GenCon Plans Anyone?

Hey all:

Just curious of just everyone was doing this year?

Later,

I will be wishing I was there

> Hey all:

Hi Mark, I'll be there, but you knew that already. Past and present list
members Kevin Walker, Schoon, and Mike Miserendino will be there for this last
blast in Milwaukee.

Anyone else?

See you all later, my roadtrip to GenCon begins tomorrow.

> --- Jim Callahan <jim@tablegamer.com> wrote:

My GenCon plans:

I will be pulling 12 hour guard shifts (2100-0900) on
a parking lot outside a building in which a Warfighter simulation exercise
will be conducted.

On Mon, 5 Aug 2002 09:12:50 -0500, "Dean Gundberg"
> <Dean.Gundberg@noridian.com> wrote:

> I'll be there, but you knew that already. Past and present list members

I _wish_ I could be there, especially to see all the list folks, past
and present. Unfortunately, life doesn't premit it. I will try to get to
Indianapolis next year, or maybe Origins (more likely the latter).

It's too bad, too, as I like Milwaukee and I hear that there are quite a few
more historical games this year.

I'm curious, is Lew Stoneking still planning a pre-Gen Con party, or
not?

Later, Mark A. Siefert

[quoted original message omitted]

I will be at gencon on Thursday but only as a buyer. I used to put on games at
this convention and attend all 4 days (originally 3 day) but I stopped doing
that as the number of miniature games started shrinking. With gencon moving to
Indianapolis this will be the last year that I attend.

At one time this was the big convention of the year for ALL wargamers (role
playing, miniatures and board gamers). After the "role players" (TSR) took
over all the miniature games got stuck in side rooms where

On Tue, 06 Aug 2002 23:46:54 -0500, Scott Siebold <gamers@ameritech.net>
wrote:

> At one time this was the big convention of the year for ALL wargamers

I attended GenCon from 1995 to 2000. Being a roleplayer as well, I could see
the need for roleplaying taking over larger areas. However, in 1995 through
1997 the miniatures games typically had better locations than the roleplaying
games. They were in rooms above the dealer's room at the old MECCA facility,
but that was a better location than the arena, for instance.

I remember in 1995 playing in a number of historical games, including a DBA
tournament. Miniatures started getting shunted aside when MECCA was demolished
and the new facility came "online". They only had half the new place set up,
and still had to use Bruce Hall and the Arena for some things. In 1998 they
stuck miniatures into the bottom level of the Arena. No one could find it. In
fact it was so bad, some folks (mostly dealers, I think) produced "I Found the
Miniatures Events at GenCon" buttons and handed them out for free. Historical
games had been on the decline at this point. What was busier in this phase of
GenCon was card games, though the bulk of people were still playing
roleplaying games. In 1999 it was slightly better... we were in the arena
proper, which gave us more space and you could breathe, but didn't result in
much walk-in traffic.

Ironically, we (that is GZG and Geo-Hex) peaked event wise in 1999, the
first year I ran the events. We hit something like 35 events that year. That
included Dean Gundberg's Sci-Fi Crossover running twice and Mark
Siefert's B5 game running twice, but it was a good turn out. The number of
events went down in 2000 for a couple of reasons. I was less agressive in just
throwing out events and hopefully finding someone to run them. Also, there
were fewer judges attending.

A good part of the attendance trouble with judges had to do with
WotC/Andon
taking over control of the con. Organizationally, it wasn't very good. They
made event mistakes, and they screwed up housing pretty badly. The
pre-registration system was a mess, particularly for Canadians (though I
never got confirmation of this, the apparent problem was that they sent out
the
pre-reg packets to Canadians at the same postal rate as to the US, not
realizing mail to Canada is slightly higher).

In 2000 we had a _great_ location. We were in the room right next to the
dealer's room. Even still, much of the damage had been done. Historical
miniatures were few and far between. Even non-historical miniatures were
in decline, due to the problems the previous two years.

I got an e-mail last year asking me to attend. I had decided if I got to
any convention, it would be a miniatures heavy convention. The person at WotC
pointed out that they had more board and miniature events than any other type
of event! This is true, but somewhat deceiving. First, miniatures events had
radically declined (I know; I went through past convention books). Second, a
_Settlers of Catan_ board game event with 4 people was "1 event". A
_Magic:
The Gathering_ tournament with 200 people was "1 event". Obviously not
equal in number of attendees.

> The miniature gamers

I don't think this is true. I heard from one of the HMGS chapter presidents
that they rebelled over what happened at Origins, not GenCon. Historicon was a
direct response to Origins.

> My SciFi games had to be classified as "future history" to be

This is, in fact, one of the reasons GenCon and Origins is a good type of
convention. You can play historicals _and_ science fiction/fantasy. I
see why
they banned sci-fi/fantasy. They didn't want the convention overrun by
Warhammer games. There is a certain bit of snobbery in historical gamers. Oh,
and there are a number of historical gamers with strong religious beliefs who
think that fantasy games -- with their magic component -- are somehow
evil. (I had an interesting discussion with someone over this...) At the same
time,
there are plenty of folk who prefer to game sci-fi and fantasy because
they see more of a disconnect from "reality". It's easier to see NSL troopers
or Elven archers cut down than someone who could easily represent a grand
father or father.

