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Awesome new thread Dr. Quarex, thanks for making it! I'm stoked for my...6th? 7th? consecutive GenCon but won't really be able to get excited until our JW room is secured in the lottery. Avenging Dentist posted:Does anyone have pro tips for flying to Gen Con? We've always driven, but we're moving across the country this year and will have to fly to get to Gen Con. In particular, how do people handle buying big items? Do you just ship it back? Pack light and have some way of putting it in your suitcase while preventing baggage handlers from molesting your bag and dinging up your nice new stuff? Take your haul as carry-on? Employ quantum teleportation? I've dealt with this a few different ways. The easiest but most expensive is to ship, there's a FedEx store in the JW by the Starbucks (just get there early on Sunday since there's usually a line by the time they open). Checking or carrying on a bag full of games works fine, baggage handlers and TSA don't care about or gently caress with games in my experience but taking an extra empty suitcase to fill for the return trip isn't ideal. Maybe you and your partner/GenCon buddy could pack light and consolidate into a clothes bag and a game bag for the return trip? I now have a friend who gets a booth every year and is cool about letting me throw poo poo in his van to haul home halfway across the country but that's not really an option for everyone. Honestly though, and I know this is blasphemy, I've bought a lot fewer games the past couple years. I used to buy every hot game and spend $70ish to ship a big box home and then not get around to playing them for a couple months, when they're already available on CSI/Amazon for cheaper with free shipping. Now I pretty much only buy stuff that I want to open and play at GenCon, stuff to get signed, or stuff that will never be available elsewhere.
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Jan 25, 2018 14:35
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 08:16 |
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Maybe worth adding (a shorter paraphrase) to the OP? Punch Bowl Social - I stumbled (literally) across this place last year and it was a high point of the trip. It's a big, nice bar at the other end of Georgia St near the basketball arena. It had good food and very good cocktails and is the only place in Indy I've found where I can do shots of Fernet-Branca. It also has 8 bowling lanes, 3 dart boards, 2 ping-pong tables, 2 bocce ball courts, 3 private karaoke rooms, a retro arcade, corn hole, a giant Scrabble game, and plenty of table space for board gaming. Best of all, it was completely loving empty last year -- they'd only opened a few months earlier and no one seemed to know about it. I apparently got drunkenly, annoyingly effusive about it in GroupMe and people were mean to me but don't hold that against Punch Bowl. I'm definitely planning to go back this year and imo it'd be a great venue for Shot Wednesday assuming nerd trivia is still dead.
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Jan 25, 2018 15:02
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I got 2:42p and the buddy I room with got 10:32p, but a friend of ours who stays with family got a 2:09p slot. I'm going to ask him to try to grab us a room on his account. Are there any drawbacks to doing that? Would I be better off just waiting for my time slot 30 mins later for some reason? I read the FAQ and the posts above but want to make sure I have this right: I give him my credit card info, he uses it to book the room, then sets me as the primary guest? That is, the room is bound to his account, but not bound to him and he can list anyone as the primary room occupant? Pretty sure that's how it works but someone please correct me if I'm wrong. e: vv good to know, sent him my cc info and asked him to grab me a JW or Conrad room if possible Lawen fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Feb 10, 2018 |
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Feb 10, 2018 20:54
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Went and looked in last year's thread out of morbid curiosity andNeveth posted:[EDIT] AHAHAHAHA 2:33 AND ALL THE DOWNTOWN HOTELS ARE GONE HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME. here's hoping my 2:09 slot friend comes through for me. nashona posted:Actually I have a question. Do those on your friends list who have bought tickets affect how many rooms you can reserve? Or is it you have to have bought x number of tickets yourself? Pretty sure it only matters how many tickets are purchased on your account. So if you buy 1-2 you can book one room, if you buy 3-4 you can book two rooms, etc. Also, pretty sure you only get one random housing time, regardless of how many badges you buy. Seems kinda dumb since it incentivizes you to only buy 1 badge per account and make your buddy/partner/kid/comfort animal sign up their own account and buy a single ticket in hopes of getting a good housing time. They should probably just give you one random housing time per badge purchased.
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Feb 11, 2018 00:08
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I'm not so sure that 50 was a big incentive for people who wouldn't have otherwise gone. My hot take is that GenCon is getting bigger year over year and attendance will be higher this year than last. Did some new hotels open or get added to the housing block, though? That might make housing not quite as bad?
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Feb 11, 2018 06:32
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Len posted:Anyone have any tips of convincing the fiancee into getting a Gencon wedding? I mean I'll already be there, everyone I want to invite will already be there, and who doesn't want an obese man dressed as slave Leia in all the wedding pictures? Sorry, pretty sure Pence banned gay marriage in Indiana. kidding, congrats on your upcoming nuptials, regardless of your or your partner's genders  but please don't get married at GenCon
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Feb 14, 2018 14:56
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http://gencon.highprogrammer.com/gencon-2018.cgi/
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May 4, 2018 02:17
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Admiral Joeslop posted:I solved the problem by only signing up for 4 events that didn't overlap. I did look at a lot of RPGs and finally came to the conclusion that I didn't want to be stuck at a table for 4-6 hours with people that I may or may not like. Check out Games On Demand, I think they run in 2 or 4 hour blocks and there's usually some weird/fun smaller game systems to try.
