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mythicfoxOkay, here's my attempt at putting together a solid con report. I just kind of took little notes on my handheld over the course of the con so I could keep everything straight later. There are some photos in here too, but I didn't think to bring my proper camera so these are taken on my crappy cell phone camera.
Day 1 (Thursday)
I got there about 2pm on Thursday and checked my luggage at the Hilton. The plan for the hotel room was that I track down one of my roommates at the Hyatt for my room key. Fortunately, Charlotte was pretty thorough in letting me know where she'd be and what she'd be wearing, so I got to her pretty quickly and grabbed the room key.
After that, having realized that the Hilton was a few blocks away from the convention center and the Hyatt was, like, right there, I decided to go ahead and make my first sweep through the exhibition hall and spend a lot of money on books. I hit the Alderac booth first since it was just inside the door, picking up a few things and commented on how I like the new starter deck boxes. I snapped this picture to get a shot of the banners, but while I didn't mean to catch it I want to also draw peoples' attention to the video screen in the bottom part (the screen is from the Wizkids booth):
I then went straight for the White Wolf booth. With the recent closing of the store here in town I was going to pick up a lot of stuff I've missed out on or would just miss out on otherwise. I got there, though, and just happened to run into![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mythdude, snakeskurt, and their friend Jim (I dunno if he has an LJ account). Mythdude showed off a copy of the book he helped write for Apophis Consortium and I hung out with the three of them for a bit.
After we parted ways I went back to the room to set my stuff down and potentially meet any of the roommates who would happen to be there. I get my luggage and set stuff down in the hallway while I knock on the door (as I generally do when going to a room I'm sharing with people, even if I have a key) and use the key... which doesn't work. I fiddle with it a bit. No luck.
So then I proceed to hang out outside the door, figuring that someone from the room would be by shortly. After a while, I went ahead and left a message on Charlotte's cell phone (as she was in a game at the time) letting her know the key wasn't working, and hung out in the hallway for a little longer. At one point someone came by and stopped at the door for a second or two but by the time I realized they were there, they'd taken off while being on the phone. Charlotte got back to me and said that someone might be in the room, as one of the other roommates (Gwen, who I'd later learn was the person who stopped by for a second or two) wasn't feeling well and would likely be resting.
So I knocked again but didn't get a response, but then on a random whim I tried the key again and this time it worked! Apparently the door lock was just really fickle. I entered the empty room and staked out a little spot for my luggage and things, and dropped off my stuff and headed back to the convention center. I didn't do too much else there, though-- I'd deliberately left my Thursday free for a party that some folks had discussed putting together for Ratling players[0], and also just in case my flight was delayed. I picked up all of the modules that had been released for XCrawl since the line began being published by Goodman Games and someone at the booth gave me one of those #1 foam fingers with the XCrawl logo on it. Sweet.
On the way out I caught the guy that spent the weekend doing juggling acts at the convention center[1], was entertained, and then I headed back to the room for a bit where I formally met Gwen for the first time, along with Tim and Clyde. So 4 out of the 5 roommates down. We hung out for a bit and I was more than pleased to learn I'd wound up with roommates I could genuinely get along with. Tim and Clyde had plans and Gwen wanted to rest up so I wound up going out alone to get something to eat, and gave Sean a call to tell him my first impressions of Changeling: the Lost. It was about this point that I realized I'd left my bag of chargers (including my cell charger) at home. Also, once I got back to the room, I realized I'd already started to develop blisters on my feet. I should have brought the padded socks.
Day 2 (Friday)
I wound up waking up a little earlier than intended as I prepared for a full day of L5R. I'd signed up for both of Friday's qualifiers for the Saturday tournament just to maximize my chances should things not go well for the first tourney. Also, I met my last roommate, Willow.
I had breakfast at an overpriced buffet at the hotel before leaving and wound up being seated next to a bunch of other L5R players there. That was cool.
