If you are flying, get a hotel close to the convention center
I decided to fly to GenCon this year, after the painful experience of driving for 12 hours there and back. Seriously, the drive last year was agonizing, and no amount of caffeine was able to keep me awake and alert for the entire trip. Unfortunately, nonstop round trip airfare from my town to Indianapolis for 2 people cost about $1000; when I drove, it only cost me a couple tanks of gas.Renting a cheap hotel outside of town AND a car is false economy. Better to get a hotel within walking distance of the convention center, and skip the car. If you run the numbers beforehand, you may discover that there are hotels in town for $200 per night, and hotels outside town for $100 per night. At 5 days, you are faced with a choice of $1000 with no car, versus $500 plus the cost of a car. Then you check the car rental rates, and you are quoted a cost of far less than $500, and you are confident that you will save money by renting the car.
Unfortunately, that $500 auto rental quote does not include the extra taxes and fees, which may easily bring your auto rental bill to more than $1000.
And then there is parking; parking in town will cost over $20 per day, for a total of about $100, and you are not guaranteed to find a parking space.
Indianapolis is trying to help by running shuttle buses, but these shuttle buses will probably not run straight from your hotel to the convention center for a 20-minute commute; they will likely take a complicated route chaining from hotel to hotel until they finally wind up at the convention center, for a 1-hour commute. If you have an 8:00 AM event scheduled, the shuttle bus will not get you to the convention center in time, or if they do, you will be very early, and probably unable to find someone who can sell you breakfast. Even worse, the shuttle bus to my hotel was cancelled, so it's a good thing I didn't expect it to be there for me.
If you do decide to drive, I should warn you that the streets in Indianapolis are unpleasantly confusing, and named after states in the USA in no discernable order. My father hypothesized that Indianapolis streets were named in the order that states joined the Union, but this does not seem to match the reality, nor would it be helpful even if it were true.
Driving in Indianapolis provides no appreciable benefit; Indianapolis has few attractions outside walking distance, and the Con will become your world for the duration.
Take an extra day or two
I flew in on Wednesday and flew out on Monday. The extra time to pack, catch up on lost sleep, unpack, and decompress was very therapeutic.Pack a sweater if you or your companion tend to get chilly
July and August are hardly what we would consider sweater weather, but you will spend many hours inside the air-conditioned Indiana Convention Center. Personally, I sweltered for much of the Convention, but my wife complained that sometimes she could not feel her fingers. I wish I had packed a sweater for her.On the other hand, if you have the money, GenCon will happily sell you a stylish official GenCon sweatshirt for about $50. Get it early, so you won't suffer the chill a moment longer than you need to.
Similarly, my wife regretted not bringing her dice cup, but it was a simple matter to buy her a lovely one from Q Workshop in the Exhibition Hall, and I have no regrets.
Health is your most valuable asset
I managed to avoid the Con Crud again!My flight to Indianapolis was short, but several people coughing up phlegm made it seem longer. I took a dose of Airborne-like supplements before my flights, and on every day of the Con, in addition to my usual vitamins. I got a good night's rest each night. I also packed Pepto-Bismol, Imodium, Naproxen (my favorite headache remedy), and Benadryl just in case.
There was one morning when my GI tract registered its dissatisfaction with the gooey food truck quesadilla I ate the day before, but I only needed one trip to the commode to resolve the concern. I am very fortunate that it was just a short-term inconvenience; it easily could have ruined my trip.
I yelled myself hoarse to be heard above the din in Hall D/Hall E. Lozenges helped a little.
Wash your hands frequently, eat balanced meals, snack healthy (I bought trail mix), get lots of sleep, and remember to stay hydrated with bottles of water.
Make a good first impression
You will meet people you don't know, and may never meet again. On the other hand, you might meet them several times, and they might be running the next game you play. Remember to do these things:- Get that haircut you've been putting off.
- Men, pack a razor and use it.
- Brush your teeth.
- Deodorant/antiperspirant.
- Smile to everyone you meet!
These are kind of just reminders for myself. Really, everyone I met at GenCon was wonderful. I can only hope I was as friendly, charming, and clean as all the other people were.
Make extra certain you don't leave your tickets behind
Due to a miscommunication, my wife and I accidentally left her tickets behind in the hotel room on Saturday. We were able to get through the day on generic tickets, but we were kicking ourselves because of this SNAFU.Of course, if we had a hotel in town, this would be less of a concern. But our hotel was a substantial commute away.
