Good times, it was more crowded than last year, but when they expanded the halls they didn’t just cram more things in, they made the open spaces bigger too.
Wanted to buy some art, but not ready to drop the kind of cash I would really need to to get something nice. Geek Chic is still awesome furniture. Picked up Pandemic:Contagion and some more Pathfinder books. And Sprout found a Pathfinder buddy who lives about 10 miles from us, so we may game monthly.
Met people, played games. Got an epic set of bruises in NERO. Kicked some serious butt. Got a case of con crud I am calling “GenConsumption.” Good times.
One of the guys from my BloodBowl league was at GenCon. He can’t believe how huge it is. We have nothing even remotely close down here in Oz.
I read somewhere that Comicon in SF has 150k attendees? That must be incredible.
@ToasterFairy : A few of my friends seem to have picked up the con crud as well.
@Woodman: I’m assuming you mean ComicCon in SD, not SF. Yes it has around 140K or so. It’s an absolute madhouse and even though there is tons of cool stuff there I’m not going again until they expand the convention center (which the city has been hemming and hawing about for years). You have to stand in long ass lines for anything remotely cool and the crush of people is redonkulous. I get stabby after a couple of hours. GenCon is much more my speed. I haven’t been since 2011 though. 
Yes Diego. Gen Con was 56k this year, but it didn’t feel any more crowded, and actually quite often less crowded.
Next year I’m planning on some crafts, and maybe hitting a couple real sessions of pathfinder with the sprout. If she makes a society character now she can choose from about a dozen boobs for it.
I really enjoy it though, I just need to remember to stay relaxed.
Boons, not boobs.
Yeah, I was wondering… I mean, I know I’m not up on all the games y’all talk about, but dang.
I never got into D&D in high school, and most of the guys I knew who were into D&D were, well, they had issues. It took me quite a while to stop associating D&D with that special class of loser.
Gratch and I loved ComicCon when we went a couple years ago but yeah, it’s a mad house. When we go back it will be with a different mindset. I know I plan on avoiding most of the talks. I didn’t spend enough time on the floor with the artists and comics. And the authors. Gratch got to meet Ray Bradbury. He wasn’t announced. We just happened to see him over in Artist Alley.
Next on the list for us will be PAX. Hopefully PAX Prime but we’ll see.
Rich imaginations, fun non drug and alcohol abusing gatherings, girlfriends that could think their way out of a paper bag? Yeah, wanna stay away from those losers, head out to the kegger after the game and do some kegstands.
Shit man, I don’t often get “you peopled”. 
Just because it wasn’t your crowd doesn’t mean they were losers.I mean hell, at least they weren’t Goths or Metalheads.
No, no, no, @Woodman, mucho apologies… Apparently, the impression I gave you was all wrong! That wasn’t at all what I was trying to get at. I was not trying to say that all D&D/RPGers are losers, and also not trying to say I thought you or other CoGers are losers. I’m trying to say that the folks I knew in high school who were into D&D were primarily drug and alcohol abusing metalhead losers who used the game to fantasize about using swords and interacting with dragons/demons/etc. That’s what I meant by issues. Heck, one jackass I knew knocked himself unconscious when he was going through the woods swinging a “sword” (no idea what it really was) and it bounced off a tree into his noggin. That particular melon-head also collected skull-themed items, like rings and bongs. Another one was kicked out of college because he spent most of his time getting high and playing D&D instead of going to class. (Frankly, several of us were shocked he graduated high school, much less got accepted to college.)
I also had a few buddies that leaned more toward the comic book side of nerdy than the computer side, who also played D&D. Whenever we went into town, they always wanted to visit a certain comic book shop that had game manuals and a bunch of the different varieties of dice. But the impression they made on me… they were friends who also played D&D, but it didn’t affect their identity and they weren’t losers. A couple friends tried to get me into it briefly, but it didn’t capture my interest at the time. The funky dice were neat, but when it comes to SciFi, I’m more a fan of lasers and space travel than spells and swords.
More likely I was just irritated at something else and over reacted. Bridge, water, my bad.
No worries then. I wouldn’t want to cross The @Woodman 
Sorry for the necro, but I was at GenCon '13 and the booth i was working almost did have a baby delivered in it… One of the volunteers almost went into early labor.
I an only imagine what the baby would have been named, via a spontaneous vote, if that had happened.
That’s awesome!
it was a little scary for the time… It would have been dangerously premature if it had occurred, and while there’s a lot of interesting skills in the Gen Con crowd, I’m not sure I’d want to relay on finding one with experience delivering a baby. How would the parents here feel about their baby being delivered by a guy dressed as Mario?
The woman’s husband is a first responder and they got her to a local hospital to stabilize then got her home, but ti was definitely a bit iffy at first.
Ahh, that early. Yeah, that’s totally not awesome.
I bet you there were plenty of midwife capable people in the vendor/artist area. And I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone in the kid area was qualified.
What booth were you working?
I’ve been boothslave for Dream Pod 9 a few years. Small minis (and formerly RPG) company. They had a good spot in '13 right near one of the doors…
Working the floor for the opening day and last day is an experience. The initial rush is kind of a tradition, and the attendees charge into the exhibit hall. On the last day they play an announcement that it’s done for the year and you can hear the sigh of relief from all attendees.
Gen Con is tonight, my wife and I are going and we’re hitting food truck food and maybe just wandering around some.I have tomorrow off to hang with my little one all day. We’re making foam swords at 2 PM tomorrow.
Once again signed up for almost nothing. Can’t seem to figure out what I want to do.
Anyone else attending?