The Orccon gaming convention took over the Radisson hotel down by the airport this weekend. I love this con, and when I was a teenager, it was my first experience with packing eight friends into a hotel room, sleeping in shifts, playing hobby games with strangers, and really, truly getting my maximum geek on (and not sleeping more than two hours at a time.)
The convention went from Friday until Monday, and my initial plan was to go down on Friday by myself, take Nolan on Sunday, and go back on Monday by myself, if I still needed to recover any HP*. I hoped to find some ghosts of my youth lurking around the open gaming area or in the bargain bin at the flea market, take in a couple of panels, play some games, and do all the other the things that you do at a convention.
Ah, the best laid plans, as they say. Nolan ended up spending much of the weekend hanging out with friends, I ended up staying home and working, and we didn’t go to the con until Monday.
It was clearly winding down when we got there around noon yesterday. There weren’t many people at the show, and we didn’t get to watch a single panel because there weren’t any happening. We didn’t get to do much more than just wander around the flea market, but it was still a good time for both of us. I got to show Nolan a ton of classic games that I used to own — including Illuminati and Car Wars, still in their original keep cases. Awesome. He got to geek out about Magic with some dude who, unlike me, kept playing beyond Ice Age, and we both got to meet and talk with some fellow indie publishers who are also game designers, who hooked me up with two of their RPGS that look awesome.
As we waited for the rudest valet in the history of paying too much to park your car to bring ours around, I told Nolan, “There’s usually more going on at a con than just walking through the flea market, but we’re here right at the end of the show, and –”
“I totally get it, Wil,” he said. “Will you bring me to the next one, and we’ll go on a Saturday when there’s more to do?”
I felt like I’d rolled a critical success on the giant d20 I bought on the way out.***
“Absolutely, Nolan,” I said. “I would love that.”
*Non-gamers: characters in role playing games have hit points to measure how healthy they are. The fewer hit points your character has, the weaker and closer to death he is. During a gaming session, characters will go to taverns, inns, camps, and other places to recover their hit points, or “recover HP,” so gamers frequently use this term or a version of it to describe doing something that brings them joy or otherwise makes up for being forced to live in a mundane world. For example, Steve Jackson, a noted game publisher and important influence on my life, said that when he finished reading my book Dancing Barefoot: “(OK, I’m a geek, I’ll say it: I got some hit points back.) Because this is a real guy, with a real life, and he tells good stories.”
**I haven’t had time to read them, but steampunk fans probably want to take a look at them right now: Sons of Liberty and Full Light, Full Steam.
***It’s the size of a billiard ball, and I had to have it, you see, because I’m committed to seriously stress-testing the theory that says one can never have too many dice.
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That’s awesome, and the very definition of critical success as a dad. 😉 I think you just gained some XP.
YAY! and I gotta agree with VT, *ding*
Those Steampunk games are definitely getting forwarded to my steampunk-y friends.
I can’t wait till I have kids I can turn Geek. My sisters, they just don’t get it.
Speaking of con’s…when are you going to do a complete Phoenix Comicon recap? I loved the videos and the little you talked about there. But there was more to that weekend, right? In fact I heard you gave a very special autograph. lol.
I wish I’d never lent out my Illuminati cards and never got them back years ago. I still have one or two, but what the frak. When I have the discretionary income, the whole set will again be mine!!
(Along with Sunken Treasure)
I would be very interested to know the following factiods:
– in general… do you actually find time to attend many -Cons and such that you are not participating in?
– do you get recognized and bugged a lot at such functions that you are not participating (and thus “expected” to be recognized)?
I bet you HOPE every time that you can get your geek on in relative anonymity (sp?).. just wonder how often it actually happens..
It IS good, however, that you are able to axctually gain HP rather than having them sucked out of you; by needing to actually BE somebody instead of just relaxing and enjoying.
Does that make sense?
It was great talking with you, Wil, and I’m glad you and Nolan are jazzed about coming back in May. Maybe we’ll even to get play something together.
gcsdewfsj:
I suspect Wil follows the Michael Biehn school of facial hair for actors. Biehn played Kyle Reese in The Terminator, and he has a very recognisable face; in normal life he wears a big mustache. I would guess that wheras clean-shaven Wil is instantly recognisable as Ensign-Wesley-of-yesteryear, between the abnormally high concentration of beards at a con (due to the computer types) and the high level of interesting facial decoration, bearded Wil pretty much has a free pass to go where he wants without being mobbed.
Wil: do people ask you to sign body parts randomly upon seeing you in the hallways at cons, or is that exclusively when you’re at your author’s table and your entourage is there to help identify you?
I have a similar giant d20. Beige. With black numbers. And whenever someone at the gaming table says, “The only way I can fail is to roll a 1,” I make them roll the giant d20 in the middle of the table. It makes epic fails even more epic. EPIC epic fails.
Glad to see you at the local con! I have a deep and abiding love for our little Strategicon — it’s a homey, laid-back weekend of playing games and hanging out — and hope to see you next time around.
Hey – Any Pics of the D20’s who “did-or-did-not” take steroids to boost their rolls? Seriously – on Flickr please!
Bill Teeple
San Jose, CA
I love finding weird and wacky games at cons. I can’t make GenCon this year, but I’ve already found two weird and wacky games that look awesome. Thanks!
Oh man, I totally missed seeing you yesterday! You’ll have to give Werewolf a try too. It starts running around midnight every night and often goes until the wee hours of the morning, or just all night like it did Sunday night.
If Nolan liked just stopping by on Monday, he’ll love it when it’s in full swing!
Stephanie
Sorry I missed you, Wil.
I spent Sunday afternoon earning many geek points in the Dying Kingdoms LARP, which I heartily recommend. Regained some HP in the hotel bar with one of the best bacon cheeseburgers I’ve ever had, and was fortunate enough to get in on a private Houses of the Blooded session run by the author, John Wick, which went until the wee hours and quickly became my new favorite tabletop RPG.
And I had to drag myself out of the dealer room before bad things happened because of all the “fuck you money” I don’t have 🙂
Hope to see you next time!
~j
Sons of Liberty is a great read, Wil. I’m not certain I have the chops to play it (I’m a dyed-in-the-wool old school gamer and these “hippy dippy story games” are often hard for me to wrap my head around) but I had to buy and read it the moment I heard about it on Paul Tevis’ “Have Games, Will Travel” podcast last year or so. It was worth the price.
OMG Steve Jackson said that? How freaking awesome is that??
Sorry I missed you, Wil. I was there every day BUT Sunday! It was a really fun con, well-organized, and tons of gaming. Plus I got to play unreleased games with Michael Schacht, the designer of Coloretto, Zooloretto, Aquaretto, etc.
hey wil – i totally understand having as many dice as possible [one never knows when they might have to change dice in the middle of an encounter]- i am on my way to that – although my friend jeff, actually has a plastic sectioned off box for all his dice. the last dice i gave him as a gift had the characters from KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE on it,instead of numbers – it was pretty cool.
hey wil, that’s super cool that you went to orccon, if only for a short while. i ran a star trek rpg one-shot saturday night and sunday morning. it was effing sweet! i’ve been going for the last handful of years, and must say that the local l.a. cons are a lot of fun. hope you get a chance to stay a bit longer at the next one.
Thanks for the explanations… I was wondering about your sudden love for steak sauce… (fingers crossed Americans have HP sauce).