Two Memorable Conversations

First, I spoke with my friend Barry. In November and December, he was dealing with his father being sick, heart trouble in particular. The prognosis seemed worse each time I spoke to him. I didn't hear from him for a couple of weeks, so when I did:

Aaron: So, how's your dad?
Barry: Not so good. He arrives tomorrow in the
mail.

A couple days later, a conversation with Elizabeth about what she was doing:

Aaron: What are you up to?
Elizabeth: Studying for exams.
Aaron: When are your exams?
Elizabeth: Next week.
Aaron: You know what I don't have next week that makes me happy?
Elizabeth: Exams? And Ebola?

Morbid, but somehow funny.

Elizabeth - Future Gamer Chick?

Recall I talked about going to GenCon in August? Well, Elizabeth was asked if she could have her picture taken while she was there and found out today that she had some nice things said about her on the photographer's website.

GenCon Weekend

The rest of GenCon was great fun. Elizabeth and I played more games, including a second pass at the True Dungeon game, this time for the other adventure. There was one particular room in there that was worth the entire price of admission. In it, we entered a room with a silence spell over it. In play terms, that meant that anyone who communicated through sound would take damage. A riddle written on the wall indicated that to exit the room, we had to ring a bell that was there, which meant lifting the silence.

Lifting the silence required four different people to put their hands into the mouths of skulls mounted on the wall and "endure" the experience. I went first and it was really freaky. The mouth of the skull was filled with what felt like spiderwebs. Then, as I was standing there with my hand through a hole in the wall, it felt like something started licking my hand with a big, gross, slimy tongue. I almost yanked my hand out, but then settled down and let it happen. Finally, my hand was pushed out and had a letter stamped on it.

I knew Elizabeth was going to freak out at it, and two other members of our group had done it already. She put her hand through it and I moved over behind her and held her arm in place. The rest of the guys with us gathered around and encouraged her (silently) to keep quiet. It was totally obvious when the hand-licking thing started, because Elizabeth stiffened and clapped her other hand over her mouth. So there we are, six guys huddled around a teenage girl who's hand is stuck in the mouth of a skull where something unseen licks at her, all trying to stay totally quiet, the scene lit only by a couple of small green glowing bulbs. That's an incredibly tense situation that was about as entertaining as anything that weekend.

Most of the rest of our time was spent exploring the exhibit hall, although we played a game of Pirates of the Spanish Main with our newly acquired ships and participated in a free session where you get a free miniature and get to paint it using paints and brushes supplied by the sponsors, in this case Reaper Miniatures. It was the first time I'd painted a figure in quite some time, so I wasn't totally happy with it, but it certainly got me thinking about picking up painting again.

I think four days was enough (and Elizabeth agreed) but I'm looking forward to another convention when I can, and GenCon next year at a minimum.

GenCon Friday

Friday at GenCon started with some aggravation that was happily averted. Late Thursday, my badge fell off somewhere between when I looked at it while crossing a street coming back from dinner and entering the convention center a block away. I noticed it was missing no more than three minutes after it fell off, but after retracing my steps three times, I figure it was just gone. That's bad, because replacement of the badge was both necessary and $70. Fortunately, Zev was able to wrangle me a GM badge under the Z-Man Games name, and I was able to avoid paying for a new one.

I realize I forgot to mention that on Thursday, Elizabeth and I tried out Pirates of the Spanish Main by WizKids. You get these little plastic cards where you can punch out pieces and assemble them into pirate ships. Then, by taking turns moving them and firing with cannons, you fight the other players ships and try to sink them before they sink you. The basics are very simple and the game is very compact, so we bought a few packs of ships.

After some more time poking around the exhibit hall, we went to play the National Security Decision Making Game. Not the most exciting title, but it's a game of role-playing political leaders, military leaders, and so on in a real-world setting with a near infinite number of scenarios to play. Elizabeth found the briefing very confusing, so she instead went to watch some anime and go back to the exhibit hall. I stayed to play and ended up in a dual role of Air Force Chief of Staff and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There were about 50 people in the game, half playing US roles, half playing Iranian roles. In the game, the Iranians were developing nukes, an Ebola outbreak was spreading through Africa and bounced to continental Europe, and internal intrigue was going on in both countries. The winners are determined by judgement call of the group of facilitators, and I nabbed a very respectable fourth place by being the instrumental player in containing the Ebola outbreak and building some Air Force-controlled bioweapons despite international treaties and without the Secretary of Defense or President knowing that it happened.

We also tracked down my good friend Bobby, who has left his "regular" job to become a full-time miniatures sculptor. I hadn't talked to him in some time, but we picked up right where we left off, which to me is the best indication of true friendship. No matter how long it's been, it's like no time has passed when you get together again. I caught him at his sculpting demonstration table, put my camera in front of my face, and called out, "Mr. Jackson, a picture please?" He looked up, I got the photo below, and he only figured out it was me when I lowered the camera. Warm welcome number two!