In the first qualifier I went 1-3 before dropping. One of the matches was against a Shadowlands deck where I just got completely gold-screwed and apparently lost a couple of my Werewolf dice that I was using for my Forest Killer Caverns.[2] The one match I won was against a girl playing a Phoenix deck who didn't seem to really know what her deck was supposed to do-- I got the impression she just kind of threw together her good cards with no coherent theme (or she may have just gotten such a crummy draw I couldn't spot a theme). The game went to time and I was obviously winning, although I really hate to win that way because then it means I had to explain to the girl "Well, even though I haven't beaten you in the time limit, either one of us has to lose or we take a double loss. You've got one province left and you're barely halfway to an honor victory thanks to In Time of War. I've still got 3 of my Provinces and enough cards on the table and in my hand to take the last one with a bare minimum of resistance on your end. It's pretty obvious I'm winning."
Had I realized that because of the lunch break we were getting after that round it would have been my last match before having to drop out for the second qualifier anyways, I would have just let her have it. So I feel kind of crummy. But as a result of that lack of realization, I dropped at the beginning of the next round and to kill the time I just played against the guy who would have been my opponent but because they didn't do a very good job of announcing the second qualifier's start I was a little late to my first match.
I played all the way through in the second qualifier, going 3-3, although my wins were almost entirely of the "Well, I'm going to drop so I'm not here for another 3 hours anyways, so you can have it" variety. My first game, though, had me up against a Spider Clan honor runner deck that was able to dismantle me easily when I pulled all three of my High Courts[3] on turn one.
By the time things finished up, though, I'd been in the convention center for just short of 12 continuous hours. No, really. I wasn't that upset about the record, though. Maybe this is one of the reasons I don't win more often, but fact of the matter is I enjoy playing the game. I enjoy the deep layers of strategy and deck variety. This is one of the things I say a lot about the game, and I legitimately mean it: I enjoy losing L5R more than I ever did winning at Magic. Legend of the Five Rings, whether you win or lose, is more of a legitimate battle of wits than Magic: the Gathering has been in years. Period.
It's just a shame that in a battle of wits, I fight unarmed. Here are a few photos from the L5R part of the CCG hall...
First, the Tao of Fu Leng:
Now, some folks with banners and costumes. The guy in the Crab costume actually made that armor himself out of leather:
I went back to the room and read over some of the books I'd picked up over the course of the convention thus far before getting some sleep.
Day 3
My first stop, on my way to the Changeling: the Lost LARP, was the mall for breakfast at the food court and a fresh charger for my cell phone. And speaking of the mall, every time I went in there I stopped at the Cinnabon. You people have no fucking clue how much I miss the Cinnabon at the Morgantown Mall. No clue whatsoever.
I went to the Changeling LARP[4] and played a Summer Court Darkling Tunnelgrub that I named Banemoss (we got to choose our character names and kiths). It was a real blast, as it gave me a chance to get some use out of some goggles I'd purchased at the convention.
After that I swung by the the room to grab a few things and hit the CCG hall to get updates on the L5R tournament in addition to attending the Koku Auction and the Clan Councils. While I was waiting on that to start, I talked to a couple of the other players and folks that work for the company. I said 'Hi' to Nancy Sauer, akadaidoji_gisei, who's an old acquaintance from back in the days of Kyuden Ryu and current member of the Story Team. We were talking about Daigotsu Eiya being knocked out of the Emerald Champion candidacy over the course of the tournament, at which point I resurrected an old forum joke and said "Don't you mean Kakita Eiya?" At which point she dramatically cried out that she hated me forever. You had to be there, it was funny.
For the Clan Councils, the other Scorpion players and myself[5] snagged an empty room and had to answer five questions:
1. How should the Scorpion gain control over the Imperial Families? (the options were Assassination, Blackmail, Bribery, and Seduction)
2. Which clan should the Scorpion assist in the coming year?
3. Which clan should the Scorpion impede in the coming year?
4. Who should the Scorpion Clan put forth as a contender for the throne?
5. Who among the players should represent the Scorpion in the trivia contest the next day?
I wasn't going to be at the trivia contest, so I didn't pay that close attention to the 5th question, but for the first four we decided:
1. Seduction. The Scorpion don't have the resources for proper Bribery and possibly also for Assassination. Also, assassinations are pretty messy politically. Blackmail is also resource-intensive, but Seduction makes it likely that Blackmail will happen anyways. Besides, Seduction in its most common usage suggests that it might be possible to get some marriage/blood relative connections going on between the Imperial families and the Scorpion.