Play games you have never played before
One advantage of attending GenCon is that you can play games without buying them, often while getting coached by experts, or even coached by the person who designed the game.I played through two sessions of Dominion. A friend of mine already has a copy of Dominion, so I could probably just call him up and play it at home if I wanted to. Dominion is a deck-building game. I have never won a game of Dominion. I don't really enjoy it. If I never play Dominion again, I will consider myself fortunate.
Similarly, my wife wanted to play Settlers of Catan at GenCon; I enjoy the game, but this is a game we have in our own house.
On the other hand, I played numerous games which were refreshingly new to me, some of which are not yet sold in stores. Even though I have no great desire to play many of these games again, I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to try them out.
Prepare to be flexible
Order some generic tickets, and leave openings in your schedule, just in case you discover something you really want to do. My wife and I had a swell time playing D&D 5E. She really wanted to play again, so we squeezed in another early morning D&D game with generic tickets. We even got the same DM, a person who we really like. Generic tickets cost me $2 each; I got 10 of them, expecting most would go to waste, but instead we wound up using all of them.Notepad and Pencil
If you have hundreds of dollars to spend on a smart phone, this won't apply to you, but I don't have a smart phone. My notepad and pencil came in handy to note my parking spot in the multilevel parking garage. It was also good for writing down events/games/books/movies/etc. which people raved about. I pre-filled it with flight info, car reservation numbers, hotel reservation data, etc., so I could find them easily when I needed these things.Get your DCI number ahead of time
The wife and I played a D&D 5E game just so we could enjoy the game. But Wizards of the Coast demands MORE; you MUST submit your DCI NUMBER! At GenCon 2014, Wizards of the Coast gave out free cards with DCI numbers on them. This year, they did NOT; now you need to register on the Wizards of the Coast website.Unfortunately, this website is only occasionally operational, and for me it refuses to function at all. For example, when I submit my email address, it informs me that my email address is already registered, therefore they cannot create a new account for me; however, when I ask the website to email my user data to me, it informs me that my email address is NOT registered, therefore they can't email any data to me. That's some catch, that Catch-22!
Fortunately, I saved my old card from GenCon 2014, with a preset DCI number! I only wished I had brought this to GenCon 2015, and that I did not waste any time on the nonfunctional Wizards website when I was at the Con.
Logically, you would assume that Wizards of the Coast would want people to play their games, but this bureaucratic requirement for DCI numbers, combined with an inability to distribute DCI numbers, can only drive people away.
There was a concern in the RPG industry that young people today only play online video games, and are therefore not playing tabletop roleplaying games. As a result, the current (older) generation of gamers would therefore be the last generation to play tabletop RPGs, and the RPG hobby would therefore die out. Wizards of the Coast is now making itself part of the problem.
Get your shoulder bag and coupon book early
I went through my coupon book ahead of time and I got all kinds of cool swag in the exhibition hall, such as a free GenCon 2015 d6 from Crystal Caste, a free dungeon geomorph d6 from Inkwell Ideas, a free toy whistle from R&R Games, and a free button from Paizo. Fortunately, I didn't need to enter the Paizo booth, because the Paizo booth always had such an insanely long line that I didn't even bother to try to get in.Coffee
If you keep a busy schedule, you will lose sleep over the course of the Con. If you're sleepy, you will nod off while someone is reading lots of game rules to you.Drink some coffee if you must, but buffer it with food. I didn't buffer my caffeine one morning, and I was a jittery mess; I couldn't even tally up my score at the end of a game.
I highly recommend the swell beverages purveyed by Bee Coffee Roasters, near Georgia Street across the street from the Con. As in 2014, this year they had the "Coffee To Die For" 'game' cards; you buy an expensive beverage there, they mark up your card, and after 4 marks, they give you a custom-made Bee Coffee 6-sided die (hence, "To Die For"). The coffee is good, but I really kept going there so I could get that d6, so I guess it was a Die to Coffee for.
Thursday and Friday are the quiet days
It's hard to believe when you're in the middle of GenCon, but Thursday and Friday are the quiet days of the Con. GenCon spans 4 days of the weekend: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; Thursday and Friday are workdays for most people, and Sunday ends around 4:00 PM. As a result, many Con guests decide to only attend on Saturday, and Saturday is therefore extra busy.If there's a booth you want to visit, or an event you want to squeeze into, make sure you do it on Thursday or Friday.