Bobby Jackson, Cool Sculptor Guy

Later, Elizabeth and I got into a game of Seafarers of Catan on a "giant" board. It wasn't as large as I expected, but it was still fun to play on a cool board. It was an incredibly close game, as I was prepared to win on my next turn when another player, Carol, picked up her last victory point and won ahead of me. Here's a look at the special board:


Giant Seafarers of Catan Board

We then went to a seminar, where I was the "expert." One of my StormReavers, Steve, helped me set up two seminar sessions where I would discuss the WarEngine rules with experienced players as we try to figure out what a new edition of the game might include. The seminar included only three attendees for this session, Steve, Ray, and David, but that was okay, as we worked through a better movement system, a better way to define weapon characteristics, and a few other smaller fixes. There's another session tonight and Bobby at least will likely join us for that one.

After the seminar, it was back to the Hong Kong Action Movie room, where Elizabeth again fell asleep, but I watched the last hour of a funny movie. I have no idea what it was, though, as I never saw the title.

Now, Elizabeth is ready to go and we're headed for the convention center again, prepared to fight for parking with fans coming to the Colts game in the RCA Dome right next to the convention. More True Dungeon today, too.

GenCon Thursday

Elizabeth and I have been very busy here at GenCon, doing lots of fun stuff. Thursday, we browsed the exhibit hall for a bit and found my friend Zev, working his booth for his company, Z-Man Games. Elizabeth was amazed at the warm reception I got when I found him. When I was running DemonBlade Games, she was really too young to appreciate the kinds of friendships I established with some other guys in the industry.

Just walking around is interesting in and of itself, not just because of exhibitors, but because of other people attending. These two guys posed for me in mock combat:


Elf Guy Battles a Ghost Buster

We signed up for several events, then we got to play in a True Dungeon adventure. This is really pretty cool, as you walk through these incredibly dark rooms that are tricked out to look like carved dungeon halls. In any given room, there are either traps to puzzle past or monsters to fight. I played the cleric of our group. To make it more interesting than just rolling dice, the power of the spells I cast was dependent on memory. They gave me a set of about 15 prayer beads, all different. Each corresponds to a word, such as piety or fortitude. When I want to cast a spell, I would tell the guy running the room which one and he would ask me to show him a particular one. "Show me your bead of grace," he'd say, and I'd pick out the one that looks like a little melon. The less tries to get the right bead, the better the effect of the spell. I got them on the first try every time, so I was very effective. In the end, out our group of seven characters, two were killed by a failed attempt past a puzzle room and the rest of us died in the last room by not figuring out the final puzzle fast enough. That wasn't all that uncommon, apparently, and it was still lots of fun. There's a second adventure, and Elizabeth and I will play that one later today.

We dropped by the miniatures hall after that to see how some of my old StormReaver demo guys were doing running games of Shock Force and variants, that being one of the games I wrote. There was a Shock Force game, a Stargate variant, a Civil War variant, and a WWII variant all going. It's so cool to see people still playing my games. The WWII game looked particularly well planned out, and I got a picture of one of the battles in progress that came out rather well:


WWII Action Using WarEngine Rules

We had dinner with Zev and Paul (Zev's friend that helps him with Z-Man.) Elizabeth and I then tried out a game of Memoir '44, a much simpler WWII battle game by Days of Wonder. Finally, we headed over to one of the hotels where Zev's company sponsors a Hong Kong Action Movie room that runs movies from 8am to midnight every day of the convention. We started watching Big Trouble in Little China, but by this time it was really getting late and we were both kind of nodding off, so we headed back to the hotel for the night.

Aaron and Elizabeth

Elizabeth's here now, too! I asked the woman at the hotel front desk to take this picture of us together. Actually, she was so happy to take pictures of us that she practically grabbed the camera out of my hand. She then raved about Elizabeth's hair, which is somehow the same hair Elizabeth herself had just said was so awful. Judge for yourself:


Aaron and Elizabeth

Dodgeball

My twelve year old daughter, Elizabeth, went with her sixth grade class to the movies last Friday. They saw Dodgeball, with Ben Stiller. Unfortunately, all they had to say about the movie afterward was what happens in the final moments. The woman that's the primary love interest in the movie apparently greets some other woman with a deep, passionate kiss. The guys that are there then go on about how they didn't know she was a lesbian. She replies with something like, "I'm not a lesbian, I'm bisexual!" and continues the kissing with one of the guys.

Why? This had nothing to do with the rest of the movie, but was merely an unnecessary, gratuitous sex joke that ruined the movie for my daughter and her friends. I can only imagine how horrified the teacher was, as I'm almost 100% certain he didn't know that was in there. I know he had to field at least one question of "What's bisexual?" from one of his students.

Frankly, this is just a shame and further evidence of the extremely liberal slant of Hollywood. It's no wonder I don't watch as many movies as I used to, although it's hard to tell considering the number of movie related posts I've made in this blog. Maybe it's really that I am more particular about my movie choices, not that I watch any less.