| Thoughts on MarCon 38 |
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| Ah, MarCon. Three days of debauchery. Well, not so much this year. Attendance was down, not a lot of gaming going on. I should have know there was trouble when there was virutally no line to get my badge. ;) But in some ways, this was the best MarCon yet for me. So, the blow-by-blow. Started off Friday, Heather and I arrived in the afternoon and headed to gaming room to await my first game (Dark Ages: Vampire, the same one I'm running at GenCon, actually). We sat down and pulled a deck of Flux cards out. |
| Now, here's the thing about cons. If you pull out a card game and start playing it, or set it in front of you, people will eventually gravitate towards you and ask to play (or you can offer, either works). So before long, we had a bunch of people playing Flux. Look right. |
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| This blimp was flying around the gaming room on Friday night. |
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| So we played Flux, and then somebody busted out a game called Munchkin, which is basically hack-n-slash D&D reduced to its essence: Kick in the door, kill the monsters, loot the room. The funny thing was that Heather, who to my knowledge has never played D&D, really got into that game and wishes me to buy it. Which I will, sooner or later. Look left for a pic of us playing Munchkin. |
| We didn't get to finish playing Munchkin, because 7:00PM rolled around and I had to run my Dark Ages: Vampire game. Unlike last time, when the characters went running off to Mithras, this time they sided with Baroness Seren, killed the poor Toreador dude, and called it a night. Pic of them to the right, pic of Heather's finished quilt to the left. |
| Somewhere during my game, the LARPers started congealing... |
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| Heather and I wandered around for a while after that, saw this faceless woman (left) sitting near the Moebius Theater booth, and then went upstairs and watched Shrek on HBO. Like I said, sparse con this year. But Saturday was when fun stuff started happening. |
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| Saturday: So, last year, you might recall, I wound up waiting on Saturday morning for a game to start and putting pics of strange and beautiful things that I saw. I shall do the same, sorta. First thing's first. Heather had to leave that morning to go to wedding in Cleveland (Catholic wedding or gaming con? Hmm. No real decision). So we went to the little coffee shop and got some breakfast, and saw this guy at right. |
| Yes, that's a kilt. Yes, that's a sheep under his arm. Now, that's some foresight. People bring their own beer, condoms, books, dice, pencils, but very few gamers think to bring their own sheep. So, after Heather left I got involed in a game called Killer Bunnes. I really liked it; some folks I've talked to since didn't. Ah, well. Any game in which you can say "You took my cabbage, you bastard" is a good one in my book. Pic of the game (top right) and of the Stormtroopers that invaded during it (bottom right). |
| Well, really the coolest thing about the Killer Bunnies game was that it introduced my to two very cool people. I needed more to play in my Dark Ages: Werewolf game (already had one, Branden, signed up, who's a cool person himself) and then pointed at Laura and Jeff and said, "You! Come play Werewolf!" They enthusiastically responded. I ran the game. It was way cool. Neither of the latter two had ever played Werwolf, and I love new players. They killed the beastie, saved their Kinfolk, and unlike the last group I ran this with, killed the revenant who was holding their kin hostage. A pic of the triumphant pack at left. A pic of the filthy ninja recruiter at right. (The sign says "Ninjas Wanted"). |
| So, Laura, Jeff, Branden, and Brendan (in pic at left, black shirt, grinning inanely) and I wound up hanging out for pretty much the rest of the con, which made the whole thing worthwhile. We're playing Kill Dr. Lucky at left and Geeks at right. I love Geeks. Where's the damned Expansion? Kill Dr. Lucky was much more funny because we were using Mage Knight figures to represent ourselves. I was a Skulk. Rarr! |
| Strange and beautiful things: The puppet lady with a killer plant on her hand (left), Branden capering (above), folks playing some minis game (right). |
| Sunday: So Heather came back Saturday night, and we played Apples to Apples in my hotel room with the aforementioned gang and they decided they'd make a monthly trek to Cleveland to play Demon. I did not, however, get a pic of that. Next morning (still Sunday) we played some Hero Clix. I'm glad I got to play, seeing as how I schlepped my Clix into the hotel, but 5 people is too much. Plus, one guy had an army of 18 figures. We trimmed him back, but I eventually bowed out to go spend money in the dealer's room. Clix pic at right. |
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| And finally, it was time to go. |
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| MarCon is always fun, but this year I came away with new friends, which makes it the best yet. Next con: Origins! |