The Gaming Den

Whew! Just got home from Providence, Rhode Island. Hascon, man, what a weekend. Bought some shit, saw some shit, took photos of some shit, got some shit autographed... whole lotta great shit.

Of course, right now I'm completely buggered, but tomorrow (hopefully) I'll get up some photos and recount my meeting with Sue "Arcee" Blu, my first and probably only 5th edition adventure, the many exciting hours we spent waiting in lines, and how a party of bridesmaids kept us up all night, but not in a fun way. Also, put up some pics of some exclusive Magic cards! Awesome, right?! Right.

Darth went with me, he might pop in to say a few things, too, who knows.

Did you get the Grimlock magic card?

I'm looking forward to evidence of your exploits!

I went to a local convention, Galactic Con, here in MD. It was small. There was tons to buy but I was low on cash. The cosplay was superb though.

I'm mad jealous. Couldn't put up the money to go, so please tell us how it went and I can live vicariously through you.

Right, haven't been able to get photos up yet, but here's the story of how I met Sue Blu. (Take 2, since the last time I tried to do it, the board ate my post. Grr.)

'Kay, so in order to get any autographs you had to obtain vouchers, which were only available an hour before the actual signings began. So me and D headed to the help desk, at around... 1pm? Sounds about right. We wait in that line for about seven years an hour in order to get our vouchers. After successfully acquiring said vouchers, we then got into ANOTHER line in the main Exhibition Hall*, which was about another hour. FUN! So we finally get to the point where me and DR are next in line. DR was ahead of me, so he got his 'graph first.

Okay, at this point I feel I should take some time to explain what we were getting signed.

I had the subscription cover variant of Issue #2 of Sins of the Wreckers, which prominently features a drawing of Arcee, because duh. But Darth... he had.... well, he had this:


Sue Blu, dead, in Friday the 13th: Part VII: The New Blood

A big ol' printout of that image, actually. He was the only person at the ENTIRE CONVENTION who had a non-Arcee related piece of paraphernalia for Ms. Blu to sign. It was... glorious. But even better was her reaction. When he got up there, she took the picture and turned to one of the staff and said, "Hey, remember when I was in this? I was dead then!" (or words to that effect.) She was a great sport, and the other people in the line were seething with jealousy that they didn't have something as great as that.

Right, anywhat, it's mine turn next... except I get a tap on the shoulder from a staff person, who tells asks me if I could hang back a bit because a dude who has just cut in line wants to go next... because he had a VIP pass. What kind of a jerk pays more money to get in line first?!**

Whatever, not really that big a deal. So NOW it's my turn, and I should mention, as an aside, that whenever I meet anyone with even a modicum of fame I get nervous. I don't really know why, I just do. When I met David Willis at BotCon '13, I was so nervous that I sweated through my shirt and probably gave Willis the creeps because I acted like a weirdo due to my suffering a low-grade anxiety attack. I'm... not really sure what that has to do with anything, actually.

Anywhy, I when I get up there and hand my admittedly not-as-cool-as-a-dead-person comic to get signed, Ms. Blu looks up at me and says, get this, that she's seen me before.

Now, I'm quite confused, because I'm fairly certain that I've never met Sue in person before, and I'm also fairly certain I'd remember a thing like meeting a living legend beforehand.† But what was I gonna do? Tell her that she's wrong? You don't tell a legend that they're wrong! If Steve Wozniak came up to you and told you that you wore a thimble-sized bra because he wore a parachute-sized one, you wouldn't correct him on that because YOU JUST DON'T.

... I think I let that get away from me a bit. Right, anyway, I didn't want to correct her, and also we only had like, what, thirty seconds to get our autograph before we were shoved offstage to let the next person get his? So I just mumbled, "oh, right" like a moron and got shuffled off stage. I'll never know if she really had met me before, or if she confused me with someone else, but I will always treasure that moment. ALWAYS.

So, after Darth got his Amanda Shepard signed and I got my precious moment, we headed off to... to... Jesus, I can't remember. I think we checked out the... thing? Darth, help me out here. Just what the hell DID we do afterwards? God, my memory SUCKS.

At any rate, it was fun. I had fun.






