Current Mood:  tired
Current Music: Suckadelic - Hail Ming! (Ruler of the Universe)
 I suppose I've put off writing up a Convention report too long this year. Ah, the joys of entertaining.
This year's Trinoc*coN was actually pretty decent.  Heather and I drove up to Durham in a rental which wasn't an unholy broken-down mess, which always greatly improves the situation. With an arrival set to Friday (unlike our usual Thursday schedule for conventions), things were already getting started in the early afternoon. Settling in was a moment of joy after a 6 hour drive. (The development of the portable MP3 player and FM radio broadcast attachment is a technological triumph only matched by that of sliced bread, and this only barely. I have now been exposed to amusing stories of pitifully unskilled bounty hunters which I'm not sure to be thankful for or not, but what I do know is it makes a few hundred miles of highway disappear in short order.)   Regardless, my occupation of choice this year was surprising: I found myself haunting QuickFire 2's massive miniatures game board. What we're talking about here is a massive 10'x4' chunk of table, heaped high with lava-rock and little buildings, bits of light-cable and, in the center, a huge complex with a hole at the end, plus assorted spark globes and the like. Frankly, the likes of which you probably haven't ever been tinkering with for a miniatures game, but that's just what this existed as.
The premise: The players are commanders of a massive stellar combat force, elite warriors and soldiers. The site is, in fact, a weapons development location for the enemy, and the 3ft scale centerpiece is, in fact, a massive interplanetary cannon, as yet unfinished but still capable of deadly power. The battle was multi-phased, but began with an orbital insertion of elite commando squads of three spec ops, to find and disable the grav shield, and allow the drop of heavier equipment in later phases. Heather and I got in early, and I learned quickly I was simply not going to have much luck making survival rolls for my units. Instead, I had the bright idea of using my drop pods themselves as orbital artillery, devastating the alien squads as they emerged in defense. This was likely my brightest moment all weekend. In any case, the QuickFire gaming occured on and off all weekend, and definitely reinvigorated my desire to put on something similar at some point with equal ability for players to drift in and out, but with more enemy force scaling. (For the record, when the main gun fired, the sound system resonated the whole gaming hall and the table itself emitted dry ice vapour from hidden ducts under the terrain. I was making a personal record of getting blasted out of the sky by the "Voice of God" more than anyone else. Its an art.) Odds are good that I'll be hanging out quite a bit at the QF2 table at D*C this year. Given I'm not planning to actually Staff, this is probably a good thing. I made it a point to buy out the best gaming suppliers at the Con of all their best goodies, it seems, including the new version of Twilight Imperium. Notably, I still haven't got to play it. Another thing to schedule at the next Con. I did play quite a bit of bordgame action, including Ursuppe with Heather and Mike on Sunday night in a mad frenzy of eating poo. (If you've never played the game, it does involve a lot of poo-eating, I'll warn you now.) Tentacles prove themselves vital once again! DJB-Naut played a bit during the Con, and even managed to sell some CDs. Frankly, I think he was mis-presented and should have been spinning out in the hall while his speakers were in the dance room, just so he could be seen while folks were doing their own thing, but I haven't seen fit to create my own Con yet, so my observations are rather listless. Nice work, though, and he was much complimented. Mike and mutual-friend Adam ended up running the media tracks/rooms at Trinoc. Decently attended at times, I'm still not sure its the kind of Con that serves a multi-hours-long video track well. Too much other, more involving, things to do. Still, good comments and everything is knowledge. Unsurprisingly, on the way home, we stopped at Shelton Fireworks and picked up, ah, far too much money's worth of explosives. I'm a sucker for explosives. Really. You want to keep me busy? Give me control of your nuclear arsenal. I'll be busy for hours. That pretty much covers it. The hotel was fantastic, and treated me excessively well. Turn-down service with chocolate truffles on the bed is a wonderfully ego-gratifying experience. Which, of course, makes me wonder a lot about how next year'll turn out, given the Con's going to another hotel. Le sigh. | 
embarrassed
predatory
contemplative
hungry