Thursday, August 04, 2011

GenCon Day One Early Impressions

Right now I am propped up against a back wall in the Exhibition Hall of GenCon, collecting my thoughts and trying to put down some words of my first thoughts on the con. Pictures will follow because, unfortunately the WiFi doesn't't like my netbook right now. That will probably make this post shorter, because while blogging from my phone is cool (and it males me feel a lot like a character from a William Gibson novel) its really not the easiest method for doing this.

So, impressions.

This place is busy. The Will Call line was huge and stretched out the door. I heard conflicting stories about the length of the line. One person said it was a block long, while another said the line was four blocks long. Regardless, it was long.

Cubicle 7 has a good booth. The One Ring slipcover edition looks gorgeous. The variety of the books that they produce is staggering. Sadly, Airship Pirates had not yet arrived. If you haven't heard of Airship Pirates, it is a steampunk RPG using a variant of the Hersesy Engine that powers Cubicle 7's Victoriana game that is based upon concepts from the albums of steampunk band Abney Park. I've been looking forward to this he since it was first announced.

I have also spoken briefly with Cam Banks of MWP and got a copy of the quickstart of their upcoming fantasy version of the Cortex system, based on a setting created by Margaret Weiss. The art is great looking and I am eager to read the quickstart. I will be talking to Cam Friday, to discuss the new Cortex+ license coming up from them.

Palladium has new books for a variety of their limestone. Armaggedon Unlimited for Heroes Looks fun, in a Swinging 70s sort of way.

The con has been good also for meeting with and putting faces to some of the names that I have been talking with online. Sarah Newton, of Cubicle 7, and I got to meet and chat, after talking on Facebook and Twitter for a while.

There's a lot of cosplayers and people dressed in a variety of looks. It makes for a fun environment. Not so much fun are the Cosplay Deviants booth, representatives of an adult website that sell access to "geeky" women taking their clothes off. Not the best for a convention trying to show itself as being family friendly.
More to come...