Genericon... pics to follow
Jan. 30th, 2006 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
collwenFriday- Starting Living Greyhawk
I got to Genericon in time to get into the first slot of Living Greyhawk, get my character generated, and jump into Cleaning Out the Chapterhouse. Its a fun little scenario and the best part was the seven or eight year old that was there with his father. They're both good players (and the kid was great for his age)- and the kid is the one who, without killing anything, discovered the cause of the whole problem.
I had 1 person recognize my costume without any prompting on Friday night.
Friday Night- Werewolf madness and late night snacks
Then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
marnen and I caught up with each other and started demoing the Looney Labs games. One of the things I love about running demos at cons is that you can run Are you a Werewolf? and easily have enough people to play it. I tired out sooner than Marnen or Kyle, the other Mad Lab Rabbit there, and tetsujinnooni and chickipu_no_oni picked me up. After a quick snack at Fresno's (since Jon and Tersha needed dinner), I turned in for the night.
Saturday- Waking up Marnen so I could get to LARP
Marnen got in very very late. And then I had to wake him up so that I could get to my LARP session (run by this guy named Don who's been running these things for ages and is great. I saw him the night before and he told me that he was glad to see my name on the list of players), and so that he could get to the Living Greyhawk area so he could start his own character. We also had to stop off and pick up new batteries for the digital camera beforehand.
Well, if you get to a game session and the GM isn't there, you're not late. This was the alpha test of a new game, and it was pretty cool. My character was a Southern minister/missionary. There's a couple of pictures of me, in my Helen Narbon costume, on my knees and praying to the Good Lord and Jesus. *giggle*
We found one major weakness- my character. Basically, the game requires that either one person sacrifice herself or be given over by the other characters to a group of cannibals on the island that they're stranded on. My reverend didn't have a compelling reason to not sacrifice herself when the other characters included 2 people trying to stop a war, a doctor who's trying to cure his sick son, the pilot with all the skills to save the group as a whole, a pregnant woman, and the anthropologist who can talk to the natives and had struck the deal with the devil where only 1 person, instead of all 7, was to become dinner.
But the beta group was about a half hour after ours, and Don changed my character around for the next group to give her a reason to want to stay alive over someone else.
Saturday afternoon- Greyhawk at the M table
Marnen did end up missing the first slot of the day, but there were a few other people looking for intro mods (scenarios for 1st level characters) and they were able to rustle up a DM for us to start a game mid-slot. We ended up playing Hool Goes There which was fun, but gods, it made us want to invest in healing potions/scrolls after it. And until we got a 5th player, a fighter, every single player at the table had a name that started with M (Millie, Marnen, Mike, and Michelle).
Saturday- Cosplay with slight rant
That game ran a little late, so I was late to the Cosplay judging, but got there in time. I seemed to impress judges with the level of documentation and one (who is a webcomic artist himself I believe) was happy to see someone cosplay from a webcomic. But I didn't win anything. Now, I didn't expect to win anything, because not only did I not have a character that many people knew and was from a non-manga webcomic. Except for the guy who had the really awesome Halo 2 suit (and won some craftsman award), everyone else cosplayed as someone/thing from anime/manga.
And due to the nature of what Helen wears, all my stuff was store brought and didn't have to be modified (except for changing my shoelaces). And there does seem to be something of a bias against not having to sit at a sewing machine or do some sort of construction for at least part of your costume. While I agree that you need to put effort into your costumes, I disagree that effort = using a sewing machine/glue gun or something. While a lot of people who cosplay put a lot of effort in making things, it is possible to accurately depict a character with things that you find/buy, and document all your choices. About the only thing that I could have made was the t-shirt, which I instead purchased from the webcomic artist (allowing me to support the creator of my character).
It's like telling a costume designer that "You didn't do as good of a job as XYZ because they did a costume that required custom work and you did a costume that you could mix and match off the racks, even though yours is as accurate/authentic/appropriate for the character you're portraying." If I had taken the time and effort, yes I could have done another costume, but I decided to cosplay as this character, and to do so as accurately as possible.
Ok, end of the rant on that.
Saturday- Dinner and Migraine
After that, I kept going back to see if Marnen was done with his second session (which ran long), and after that we went to the Halfway House for dinner. Jon made artery clogging and good pasta Alfredo and Tersha grilled chicken. And during this time, I developed a migraiene, so instead of going back to the con, I went and hid in a dark bedroom and managed to fall asleep. Marnen went back to do the second night of Looney demos.
Sunday- Another Greyhawk and cell phone trouble
Marnen got in late again, and this time I let him sleep in while I got another Greyhawk game in (Like a Leech)- and my druid went up to 2nd level. Between that one and the Hool one I did on Saturday, I now have 2 story lines that I'll want to keep track of and get into the next modules when I can.
I then ended up having a problem with my cell phone- it dropped into the toilet.
[Note to self, have to get a case that has a latch of form sort over the top. So I have to hit Verizon tonight, so don't try to call me on my cell until I give an update.]
Sunday- A Last Demo, area good byes with concert video, Japanese food, then home
I ran to pick up Marnen (while trying to dry out the cell phone, to no avail), then we came back to run one last set of demos. Again, we had a couple of rounds of Werewolf, and Marnen had a game of Zendo with big cardboard pyramids. We also got to play Nanofictionary, and another guy (Scott I think) taught a game of Aquarius and Chrononauts.
After it was all over we headed back to the Halfway House to say hi/bye. We saw part of a video thatmshades would be very interested in. Then we said goodbye and headed out, hungry. We ended up eating at Ichiban on Central Ave. (Marnen had heard about it from WAMC on a regular basis and was interested in trying it.)
