Saturday, August 30, 2008

 

GenCon UK Day 3

Change of pace today - I've already played all the Call of Cthulhu games that were available (excluding the beginner level ones) so only had the afternoon Paranoia session booked. Also, the family were coming along today to partake in the fun.

So a lie-in to try and catch up after the late finish of day 2 (and even later blogging) meant we didn't leave the house until getting on for lunchtime. After getting Sue and Sam issued with tickets at the con HQ in Palmer building, we had a look in the trade hall to see if Ralph Horsley was at the artists' desk.

As I was now attending all 4 days of GenCon, I could now catch up with Ralph who I knew from the 80s when he was a fanzine artist learning the tricks of his trade. Now he's being commissioned to produce work for Wizards of the Coast D&D products and these days they don't just put any old rubbish in their books (we're talking about the artwork here, not the gaming content where opinions are a lot more varied). I mentioned that I was planning to publish my old Green Goblin Magazines in Adobe Reader format and he agreed to have his original line artwork to be included. Hopefully he won't be too embarrassed to see his early attempts resurrected.

Ralph was also selling off some of the books he received as free samples where his work was printed - 3 D&D books for a tenner was not something I could easily pass up on, especially "Serpent Kingdoms" which I had been checking eBay and Amazon to buy for my campaign. The other two books were "Monster Manuals IV & V" which I had not touched before, mainly because of the poor reviews I had seen. Now, though, at £3.33 each it was harder to say no. In a feeding frenzy state, we also picked out two pieces from his art collection - an original pencil sketch and a colour print of one of the Magic:TG pieces he's created. Both are reflections of some parts of our family life and it is up to you to work out what.

The sketch is A4 and nicely detailed, stickered at £90.



The print, "Boggart Birth Rite", is copied from a roughly A4 acrylic original and was priced at £7.50 including the frame.




Ralph was generous enough to sell the books and pictures all for £90 - effectively we paid full price for the sketch and received everything else free.

Ralph also signed the MM5 and recommended I ask Anne Stokes and Eva Widermann, also doing sketchs and signing at the artists' table today, so I did. Here are the pictures (from the Wizards site) that I asked them to sign in the book to show how good their work is:

Ralph
Horsley
Anne
Stokes
Eva
Widermann


Afterwards we bumped into Beth Ashton (Tom's better half) and went for lunch on the Blue Room. My intention afterwards afterwards was to catch the 2pm Paranoia game - which I had been looking forward to for days - only to be cruelly denied.



It happens - now I'll have to wait until Dragonmeet for my fix.

To fill the gap, we all went to the Kniziathon:

"Reiner Knizia is one of the world’s foremost designers of boardgames, with more than 400 games and books published. He is winner of many awards for his designs, including Germany’s prestigious Spiel des Jahres 2008 for the game Keltis (aka The Lost Cities Boardgame, Kosmos).



Playing in a Kniziathon is a great way to enjoy a variety of Reiner Knizia's games in one place at one time. There are lots of games to try – from classics to the most recent releases (and even some which you might never have come across before). There are plenty of willing opponents and friendly organisers to help you with the rules. It's the perfect opportunity to meet games players and enjoy exciting games - and if you are doing well, you might even win a prize!

As an added bonus, Reiner Knizia will also be present for the Kniziathon. Here’s your chance to meet Reiner in person, ask questions about his designs, or even test your skill by playing against him. Reiner will also present the awards to the winners at the end of the Kniziathon. Hint: turn up early and play as many different games against as many different opponents as you can!"


The principle seems simple but the scoring isn't. There are two stages to working out how many points you get for completing a game. Firstly you cross-reference the number of players against your final position - for examples, a two-player game awards 4pts for 1st and 2 pts for 2nd but a six-player game gives 6pts for 1st, 5pts for 2nd and so on down to 1pt for 6th. And then secondly you take into account the weighting of the game which represents the expected time taken to play. Here you would use a multiplier varying from 1x (e.g. "Mmmmm... brains") to 4x (e.g. "Amun-Re"). So winning one hard 6-player game should net you 24 points, equivalent to winning six easy 2-player games.

The Breakwells stuck together and played through "Lost Cities", "Bucket Brigade", "Fish Eat Fish", "Sushizock im Gockelwok", "Flea Circus" and "Too Many Cooks" (all 2x games apart from "Flea Circus"). Not surprisingly (as they are designed by Reiner Knizia), all of these were easy to pick up and play. Some made you realise that there could be some really good strategies waiting to be understood (like "Bucket Brigade") while others were more down to luck. Highlight of the day - coming 3rd and receiving a heavy stone plaque from Knizia. I must have been grinning so much I'm surprised the top of my head didn't tilt back. It's not often I manage to beat my family at card and boardgames which makes getting the plaque doubly sweet.



After the awards it was tea time - Sue stayed on-site to dine while I drove home to drop Samantha off (lightweight) and return after having fridge clearance food to eat. I found Sue in the Looney Labs room because, according to them:

"We absolutely do not have a preview deck for the new game, Monty Python Fluxx. We will not be running demo sessions of it all convention. Ignore the rumours of silly accents and singing. There will be no Kniggets of the Round Table. Tell everyone."

So we didn't play three rounds of Monty Python Fluxx or shout "NI!" or question whether strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is a basis for a system of government or expect the Spanish Inquistion. And neither will you be able to play the final retail product at Dragonmeet on November 29th.

A donation to the Children In Need box granted us Zombie Fluxx Flamethrowers (be the envy of all). I did enter the decorate-your-own-zombie contest but ate my entry before it was judged. As you can see, an obvious winner:



Trailing zombie crumbs, we went to the cinema theatre to watch the charity auction. Normally I don't come away with anything as I'm not willing to compete with those people with money to burn, even if it is for a good cause. They can be good entertainment though. Colin Baker, one of the convention guests, was good at pushing the prices up through sheer force of will. Here he's describing the proof of a Dr Who card collection that was going under the hammer:



I loved his reference to Peter Davidson, the Doctor before him, as the "Wet Vet". I hadn't heard the label before and it did amuse.

Best auction was by this looney (below) who was offering a tattoo-of-the-winner's-choice on his shoulder for charity. The big-screen picture shows the amount of space in the lot - must be about 3 inches across. Went for over £250, I think.



After the auction we played a couple of games of "Blue Moon" (yet another Knizia games) in the Board Games Library. Lovely artwork and actually not as complicated as it first seems.

Labels:


Comments:
Hi
I was live action coordinator this year (Fiona Lloyd).
The blke who auctioned his skin is Grant Bayliss.
The one Cthulu you didn't play was Gallery of shades the LARP, in the senior common room. That was an epic game and Grant was in it.
 
Thanks, Fiona.
 
Post a Comment



Links to this post:

Create a Link



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Subscribe to Posts [Atom]