GenCon after action casualty report
This time I wisely decided to fly out Monday rather than Sunday night. This allowed me to stay to the bitter end of the con and hear the ragged cheer of the exhibitors when the announcement was made that the Con was over at 4 pm. In a really weird scheduling move the final match of the Dreamblade $1,000 constructed tournament was scheduled at 6:00 pm. The moved it up somewhat but the final game was still being played when I wandered over at 6:00 pm. After two hours of tear down it resembled that episode of Star Trek where the universe keeps collapsing around the enterprise. It was as if there was this one little bubble of the convention valiently holding out against the encroaching entropy. In any case it is the fact that I'm not leaving until tomorrow morning which allows me to make this post tonight, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
When last we left our con report I was play "Werewolves of Miller's Hollow" into the wee hours of the morning. Well I think that finally wrapped up around 3 am and I staggered back to bed. We played a bunch of games all of them were very fun. At one point my friend Wil was a wolf, and I suspected he might be and so I nominated him to be lynched. He pulled a masterful play and said, "Good I hope you do vote me out because I need to go to the bathroom." Well of course then they assumed that he was a villager, and they voted to keep him in. So convinving was this argument that even though I campaigned to get him lynched and managed to get him nominated 3 more times, he managed to stay alive and win.
The next morning the aforementioned Wil was running a D&D game at 9 am, which was suppossed to be a celebrity game of sorts. It had a big bunch of the luminaries from the ENWorld Messageboards, and me, apparently fortunately I knew all of them pretty well, and even though the D&D was only so-so the actual enjoyment was easily a nine or a ten. After that I got a quick bite to eat and hit the convention hall again. My object was to quickly walk the whole floor and make sure there was nothing which couldn't wait until Sunday, I did that, then had to come back to my hotel and fix another work problem, and then I took a nap for a few hours. That evening was another D&D game with some of Wil's friends. This time in an effort to make things run smooth for a convention session of D&D they had two DMs and they had choosen an adventure which was really light on combat, so that things would go faster, as a result we ended up with no combat, which perhaps swung the pendulum too far. I managed to last until midnight before I retired to the room to get some sleep before the big Dreamblade tournament.
Even though the Dreamblade $20,000 tournament didn't start until 10 am we showed up at 9 am to make sure there wouldn't be any problems. The tournament was 10 swiss rounds and lasted until a little after midnight which meant we were there for over 15 hours. There were no breaks. Okay that's not entirely true there were little breaks in between rounds while they tallied results, but the food vendor in the hall ran out of food by 4 pm. I had my lackey, Tyson, go and fetch me some food, but he horribly screwed up the order, I told him to get whatever from Subway, as long as it didn't have pickles or peppers on it. He misunderstood and got me a sandwich with only pickles and peppers. In any case you're probably wondering how I did. Well I went 7-3 and ended up in 21st place out of a field of 436. That was enough to get me $250 dollars. What was really interesting is that I was the very highest placed 7-3 finisher. They use a complicated tie-breaker system which is based on the record of the people you beat and the record of the people who beat you. Which means I had the toughest opponents of anyone that went 7-3.
In any case even though it was brutually long and by turns a mix of elation and despair. I really enjoyed the tournament. I was really worried about how well I would do, but I feel like I acquited myself well. Losing two in a row was probably the low point of the tournament, but having to play my friend Wil in round 3 was a very close second. After the tournament was over, we were famished. Wil and Tyson and I hooked up with one of the Wizards big-wigs and went in seach of food. I think coming in 21st and winning $250 and then going out and having a truly hilarious time with my friends and the guy from Wizards was the zenith of the convention for me. Sunday I got up in time to hit the exhibit hall shortly after it opened, and then went out to a farewell lunch with a big group of the guys, and in general wind down. And after that is when I started to get ahead of myself.
Filled with homesickness and meloncholy
When last we left our con report I was play "Werewolves of Miller's Hollow" into the wee hours of the morning. Well I think that finally wrapped up around 3 am and I staggered back to bed. We played a bunch of games all of them were very fun. At one point my friend Wil was a wolf, and I suspected he might be and so I nominated him to be lynched. He pulled a masterful play and said, "Good I hope you do vote me out because I need to go to the bathroom." Well of course then they assumed that he was a villager, and they voted to keep him in. So convinving was this argument that even though I campaigned to get him lynched and managed to get him nominated 3 more times, he managed to stay alive and win.
The next morning the aforementioned Wil was running a D&D game at 9 am, which was suppossed to be a celebrity game of sorts. It had a big bunch of the luminaries from the ENWorld Messageboards, and me, apparently fortunately I knew all of them pretty well, and even though the D&D was only so-so the actual enjoyment was easily a nine or a ten. After that I got a quick bite to eat and hit the convention hall again. My object was to quickly walk the whole floor and make sure there was nothing which couldn't wait until Sunday, I did that, then had to come back to my hotel and fix another work problem, and then I took a nap for a few hours. That evening was another D&D game with some of Wil's friends. This time in an effort to make things run smooth for a convention session of D&D they had two DMs and they had choosen an adventure which was really light on combat, so that things would go faster, as a result we ended up with no combat, which perhaps swung the pendulum too far. I managed to last until midnight before I retired to the room to get some sleep before the big Dreamblade tournament.
Even though the Dreamblade $20,000 tournament didn't start until 10 am we showed up at 9 am to make sure there wouldn't be any problems. The tournament was 10 swiss rounds and lasted until a little after midnight which meant we were there for over 15 hours. There were no breaks. Okay that's not entirely true there were little breaks in between rounds while they tallied results, but the food vendor in the hall ran out of food by 4 pm. I had my lackey, Tyson, go and fetch me some food, but he horribly screwed up the order, I told him to get whatever from Subway, as long as it didn't have pickles or peppers on it. He misunderstood and got me a sandwich with only pickles and peppers. In any case you're probably wondering how I did. Well I went 7-3 and ended up in 21st place out of a field of 436. That was enough to get me $250 dollars. What was really interesting is that I was the very highest placed 7-3 finisher. They use a complicated tie-breaker system which is based on the record of the people you beat and the record of the people who beat you. Which means I had the toughest opponents of anyone that went 7-3.
In any case even though it was brutually long and by turns a mix of elation and despair. I really enjoyed the tournament. I was really worried about how well I would do, but I feel like I acquited myself well. Losing two in a row was probably the low point of the tournament, but having to play my friend Wil in round 3 was a very close second. After the tournament was over, we were famished. Wil and Tyson and I hooked up with one of the Wizards big-wigs and went in seach of food. I think coming in 21st and winning $250 and then going out and having a truly hilarious time with my friends and the guy from Wizards was the zenith of the convention for me. Sunday I got up in time to hit the exhibit hall shortly after it opened, and then went out to a farewell lunch with a big group of the guys, and in general wind down. And after that is when I started to get ahead of myself.
Filled with homesickness and meloncholy
posted by DireKobold at 7:19 PM
2 Comments:
You went 7-3, but remember I beat YOU! My record against you is perfect. How much money can I expect from that?
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Your 7-3 record is something to be proud of. I am equally proud of my perfect record against you! It is a record that may remain unsoiled no that you are ranked.
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