Gen Con Highlights, Day Two

1. Played through a Godlike module headed up by Shane Ivey, who is the publisher of the book, and the co-writer of that particular adventure. Godlike is a game set toward the end of World War II, and is essentially a history narrative game, with the added interest of both The Nazis and the Allies having "talents," or super powered people at their disposal. This creates a whole slew of interesting conflict resolution options.

For example, in the campaign we've just begun with Alex, the character I came up with not only is proficient with hand to hand combat, but she has the ability to rust metal. All the metal in her vicinity slowly rusts, and if she concentrates, she's able to create an accelerated blast of effect in a wide diameter that causes metal to turn to dust in seconds. This is a very handy skill, however, some thought has to go into using it, since it will affect her own party as well, leaving them without weapons etc.

The scenario with Shane was load of fun, and the characters actually not only all survived, but we accomplished our objective.

2. Indie publishing and writing seminars. Excellent---we spent all morning listening to interesting people who've written interesting things. I believe some of the separate seminars will be podcast online. If so, I'll like it for those of you who are interested.

3. Indie Game Awards. It's really neat to become familiar with the faces of people who've written things I've been thrilled about. The awards were short, sweet, and informal. Reign won Best Game of the year, and The Blossoms are Falling took home several nods as well. The Blossoms... is a supplementary setting for Burning Wheel (one of the most beautifully packaged books, in my opinion). It's set in Heian era Japan (794-1189).

4. Lots of chatting with the Indie folks over at the Small Press area. Some really fantastic and very interesting people.

5. A tiny two year old storm trooper pushing his own stroller, while his mom walked along beside. He was alternately dragging and gnawing on his blaster. My head almost exploded from the cuteness. Pictures to come.