Even More Gen Con, Even Less Coherent

Got into Indianapolis on the Tuesday afternoon, and, of course, had to go and take a look around, get situated, that sort of thing.

Checking out the view of White River State Park from my hotel room. (28th floor, so there’s a lot of view)

Wandering through the ICC.
This is absolutely the least crowded this place would be until Monday

Did not expect Gen Con Security to be already in place.
Or to have such awful breath.

The banners & posters & such were already in place at this stage.
“Starfinder” intrigued me, as the implication seems to be that it’s the Science Fiction version of the Fantasy game, and I’m curious as to how that’s going to work.

Rather than stand in a queue with the other VIGs, and the Trade Day folks, and the Media folks, for early entry into the Hall Of Effortless Wallet-Emptying, I sat on my arse in the VIG Lounge & chatted with the one other guy there, who was adopting the same strategy as me; Wait until a bit after 9am, then amble over & join the end of the queue as it files in.

It worked well as a system, & we just breezed on in at maybe 9:10 or so.

I only had one purchase I needed to make, and that was this year’s set of dice as a souvenir.
And also because I didn’t bring any with me.

I stripped the plastic insert as soon as I could; While it’s fun to have the display tin, it’s kind of space-inefficient.

Plan “I’ve bought all I need” was working well, until those Irresponsible Bastards at Ultra Pro had a display case right on a walkway. What sort of monster does that?
Then they followed up by asking whether anything had caught my eye when they saw me looking into said display case.

Really, I’m the victim here.
And as an impulse purchase, a couple of Aluminium six-siders in their own little milled-out & anodised case is not a bad thing. I hope.

For the rest of the early entry time, I just wandered.
Saw this poster at a seemingly-unoccupied booth, so I’m guessing they were still getting set up.

There were also the folks at The Broken Token, who had a dice tower with all sorts of fun stuff which would spin when you dropped a handful of dice through it. They’d made this a part of their booth, and were encouraging people to play with it, and the thing stood maybe a metre tall.

Sadly, the wall-mounted tower was not a product for sale, though I wasn’t the first person to ask whether it was, and they’d had one person who just flat-out wanted to buy the thing from them once the con was over.
I get the idea that they’re looking into how to make a production, shippable, modular version.
(I have no use for one, but I can see that if you have a home gaming setup in the basement or family room or whatever, something like that would be a whole lot of fun)

I set myself up just inside the doors, to watch the flood of people enter the Hall in the annual “Running Of The Nerds”.
Did take some video, but it’s … kind of boring; There’s a difference between seeing the flood of humanity on screen & feeling it stream by.
Did get a shot of the folks who had set themselves up to capture the hoard as they approached.

Last year I spent maybe ten minutes in the lee of a rubbish bin before the flow of people eased off enough to walk against it; This time it was maybe three minutes, because they just opened up all of the doors at once.
Most people seemed to be taking it calmly, and following the chant of “Do Not Run”, but there are always a few who get inside the door and want to run, or at least very fast walk with an option on jogging, to get to whatever the hell they’re after.

Someone in the hotel, I’m assuming in the room opposite, kept leaving their wine glass outside mine, probably because the doorway was in a little alcove & the glass wouldn’t be in anyone’s way.
That said, it did kind of make it look like it was my glass, and that thing looks to be able to hold a half-bottle at a minimum, so I’m not sure I like the message it’s sending about me.

Besides, I’m more into ciders these days.

Thanks to foolishly agreeing to do it over dessert last year, I was up at Oh Dear God in the morning to take part in the Orc Stomp 5k Fun Run.
Which I walked.

This was taken just after the start, and the object in the centre is someone jogging in one of those inflatable T-Rex costumes, which I’m assuming was a sauna within minutes. As far as I know they completed the thing, and they had someone with them to provide guidance when the window fogged up.

There were also some people dressed as velociraptors, in more runnable costumes, who you could try to stay ahead of as a motivational thing. I don’t have a picture of them, and it’s not because they were so far behind me.

The course ran along the White river, which made for some nice reflections in the water, and was quite pleasant.
And flat, which was also pleasant.

Towards the end, after navigating the bit they’d not signposted (it was the one part of the route where it was possible to go off-course without realising it, as it was a veer-left or veer-right situation. no signage) we saw an Opossum who was … unimpressed … with all of these people wandering by.

The bridge towards the end, at about the point I realised that I need to get another pair of sunglasses.

And the photo at the finish.
They gave out ‘free’ t-shirts as part of the run pack, so I wore mine; Didn’t realise that the finisher’s medal centred so well on the Orc Stomp logo.

I’m obscurely pleased with that medal.

I took some pictures of the board & card & war gaming hall – In previous years it was more carved up, but this time they had the walls rolled back to make one enormous space.

I didn’t play any games in here, but it made a more interesting route than the big corridor, so I tended to cut through here a lot.

And that brings me to the end of things.
I’m sure that there are events I’ve forgotten to mention, …

In fact, one came to mind just as I typed that.

After what turned out to be my last game, I went to the concert by the GM, a comedian by the name of Mikey Mason.
It was scheduled for an hour, but ran to maybe an hour and a half, and was a whole lot of fun.

I’d been to one of his shows at my first Gen Con, back in 2012, so I knew some of the songs, but there was a bunch of new stuff, some of which I’m about to link in, because it’s my blog and I can.