The view from GenCon 2015

General GTG Events
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Y'all want to hear updates of what we see and do at GenCon? I'm not even volunteering w/ GtG at this convention, but I'm lurking around and think it would be fun to write up a few reports. I encourage anyone else here at the show to share what they see and think, too.

 

The GtG team and Jeremy from Handelabra arrived in town tonight. They will start setup tomorrow. This year there will be a large booth (20 by 50 feet) _AND_ a side room that's even bigger, just outside the exhibit hall in rooms 144/145. The booth will have demos of various games, including the video game, but not, actually, Sentinels of the Multiverse itself. There will be demos of multiplayer for the video game, though I'm not sure if those will be at the booth or in the side room.  The side room will have the Sentinel Tactics qualifying and championship tournaments as well as a bunch of ticketed (though still free) events. Events will include Tactics on the new maps, demos of the not-yet-released Sentinels RPG, Villains, and, I think, Spirit Island. They're all listed in GenCon's event catalog, so anyone who likes can go find out what they all are, though don't hold your breath that there's a lot of spaces available. Much apologies if I got any of those details wrong!

 

I'm not sure any of that is news that you wouldn't have been able to learn from official GtG posts and the event calendar, so I suppose I don't have a whole lot to add. I was pleased to get to see folks tonight. Sounds like they're mostly planning on turning in early and getting an early start tomorrow on setup. They have two large trucks worth of stuff to setup, plus whatever Handelabra shipped.

 

I managed to get a spot in one of the SotM RPG demos and am really looking forward to that. I'm also looking forward to watching as much of the Tactics tournaments as I can, in-between other events, particularly the finals on Sunday. I've got a noon-4pm game, but I'm thinking of ditching it so I can watch the finals live.

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Have fun Andy.   I would certainly like to hear your impression of the Sentinels RPG

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I hearby request as many pics of character sheets, dice pools, and subsidiary material as humanly possible.  

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I request pics of people having fun playing it.

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I request a hug.

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*Hug*

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Aw, thank you. *hugs back*

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Day -1: GenCon doesn't actually start until tomorrow, but I've already been so engrossed that it's hard to remember life outside of GenCon.

 

I helped GtG zero today. I feel a bit guilty about that, but Craig, Jodie, Jen, Jeremey, Andrew, Trevor and others seemed to have the booth, Tactics broadcasting, and side room well in hand w/out my input. The big push for volunteers seems to be during the show itself when lots of games and demos need to be run and lots of people are needed to keep the Tactics tournament and broadcasts running smoothly.

It is crazy to think back to the ten by ten booth at GenCon 2011 or just the three of Christopher, Rabit, and me manning the booth at Origins 2012 and compare that to what's happening now. For the volunteer dinner tonight GtG rented out the downstairs of Rock Bottom Brewery. There were a _TON_ of people having a great time, playing pool, and having great food and drink. I got to hear Adam hold forth on his opinions of various super hero franchises and hear from some of the people in the world championships for Tactics talking a bit about how they might approach the upcoming matches, as well as lots of getting to meet folks from the forums or not from the forums, but still passionate about GtGs games.

 

I got to play New Bedford for the first time today and really enjoyed it. It's not really in my wheelhouse, but it's clear that it's a really tight, surprisingly fast resource management game. I think of it as being similar to Puerto Rico, but adding some interesting twists. If you like that sort of thing, I recommend you give it a close look. I also got to play Deck Building: The Deck Building game a couple more times and really, really enjoyed it. It is a very short, but surprisingly 'deep' game, by which I mean it takes some real thought to think through how to do better than your oponents given what you have and what they have and what you're likely to be able to acquire. I didn't back this kickstarter but think I'm likely to pick up a couple of sets here at the con.

 

I haven't seen the GtG booth in its finished state yet, but it's impressive. The whole thing is on a hardwoodesque floor that stands out compared to the rest of the show room. There's a massive six-sided GtG logo hanging from the ceiling. They've got a 20x20 ft room for warehousing inventory. The rest of the 20x50 space is more geared towards being a store than a demo space. People can pick up items from shelves to take to the counter, rather than having to wait for people to dig out items from the stocks. The side room is shared with another company (Asmodee), but has at least eight tables for Tactics tournaments and other games, plus the production, broadcast, and main stage sections for the Tactics broadcasting. 