I got to Genericon in time to get into the first slot of Living Greyhawk, get my character generated, and jump into Cleaning Out the Chapterhouse. Its a fun little scenario and the best part was the seven or eight year old that was there with his father. They're both good players (and the kid was great for his age)- and the kid is the one who, without killing anything, discovered the cause of the whole problem.
I had 1 person recognize my costume without any prompting on Friday night.
Friday Night- Werewolf madness and late night snacks
Then
marnen and I caught up with each other and started demoing the Looney Labs games. One of the things I love about running demos at cons is that you can run Are you a Werewolf? and easily have enough people to play it. I tired out sooner than Marnen or Kyle, the other Mad Lab Rabbit there, and tetsujinnooni and chickipu_no_oni picked me up. After a quick snack at Fresno's (since Jon and Tersha needed dinner), I turned in for the night.Saturday- Waking up Marnen so I could get to LARP
Marnen got in very very late. And then I had to wake him up so that I could get to my LARP session (run by this guy named Don who's been running these things for ages and is great. I saw him the night before and he told me that he was glad to see my name on the list of players), and so that he could get to the Living Greyhawk area so he could start his own character. We also had to stop off and pick up new batteries for the digital camera beforehand.
Well, if you get to a game session and the GM isn't there, you're not late. This was the alpha test of a new game, and it was pretty cool. My character was a Southern minister/missionary. There's a couple of pictures of me, in my Helen Narbon costume, on my knees and praying to the Good Lord and Jesus. *giggle*
We found one major weakness- my character. Basically, the game requires that either one person sacrifice herself or be given over by the other characters to a group of cannibals on the island that they're stranded on. My reverend didn't have a compelling reason to not sacrifice herself when the other characters included 2 people trying to stop a war, a doctor who's trying to cure his sick son, the pilot with all the skills to save the group as a whole, a pregnant woman, and the anthropologist who can talk to the natives and had struck the deal with the devil where only 1 person, instead of all 7, was to become dinner.
But the beta group was about a half hour after ours, and Don changed my character around for the next group to give her a reason to want to stay alive over someone else.
Saturday afternoon- Greyhawk at the M table
Marnen did end up missing the first slot of the day, but there were a few other people looking for intro mods (scenarios for 1st level characters) and they were able to rustle up a DM for us to start a game mid-slot. We ended up playing Hool Goes There which was fun, but gods, it made us want to invest in healing potions/scrolls after it. And until we got a 5th player, a fighter, every single player at the table had a name that started with M (Millie, Marnen, Mike, and Michelle).
Saturday- Cosplay with slight rant
That game ran a little late, so I was late to the Cosplay judging, but got there in time. I seemed to impress judges with the level of documentation and one (who is a webcomic artist himself I believe) was happy to see someone cosplay from a webcomic. But I didn't win anything. Now, I didn't expect to win anything, because not only did I not have a character that many people knew and was from a non-manga webcomic. Except for the guy who had the really awesome Halo 2 suit (and won some craftsman award), everyone else cosplayed as someone/thing from anime/manga.
And due to the nature of what Helen wears, all my stuff was store brought and didn't have to be modified (except for changing my shoelaces). And there does seem to be something of a bias against not having to sit at a sewing machine or do some sort of construction for at least part of your costume. While I agree that you need to put effort into your costumes, I disagree that effort = using a sewing machine/glue gun or something. While a lot of people who cosplay put a lot of effort in making things, it is possible to accurately depict a character with things that you find/buy, and document all your choices. About the only thing that I could have made was the t-shirt, which I instead purchased from the webcomic artist (allowing me to support the creator of my character).
It's like telling a costume designer that "You didn't do as good of a job as XYZ because they did a costume that required custom work and you did a costume that you could mix and match off the racks, even though yours is as accurate/authentic/appropriate for the character you're portraying." If I had taken the time and effort, yes I could have done another costume, but I decided to cosplay as this character, and to do so as accurately as possible.
Ok, end of the rant on that.
Saturday- Dinner and Migraine
After that, I kept going back to see if Marnen was done with his second session (which ran long), and after that we went to the Halfway House for dinner. Jon made artery clogging and good pasta Alfredo and Tersha grilled chicken. And during this time, I developed a migraiene, so instead of going back to the con, I went and hid in a dark bedroom and managed to fall asleep. Marnen went back to do the second night of Looney demos.
Sunday- Another Greyhawk and cell phone trouble
Marnen got in late again, and this time I let him sleep in while I got another Greyhawk game in (Like a Leech)- and my druid went up to 2nd level. Between that one and the Hool one I did on Saturday, I now have 2 story lines that I'll want to keep track of and get into the next modules when I can.
I then ended up having a problem with my cell phone- it dropped into the toilet.
[Note to self, have to get a case that has a latch of form sort over the top. So I have to hit Verizon tonight, so don't try to call me on my cell until I give an update.]
Sunday- A Last Demo, area good byes with concert video, Japanese food, then home
I ran to pick up Marnen (while trying to dry out the cell phone, to no avail), then we came back to run one last set of demos. Again, we had a couple of rounds of Werewolf, and Marnen had a game of Zendo with big cardboard pyramids. We also got to play Nanofictionary, and another guy (Scott I think) taught a game of Aquarius and Chrononauts.
After it was all over we headed back to the Halfway House to say hi/bye. We saw part of a video that
mshades would be very interested in. Then we said goodbye and headed out, hungry. We ended up eating at Ichiban on Central Ave. (Marnen had heard about it from WAMC on a regular basis and was interested in trying it.)