*Which, by the way, was freakin' MASSIVE. Like, they had every conceivable Hasbro brand and property in there... except for GI Joe, which got like five display cases shunted out in the hallway, out of the way and forgotten. Which, really, is kinda fitting, if a bit sad.
**Says the asshole who always gets those zip-pass things when he goes to Six Flags, and spent $600 on a VIP pass for BotCon 2013.
†Well, she is in MY mind, at least. Shut up.

Shrapnel wrote:But Darth... he had.... well, he had this:


Sue Blu, dead, in Friday the 13th: Part VII: The New Blood

A big ol' printout of that image, actually.

Technically I just asked you to print an image of her character from that movie (as my printer is busted), but I think that we both knew that was the image you'd choose. I was actually really nervous, because it's pretty goddamn creepy to ask someone to sign a picture of (their character's) dead body but it ended up being worth it. For anyone curious, Susan Blu's response to me was, after looking the picture over carefully:

Susan Blu wrote:This is when I was in a horror movie. See? I was dead!

She then asked me where I wanted it signed, and I told her wherever she thought was best, so she chose the lower right corner and signed it in silver sharpie. She told me that she wasn't sure if she should've done silver or black on the picture but we agreed that silver looked better. As Shrapnel said, it was a pretty in-out thing, so I never got to ask her what Jason Voorhees had against voice actors (seeing as how he killed Saffron Henderson and Michael Benyaer in the next movie.)

So, after Darth got his Amanda Shepard signed and I got my precious moment, we headed off to... to... Jesus, I can't remember. I think we checked out the... thing? Darth, help me out here. Just what the hell DID we do afterwards? God, my memory SUCKS.

That day we basically just scouted out the convention center and decided to head back to the hotel afterwards, which took ~20 minutes longer than expected because the shuttle missed us the first time around. There were a lot of delays like that, so we arrived mid-Saturday afternoon instead of Saturday morning (we knew we'd miss Friday.) The highlights of Sunday were a 5e game being run by the con (which might be more suited to be posted in In The Trenches) and miss getting Peter Cullen's and Frank Welker's autographs.

Riiiiight. Right. Yeah, we looked at the display cases in the exhibition hall, (which were awesome, by the way, and I believe I got pics of 'em, too,) then went to the hotel. The other thing we did that day wait another hour or so in yet another line to buy all the convention exclusive goodies.

PICS!


Some idiot, pointing at Optimus Prime's almighty crotch.


Stanley Tucci was also in attendance at the convention. He... really looks different in person, aye?


ROM SPACEKNIGHT! The Lord of the Solstar Order was definitely the coolest costume there.

There are more, but Darth needs to send the rest of 'em to me, first.

Great shots!

Did you notice how many D&D 5e games there were as compared to others at the con? It seems like another way of seeing just how popular it might be. I'm curious.

Well all of the games at the 'con used 5th edition, so to there wasn't much to compare it to.

There were about three or four rooms dedicated to sessions, with about five tables in each room? Most of them were specifically dedicated to one-hour "introduction" campaigns, and there were lots of groups - mostly kids and their families, and most of them seemed to be new to playing D&D. I know at our table, me and Darth were the only two people out of six players who seemed to have any familiarity with the game. There was also a $200, 12-hour long campaign geared toward more veteran players that were held in private rooms. Since we didn't opt for those, because we actually value our time, I can't attest to what those were like. But the one-hour sessions seemed pretty popular, from what I could see, and it was even fun for me, because for once I didn't get a headache playing the game. But! Since I'm mostly an idiot when comes to D&D, I'm not sure how much weight my endorsement of 5th would carry with people who understand these things better than I.

I'll probably posttobout the session itself at some later date. For now, though, I'm peacin' out.

Shrapnel wrote:But the one-hour sessions seemed pretty popular, from what I could see, and it was even fun for me, because for once I didn't get a headache playing the game. But! Since I'm mostly an idiot when comes to D&D, I'm not sure how much weight my endorsement of 5th would carry with people who understand these things better than I.

The game at the con was made for newbies so I'm not surprised you had fun. I did too, although I wouldn't say that 5e was a good game system because of it. A good MC and a friend or two can make a fun game out of even a really shitty system.

Shrapnel wrote:I'll probably posttobout the session itself at some later date. For now, though, I'm peacin' out.

I could do that later. I'll make a topic in In The Trenches about it. Feel free to add your own take on the game.