2. The Dragon Clan. There was hardly any debate on this one at all. The Dragon are the Scorpion's longest-standing allies and to screw with that now would just be stupid. Also, it makes us appear predictable in the eyes of the other clans, which is good.
3. The Spider Clan. This one wasn't as easy. The Crane and Phoenix were also discussed as options, as was the Mantis for about five seconds. But we deal with the Crane constantly, so this would just be gratuitous. The Phoenix were kind of written off as a minor threat in the grand scheme of things (a viewpoint I didn't entirely agree with, I'll admit), and the Mantis were mentioned as a means of dealing with one of the Spider's allies. But in the end we chose the Spider to impede because of the greater threat to the empire as a whole. And while the guy was writing down our decision on the little piece of paper, I actually kind of punctuated the whole thing by asking "Besides, who else in the empire is really equipped to deal with the Spider Clan?" and there was a consensus that nobody else would be ready to deal with them on their own terms.
4. Bayushi Norachai. This was a tough one, but while we had to choose somebody, our answer really ran more along the lines of "Somebody who's not Bayushi Kwanchai."[6] Paneki's got too much on his plate to try and take the throne, almost nobody else is qualified, and also the moment someone becomes Emperor they simply won't be as useful to the Scorpion as a whole. Which definitely rules out Sunetra, who's simply too cool to be stuck on the throne, unable to utilize her full potential. And since Bayushi Norachai's already the Protector of the Imperial City and the de facto Emerald Champion until Shosuro Jimen is sworn in, we figured this would be a good step up for him.
After that was the Koku Auction where I almost won a banner with the artwork from a character of my choice on it, but didn't get anything else. So I headed out and got a bite to eat at the Rock Bottom Brewery, where I had buffalo steak fajitas. As in, steak made from buffalo. Not some sort of weird spices thing like with chicken wings. It was very good.
Day 4 (Sunday)
I got up early to get my bags packed so I could check them with the front desk and headed out for an Anachronism Culture Shock[7] tournament. It took a while for the tourney to get started, because the game was on a decline and we were waiting for enough people to show up to play. At one point a guy came in and actually asked if he could just sign up, drop, and get a participation promo. We did play, though, and I pulled 3rd place (and a couple of those games were very close), picking the Istanbul promo out of the prize box[8]. Then we were able to scare up enough people for a couple of single-elimination 8-man tourneys, after which the TO gave me a bunch of the random promos from the tournament prizes box that he wasn't doing anything else with (after all, they needed to have more tournaments for some of these prizes, and most of the players who are winning the promos already have everything).
We talked about Triking after the tournament, though, and we addressed the very real concept that the company might not be around next year. Which is a real shame. They just aren't pulling in any money on the game and while the next set is all but finished the guy running the company refuses to release it while he's still scraping together funds to pay the artists for their work. But we all agreed that as long as there are still people wanting to play in tournaments, there are going to be people wanting to run them. But it did end things on kind of a somber note.
After that, I did one or two more passes through the exhibition hall to see if there was anything I'd missed, during which I spotted this fellow and got a shot of him...
And after that, I got everything together and went back to the hotel, where I retrieved my luggage, arranged everything between my suitcase and my duffel bag, and taxi'd it to the airport. I go to sit down at the gate to wait for my flight, and who happens to be sitting across from me, purely by chance?[9] Ethan Skemp and Aileen Miles. I didn't spend the whole time bugging them, but when an opportune moment presented itself I said 'hi,' and that I was loving Changeling so far, and asked them to sign the copies of the book that I had on me (one for myself, one for Sean). It was cool talking to them.
All in all, I had a great weekend, spending way too much money and making a number of new friends.
