GenCon - End of Day Three

The D&D Minis Community Draft is a much-anticipated event, one where players from all over North America (and sometimes Europe) gather to engage in the hobby they all enjoy. In addition, the tradition of providing one's own prizes for the Community Draft has led to some very cool prizes being offered for those who do well (including an amazing 3-D representation of a popular tournament map in this year's prize pool). Lastly, since it's not a DCI-sanctioned event, it's one of the few minis events that employees of Wizards of the Coast can participate in, and they choose to do so quite frequently -- this year I personally saw both Rob Heinsoo (the lead designer of D&D fourth edition as well as the head muckety-muck of D&D minis design and development) and Peter Lee (the newest member of D&D/DDM R&D) participating, and have seen other WotC employees (and not all design employees, sometimes marketing folks too) participating in past events. And, for the second Community Draft in a row, I came in dead last. I wasn't quite as disappointed this time as I was at XP, largely because I had more fun -- the guys around me were having a good time, and we were all yukking it up since we weren't playing under any pressure to grab one of the 'elite' prizes. It would have been even better if I hadn't been paired with a local (Matt McMillen) in the final round, not that I regretted playing him, but simply because it's sometimes frustrating to realize you travelled 1200 miles to sit across the table from someone you see at every major local tournement, too. After the Community Draft, we went back to the hotel and crashed. The next morning, we got up, packed, checked out, and drove home, and by 10pm I was safe in my own apartment again, once again standing on the precipice of real life. Except that now I have a Flash T-shirt I can wear underneath my shirt and tie...