London/Essen 2013 - Sidekick Journal

General GTG Events
1

Dear Journal, today is going to be a VERY exciting day!

 

Well, hopefully. Just got word that high winds are causing 60 minute delays in Newark, where I'm supposed to change planes on my way to London. Hopefully I'll still make it across the pond.

 

I'm packed and ready to go. No real idea what the game day in London will be like. Excited to meet forum-goers. Hopefully they will forgive me if I am asleep/cranky/bizarre after dealing with the overnight flight. Perhaps my new http://www.travelrest.net/ Travel Rest pillow will help.

 

London is going to be fun! I mean, how do you not have fun in London? Ok, ok, ok, assuming nothing tragic happens and you have a bit of money, how do you not have fun in London? It will be interesting to see how large of a crowd shows up on Sunday. I have little idea how much they have or have not advertised it.

 

As for Essen? How do you prepare?! I've been to GenCon many times, but am told that Essen is three times the size. There were something like 20+ volunteers at GenCon. I don't think we're going to have anywhere near that many at Essen. Could be a mad house. What I do know is that there are many fine German meats and beers in my future.

 

 

2

My lord what a long day! But wonderful. Many thanks again to Mezike for getting me from the airport and entertaining me for quite a while. Amongst other things we had a lovely game of Sentinels at a lovely pub. Put the smackdown on advanced Plague Rat.

 

We had a great dinner and then headed to the Harp for a great meetup. There were drinks. And drinking games. And I'm bloody tired. More later.

3

Glad everyone made the trip without incident. :grin: Hope you all enjoy yourselves!

4

Paul was last man standing, I left him still in the pub about 11.30, he said he was fine getting back... alone, and was going to hang around in the Harp a bit longer.

Much fun was had by the English contingent.

5

Not wanting to try and make this into my thread, I will merely say that there was a lot of Sentinels playing today and at least one new person was introduced to the game, who promptly bought it.

 

It was great to meet with the guys, and other fellow forumites, fun times were had and I wish I could have stuck around for the meal and pub tonight, like yesterday.

6

Yeah, it was good fun today, and cool to meet all the people I hadn't already met (so, everyone who was there except PWatson and Matchstickman, whom of course I have met before on several occasions ;)). And it was cool to see the art for the various Vengeance decks at last :). And the shop itself was cool because omg they had SO MANY GAMES AND STUFF all over every shelf - board games, card games, RPG rulebooks, omg I have never seen such a cool shop...why are places like taht so bloody rare, lol. We plan to go back there again some day as my partner wants to buy some stuff, I think ;).

Generally a good day overall. The trip back to Victoria on the bus was pretty bleh because we had to change buses partway along the route (our bus was suppoesd to go to Victoria but they cut its journey short and we all had to get out somewhere near Marble Arch or somewhere, because of traffic or something), and it took ages but we got there in the end. Also the fact that when we went a little way down the road to a little café thingy and had lunch, it decided to totally and utterly piss it down with rain when we were done, so after hiding under a rather leaky awning/canopy thingy outside the closed shop next door for a few minutes, we then legged it the thirty seconds or so down the road back to the shop and got rather wet (as various people can attest to when I came through the door looking slightly drippy ;)). Still, the shop was nice and warm so we dried off pretty quickly :).

Looking forward to more of these meet-up thingys in future, hopefully! Only next time, hopefully they won't close the one and only Tube line that we need to get there ;).

7

Very happy to have others post here. The only reason I created a new thread instead of posting in the UK game day was 'cuz I'm going to write about Essen, too.

 

First, a brief story to illustrate the wonderful selection of drinks in London. At the pub last night I asked at the bar what Cider they would recommend. I don't know how many different ciders they actually had, but there were enough different questions about the different ciders that I might like that I eventually just asked for something middle of the road.

 

Leisure Games was a smashing success. If anyone wants one of the more recent promo cards, they've got ome. We had five games going simultaneously and it was great to meet forumites and others. Note that GtG did not bring any demo games (due to packing considerations), but enough people brought and graciously allowed us to use their copies of the game that this was no problem. This included a full color version of Vengeance printed from the almost final proofs. I know I saw Matchstickman, Ameena, Silverleaf, and PWatson. If I'm forgetting anyone, please let me know. Yes, I took at least a couple pictures. Not sure when I'll get them posted somewhere. Anna had five different crocheted figures, which we lined up for a group shot. So cute!

 

Food in London has been great. Breakfast was particularly good. We went to a no-frills kind of place just down the street from Leisure Games and were treated to hearty spreads of breakfast meats and other fixings. I tried black pudding (blood sausage) and liked it pretty well. For dinner we went to a Persian restaurant. The service might have been slow, but the food was great. I particularly liked the warm, mint tea. 

 

At dinner and on the bus ride away, we were with Silverleaf and her beau and spent quite a long time just peppering Christopher with questions. He would often, of course, give uninformative answers, but there were plenty of little bits that he dropped. It's really a pitty that my memory is so poor. And I don't say that to tease you. If I could remember what he'd shared, I'd be happy to do so. One thing that did stick with me is that, though Munnin and Huginn's names may come from Norse mythology, there are no Norse gods active in SotM.