If anyone's interested, I'll compile a list of the books I picked up and post it later. This entry has taken too long as it is.
[0]-- Sadly, the Ratling party didn't happen. I think the movement organizing the Ratlings' sendoff lost a lot of steam (if not all of it) when we couldn't get together the funds for the custom t-shirts we were going to have printed in time for the con.
[1]-- Speaking of which, does anybody know where that guy was actually from? Depending on whether he was juggling or going around on stilts in a tartan costume, he was claiming to be from New Zealand or Scotland (respectively).
[2]-- Well, looks like I've got an excuse to get that set that sits around at the Barnes and Noble because nobody's going to buy it because someone stole one of the dice out of it.
[3]-- Even if I had the resources to purchase all three, High Courts is Singular so I can only have one in play at a time on my side of the board.
[4]-- I had a hell of a time finding the hotel, though... a better job could have been done clarifying that the 'Marriot Courtyard' was not in fact 'the courtyard at the Marriot' and was in actuality 'a seperate hotel called the Courtyard that is owned by the Marriot corporation.'
[5]-- For anyone who cares, I'd just like to point out that I'll use words like 'we' and 'us' when discussing the Scorpion. I am and always will be a fan of the Fox Clan and the other minor clans, which means I might have to stop and think about my allegiances in the game when the Fox are absorbed into the Mantis. But until then, I'm playing Scorpion and Dragon and will identify with one of those.
[6]-- Although to appease the Dark Sword of Bitter Lies fans, we did stop and have a brief vote to declare that Kwanchai is awesome before we moved on with the discussion.
[7]-- Culture Shock is a format where your warrior and all of your support cards come from the same culture/nation.
[8]-- I realized during the tournament that one of the cards I was using in my Suleiman deck was completely useless, as it prevented damage from certain types of attacks... but Suleiman doesn't take damage from attacks (he instead loses exactly 2 damage every time he takes a hit regardless of how much damage it would deal), so it was worthless to me.
[9]-- No, really. Purely by chance. I'm not trying to be cute; I didn't spot them until I sat down.
Day 1 (Thursday)
I got there about 2pm on Thursday and checked my luggage at the Hilton. The plan for the hotel room was that I track down one of my roommates at the Hyatt for my room key. Fortunately, Charlotte was pretty thorough in letting me know where she'd be and what she'd be wearing, so I got to her pretty quickly and grabbed the room key.
After that, having realized that the Hilton was a few blocks away from the convention center and the Hyatt was, like, right there, I decided to go ahead and make my first sweep through the exhibition hall and spend a lot of money on books. I hit the Alderac booth first since it was just inside the door, picking up a few things and commented on how I like the new starter deck boxes. I snapped this picture to get a shot of the banners, but while I didn't mean to catch it I want to also draw peoples' attention to the video screen in the bottom part (the screen is from the Wizkids booth):
I then went straight for the White Wolf booth. With the recent closing of the store here in town I was going to pick up a lot of stuff I've missed out on or would just miss out on otherwise. I got there, though, and just happened to run into
mythdude, snakeskurt, and their friend Jim (I dunno if he has an LJ account). Mythdude showed off a copy of the book he helped write for Apophis Consortium and I hung out with the three of them for a bit.After we parted ways I went back to the room to set my stuff down and potentially meet any of the roommates who would happen to be there. I get my luggage and set stuff down in the hallway while I knock on the door (as I generally do when going to a room I'm sharing with people, even if I have a key) and use the key... which doesn't work. I fiddle with it a bit. No luck.
So then I proceed to hang out outside the door, figuring that someone from the room would be by shortly. After a while, I went ahead and left a message on Charlotte's cell phone (as she was in a game at the time) letting her know the key wasn't working, and hung out in the hallway for a little longer. At one point someone came by and stopped at the door for a second or two but by the time I realized they were there, they'd taken off while being on the phone. Charlotte got back to me and said that someone might be in the room, as one of the other roommates (Gwen, who I'd later learn was the person who stopped by for a second or two) wasn't feeling well and would likely be resting.