Take the Exhibition Hall in many small doses
Last year, I tried to push through the Exhibition Hall in one long push, and I was rapidly jaded by the many vendors who wanted my money.As a result of my stupor, when I saw my webcomics hero Scott Kurtz idly lounging in a booth, my central nervous system was not able to process the possibility that I could actually meet the man. I have been kicking myself ever since.
This year, I visited the Exhibition Hall several times in short forays, and it was much more enjoyable. In fact...
I got to meet Scott Kurtz
I was fortunate enough to spot Mr. Kurtz drawing in a booth, and this time, my brain was fully functional!I greeted Mr. Kurtz, and thanked him for his decades of awesome comics. This must have made Mr. Kurtz feel old, because he insisted that he had only been making comics for one decade. I mentioned that I had been enjoying his work since Tales by Tavernlight (a comic strip set in the fantasy world of Ultima Online, featuring a bard and Skull the Troll), and Mr. Kurtz either relented or reconsidered.
Seriously, Scott Kurtz was very gracious; he sat through my story about seeing him and NOT talking with him last year. So I feel doubly lucky to both see Mr. Kurtz a second time, but more importantly to correct my error from last year with a second chance; we so rarely get second chances in life.
I hope I didn't geek out too hard over Mr. Kurtz, but if it gives him material for a comic, then it was worthwhile for both of us.
Dice
At left, in black with green markings, are the Q Workshop Call of Chthulhu 7th Edition dice. The pentagram or elder sign is a protective symbol, and appears on the highest numbered face (except the d4). I also got a set for my wife with violet markings in a different style; and it's about time Q Workshop started working with violet. I asked the Q Workshop staff about violet, and they explained that (strangely) violet and some other colors are very unpopular in some European countries; presumably because those colors carry negative connotations or are otherwise considered unlucky. Note that these are "Call of Chthulhu 7th Edition dice"; I compared them, and previous editions have differently-styled markings, and are (in my opinion) harder to read.
At the top, in orange with gold markings, is a "GenCon 15" d6 from Crystal Caste, which was free with a coupon.
Below that, in black and gold with silver markings, is the Bee Coffee "To Die For" d6 (probably made by Chessex).
To the right of that is a large white die with black markings: an Inkwell Ideas dungeon geomorph d6, free with a coupon. It's a neat way to generate a random dungeon, but you would also need large playmats corresponding to each side of the d6, because you can't place miniatures in the tiny rooms on the faces of the die.
At the bottom right, in pearly green with gold markings, are a set of 7 Crystal Caste dice. Of course I also got a pearly violet set for my wife.
In this photo, you can see the dice I purchased for my wife at GenCon this year, placed on 1/4-inch graph paper for scale.
At left, in black with violet markings, are the Q Workshop Call of Chthulhu 7th Edition dice. The elder sign is present. The markings indicate an "Orient Express" theme.
At the top, in orange with gold markings, is the "GenCon 15" d6 from Crystal Caste, which was free with a coupon.
Below that, in black and gold with silver markings, is the Bee Coffee "To Die For" d6 (probably made by Chessex).
At the top right and far right, you can see the Q Workshop dice cup with lid, both made of black leather with an embossed silver dragon (the dragon is curled up into a crescent shape), stitched with leather laces. The lid closes tightly enough to serve as a carrying container for the dice. It holds plenty of dice, but it is lighter and more compact than the other dice cups we have.
At the bottom right, in pearly violet with gold markings, are a set of 7 Crystal Caste dice.
Little games can be lots of fun
It has been observed that the familiar poker-style deck of cards can be cheaply and easily found all over (gas stations, convenience stores, remote gift shops, etc.), fits in your pocket, and can be used to play hundreds of different popular games.Similarly, just because a game is simple and inexpensive does not mean it is inferior or less enjoyable. Also, you can take a chance on 3 $15 games for less money than 1 big $50 game.
Conclusion
Insofar as I can determine, I did not make any of the mistakes I made last year. I made entirely new mistakes! But such is the nature of progress.I spent too much money on this trip, and it really brought me down. If I ever decide to go again, I might try driving again (with a different route, and that extra day to catch up on sleep), or look for lower (possibly less convenient) airfares.
I wasted too much time playing games which I can play at home. If I ever go again, I will plan for more unique and interesting events.
I didn't get into a vendor's booth to get something I really wanted to get, which was ONLY available at GenCon. In retrospect, I should have waited in the really long line.
There was that SNAFU with the tickets on Saturday.
I should have brought a sweater for my wife.
I should have gotten that haircut I had been putting off.
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