 

Looking forward to seeing how everything goes this week. I get to try the SotM RPG preview tomorrow at 1 o'clock. I'm looking forward to trying the multiplayer version of the digital game, perhaps tomorrow. I know there's disatisfaction with the fact that nonplaytesters will get to see that before playcasters. I empathize, but do want to also share that in hanging around the GtG folks the last couple of days and overhearing the odd conversation here and there, it is very, very clear that everyone at GtG (and Handelabra!) is busting tail to do a ton of stuff all the time. That doesn't necessarily excuse them from being responsible if things go poorly, but please, at least, be satisfied that no one is kicking back and phoning it in.

 

Also, in non-GtG news, I misunderstood and went to a nearby bar today for a friend's birthday only to discover that the party is tomorrow. It was a happy accident, though, as I ended up meeting people who are taking their plastic dinosaurs all over the place and taking pictures of them. We had a fun conversation about the difference between t-rexes and allosauruses.

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It’s the number of fingers (among other things), yes? If it has two fingers, it’s a tyrannosaurid, I believe.

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Ooof. So. Tired. Only four hours last night.

Big GtG news for me today was trying the RPG.Liked it a lot. We mostly got to experience a battle. There are comic-book like elements used for ongoing leveling up, I'm told. My interest in role playing leans heavy towards being a method actor, and this RPG isn't necessarily best for that, but the mechanics of the action today did a fantastic job of capturing the individual characters (I was Absolute Zero), without taking me too much out of my method acting.

 

I saw a reasonable crowd mustering for the 2nd qualifying tournament this afternoon. I'm not sure if they went ahead w/ the first qualifying tournament, as there was some talk of cutting it if not enough people signed up. Didn't see any of the matches, but did get to see the board. Though it was interesting that the volcano was right in the middle.

Only got a glance at the new 'Minions' maps, as I was running from event to event all day. Looking forward to taking a closer look. I went by the booth for just a short period. I enjoyed hearing from Jeremy and John a bit about the further enhancements they have in store for multiplayer. One cool surprise at the booth is that they had stand up, small tables for teaching Tactics. A single character and a small number of hexes are printed on the small table service. It's just enough to teach some rules w/ou getting in to a larger game.

 

Ugh. Eyes won't stay open ...

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Thanks for finding time for these updates.

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After some sleep, some more thoughts on the RPG -- one of the things about it that seems wonky to me is that many of the 'kickers' one might have access to only become available when the stress level of your character or the stress level of the scene reaches a certain point. Absolute Zero, for instance, can't do a thermal shockwave until he or the scene reaches 'Red'.

 

I kinda get why the mechanics work that way. It forces a build up of the 'drama' of the moment. Emphasis, though, on the 'forces' aspect. There are some things that make more sense to have a forced wait -- like Omnicannon. 

 

I think the best enjoyment of the action scenes in this RPG is going to come if a group of people have a shared understanding that you're creating a compelling narative as much as you are trying to defeat the bad guys. It just wouldn't do to walk in and immediately use your most potent weapon to simply win.

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Thanks for the updates Andy.  

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I think this answers one of my questions over in https://greaterthangames.com/comment/115530#comment-115530 - which was "Define a kicker". So, a kicker is any of the powers listed in the Status sections? Or is it just the ones under Green, i.e. "kicked in" at Yellow and Red levels?

 

That reminds me of the real reason behind this scene from Iron Man 2.

https://youtu.be/Nx2mhPEr7kA?t=2m9s

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ALSO: Yesterday I bought three copies of Deck Building: The Deck Building game, AND got to see the minions & more Tactics minis in person. I'll need to go back and look at them again in order to see anything but The Deputy and The Broker. I'm still walking on sunshine a little bit at the thought of a mini being based in part on me.

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Thanks for the updates Andy! Very sad I can't make it over there this year, but it sounds like it is a blast!

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Watching the replay on twitch but I hope your Sentinel Tactics team did well Andy

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Must be quick. I have an 8am event tomorrow.