So I knocked again but didn't get a response, but then on a random whim I tried the key again and this time it worked! Apparently the door lock was just really fickle. I entered the empty room and staked out a little spot for my luggage and things, and dropped off my stuff and headed back to the convention center. I didn't do too much else there, though-- I'd deliberately left my Thursday free for a party that some folks had discussed putting together for Ratling players[0], and also just in case my flight was delayed. I picked up all of the modules that had been released for XCrawl since the line began being published by Goodman Games and someone at the booth gave me one of those #1 foam fingers with the XCrawl logo on it. Sweet.
On the way out I caught the guy that spent the weekend doing juggling acts at the convention center[1], was entertained, and then I headed back to the room for a bit where I formally met Gwen for the first time, along with Tim and Clyde. So 4 out of the 5 roommates down. We hung out for a bit and I was more than pleased to learn I'd wound up with roommates I could genuinely get along with. Tim and Clyde had plans and Gwen wanted to rest up so I wound up going out alone to get something to eat, and gave Sean a call to tell him my first impressions of Changeling: the Lost. It was about this point that I realized I'd left my bag of chargers (including my cell charger) at home. Also, once I got back to the room, I realized I'd already started to develop blisters on my feet. I should have brought the padded socks.
Day 2 (Friday)
I wound up waking up a little earlier than intended as I prepared for a full day of L5R. I'd signed up for both of Friday's qualifiers for the Saturday tournament just to maximize my chances should things not go well for the first tourney. Also, I met my last roommate, Willow.
I had breakfast at an overpriced buffet at the hotel before leaving and wound up being seated next to a bunch of other L5R players there. That was cool.
In the first qualifier I went 1-3 before dropping. One of the matches was against a Shadowlands deck where I just got completely gold-screwed and apparently lost a couple of my Werewolf dice that I was using for my Forest Killer Caverns.[2] The one match I won was against a girl playing a Phoenix deck who didn't seem to really know what her deck was supposed to do-- I got the impression she just kind of threw together her good cards with no coherent theme (or she may have just gotten such a crummy draw I couldn't spot a theme). The game went to time and I was obviously winning, although I really hate to win that way because then it means I had to explain to the girl "Well, even though I haven't beaten you in the time limit, either one of us has to lose or we take a double loss. You've got one province left and you're barely halfway to an honor victory thanks to In Time of War. I've still got 3 of my Provinces and enough cards on the table and in my hand to take the last one with a bare minimum of resistance on your end. It's pretty obvious I'm winning."
Had I realized that because of the lunch break we were getting after that round it would have been my last match before having to drop out for the second qualifier anyways, I would have just let her have it. So I feel kind of crummy. But as a result of that lack of realization, I dropped at the beginning of the next round and to kill the time I just played against the guy who would have been my opponent but because they didn't do a very good job of announcing the second qualifier's start I was a little late to my first match.
I played all the way through in the second qualifier, going 3-3, although my wins were almost entirely of the "Well, I'm going to drop so I'm not here for another 3 hours anyways, so you can have it" variety. My first game, though, had me up against a Spider Clan honor runner deck that was able to dismantle me easily when I pulled all three of my High Courts[3] on turn one.
By the time things finished up, though, I'd been in the convention center for just short of 12 continuous hours. No, really. I wasn't that upset about the record, though. Maybe this is one of the reasons I don't win more often, but fact of the matter is I enjoy playing the game. I enjoy the deep layers of strategy and deck variety. This is one of the things I say a lot about the game, and I legitimately mean it: I enjoy losing L5R more than I ever did winning at Magic. Legend of the Five Rings, whether you win or lose, is more of a legitimate battle of wits than Magic: the Gathering has been in years. Period.
It's just a shame that in a battle of wits, I fight unarmed. Here are a few photos from the L5R part of the CCG hall...
First, the Tao of Fu Leng:
Now, some folks with banners and costumes. The guy in the Crab costume actually made that armor himself out of leather:
I went back to the room and read over some of the books I'd picked up over the course of the convention thus far before getting some sleep.