 

Tomorrow is purely a sightseeing day. The British Museum and drinking are on the agenda, but nothing else specific.

 

 

8

It was definitely an awesome weekend. I gained some promos, lots of Sentinels info, a whole lot of great company (so nice to meet all you lovely people) and most importantly of all, a single oficial Smoke Bomb to be used at my discretion.

9

Personally I prefer Ronway Bombs. They are just like Smoke Bombs, but they have the Ronway Seal of Approval on them and genetically enhanced with the blood of a Ronway.

 

 Prolonged exposure to Ronway Bombs may cause; nausea, allergic reactions, drowsiness, insomnia, increase of Ronwayism, hatred of anything non-Ronway, worm hole to a place where everyone knows your name, hatred of anything Ronway, creation of a mini civilization on one's chest, craving of Americanized Mexican food, acceptance that Ronway is the only way, realization that there is an "I" in "this team", self loathing, 40% increase in Ronway blood cells, sudden urges to say "Fanny", getting the nana part of Angel is a Centrefold stuck in one's head and can't look up the song based on solely that, becoming paranoid that aliens are abducting women to impregnate them with alien babies that look human, attempting to kill a hero in a super hero themed card game played by a person names Richard, stopping a game at the boss fight then completing it four years later, being able to use Google+ for one sole purpose, coughing, sneezing, itchy eyes, muscle pains, crystal tears, attempting to kill every hero in a super hero themed card game as long as the villain is going to be defeated as well, sleeping in jeans, wearing holey pants on Sundays, develop a belief in magic, develop a belief in love after love, lack of the ability to draw, lack of ability to do anything artistic, 50% more awesomeness, attempting to kill one's own hero in a super hero themed card game, disliking the taste of fish, loving the taste of fish sticks, eating chili at least 4 times a week, only being able to do HM moves, desire to be in a video game, self loathing, desire to increase one's stand with Ronway, destroying any dreaming child of 6 years if they start defeating heroes, going by a name of a character solely because the name is pretty sweet and the character themself isn't good, and self obsession.

10
Well, then here is my official request for a Ronway Bomb. Could I please have a Ronway Bomb? Officially?
11

I did not play Sentinels of the Multiverse today. I didn't even talk very much about Sentinels of the Multiverse. I sure did talk a lot about Greater Than Games, though. In particular I got a chance to hear from Paul about what he envisions for future conventions and various other things related to the business of Greater Than Games. It's not clear if I'm allowed to repeat any specifics, but in general-- bigger and cheaper. We will likely see even larger booths at future events, and GtG is looking for ways to make it cheaper to get games to people outside of North America. No promises, mind you, and even if they get something in place it might be a few years, but they recognize the issue and have some ideas about what to possibly do about it. Bigger booths are likely to be necessary because there will be a bunch of different games to demo. By next GenCon, for instance, there will be Galactic Strikeforce and perhaps Sentinel Tactics.

 

We all had a great time being tourists today. Most of the day was spent at the British Museum. The Assyrian and Sutton Hoo collections got the most attention. Paul continued leading us on a Pub crawl of establishments serving Cask Ale. I had a scotch egg made from blood sausage. Good times.

 

Tomorrow will be walking to tube to train to plane to train to subway to walking to get to the hotel. Tomorrow night? German food!

12

I was glad to hear this from Christopher just now:

(paraphrased) There is just as much story, it is just as deep, it is just as rich in Sentinel Tactics as there is in the card game.

13

Yeah, that ties in to what he was saying about story arcs. SotM is one arc (made up of lots of stories) and Tactics is a different arc, with some of the same characters.

Honestly, after meeting and speaking to Christopher, I can't see him making any games that aren't huge, rich, detailed and carefully-planned stories (or a serial of such a story).

14

Hope you're enjoying your stay in London. Was good to meetup with the team on Sunday and have Christopher show us how to really deal with Dawn. Don't eat too many English Breakfasts, you'll get far to much meat when you get to Essen. Look forward to seeing you when you pass through again next year (here's hoping)

Martin

(tall one with glasses)

15

Yeah, I got a similar statement from Christopher when I was in St. Louis a couple weeks ago. Nick and I left that dinner very, very excited about it.

16

What is something new you learned about Dawn that you wouldn't have otherwise known?

17

We've made it to Germany, had good beer and food, and are about to move on to Scotch. We've gotten the very excellent news that a shipment that was feared to maybe not arrive until Thursday has arrived, so we should be able to set the booth up fully tomorrow. 

 

No one really has a good idea of how much traffic will come by the booth. There are eight or so people signed up to volunteer and the booth has enough space for four tables. Since the volunteers don't work the entire convention, necessarily, we will probably rarely have volunteers for all four tables, but on the other hand I'm hopeful that we'll find people who know the game well enough and want to keep playing that we can fill the tables with people happy to teach others.There's lots of people doing pickups of Shattered Timelines. I expect many of them will also stay to play and get promo cards. 

18

Good luck guys, I hope it goes really well for you, and that lots of people play and have a great time and subsequently buy everything.

Enjoy Germany, I wish I could be there!

19

Gods, what I would give to be able to be there. I don't even care if I had time to see the rest of the convention. Just being at the booth would be worth it.

20

I will get to Essen one day, especially I'm really not that far away in the UK.