I have been home now for two days, and have just started catching up.  GenCon 2008 was another whirlwind.  I will not go into full details here, but rather will save it for a series of upcoming posts.  Needless to say it was a very busy time, with very little sleep, and a lot of gaming.  Here are the highlights…

I played four games during the Con:

• Traveler– I played a game of the new Travler from Mongoose Games.  The session was well run, and run by a friend of one of my fellow Gnomes.  The table was full of older gamers, who remembered the original little books. Two of the guys who played, brought their teenage sons; second generation gamers.  It was a fun session, but I found the Traveler rules to be a bit too light.  Can’t quite put my finger on it, but after running Iron Heroes for the past 3 years, I found the rules to be a bit too streamlined.  I am glad I played the session, but I passed on picking up the game.
• Aces ‘N’ Eights– I hung out with Spenser for this session.  The first hour was spent making characters, and the remaining three hours was spent in a 8 on 8 gun fight. I found the Aces ‘N’ Eights rules a bit too table driven, as there were tables for damn near everything, from birth order, handiness, etc.  The gun combat rules were quite wild.  The use of the shot clock and the overlays was a great system for running a Western gun fight.  All in all, I felt that this system was just too table driven.  You could tell that the guys who did Hackmaster made this game.  There was a table for everything, and I found it to be almost too crunchy.
• Iron Heroes– I was lucky enough to get into a game with Iron Heroes’ current lead author, Adam Windsor.  Adam’s session was great.   He used the IH rules in a more Central American/Mayan adventure, that was based on totems.  The story was simple and direct.  It was very well run, and one of the hardest combats that I have ever been in.  The final 2 hours was a rolling combat, and one of the most exciting combats I have been in.  When the combat was over, there was not one of the 5 of us who had more than 5 hit points.  This was by far my favorite session of the con.
• D&D 4e– This was not a Con event, but rather a private game, with my fellow GreenShirts.  The session was run by Spenser, but played by a number of my friends who don’t play D&D very often.  The game was a lot of fun, and well run by Spenser.  It has only further raised my excitement level, for the kickoff of our D&D campaign.

I also ran a private Iron Heroes game on Sunday morning for some of my fellow GreenShirts.  This session tied directly into the closing of my campaign.  The session went very well, and as a lot of fun to run.  I can’t say too much about this session, as the major reveal for this game, came in the form of a private message for Kelven, and is key to the end of the campaign.

The GM-Fu session went off great.  We had a full house, and everyone rolled up their sleeves and did some work.  8am on a Saturday is a tough time to hold a workshop, but everyone was attentive and worked hard.  We had a number of giveaways for the participants; gifts from Tabletop Adventures, Goodman Games, Piazo, Kobold Quartlery, and John Four.  Thanks again to all those guys for being so generious.

GenCon was also a time for me to meet up with fellow bloggers.  While my schedule was pretty crazy, I did meet up with a few fellow bloggers, including:

• Chatty DM (Fellow GM-Fu master)
• Walt Ciechanowski (Gnome Stew)
• Telas (Gnome Stew)
• Dave The Game & Bartoneus (Critical Hits)
• Wolfgang Baur

I did not get to spend nearly enough time with most of these guys, but it was great to see them in person.

I also got my annual game shopping done.  I did not go too crazy, but I did pick up a few gems:

• Spycraft 2.0 (the campaign I am going to run after Iron Heroes concludes in December)
• Dogs In The Vineyard (I think I might be the only RPG blogger who does not own this game)
• Breaking The Ice (This is for my Wife and I to play)
• A dice tray from Dwarven Sweatshop (a great tray and a great group of guys)
• Some new dice from Crystal Caste for Spycraft
• Star Wars SAGA edition rules (for the game that Sargon is running)
• Some D&D mini’s for the end of my Iron Heroes game.
• A Star Wars mini for the SW game that Sargon is running.
• A Reaper mini that Sargon is going to paint for my 4e Dragonborn Warlord.

All in all, it was a busy and pretty crazy Con, but then again, all of them are.  I will be posting up some stories about the Con, and some lessons learned from the Con.

With the Con done, I will be increasing my posts here and on Gnome Stew.  I had to shut down my writing for the past few months to get the GM-Fu workbook as well as my session notes for Iron Heroes done.   But with the GM-Fu session done, and my Iron Heroes game done running, I will have much more time to get blogging again. So keep an eye out for more posts.