Day 3
My first stop, on my way to the Changeling: the Lost LARP, was the mall for breakfast at the food court and a fresh charger for my cell phone. And speaking of the mall, every time I went in there I stopped at the Cinnabon. You people have no fucking clue how much I miss the Cinnabon at the Morgantown Mall. No clue whatsoever.
I went to the Changeling LARP[4] and played a Summer Court Darkling Tunnelgrub that I named Banemoss (we got to choose our character names and kiths). It was a real blast, as it gave me a chance to get some use out of some goggles I'd purchased at the convention.
After that I swung by the the room to grab a few things and hit the CCG hall to get updates on the L5R tournament in addition to attending the Koku Auction and the Clan Councils. While I was waiting on that to start, I talked to a couple of the other players and folks that work for the company. I said 'Hi' to Nancy Sauer, aka
daidoji_gisei, who's an old acquaintance from back in the days of Kyuden Ryu and current member of the Story Team. We were talking about Daigotsu Eiya being knocked out of the Emerald Champion candidacy over the course of the tournament, at which point I resurrected an old forum joke and said "Don't you mean Kakita Eiya?" At which point she dramatically cried out that she hated me forever. You had to be there, it was funny.For the Clan Councils, the other Scorpion players and myself[5] snagged an empty room and had to answer five questions:
1. How should the Scorpion gain control over the Imperial Families? (the options were Assassination, Blackmail, Bribery, and Seduction)
2. Which clan should the Scorpion assist in the coming year?
3. Which clan should the Scorpion impede in the coming year?
4. Who should the Scorpion Clan put forth as a contender for the throne?
5. Who among the players should represent the Scorpion in the trivia contest the next day?
I wasn't going to be at the trivia contest, so I didn't pay that close attention to the 5th question, but for the first four we decided:
1. Seduction. The Scorpion don't have the resources for proper Bribery and possibly also for Assassination. Also, assassinations are pretty messy politically. Blackmail is also resource-intensive, but Seduction makes it likely that Blackmail will happen anyways. Besides, Seduction in its most common usage suggests that it might be possible to get some marriage/blood relative connections going on between the Imperial families and the Scorpion.
2. The Dragon Clan. There was hardly any debate on this one at all. The Dragon are the Scorpion's longest-standing allies and to screw with that now would just be stupid. Also, it makes us appear predictable in the eyes of the other clans, which is good.
3. The Spider Clan. This one wasn't as easy. The Crane and Phoenix were also discussed as options, as was the Mantis for about five seconds. But we deal with the Crane constantly, so this would just be gratuitous. The Phoenix were kind of written off as a minor threat in the grand scheme of things (a viewpoint I didn't entirely agree with, I'll admit), and the Mantis were mentioned as a means of dealing with one of the Spider's allies. But in the end we chose the Spider to impede because of the greater threat to the empire as a whole. And while the guy was writing down our decision on the little piece of paper, I actually kind of punctuated the whole thing by asking "Besides, who else in the empire is really equipped to deal with the Spider Clan?" and there was a consensus that nobody else would be ready to deal with them on their own terms.
4. Bayushi Norachai. This was a tough one, but while we had to choose somebody, our answer really ran more along the lines of "Somebody who's not Bayushi Kwanchai."[6] Paneki's got too much on his plate to try and take the throne, almost nobody else is qualified, and also the moment someone becomes Emperor they simply won't be as useful to the Scorpion as a whole. Which definitely rules out Sunetra, who's simply too cool to be stuck on the throne, unable to utilize her full potential. And since Bayushi Norachai's already the Protector of the Imperial City and the de facto Emerald Champion until Shosuro Jimen is sworn in, we figured this would be a good step up for him.
After that was the Koku Auction where I almost won a banner with the artwork from a character of my choice on it, but didn't get anything else. So I headed out and got a bite to eat at the Rock Bottom Brewery, where I had buffalo steak fajitas. As in, steak made from buffalo. Not some sort of weird spices thing like with chicken wings. It was very good.
