Friday, August 15, 2008

GenCon - Day Two

Day Two begins with breakfast, as all good days should. Unfortunately, unless you bring breakfast with you, it's not always easy to find breakfast at a convention. I had been stopping at Crawford's Bakery, just down the block from the Methodist Tower Hotel where we're staying, and picking up doughnuts and juice for breakfast, which makes a nice start. Unfortunately, with the early end last night, we're trying to get an early start today, so we're off for the convention hall before Crawford's opens. Karma continues to pull in my favor, however, and I stumble across a Starbucks selling ham-egg-and-cheese croissant sandwiches that are surprisingly good for sitting under a heat lamp. I get one of the last three on the table and head back to eat. Morning is Delve, Delve, Delve -- the D&D Delve is a quick, combat-oriented version of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game where you try to complete three encounters in 45 minutes or less. It's not as easy as it sounds, because the new 4th edition rules make each enemy monster tougher to compensate for the fact that player characters are somewhat more resilient and have more options in their attacks than earlier editions of the game. Also, playing the Delve earns you prize tokens that you can then trade in for prizes. The big prize, for fifty tokens, is a T-shirt based on the 'gnome and tiefling' 4th edition preview video, but I'll happily settle for a 15-point RPGA compaign card that gives my character a bonus ability, since I'll be playing in an RPGA event tomorrow morning. After Delving, I settled back into the minis area and discovered that the woman I'd taught the game to yesterday was back and playing League, so whatever assholery I'd perpetrated on her the day before hadn't taken. She even let me take a picture of her corset! Then I discovered that I had a raffle ticket for the World of Warcraft Miniatures Premiere Sealed event, so I hustled off to a completely different part of the convention hall to register. The event officially starts in about two minutes, but I've learned from my experience in this neck of the woods that such things never actually launch when they say they will. Nonetheless, I'm going to wrap up this update quickly to get back in the game.

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