 

I subbed in for a team that unexpectedly made the semis for the qualifier tournament for Tactics. Had to skip two events this afternoon to do it, but it was very exciting. We did ok in our semis game, squeaking out a win, though perhaps only because the dice were in our favor. In the finals, out first game wasn't great, but not so bad, and I had a killer combo w/ Kusirigama into two hazards even though we lost. The second finals game was pretty rough. Honestly, I was so mentally and physically exhausted by then that I was far from my best. I'm not sure if we lost that in the ban/draft or in our play choices or what, but it felt like we were way behind the whole time and got crushed.

 

Even so, it was great to play. Sadly, even though my team qualified for Worlds, they won't be able to play. They are running and/or have costumes designed for a LARP tomorrow that would conflict.

 

Let's see ... other stuff ... I went by the booth early in the day for a bit. I'm still struck by just how professional it all looks. Looked like a steady stream of playtesters and purchasers. In the side room, there were often twelve tables of games going at the same time while ~15-20 people watched the twitch feed for Tactics that was being displayed/broadcast out in the main drag. I caught a little bit of Christopher and Peter's broadcast and thought they were both doing great. Good thing I'm not single or attracted to men or might just have to tackle Peter after listening to his sexy Aussie accent.

 

This evening brought the Concert Against Humanity. Four hours of music and comedy. Fan- Friggin'-Tastic. If you're ever at GenCon, don't miss this! It's basically Wootstock. It's the first year they did it for GenCon. Hopefully they'll be able to do it again. Right after my spouse got done showing off her new belt which provides pockets, since girl's clothes are stupid, she took a Wraith pin out of the swag bag they were handing out at the concert and put it on. Utility Belt for the win.

 

Ok. Now everyone who watched today's Tactics stream tell me all the things I did wrong in my three games.

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Also, I had a few spare moments, so sat down with a couple who would otherwise have been teaching themselves Deck Building. Taught it to them quickly and they seemed to really like it. I'm telling you folks, this is a sweet little game.

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ALSO, I went to the GtG state of GtG panel. Christopher, Paul, Adam, Jen, Chris Kirkman, Jeremy from Handelabra, and the three guys making the Sentinels RPG were all there. I don't recall learning a whole lot -- they've all been pretty open about what they can tell us about what's going on before -- but let's see if I can remember anything ...

 

SotM video game multiplayer will be cross-platform. Steam multiplayer release expected in about two weeks. Lots of the artwork and gameplay for Spirit Island is close to finished. Probably going to be Kickstarted ... ugh I don't really remember what they said. I think by the end of the year, though. Minions and More maps didn't quite make it to GenCon, so will probably be mailed out in a couple weeks. Lots of Dice Hate Me Games that have been out of stock are due to get reprints. I think they gave a rough timeframe for Bottom of the 9th, but don't remember what they said. Broken City and For Profit will probably be coming out in the first quarter of 2016. The _last_ expansion of Sentinels as well as, I think, one or more mini-expansions will be coming out in 2016, along with a pack of 'ultimate' promo cards. Handelabra would love to make more games from the GtG catalog, but one thing at a time. They've had preliminary talks about multiple titles. Jeremy would love to do a simultaneous release of the final expansion, but that will depend on how quickly they can get through the other expansions -- particularly Vengeance format villains. The RPG will absolutely include methods for creating one's own characters. They'd wanted to do that when they designed for Marvel, but Marvel had explicitly told them they couldn't. GtG, conversely, told them they explicitly had to. The feedback from previewers of the RPG has been overwhelmingly positive (and I believe it). When asked about Kickstarters that had to be relaunched, they underscored that they only bring games to Kickstarter if they believe in them. If they don't fund, then they consider the feedback and look for a way to get them funded, but it is NEVER the case that they're throwing something out there just to see if it _might_ be good. The economics of comic books make them hard to get done. It's a ton of work for small amounts of dollars that not enough people are willing to spend. Look, however, to the RPG books for _LOTS_ of background story, as they will need to give enough information to RPGers who've not played the other games for players to know how the world and the characters work/think/do. They've considered using the SotM engine for other genres, but it's not high on the priority list.

 

ALSO, without naming names or describing anything involved, I've seen the GtGs folks taking a few meetings, and those are just the few I happened to be near. It's clear that they have LOTS of irons in the fire or are at least exploring lots of different possibilities for new things.

 

Ok. Bed time. For real this time.