Day 4 (Sunday)
I got up early to get my bags packed so I could check them with the front desk and headed out for an Anachronism Culture Shock[7] tournament. It took a while for the tourney to get started, because the game was on a decline and we were waiting for enough people to show up to play. At one point a guy came in and actually asked if he could just sign up, drop, and get a participation promo. We did play, though, and I pulled 3rd place (and a couple of those games were very close), picking the Istanbul promo out of the prize box[8]. Then we were able to scare up enough people for a couple of single-elimination 8-man tourneys, after which the TO gave me a bunch of the random promos from the tournament prizes box that he wasn't doing anything else with (after all, they needed to have more tournaments for some of these prizes, and most of the players who are winning the promos already have everything).
We talked about Triking after the tournament, though, and we addressed the very real concept that the company might not be around next year. Which is a real shame. They just aren't pulling in any money on the game and while the next set is all but finished the guy running the company refuses to release it while he's still scraping together funds to pay the artists for their work. But we all agreed that as long as there are still people wanting to play in tournaments, there are going to be people wanting to run them. But it did end things on kind of a somber note.
After that, I did one or two more passes through the exhibition hall to see if there was anything I'd missed, during which I spotted this fellow and got a shot of him...
And after that, I got everything together and went back to the hotel, where I retrieved my luggage, arranged everything between my suitcase and my duffel bag, and taxi'd it to the airport. I go to sit down at the gate to wait for my flight, and who happens to be sitting across from me, purely by chance?[9] Ethan Skemp and Aileen Miles. I didn't spend the whole time bugging them, but when an opportune moment presented itself I said 'hi,' and that I was loving Changeling so far, and asked them to sign the copies of the book that I had on me (one for myself, one for Sean). It was cool talking to them.
All in all, I had a great weekend, spending way too much money and making a number of new friends.
If anyone's interested, I'll compile a list of the books I picked up and post it later. This entry has taken too long as it is.
[0]-- Sadly, the Ratling party didn't happen. I think the movement organizing the Ratlings' sendoff lost a lot of steam (if not all of it) when we couldn't get together the funds for the custom t-shirts we were going to have printed in time for the con.
[1]-- Speaking of which, does anybody know where that guy was actually from? Depending on whether he was juggling or going around on stilts in a tartan costume, he was claiming to be from New Zealand or Scotland (respectively).
[2]-- Well, looks like I've got an excuse to get that set that sits around at the Barnes and Noble because nobody's going to buy it because someone stole one of the dice out of it.
[3]-- Even if I had the resources to purchase all three, High Courts is Singular so I can only have one in play at a time on my side of the board.
[4]-- I had a hell of a time finding the hotel, though... a better job could have been done clarifying that the 'Marriot Courtyard' was not in fact 'the courtyard at the Marriot' and was in actuality 'a seperate hotel called the Courtyard that is owned by the Marriot corporation.'
[5]-- For anyone who cares, I'd just like to point out that I'll use words like 'we' and 'us' when discussing the Scorpion. I am and always will be a fan of the Fox Clan and the other minor clans, which means I might have to stop and think about my allegiances in the game when the Fox are absorbed into the Mantis. But until then, I'm playing Scorpion and Dragon and will identify with one of those.
[6]-- Although to appease the Dark Sword of Bitter Lies fans, we did stop and have a brief vote to declare that Kwanchai is awesome before we moved on with the discussion.
[7]-- Culture Shock is a format where your warrior and all of your support cards come from the same culture/nation.
[8]-- I realized during the tournament that one of the cards I was using in my Suleiman deck was completely useless, as it prevented damage from certain types of attacks... but Suleiman doesn't take damage from attacks (he instead loses exactly 2 damage every time he takes a hit regardless of how much damage it would deal), so it was worthless to me.
[9]-- No, really. Purely by chance. I'm not trying to be cute; I didn't spot them until I sat down.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-21 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 04:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-21 07:44 pm (UTC)Peace.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 12:32 am (UTC)