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<\/a><\/p>\nChecking out the view of White River State Park from my hotel room.\u00a0(28th floor, so there’s a lot of view)<\/em><\/p>\n Wandering through the ICC. Did\u00a0not<\/strong> expect Gen Con Security to be already in place. The banners & posters & such were already in place at this stage. <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n It worked well as a system, & we just breezed on in at maybe 9:10 or so.<\/p>\n I only had one purchase I\u00a0needed<\/strong> to make, and that was this year’s set of dice as a souvenir. 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.<\/em><\/p>\n Plan “I’ve bought all I need” was working well, until those Irresponsible Bastards at Ultra Pro<\/a>\u00a0had a display case right on a walkway. What sort of monster does that? Really,\u00a0I’m\u00a0<\/em>the victim here. For the rest of the early entry time, I just wandered. 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.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n I set myself up just inside the doors, to watch\u00a0the flood of people enter the Hall in the annual “Running Of The Nerds”. 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. 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. Besides, I’m more into ciders these days.<\/p>\n 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. 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The course ran along the White river, which made for some nice reflections in the water, and was quite pleasant. Towards the end, after navigating the bit they’d not signposted\u00a0(it was the\u00a0one<\/strong> 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)<\/em> we saw an Opossum who was … unimpressed … with all of these people wandering by.<\/p>\n The bridge towards the end, at about the point I realised that I need to get another pair of sunglasses.<\/p>\n And the photo at the finish. I’m obscurely pleased with that medal.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nThis is absolutely the least crowded this place would be until Monday<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nOr to have such awful breath.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n“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.<\/p>\n
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\nAnd also because I didn’t bring any with me.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nThen they followed up by asking whether anything had caught my eye when they saw me looking into said display case.<\/p>\n
\nAnd 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.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nSaw this poster at a seemingly-unoccupied booth, so I’m guessing they were still getting set up.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nI get the idea that they’re looking into how to make a production, shippable, modular version.
\n(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)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nDid 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.
\nDid get a shot of the folks who\u00a0had<\/strong> set themselves up to capture the hoard as they approached.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nMost 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.<\/p>\n
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\nThat 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.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
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\nWhich I walked.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nAnd\u00a0flat, which was also pleasant.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nThey 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.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
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