Bracton wrote:
I'm pretty sure that Contrarian camped outside Indy last year.  So there are ways to do GenCon pretty cheaply.

Yep, the Indianapolis KOA, three years in a row. About $30/night for a tent campsite, and August is their slow season, so it's never full. In 2006, I didn't bother making my reservation until 3 weeks before Gen Con.

It's a "family campground," which means they have showers, a little general store, and a clubhouse with some old arcade games. There's a McDonald's across the street. Except for the excessive peace and quiet, it not much dfferent than living in a college dorm.

(I'm probably going the "dive motel" route this year, though, for logistical reasons. Some numbskull scheduled my 20th high school reunion for Gen Con Saturday, so I'll probably do half a Gen Con this year (Wed/Thu/Fri), then drive back to Michigan that Saturday afternoon.)

Bracton wrote:
Wait.  You actually showered each day?  That would clearly have put you in the minority back at Parkside.  

Yes, our group was certainly in the minority back then. And quite possible today

I was also in High School. Went for the first time before senior year. We had a hell of time convincing our parents that we could go safely. But they let us go. Piled in the 1972 Dodge Polara and the rest is history.

bbarsh wrote:
Another Michigan guy. I think that makes three of us. We'll catch up to all those Texas guys sooner or later :wink:

Since I am too lazy, where in MI?

I live in Trenton now. (I grew up across the channel, on Grosse Ile, which I've mentioned before.)

What is it with all these Texans, anyway? Don't they know D&D is a Midwestern hobby at heart? It's for kids who don't like to play in the snow!

One word of warning about staying outside of downtown if you have to drive in, budget some extra time in case something else is going on downtown.

I stayed at my brother's house in Noblesville, IN when I attended Gencon 2006, and driving in Saturday nearly missed an event because they were closing off downtown streets for some marathon.

A reminder for those planning on attending GenCon -- according to the GenCon website --

Badge registration starts Sunday, February 15, at 12:00 pm Eastern time.  Housing opens on Tuesday, February 17, at 12:00 pm Eastern time.

181 days to go, and counting . . . .

! everyone loves cake!

At least for last year, the seller fees were:

If pre-registered on website - $0.35 per item/lot if for store, $0.85 per item/lot if for live auction

If registered at show - $0.50 per item/lot if for store, $1.00 per item/lot if for live auction

15% of the final sale price is deducted to cover auction expenses.

Consignment store items can not be priced for more than $40.00. Live auction items have no price restriction.

That's from http://www.livegameauctions.com/Genconauction.jsp.  The cost may go up this year, of course.

Hi,

booked into the Marriott Downtown again.

Cheers,
Malc

The Castles & Crusades Society is pleased to announce that, at this year's GenCon (Aug, 13-16), we will be running a Society tournament.

Five-hour tournament sessions (4 total sessions possible) utilizing a specially designed point system to determine winners. Players will compete for success in parties in a custom tournament adventure set in Troll Lord Games' world of Aihrde, the After Winter's Dark campaign setting.

All players registering for this tournament must be, at the time of the event, registered members of the Castles & Crusades Society. Membership in the Society is free. If you are not already a member, please enroll at our Society website before the event begins.

Prizes will include various TLG products & Crusader subscriptions, the specifics of which TBD closer to the event.

Characters must be C&C game base classes and races, and will be outfitted from pre-determined class packages at the start of tournament play. Guidelines for rolling characters will be provided on the Society website closer to GenCon. Pregenerated characters will also be made available.

There will be up to four 5-hour sessions, 2 running concurrently on both Fri. and Sat. afternoons at 1:00 PM. Each session will run the same point-scaled adventure, with players accumulating points. All players will be ranked by point total after the completion of all sessions, with the top 5 ranked players receiving prizes (TBD). This is NOT a multi-round progression, and each player will have completed their tournament at either elimination (death of character) or end of session.

These tournament sessions should be available soon on the GenCon registration site (under review currently).

John Wright will be CKing 2 of the sessions, but will indeed be looking for one or 2 other CKs to run the additional sessions. Each table (session) will include 4-8 players, with a maximum of 32 entrants to this tournament (so reserve seat early as soon as the event becomes available!)

Please ONLY sign up for ONE (1) session!

The tourney mod is a special one written specifically for this event by Stephen Chenault, the Troll Lord.