GenCon - Day Three

It's amazing how time can get away from you around here. Day Two continued with the World of Warcraft miniatures premiere -- one of many being run this weekend. What I was unaware of when I accepted the ticket from my friend was that, in order to get the ticket in the first place and even have a chance to go to a premiere tournament, you had to play in a demo, which I hadn't. Thus, while everybody else got their minis and seemed to have some idea what was going on, I was utterly clueless, and it showed in my play and in my warband selection as I ended up 0-3 before dropping. I ended up giving the minis back to Bill, as he'd provided the entry for the tournament. Also, one of the problems in letting time get away from you is that sometimes you discover you can't reconstruct what you did. For instance, I know the WoW minis event was over before 6pm, at which time I went to grab dinner with Chip, one of my travelling companions. Later, a bit before midnight, a number of us went to do True Dungeon. (Capsule review: it was still very cool, even if our party this year felt less successful than the party the previous year -- had any of the monsters managed to hit us, and I mean hit us at all, as the highest roll I remember on a monster die was a '5' and the only damage I recall was from a no-roll-required magic missile.) After stumbling back to the hotel by 2:30, I struggled back to consciousness at about 7:30 to fly off to the Day Three events. First up: 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons. And yes, I've discovered that 4th edition is really Dungeons & Dragons. We're playing the initial adventure in the new Living Forgotten Realms RPGA campaign, and we're entering the underground ruins of Zhentil Keep (the 'new' Zhentil Keep was apparently built over the ruins of the old). We defeat a few shadow-creatures and rummage through a pile of treasure where the party discovers a magical staff of fire with an interesting fire-related power. Well, it just so happens that my wizard character has taken staff implement mastery and has some fire spells, so I grab the staff, and I then spend the next 30 minutes bouncing in my chair over all the cool things I can do with this staff. That's Dungeons & Dragons, no matter how else you want to slice it. Another trip through the dealer room (only costing me $50 this time, since I skipped the really pricey areas), and then off to dinner. Later tonight is the DDM Community Draft, a traditional event organized by players, for players. More on that later.