My Picks of Gen Con 2004

Photo by Tom Lommel

The con was great. We met lots of great people, and as I've said before, it means a lot to me when people take the time during their busy Gen Con to come up to me, shake my hand, and tell me they liked something I worked on. That's the highlight of my convention each year, personally. I could go on and on about the great attendance at our seminars and the successful sales we had, the ENnies we won (two gold and one silver -- cool!), our two debut products (Children of the Rune and Hyperconscious), and the terrific Arcana Unearthed tournament we held*. But it seems like that's the kind of thing everyone does, including us in past years. Anytime I start typing something that feels all-too-familiar, I stop myself and try to do something else. I mean, if it's familiar to me, it's familiar to you too.

So let's talk new stuff. For those people who don't go to Gen Con, the important things are the cool new products that show up there. So without further ado, I'd like to talk about the cool stuff that I saw at Gen Con. There might be plenty of stuff not mentioned here that's cool -- I'm sure I missed some keen stuff. For example, my friend Chris Perkins was just telling me about a company selling wet-erase, self-inking stamps that come in the shape of tables and other dungeon dressing to stamp onto your battlemat. That's so cool I can't believe it. But sadly I missed them entirely. The Gen Con dealer's area is huge -- almost ridiculously so. Four days isn't enough to see it all, at least when you've got games to run, seminars to give, people to meet, and so on.

Hmm. I guess I got lost in the "further ado," didn't I? So, without more further ado, here's my list of seven cool things:

7. World's Largest Dungeon by AEG

Okay, so I haven't read it yet. But neither have you, even if you got one at the show like I did. It's frickin' huge. It might be the coolest adventure since... I don't know, but cool. I don't know yet. Still, it's on my Gen Con picks list because of its audacity and gumption. It's a hundred-dollar book, but you get a lot of adventure for your money. I'd say quite literally more than you'll ever need. Will anyone play through the whole thing? Probably. But not many. You could, in fact, stage some kind of charity dungeon-a-thon and get pledges for how long the group can stay hacking away at the thing. It's going to take a couple of years, most likely. For $100, I wish it had more art and looked more attractive, but I suppose you could make a good argument that someone buying a product called "the World's Largest Dungeon" isn't going to be influenced by artwork.

6. Steel Sqwire

The Steel Sqwire guys make wire spell effect overlays. (SqWIRE: get it?) They show, on a one-inch grid, the area of a spell effect, or the radius of something like a torch. They're neat because since they just give you the outline of the edges of the effect, you can lay it on your battlemat around your miniatures (or counters or whatever) rather than having to move them to slip it underneath. These overlays are easy to move around when an effect's radius moves with a character. The company makes them for 10-foot, 20-foot, and 40-foot radius effects. Neat.

5. New Vampire and World of Darkness Books

I'll be honest with you. I haven't read these books either. But one glance at them blew me away. These are on my pick list based solely on their appearance. (That's not to say that they're not also great books -- I simply don't know yet. I just got home!) White Wolf totally outdid themselves on presentation here. Hoo-ha!

4. Official Gamer's Mug

The guys at Dwarven Forge gave these out with purchases or preorders. It's a gigantic cup with the words "Official Gamer's Mug" on it. It's insulated and pretty spiffy, as plastic mugs go. And did I mention it's freakin' huge? I didn't think much of it when I got it, to be honest. It was kind of a pain to lug around, in fact. When we were packing up to go home, it didn't even look like it would make it into the suitcase. But you know what? The thing started to grow on me. I made room for it in the luggage and got it home. The next night was game night and I held it proudly, filled with Diet Coke, to show everyone. I think it's because it says "official" gamer's mug. There's something just incredibly goofy about that that appeals to me.

3. All Kinds of Miniatures

If you've been reading my columns for the past few years, you know I gots nothing but love for the minis. This was a good Gen Con for me in that respect. Magnificent Egos, a brand-new minis company, is taking the exact approach that I would take if I started a new miniatures company: They've looked around to see what others are doing, and they are doing something else. They didn't launch their company with yet more orc and skeleton miniatures -- we have enough of them already. They produce nifty things like miniatures for spell effects like an interposing hand or a spiritual weapon, plus other stuff you should check out.

Iron Wind Metals also had a bunch of stuff that I picked up, both new figures (from their SpellCaster line) and classic Ral Partha minis. Plus the booth of Confrontation miniatures sucked up some of my cash, as did the neat new titans and wendigos from Crocodile Games.

2. Miniature Building Authority

I've mentioned these guys before. They make the coolest 25 mm scale fantasy/medieval buildings. Since I've got an all-urban campaign with Ptolus, I love this stuff.

The best part of Miniature Building Authority is that they are just churning out the new products. They had a wonderful docks layout set up, with castle walls and towers defending the town. They've got a cool new hobbit house with the interior all finished, as well as an amazing three-story mill with a wheel and grinding gears and everything. (If you've looked at Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, you know I like the idea of an encounter in a mill.)

1. The BattleBox by Fiery Dragon Productions

My number one favorite thing at Gen Con this year is the BattleBox, a collection of cool accessories for your game table all in a fancy tin case. This product has spell effect overlays (very nice-looking ones too), counters for offbeat stuff like spiritual weapons and conjured mounts and things like that, some nifty tools to help keep track of distance in a chase situation, and a whole pad of handy forms for tracking NPC stats in an abbreviated but useful fashion. The coolest things, though -- worth the 20-dollar price tag all by themselves -- are the reference cards that come with the game. These handy, surprisingly small cards each contain all the rules for one important type of action in the d20 System, like grapple, disarm, bull rush, and so on. It's all summarized and easy to use. If you're like me and can't remember each step for each process, you won't ever have to flip through the rulebook again. These rock. Oh, and there's a d20 in there too. The tin is crammed with stuff, and like I said, it's only 20 bucks. Everyone should have one of these.

Photo by Tom Lommel

*Okay, sorry. I've got to tell you about the cool Arcana Unearthed tournament. We had a two-round game, with the first round written by Mike Mearls and the second by me. We filled six tables for the first round, each with a single player advancing to the final round, which I ran.

While by all reports every table in the first round was filled with great players, I have to tell you that we had the best of the best in the second round, so it was an absolute blast. The low-Intelligence oathsworn who got his Intelligence further drained didn't become as dumb as a chipmunk, the faen magister didn't convince the party that their main NPC ally was really a villain, and the akashic didn't spend the whole adventure wandering around in a cellar, but all came very close.

The finalists who made it to my table in the second round were: Søren Thustrup, Andy Terrill, Dan Paddock, Bruce Taylor, Lou Agresta, and Adam Martin.

Thanks, guys. It was a blast! We'll be posting the first round of the tournament, The Severed Oath, in September as a free download.

 

 

 

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