Con Report - Gen Con 2015

Its a little hard to describe going to Gen Con to someone who’s never experienced the convention that bills itself as ‘The Best Four Days in Gaming’. Gen Con has that magical nerd-con Mecca feeling in the same way that, say, Otakon or San Diego Comic Con do. Yet it has a distinct feel. There’s more tiny munchkins running around (with their parental-nerd units in tow) than any other and it seems like there’s always more to see and more to do just around the next hallway. And it’s basically run by wizards behind a screen. So maybe it’s more Oz than Mecca.

Our Gen Con adventure actually started on Wednesday when we arrived in Indy to set our hotel room in order and gather our party before venturing forth. I wanted to check out the Indianapolis Colts Grille since (even though I am a diehard Cheese Head, but when in Rome…) turns out that, like many restaurants in the downtown area, the Colts Grille had completely re-done their entire menu including nerdy-themed name for each menu item. The servers were also all wearing some kind of geek-chic shirt.

This is a common thread for all of the city center for the weekend of Gen Con and it warms my heart every god-damn year. For all the traveling and restaurant/bar hopping I’ve done at other conventions I’ve never met a city more welcoming to its convention guests than Indy. And this only starts with those in the hospitality industry, the locals that we ran into were always excited to see us and downright went out of their way to welcome us: recommending restaurants, giving directions, asking for photos. Colts Grille ran a relevant trivia night. Hell, some locals even bought me a few drinks! That’s certainly the way to a Wisconsin girl’s heart.

Thursday began actual con-ventures, which meant combing the Exhibition hall on the “slowest” of the four days since I was my most comfortable costume for the weekend. While I was scoping out how to murder my wallet this year, I did run into a few of the actors from ‘The Gamers’ movie series by Dead Gentlemen Productions and had a quick chit-chat.

I also bee-lined it to the Art Show area to get my handful of Magic: The Gathering cards signed by the many artists in attendance: Steve Prescott, Scott M. Fischer, Peter Mohrbacher, Eric Deschamps. Artist booths I visited included Steve Argyle, R.K. Post, Jason Engle and Wayne Reynolds (the last of which is also well known for having done much of the art for the Pathfinder system).

Just about every hotel in the downtown area of Indy actively supports gamers overtaking their lobbies and public spaces. We also packed a bunch of snacks (beer for me) to bring with us, since Gen Con is - not gonna lie - probably the most expensive con of the year for us. It was a bit odd that Wizards of the Coast wasn’t actually in attendance this year in the same capacity they had been in the past: there were certainly PLENTY of Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons events going on throughout the convention over the weekend, but the bit WotC booth and the huge statues were conspicuously absent. I have a feeling it was mostly due to the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour in Vancouver, CA, being the same weekend. Unlucky bit of scheduling that.

Friday morning rolled around and we suited up into our Magic Planeswalkers (Jace Beleren and Garruk Relentless) for the first of our two big cosplay days. While the general Gen Con population is less focused on cosplay, it’s none-the-less one of my favorite conventions for it. People are on the whole extremely polite. For some I suspect only go to Gen Con is their only convention, and they aren’t terribly familiar with the broader cosplay scene. It’s fun to get their unique perspective.

Not that there isn’t some amazing cosplay to be seen. Gen Con’s cosplay contest (from a cosplayer entrant’s perspective) is one of the most well-run and well-oiled machines I’ve ever had the pleasure to be involved with. There is a huge emphasis on craftsmanship and its moderate cash prizes attract serious competition each year.

Later, when I almost literally ran into Ejen Chuang of Cosplay in America, I said essentially the same in an interview. It was fantastic to get to meet the man behind such an iconic name and after talking with him for quite a while, I have to say that his enthusiasm for what he does and the convention/cosplay scene in general is totally contagious. A+ Human.

I also had the pleasure to meet (read: bother) CSpranklerun at the UltraPro booth. She is known for her amazing Magic cosplays and was a revolving door of different Planeswalkers over the course of the weekend. Being the mature adults we are, we decided to snap some selfies as Jace and Liliana.

Indy’s food trucks take good advantage of the crowds and we took advantage of the trucks. The rest of Friday was spent tromping around demo’ing new and learning new games including but not limited to: Tanto Cuore, Evolution, MtG: Arena of the Planeswalkers and (what would later that night become my favorite find of the weekend) Iron and Ale.

Iron and Ale is the kind of game that you could only find at Gen Con: brand new and what you and your drunk friends would make if you wanted to make a game about dwarven lords going to the mead hall. It is utterly perfect and thanks to this wonderful game, our Friday night culminated in a push-up contest, a hands-and-knee race down the entire length of the hotel corridor and multiple people getting actually, physically slapped in the face.

Don’t you worry, this game is up for a starring role in one of the next episodes of GUI.

The A-list cosplays were out in force on Saturday (60,000 attendees in total), since not only does Gen Con’s Costume Contest take place that afternoon, but also a huge Cosplay Parade that snakes through the entire convention space. Any cosplayer can join in and the convention attendees literally treat it like a parade through Main Street USA on 4th of July. We ended up, almost accidentally, walking in it, right behind a The Adam’s Family, who attracted camera attention from the throngs we passed by.

Our good friends at Foam Corps entered the contest and placed in their ‘Professional’ category for their absolutely stunning World of Warcraft costumes, and invited us to over to party/celebrate with them that night. Their hotel actually had a few larger ballrooms that were open to either RPG-campaigns or general free gaming so we ended up playing quite a few rounds of Mysterium that night with them. Mysterium is a game that I’m chomping at the bit to pick up, thanks to the introduction that night. It’s originally a Ukrainian game that just got picked up by Asmodee for a release at Gen Con this year, only to sell out almost immediately. I’ve already got my eastern-european family members hunting for copies to send me for Christmas gifts.

Mysterium is a largely cooperative game that plays a bit like old-school Clue, but uses cards (rather than a board) that are done with absolutely stunning surrealist-style art. One player is the “ghost” sending dreams to the other players with the cards, to lead them to guess the correct murder weapon, location and perpetrator. It’s almost just as fun to fail and see your friends guess wrong.

Sunday sadly, is pack-up-and-go-home day, but not without a final trip through the convention. I had a few more purchases to make so I donned my Bast costume (from the Kingkiller Chronicles book series) and set out to The Tinker’s Packs to appropriately spend the last of my Gen Con money on Pat Rothfuss merchandise - since all the money goes to the wonderful Worldbuilders charity, I didn’t even have to feel bad.

When it was finally time to cram back in the car I drank the last can of my 30 pack of PBR I had brought with me (managed to keep it cold the whole time, being the resourceful girl I am) and we crammed all of our purchases into available space. Our whirlwind Gen Con adventure for 2015 ended. Me and my fat, excitable mouth are already talking about next year. Because while there’s no place like home, the ‘Best Four Days in Gaming’ are far from a dream: it’s a real place. And maybe next year you, and you and you can be there too!

Check out the rest of the photos from Gen Con 2015 on the X-Geek facebook page!