> Except for the time I was in the army I attended all of the gencon

WotC did realize the importance of bringing board games and miniatures games
back "into the fold" as it were. Board games were important because WotC was
bought by Hasbro. It will be interesting to see what will happen now that
Hasbro has sold off GenCon.

I really liked Milwaukee, but the way that city handled housing was a mess.
They required people to go through the housing bureau, which parcelled out
housing to all the available hotels downtown. You could get stuck in a hotel a
fair distance away (one year it was 18 blocks, and some were far worse) even
though the big hotels right next to the centre still had slots. In fact, lots
of folks determined when the "controlled" time was lifted for the hotels and
booked rooms in the bigger hotels that week. Others booked rooms two years in
advance outside of the convention. Everyone I talked to suggested that this
was a major reason for the convention leaving Milwaukee.

I don't know about last year, or this year, but I know in 2000 they had the
largest attendance ever at about 25,000 people. This was a 25% increase from
the year before (a difficult trend for them, as WotC lost a fair number of
judges, thus the number of events dropped).

While I prefer miniatures over other games, I also like board games and
roleplaying games, and even the occasional card game (Mythos, in particular).
General conventions were better for me, even though I had a ball at "Fall In!"
in 2000. I think these general games are more positive about sci-fi
events. For GZG events, GenCon is the big convention in North America. Aside
from running modern or WW2 events in SG2 or DS2 (or ACW games in SG2, for that
matter), it's hard for GZG to make it at miniatures events, as they either
tend to be GW events or historical events.

> Aside from running modern or WW2 events in SG2 or DS2 (or ACW games in

So Jon could take SG, delete the references to fusion power, GEVs, missiles,
etc, put a new cover on it...

On Wed, 7 Aug 2002 09:10:21 -0400, "laserlight@quixnet.net"
> <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:

> So Jon could take SG, delete the references to fusion power, GEVs,

It would take more than that, as historical gamers would want to see stats for
historical vehicles, instead of a "design your own" system. Plus there's a lot
of stuff that would have to be modelled for a historical game to have the
right flavour. For instance, command transfers should be harder in an
environment where not everyone has a battlefield network and instant
person-to-person communications. I added rules for runners in
_Hardtack_. That
would have to be used for WW2 and earlier.

> ------------------------------
I started roleplaying with something called Dungeons and Dragons when I was in
service (a friend purchased issue 1 of the Dragon and I started with issue 3).
I even programmed character generation for traveler on to a 4K (that's 4
thousand characters) computer from Radio Shack. The reason I stopped was that
the people that I regularly played with were into miniatures and those people
I role played with at conventions just seemed to have no perspective (someone
had a character that was carrying around 10,000 gold pieces who didn't have
the slightest idea of it's weight while someone else had

Thors Hammer that he'd gotten after "killing" Thor).

Actually there was an attempt made by the GenCon people to get the miniatures
events back the first year that Origins was held at GenCon. HMGS members who
would put on events had no problem getting pre registered and location was
excellent. The problems started the following year. I signed up to put on
events (I think it was two games that year) and then had to pay FULL
registration. About two months after the convention I finally got the check
back for the registration.

> I remember in 1995 playing in a number of historical games, including a
Historical
> games had been on the decline at this point. What was busier in this
Historicon was a
> direct response to Origins.
I was at the formation meeting for HMGS in the midwest. There were problems
with Origins but since Origins wondered around the country it didn't have that
much impact in the midwest. GenCon was here (midwest) and it what caused the
most complaints.

Strangely enough the midwest chapter never had the total anti SciFi that

the east cost had. It was the east coast that pushed for a total ban on SciFi
and Fantasy games. The only SciFi game allowed at Historicon was a youth game
that was restricted to those under fifteen.

As a side point a Leonardo game, that I played in, was fully allowed at
Historicon where everything that Leonardo had dreamed up was allowed. My cog
(as in sailing ship) took on a canon firing submersible and was attacked by a
manpowered helicopter. I guess that this "historical" game had it's cloaking
device on.

> My SciFi games had to be classified as "future history" to be
I think that DandD and Traveler had more of an impact then Warhammer. When
HMGS was formed Warhammer didn't have that much popularity. I suspect it was
more like "if they don't want us we don't want them" attitude.

> Oh,
I didn't see any ban on "Nuclear Destruction" game (yes it is a card game but
I saw it at Historicon).

> (I
I will go to Historicon (about 750 miles for four days) because I can try new
miniatures periods and rules. I will go to GenCon (about 90 miles for 1 day)
to make purchases and to see what's new. I will not go GenCon in Indianapolis
(about 200 miles) for only 1 day.

A message was sent out by the president of HMGS midwest to get members to put
on games at GenCon. I talked to him at Historicon and got the impression that
not too many people were taking him up. I just do not like having to submit my
game to "be reviewed" before I pay to attend the convention and if everything
goes OK I'll be paid back in a couple of months.

> [quoted text omitted]