GenCon 2012 After-Action Report
Wednesday, August 22, 2012 at 10:49AM Hi honey, I’m home!
After a ten-hour drive made all the harder by general sleep deprivation the last couple days of the convention, I am at last home from GenCon 2012 — my nineteenth GenCon in a row. I hadn’t planned on attending this year, since at present no one’s paying me to do game design work, but my colleagues at Hero Games and the Indie Press Revolution (IPR) expected they’d need some help with the booth, so I packed up my car and drove to Indianapolis.
And I’m glad I did. While there was a lot of hard labor involved — 12 hours setting up the booth, five hours breaking it down after the show, and 10+ hour days selling books and dealing with other business — the show proved to be even more fun than normal.
I mainly enjoy GenCon because of the people, not the products (though the products are nothing to sneeze at!). I enjoy interacting with Hero/IPR customers — not just selling them games, but finding out what games they enjoy, seeing what the purchasing trends are, and getting feedback about my work past, present, and future. Even more than that I love to spend time talking with my friends in the gaming industry. Many of them I only get to see once or twice a year at these conventions, so I treasure every moment.
The big highlight on that front this year was hanging out with all my old partners in crime from Last Unicorn Games. With a couple of unfortunate exceptions (Matt Colville and Charles and Tammie Ryan), all of us were at the con for the first time in a decade. We had a reunion dinner Saturday night and it was an absolute blast. I got to talk about all kinds of stuff with Ross Isaacs, talk James Bond movies with fellow 007 fan Don “Ennie Award Winner” Mappin, chat about business and various projects with George Vasilakos and Christian Moore, and share jokes and reminscences with all the guys. It was as if no time at all had passed; we fell right back into our old, comfortable ways. It was an awesome night and I hope we get to do it again at many GenCons to come.
But I got to see lots of friends beyond that (not to mention, of course, the Hero Games and Blackwyrm Publishing crews, who are worth the trip and work to hang out with all by themselves). I had a short lunch with Randy Mosiondz of Cryptic, and a longer one with Greg Stolze. I got to talk with talented author Monica Valentinelli when she came by the booth to sign some copies of the new Evil Hat fiction anthology, Don’t Read This Book, and with RPG writer/deisgner Gareth Hanrahan when he stopped by to pick up a couple of IPR games. I discussed some FATE stuff with Lenny Balsera, though unfortunately his work at the SJG booth and mine at Hero/IPR kept us from being able to talk very long. (The same could be said of Andrew Hackard and Philip Reed, whom I sadly only got to chat with for a few minutes because they, like me, had work to do.) I had our traditional Sunday morning breakfast meeting with Jim “Master of Gaming Fiction” Lowder to talk about writing projects and trends in fiction. I saw Stephen Marsh and Nikki Vrtis and their polite son Sam. (Funniest moment of the con: I try to give Sam a cookie; as he runs back to get it Nikki grabs him because he’s not allowed to have a cookie; a giggle-filled tug-of-war ensues. I wish I’d been videoing it. Sadly, justice did not prevail; Sam did not get his cookie.) I caught up with Julie Haehn and found out what’s going on with her these days. And on and on and on.
Unfortunately, no con allows me enough time to hang out with everyone I’d like to. Did I get the chance to compare our latest library acquisitions with Ken Hite? To sit down and talk superheroes with Steve Kenson? To discuss history, politics, and weird movies with Christopher McGlothlin? To have a nice, long chat with the ever-friendly Matt Forbeck? To discuss writing with Mike Stackpole? To talk Deadlands with Shane Hensley? Sadly, the answer to all these questions is “no” — but perhaps we’ll have the chance next year.
I didn’t get to see nearly as much of the dealer’s room as I’d’ve liked because the Hero/IPR booth was extremely busy from opening to close every day. We sold so many books I’m surprised my Square credit card reader didn’t go up in flames from all the stress! On the Hero side of things the best seller was almost certainly Champions Villains, Vol. 3, but several other titles sold strongly as well. From IPR, I’d estimate that the biggest sellers were probably Fiasco (and the accompanying Fiasco Companion), Monsterhearts, Hollowpoint, and Dread, but I have no specific sales figures. Several other titles did well; for example, demand for Burning Wheel Gold and The Kobold Guide To Game Design were both so strong that we sold out of what we brought to the con.
Things were so active at the booth that Jason, Tina, and I would’ve been hard-pressed to handle it all ourselves. Fortunately we had some top-notch help in the form of Alan Walters (Jason’s brother) and Story Cards creator Carl Klutzke. Without them I’m not sure how we’d’ve coped at times — thanks, guys!
One of the highlights of my time in the booth was getting to meet Wil Wheaton. He came by on Saturday with some of the SJG guys to pick up some games and I had the chance to chat with him for a couple minutes. He’s everything he seems to be on the Internet/TV — friendly, knowledgeable, polite, and professional. As he was leaving the booth one person after another stopped him to ask a question or take a picture and he was unfailingly courteous and accomodating. He’s a real role model for how someone in his position ought to act when meeting his public.
The Legion of Heroes GMs were just as busy as we were. Dozens of game sessions’ worth of games were run, and my understanding is that virtually all of them were full. Normally a game here or there fails to get enough players, and then the GM has time to come down to the booth and chat. But this year I barely got to see folx like Rod Currie, Dale Barnes, Shane Harsch, and Sylvia Rudy because they had to run all their games! Oh, the humanity....
While I spent most of my time in the Hero/IPR booth, I did have a few minutes here and there to get out and buy a few things. I picked up a bunch of books at the McFarland booth; I love that McFarland’s now showing up every year and offering 20% off cover price on its books. I traded with Erik Mona at Paizo to get some Pathfinder books for the Thursday night campaign I’m playing in, and got some helpful advice from him about a Pathfinder PDF I’m considering creating. I picked up some dice, minis, and Gaming Paper for friends back home. I stocked up on the latest Campaign Cartographer stuff from ProFantasy Software, and got Night’s Black Agents from ProFantasy’s sister company Pelgrane Press. At IPR I picked up Hollowpoint, Don’t Read This Book, Tech Noir, and a couple of other things that look interesting. It was definitely a good haul; I’m glad I drove instead of having to try to get all this stuff back home on a plane!
Last but not least, I had a few meetings about possible work projects. I didn’t go to GenCon intending to spend time looking for work, but a few opportunities came my way and I was happy to follow them up. One or two of them, if they evolve as planned, could be major fun and significant boosts to my career, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. When I know more and can say more, you’ll find out more here. ;)
The last day of the con I had a great idea for a little beer-and-pretzels card game, and I spent a lot of the drive back designing bits and pieces of it in my head. I’m going to try to get a mock-up ready for playtesting over the next few weeks and then see if I can convince some fine, upstanding game company to buy it from me. ;)
All in all I had a tremendously fun time at GenCon and am looking forward to next year already. But as always, it was great to get back to the Fortress of Stevetude and sleep in my own big, comfy bed once more. So far I seem to have avoided coming down with any serious conventionitis, and hopefully it’ll stay that way — I’ve got a lot of catching up to do after the con and new projects to plan!
Reader Comments (3)
Thank you, Steve. I too was bummed we didn't get our usual time to hang out. Hopefully next year then.
I'm glad to hear you were able to make it! And you met Wil Wheaton!
I was glad that I at least got to drop by the booth for a few minutes and chat. I spent all my time running and playing games. And pretty much everything went extremely well. A very good con.