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May 4, 2018 23:41
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Radio Free Walrus posted:Honestly i feel like they diluted it because TDC was way too concentrated. Those boxes were positively stuffed with expensive tokens. This doesn't make sense to me. Is the problem that they gave away so many good tokens at TDC that they drove the price down and pissed off players who spent a bunch of money on tokens that were suddenly worth a lot less? 'Cause making expensive tokens more scarce is going to make them more expensive and I don't really understand why they'd want to drive up prices in the secondary market, which they don't get a cut of.
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May 12, 2018 20:39
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OgreNoah posted:I mostly play Pathfinder and browse the dealer hall now, but I just went to Origins and my favorite standout thing is the Indies on Demand room, where they do Indie RPGs all the time. It's a ton of fun and you can get in on some really interesting 4 hour games. My friend and I got to play Dogs inthe Vineyard where you essentially play Mormon wandering sheriffs in a post- Civil War Utah with supernatural occurrences, it was so much fun. That's a thing at GenCon too and yeah, it's awesome.
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Jul 6, 2018 19:50
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Bottom Liner posted:Hey we're getting close! Time for me to start planning my weekend and set up some goon games. I'd really like to try Food Chain Magnate if space and scheduling permit. Sounds like it's in high demand though.
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Jul 19, 2018 19:31
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Are y'all sure that rathskeller has booze? I haven't been in a couple years but my (notoriously unreliable) memory says it was beer and wine only and I don't see any mention of cocktails or booze on their website.
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Jul 26, 2018 19:17
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djfooboo posted:Oh poo poo, my wife may be getting induced during GenCon I'm sure one of the nurses will FaceTime you for the important parts.
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Jul 29, 2018 19:50
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Kaddish posted:Have fun guys - first year in the last 5 I'll be missing. I'll miss your dumb faces. Nooooo. You're a cool dude.
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Aug 1, 2018 23:45
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8one6 posted:Does anyone have any suggestions for new RPGs to pick up this year? I picked up Kids On Bikes and it seems cool and good if you like that type of game.
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Aug 4, 2018 04:11
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I'm old and fat and my back went out on me Saturday afternoon so I had to skip a Night's Black Agents game that I was stoked to try (and was in agony for the flight home) but otherwise it was a great GenCon. I picked up Root and got to play it a couple times, including one game with some goons; really liked its cute theme laid on top of a pretty meaty area control game with asynchronous player mechanics. I agree though that the first two rounds sheet could've done a better job explaining WHY you were making those moves and where to go from turn 3 on. There were also a few things in the rules that weren't entirely clear, hopefully they'll release an updated rules PDF or someone on BGG will write some better player/teaching aids. Also picked up Arboretum which was great as an in-between game, and Detective, which I haven't tried yet but appears to be Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective set in modern day with some of the clues hidden behind web searches. Also demoed Istanbul: The Dice Game which wasn't quite as good as Istanbul but setup and played a lot quicker. A friend bought Senshi, from the Onitama makers, and it was a fun 5 minute in-between game. On the RPG front I bought copies of Kids on Bikes (which seems great, like Stranger Things: The RPG) and Scum and Villainy (Blades in the Dark INNNN SPAAAAACE). Also got in a couple games of Fiasco with friends and it's still my favorite RPG to play at conventions over drinks, can't wait for the 2nd Edition to drop. I also ended up in a ticketed event that my friends picked out for a game called Beasties & Bygones: The Raunchy Humor RPG. The pitch seemed to basically be "DungeonWorld with dick jokes". I didn't know what I was getting into until I got there and got real nervous that it was going to be a train wreck of awkward nerds being super cringey but it ended up ok, 2 of the random players were funny and great roleplayers. The third rando was a 50s year old dude who was real insistent on hitting people "in the vagina" at every opportunity but didn't take it to the weird child rape place that I assumed was inevitable. While not a game I care about ever playing again, I was happy to not have to walk out in disgust. I'd hoped to get in some games of heavy stuff I never get to play at home -- Food Chain Magnate or Star Wars: Rebellion or Terra Mystica -- but wasn't able to make it happen. Also never made it to the auction which is a shame, I always enjoy spending some time there. As always, too much to do and not enough time. I did spend a good chunk of time in the board game library and really enjoyed it, the lighting didn't bother me at all. Overall, I had a great time, back pain notwithstanding. Already looking forward to next year. As always, props to the GroupMe goons for being helpful and hilarious.
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Aug 6, 2018 14:40
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 08:16 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:GenConspicuous Consumption. drat, I saw a DropMix banner near the Upper Deck booth and went looking for a demo but couldn't find it setup anywhere. I've been wanting to try it out before I buy it on Amazon and if I'd seen it for sale there I probably would've impulse bought it. I kinda forgot all about The Witcher RPG until I saw your pic. Dealer Hall sensory overload is real.
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Aug 7, 2018 01:01
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