Determined to get my Gencon exclusive Robotech miniatures, I got up ridiculously early on Sunday. Mary and I were sitting in front of the dealer's hall at 6:30am, barely awake on coffee and fumes.
When 10am came around, we charged into the hall alongside hundreds of other hopefuls. We had three tasks: I would get my exclusive Robotech Max and Mirya miniatures (90 of each left), Mary would get our usual Gencon Commemorative Dice (only 35 left, that's what we get for not getting them early), and we would meet at Catalyst to sign up for the Shadowrun experience.
We were 100% successful. I was second on line for Robotech minis, Mary got the dice, and we were scheduled for Shadowrun at 10:30. While we waited, we stopped by Cool Mini or Not for the exclusive Super Dungeon Explore character, Nyan Nyan and to Greater Than Games for some Sentinels of the Multiverse Buttons. By that point, it was 10:35, so we raced back to Catalyst.
The Shadowrun Experience is a thirty minute demo adventure of Shadowrun Fifth Edition. Each players pick a character (in this case, I chose a decker and Mary chose a tank) and are given the rules rundown by the "host" of a popular Seattle shadowrunner club called Dante's Inferno. He introduced us to a Mr. Johnson that was convinced that leaking certain sensitive Ares information to the government has put his life in jeopardy. Sure enough, a group of assassins decided to slay the suit there on the spot. After a couple rounds of combat, Lone Star showed up to break up the fight and arrest all involved. Thanks to an armor spell our mage had cast on the Johnson, and a mass confusion spell, we were able to get away with our injured, but living employer.
As a reward, we were given the Sixth Age Almanac hardcover for free.
We made sure to say goodbye to most of our con friends in case we did not make it to the end of con dinner that a few of the indie publishers we are close to had every year, and made our way back to the JW Marriot for Cortex Fantasy Heroic with Dave Chalker.
The game of Fantasy Heroic (from the Cortex Plus Hacker's Guide) was part of my reward for contributing to the Cortex Plus Hacker's Guide on Kickstarter. Dave paid for pizza and drinks while Jeph, Angie, Mary, and I made characters. Similar to Marvel Heroic: Annihilation, character creation involved choosing a race and a class (your two power sets) and then specialties, aspects, and your experience milestones. This approach was great. It combined traditional fantasy RPG tropes with the Marvel Heroic engine I love in a simple, wonderful package. Our dungeon delve was great and mixed social and action scenes very well. I'd play this again any day.
Finally, when the game ended at 4, we were pooped. We could have waited for our friends to finish breaking down their booths to meet them to dinner, but after four days we were done and wanted to go home to our bed, dog, and home.
This was a decent Gencon (other than the mess that was Pathfinder Society) and it was a great con for Saturday Morning Games. But next year... next year will be amazing.
Till then-
~Joe
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