Gen Con 2007 Day 1

Gen Con 2007 was a another great trip to Indianapolis. This is the 4th year in a row I've gone, and it's always fun. Here's the flickr photo set for the first day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8810078@N06/sets/72157601597665039/

My events for the first day included the World of Warcraft Board Game, and a rousing session of RPGA Dungeons & Dragons.

The WoW Board Game was pretty fun to play in a convention environment, where there is a lot of space and someone there to teach you how to play. But I would never want to buy the game. First of all, it's got way too many pieces. It's borderline insane. And by the end game, the dice-rolling rules get really overwhelming. Rolling 6 blue dice, 8 red, and 6 green, then rerolling any 4 of them, then flipping any of the blues to 8s, etc. etc. etc. It's nuts. If I want to play a game with that much math, I'll play it online and let the computer handle it for me.



Second, the game is a team game -- Alliance vs. Horde. And we basically never interact. We ended up doing nearly all of our turns simultaneously, until the last part of the game where we each needed all the dice to perform combat. We might as well have played on 2 boards, then at the end said, "What turn did you kill the Baron on? 22? We got him on 19. We win."

In the evening we went to the RPGA hall for the 4dventure announcement and our MacGoohens game. The 4dventure announcement was hilariously pathetic. Wizards of the Coast announced 4th edition D&D, to a whole lot of silence. When they started describing the online components of the new edition, you could have heard a pin drop. I suppose it's inevitable, but it doesn't mean we have to like our last bastion of table-top gaming going online.



The MacGoohens RPGA adventure was fun, if easy. We teamed up with some level 2 players (Paul, BJ and I are all level 3) so we ran the adventure at APL 2 (Average Party Level), and it was a cakewalk. Who are the MacGoohens, you ask? Excellent question!



The MacGoohens are a group of dwarven brothers who formed a mercenary team to seek adventure and fortune. We've got Angus the sorcerer (played by Paul), Gunnar the fighter (played by BJ) and Charleston the lawyer (played by myself. Ok, he's really a rogue). Our eldest brother Thorgrim retired after one year of adventuring. What a pantywaist. (Dan stopped coming to Gen Con).

We've played the MacGoohens in at least 2 RPGA adventures each year for the last 4 years. They're definitely the events I look forward to most.

After the MacGoohens had conquered all available foes, we retired to the hotel for some much needed sleep. Gen Con requires a lot of energy!