time - there's much to say.
Saturday
The Going down of the Sun
It's the end of the world as we know it, and for the first time in history it's gonna start rainin' blood. We got given the Laserquest hall for this game and I was initially unconvinced that it was a good idea.
As it turned out, I was wrong.
The venue turned out to be nigh-perfect as the Black Dawn of the end of the world approached our hapless Vampire player characters. Caine, Lilith and Satan all turned up and rescued the lucky few who fit their criteria***, one person acheived final salvation, and one person stowed away on Tony Blairs flying saucer to escape.
One of the nicest thing about running this game was the reaction of some of the Cammies present - thanking me for giving them a dramatic, rewarding end of the world for characters who won't receive one in the Cam itself because the Cam will never run an integrated end of the world game.
Overall? Very positive - possibly the best-recieved larger game we've run since 2001.
See David beam.
Overall.
Great fun. I think the people who didn't come missed out on what was a great convention. Social, friendly, and fun - in short, for me, everything that Gencon used to be back in Loughborough.
As for next year? I have plans...Vietnam Bloodbath, the LARP... PORN:The LARP... The League of Ornery Gentlemen...Live Paranoia with real Lasers.
And then there's the start of the Saturday Night Requiem too.
Hope to see you there.
*You! I want to take you to some gamers!/ I want to take you to some gamers, gamers, gamers!/ We're going to have a game of Nuclear War/With the gamers, gamers, gamers/etc ad nauseum.
** What sort of person, I ask you, goes to Butlins in October for pleasure? Anyone?
***Or blagged. I mean you,
robinbloke
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 06:52 am (UTC)hugs
no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 06:55 am (UTC)My plan was to use oither peoples where possible.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 07:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 07:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 07:04 am (UTC)It's so foul, yuck, yuck, yuck
no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 07:05 am (UTC)I do not stay in 'budget' accomodation.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 07:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 07:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 07:23 am (UTC)well other than the blood and excrement bit :)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 07:25 am (UTC)Other than the plastic mattress what really irritated me was the lack of shower, only a bath without shower head.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 07:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 07:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 06:58 am (UTC)We're going to Eden mark two, but this time we have port!
no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 09:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 08:41 am (UTC)Not for a holiday or anything.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 10:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-19 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 12:05 pm (UTC)Now that sounds like fun... at least both sides can slag of the French! ; )
no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 12:38 pm (UTC)Actually, that could be fun. See who eats the complementary
PCPM&Ms, then send targetted NPCs in dressed as 8' tall lizard men with Uzis.no subject
Date: 2004-10-18 01:15 pm (UTC)That'd be a LARP version of "David Icke: The Being Him" surely ; )
Well, duh :p
Date: 2004-10-18 12:35 pm (UTC)Thursday
9:00am. I wake up and am violently, violently sick.
And you didn't expect that? How fresh did you think the snacks would be, exactly? Think about all the people who went to the loo then rummaged around in those bowls with unwashed hands...
Re: Well, duh :p
Date: 2004-10-19 01:49 am (UTC)Mars or Bust! photos
Date: 2004-10-18 02:48 pm (UTC)