What I Will Be Doing at Gen Con 2013

I will be attending Gen Con this year and with only nine days to go I am getting very excited. I attended last year but didn't really do much other than tool around the exhibition hall, play one game of Savage Worlds, play a single game of Dominion, and volunteer for four hours each day. It was still fun, but I couldn't help but feel like I missed out on the Gen Con experience.

This year will be different. I've taken full advantage of the event registration system and will not be volunteering at all. I will be playing in five different RPGs and a ton of Arkham Horror games. My schedule is so packed that I will be making rations packages because I will not have time to leave the convention center for a meal on some days. It's going to be a very busy four days.

Here is what I am looking forward to:

DC Heroes

I've been wanting to play this game since the early 1990s when I purchased the second edition box set and several supplements with my allowance. It was my first RPG but I just wanted it for the books of stats and background on various superheroes. I read some of the rules but never worked up the courage to ask someone to play it with me before eventually selling the set on ebay. It was a real missed opportunity since I didn't get to play an RPG until I was an adult.

I'll be playing in a Justice League game of DC Heroes at Gen Con. I"m currently re-reading the rules since I'm expected to know them for the game. This is probably the one game that I'm looking forward to the most because I can't wait to see how it actually plays at the table. The MEGS system seems like a strange rule set, but it's surprisingly simple and facilitates much more improvisation that its universal measurement system lets on.

Doctor Who Games

I'll be playing two different Doctor Who-related games. The first is a session of the Cubicle 7 official Doctor Who game. The second is a Savage Worlds game that mashes up Doctor Who with the Firefly universe. It seems that many of the games at Gen Con are big, high-concept, mash-up extravaganzas and The Great TARDIS Robbery sounds too cool to miss.

Ever since I registered for these games I have been binge-watching Doctor Who, viewing every episode from the beginning of the rebooted series. There's something terrifying about playing as characters from the series, especially the Doctor himself.

Dice

I'm not much for shopping in the exhibition hall, but it's very hard to resist the siren call of the giant bins of dice at the Chessex booth or the beautifully designed dice of Q-Workshop. Hopefully I will be able to resist buying another coffee mug worth of dice, but I will be on the lookout for unique dice that I can add to my GM arsenal.

Arkham Horror

I'll definitely be getting my Arkham Horror fix this year with three games, including a session of To the Barricades, which adds all of the expansions for a massive 18-player game. I don't play all that much Arkham Horror, so that game sounds terrifying for many reasons. I may be biting off more than I can chew, but the epic scale of the game is hard to pass up.

Being the Player

Since jumping into the hobby three years ago, I have been the player in a game only once and that was at last year's Gen Con. GMing a game is fun and exciting, but it is a very different experience than that of the player. The level of mystery and urgency isn't there. A game experience is so incredibly different when you are on the other side of the screen.

I'll also be playing in a Vampire: The Requiem and Castles & Crusades game, and I'll probably hang out at Games on Demand should I ever find myself without something to do for a good chunk of time.

Meeting New People

This is a weird thing for me to look forward to since I am an extreme introvert, but people at Gen Con are generally good people. Being surrounded by people with whom you have a shared interest and no pretense really helps bring the most staunch introvert out of his shell. I've heard a lot about people being dick heads at con games, but it seems to me that most people want to make the absolute best of their short time at Gen Con and are therefor on their best, most charitable behavior.