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DAY 1:
Arrived at the convention at 5:00 p.m. and checked into the hotel. The hotel was the Radisson in Aurora 20 minutes from home. Some might question why I would pay for a 3 night stay so close to where I live. I'm going for the full experience here and it's nice to just head to the room after your done gaming late at night, to run up for a quite break between events and to have all your gaming supplies and toys strewn about the room. So don't give me any grief about it or I will throw a baseball sized D20 at you.
After checking in, the wife and I stood in the registration line to get our badges. I had preregistered online but still had to pick up my badge and my wife had to pick up a visitor badge. Badge numbers are based on the order in which people registered. By paying attention to other peoples badge numbers throughout the weekend you can tell how early people registered and get a feel for how many people attended the convention. So far the highest number I have seen is 1040 but the weekend is just getting started. My badge number is 7 :-).
My first event was a semi co-operative zombie board game called The Dead of Winter. Everyone plays their own group of survivors that have banded together in a colony outside of town and must work together to take dangerous trips into town to forage for supplies exposing your survivors to zombie attacks and frostbite. Food gathered must be shared to feed the people at the colony or starvation sets in and morale starts to drop. If morale drops to 0 the game ends, nobody wins. Trash and waste need to be attended to, barricades erected and zombies killed. These tasks when left unchecked cause morale to drop. Events happen each turn, sometimes to the colony and sometimes to individuals out foraging. Players have to vote via thumbs up/down on issues that arise or a player is left to make his own decision with consequences that can affect everyone. Each group of survivors also has their own secret agenda which can conflict with the group objective and can be outright against the group. If the group thinks you are a betrayer, you can get voted out of the colony and be left to wander whats left of the frozen town nearby, risking frostbite and zombification. The game ended with the colony winning and 3 of the 5 players meeting their secret objective resulting in a 3 way tie. I was one of those 3 and felt like I had done well. Not only did I help the colony achieve success but I met my own secret goal of hoarding gas, food and weapons so I could attempt to get back home. Also I did not loose any of the survivors in my group, unlike the other groups. A roll off ensued and I rolled 2nd highest. Bah! Still it felt like a victory to me :-).
DAY 2
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After a quick lunch in the room from the mini fridge I headed to the board game room for a game of Firefly. If you are a Firefly fan then I highly recommend this game. Even if you are not a fan the game is good based on it's own merits of game mechanics and balance but the flavor of the game is what really clinched it for me. There were 5 players, 3 of whom owned the game and were well versed in the rules. I had never played the game or read the rules. I was in for a uphill fight.
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I won the roll for choosing my captain and ship first from the available choices. So naturally I picked Malcom Reynolds and Serenity herself. Perhaps this was the start of the enmity that 2 of the players had for me during the game. The game had 3 goals that had to be accomplished in order. The first to complete the 3 goals would be declared the winner. The game did an outstanding job of capturing the feel on the Firefly verse. Serenity needed a constant supply of fuel and parts to stay flying and earning enough credits to pay for these, hire crew, buy equipment and keep the crew happy and still have a profit took some planning. Not to mention needing to become solid with Mr Universe, visit Miranda deep in Reaver territory and amass 10,000 credits to win. As the game progressed I found two of the experienced players (who where friends) taking every opportunity to throw hardship my way. Each time a card was revealed that gave them a chance to move a Reaver ship or the Alliance ship to intercept Serenity they would, without a moments hesitation, moved that ship directly to me. Each time they had 4 other players to choose from but they never did. I decided to take this as a compliment. Despite being at an experience disadvantage, I was still the biggest threat. I was able to slip out of confrontation numerous times with the Reavers which I could clearly see frustrated my antagonists. When it became clear that we would run out of time before the game ended normally, the referee declared new and in my opinion unfair win conditions. At this point with only two turns left each, I was the only one who had met the first win condition and thus was the only player with a large goal token in my pile. Prior to the announcement by the referee I thought "Sweet, I got this". Then suddenly it was who had the most money wins and my goal token suddenly was only worth 1,000 credits. Quickly switching gears, I planned out my next two turns and realized I could complete one more job and pull in enough credits to still take the win. I had made it to a planet in Alliance controlled territory and picked up some contraband which I quickly stored in my secret hold. I was one turn away from making a short and low risk flight to another planet to deliver the goods and collect my credits for the win. I could sense the bitterness radiating from one of my antagonists as he too saw the writing on the wall. Then by a total stroke of ill luck, one of my enemies drew the one card out of hundreds that allowed him to move the Alliance ship directly to my location at the worst time for me. I had an outlaw on board, a warrant issued for my arrest and a cargo hold full of contraband. Contraband seized, money spent to bribe my way out of the warrant and my outlaw narrowly avoiding arrest, my hopes of completing the job and collecting the needed credits to win on my next turn were dashed. I was a bit pissed but kept it to myself and congratulated the winner and helped clean up before departing. I decided that if it took being ganged up on by experienced players and having the win condition suddenly changed 2 turns before the game ended to bring me down then I played well..jpg)
DAY 3:
Day three started with a game of 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. The last edition of D&D that I fully learned and played regularly was 3rd edition. I was excited to sling some dice! I played a 1st level dwarven cleric that I named Grundig Stonebrow. The game was a series of three loosely connected scenarios. The first scenario was mostly straightforward combat, the second strictly information gathering and problem solving and the third was a little exploration, some traps and a large battle at the end. It was fun and made me yearn to play in a regular game. The DM was a little fast and loose with the rules in my opinion but it was understandable. There were 7 of us gathered around the table and a strict 4 hour time slot to observe. He did a great job portraying the different NPC's and keeping the game moving along. Afterwards I met the girls in the hotel room for a quick dinner and then headed to my next event.
The next event was a unusual game of Malifaux. Each player was to bring an enforcer class character with one upgrade. I was to compete with up to 8 other players in an effort to make it across the table through a gauntlet of zombies. It was every man/women for themselves and it was the event I was most looking forward too. The game started with the judge (the supposedly impartial person running the event) allowing in two last minute players setting us over the limit. Only 3 of us had experience playing. I could see that there was no way we would finish in four hours.
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Everyone laid out their enforcer and picked their upgrade. The judge asked everyone to announce who they were playing and what upgrade they picked. When it came to me I announced I had picked Bishop and the Scramble upgrade. This combination allowed me to move up to 15" per turn compared to everyone else having a 8"-10" movement range per turn. On a 72" table it gave me a distinct advantage. I didn't announce my advantage but the judge realized it and quickly told me there was no way he was going to let me race down the table and win. He then proceeded to enforce his declaration by essentially taking control of another players character (being played by the teenage daughter of another player, who spent the game texting and listening to music) and using her to attempt to take me out of the game. He also offered real world product rewards as a bounty on my head. The first player to take me out would get the a brand new fate deck. I was pissed. I don't know how late the game ran but I bowed out at 11:00 p.m., which was the originally scheduled end time.
DAY 4
Sunday we had a leisurely breakfast, toured the dealer room, picked up my miniatures that I had entered into the previous days contest and checked out the room. All in all I had a great time and I am looking forward to next year. People were generally very friendly but the unfortunate stereotype of the socially maladjusted gamer did pop up a couple times. Some people just can't handle loosing. I don't like loosing either but I would never cheat or behave in an unfriendly manner towards fellow players over it. Welcome to humanity I guess.
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