[OT] GenCon (was Re: GenCon Plans Anyone?)

On Thu, 08 Aug 2002 03:32:22 -0500, Scott Siebold <gamers@ameritech.net>
wrote:

>I started roleplaying with something called Dungeons and Dragons when I

>was in service (a
>friend purchased issue 1 of the Dragon and I started with issue 3). I 
>even programmed
>character generation for traveler on to a 4K (that's 4 thousand 
>characters) computer from
>Radio Shack.

It was a 16K Commodore Pet for me. Started playing D&D in 1977, two
years
after playing my first wargame (_Panzer Leader_, got it for my 13th
birthday).

> The reason I stopped was that the people that I regularly 
>played with were
>into miniatures and those people I role played with at conventions just

>seemed to have
>no perspective (someone had a character that was carrying around 10,000

>gold pieces
>who didn't have the slightest idea of it's weight while someone else
had 
>Thors Hammer
>that he'd gotten after "killing" Thor).

You should have played with the _Call of Cthulhu_ crowd. *L* CoC didn't
come
around until something like 1981 or 1982, but it's been popular ever
since. In
fact, it is quite possibly _best_ played at conventions, as it really
suits
one-off adventures.

> I signed up to put on events (I think it was two games 
>that year) and then
>had to pay FULL registration. About two months after the convention I 
>finally got the
>check back for the registration.

That system has changed. It hasn't been in place for a number of years
now.

>I was at the formation meeting for HMGS in the midwest. There were 
>problems with Origins but
>since Origins wondered around the country it didn't have that much 
>impact in the midwest. GenCon
>was here (midwest) and it what caused the most complaints.

Ah, okay. One of the HMGS-East executives said, on Usenet, that the
formation
of HMGS was due to Origins refusing to give a handful of people free
entrance
to the con to put on games. That's a paraphrase, but that's what was
said.
Thank you for the clarification!

>Strangely enough the midwest chapter never had the total anti SciFi
that 
>the east cost had. It was
>the east coast that pushed for a total ban on SciFi and Fantasy games. 
>The only SciFi game allowed
>at Historicon was a youth game that was restricted to those under
fifteen.

I haven't been to Historicon, just Fall In. I remember seeing the PEL
from a
couple of years ago and reading that they put a cap at 10%
non-historical.
There are a lot of guys in HMGS-East's executive who don't care for
playing
anything other than historicals. 

>As a side point a Leonardo game, that I played in, was fully allowed at

>Historicon where everything
>that Leonardo had dreamed up was allowed.  My cog (as in sailing ship) 
>took on a canon firing
>submersible and was attacked by a manpowered helicopter. I guess that 
>this "historical" game had
>it's cloaking device on.

*L* Well, that _is_ history... of a sort. *L* Some folks just don't get
the
difference.

>> They didn't want the convention overrun by
>>Warhammer games. There is a certain bit of snobbery in historical
gamers.
>>
>I think that DandD and Traveler had more of an impact then Warhammer. 
>When HMGS was formed
>Warhammer didn't have that much popularity. I suspect it was more like 
>"if they don't want us we don't
>want them" attitude.

Oh, that definitely would be true. I meant that the reason for the
continued
ban is Warhammer. Some of them are getting somewhat peeved at Warhammer
Ancient Battles and Warhammer ECW games, but those _are_ historical
games and
can't actually be banned.

>I didn't see any ban on "Nuclear Destruction" game (yes it is a card 
>game but I saw it at Historicon).

That would be either "Nuclear War" or "Nuclear Escalation", I bet. I
recently
sold NE on eBay. It was the sequel to NW, though also a stand alone
game.
Quite popular for a while. It's interesting to see how people categorize
certain games.

>I  will go to Historicon (about 750 miles for four days) because I can 
>try new miniatures periods and rules.
>I will go to GenCon (about 90 miles for 1 day) to make purchases and to

>see what's new. I will not go
>GenCon in Indianapolis (about 200 miles) for only 1 day.

That makes sense. Since I like playing CoC, and Stargrunt, and FT I will
probably end up going to GenCon or Origins. I will also try to hit one
or two
historical miniatures conventions that are only 5 hours away rather than
12.

>A message was sent out by the president of HMGS midwest to get members 
>to put on games at GenCon.
>I talked to him at Historicon and got the impression that not too many 
>people were taking him up.
>I just do not like having to submit my game to "be reviewed" before I	
>pay to attend the convention and
>if everything goes OK I'll be paid back in a couple of months.

That isn't how it works, unless HMGS is paying out of pocket for you.
The rule
at GenCon since at least 1996 (and probably a good deal earlier than
that) was
that you registered as a judge and submitted your games. You got a
judge's
badge. If you ran 16 hours worth of events, you got your registration
fee
back. You got the fee right there at the convention. There was a sheet
you got
as a judge that you had signed by the guys at Miniatures HQ (I also
signed the
sheets for the GZG judges who asked me to; apparently there was no way
of
actually checking if it was a valid signature or not). They paid you
right
there, before you left the convention.

The problem with asking for historical games at GenCon was that he asked
well
after the deadline for getting the events into the pre-registration
book. A
lot of folks won't bother running games if it isn't in the pre-reg book,
because it's hard to fill up the slots. I can't remember if I saw the
first
posting before or after the date that GenCon was open for
pre-registering. If
you don't pre-reg right away, due to Milwaukee's housing bureau system,
you
may not get a convenient hotel. I don't know, though, if the guy doing
the
organizing was going through GenCon's judge co-ordinator. If you did, as
I did
the last two times I ran the GZG events, you got preferential treatment
in
getting a room. No special rate other than the con rate, but you did get
a
better hotel.

Historical miniatures at GenCon has been on a steady decline at least
since
1995 (that year the number of historical games was actually quite good
for a
generic convention). I think a number of people just threw up their
hands and
made other plans. A posting in Usenet and some Yahoo groups isn't going
to
make many people change their minds. It's too bad, because one of the
reasons
I stopped going to GenCon was a dearth of historical games.

>>
>

Allan Goodall		       agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com

"At long last, the earthy soil of the typical, 
unimaginable mortician was revealed!" 
 - from the Random H.P. Lovecraft Story Generator:
http://www.darkicon.com/Library/randsent.htm