2016 Con Schedule

I figured since I'm kinda locked into two of um, I'd let you guys know about my planned con schedule this year:

- February 18-21: Dreamation in Morristown, NJ (confirmed)
- June 29-3: DexCon in Morristown, NJ (confirmed)
- August 3-7: GenCon in Indianpolis, IN
- November 3-6: Metatopia: Morristown, NJ

I will be considering AcadeCon as well, though it falls kinda close to Metatopia, and GenCon will be VERY expensive.

If you're coming to any of these, lemme know, let's hang out!

Gen Con accommodations are expensive. Hope you got a room!

Got a room! That's why it's so expensive! :p

Well I will be at Gen Con. Unless something changes I will be running games for Green Ronin. Would enjoy meeting people from the site if possible. Some kind of Meet-up event would be cool. Official or Unofficial is fine by me.

I might have to drive on down from the Fort if there's going to be some sort of GP meet up at Gen Con!!

This... is something I did not expect...

Man, i wish I had the money to attend, I'd love to have a GP meetup!

Keleth you have a day in mind for the meetup?

Given I did not expect this response... no.... I was happy enough to meet up with 2-3 people, for a few minutes each, at Origins last year; I figured a few quick meetups would happen this time too.

If there are people nearby who aren't going to GenCon, maybe we can all grab a bite or something on Friday evening/sometime Saturday? If not, based on how many people are interested, maybe I can run a small game, or we just hang out for a while?

I don't know what my schedule is yet, but I say just put something on the books now and I'll do my best to make it. Any of those ideas sound good to me.

I will be at DunDraCon 40 from 12-15 February; I'm running a few games there.

Hmmm... Gamer's Plane Presents: Keleth's Hour of Power, come roll a d6 with the community and check up on users from the site that aren't posting but they're still playing. (And if the event is at a bar - Drink Responsibly.)

I'll be at GenCon this year. I'm pretty excited.

So I got annoyed at the lack of Double Exposure existing in the 21st century (digitally speaking anyway), so I wrote up an app to help find events. It's FAR from perfect, and I plan on adding more features, but I remember sorting events for Origins was a pain as well, and I meant to write this back then. Likewise, I don't know how GenCon's scheduling software is, but given their site, I don't have much hope for it yet.

I'd love feedback on it in general, baring in mind, it's about 4 hours of work. My Dreamation 2016 Event Finder

I'm confirmed at GenCon this year :) I'll be busy meeting up with game publishers and tagging along with my friends who are well connected in the industry, but if there was a GP meetup I'd definitely try to pop in, shake hands, have a pint or whatever it is we're doin!

Unfortunately, I'm not attending any cons this year.

If, however, you find yourself in my neck of the woods, I'd be more than happy to grab a drink or two and hang out with some GP folks.

Since the local con moved about two and a half hours away, though, I don't have high hopes for that happening. XD

I'm hoping to meet up with people who are connected with in the industry as well... given the unique approach GP has, I'm hoping if I can get some designers/publishers involved, we can grow better.

Even if you can't meet up as a whole, I'd love to meet up with you even briefly while we're there!

I'm going to be pitching board games (and maybe, who knows, the RPG i've been working on here).

I'm going to try to make it to Gencon again this year, last year was the first time I attended. I will definitely be at Unpub 6 this upcoming weekend though.

I know its a ways off and on the other side of the country but I'm hoping to grab ticket to PAX Prime again this year. Ill probably put up a post for that Specifically when it gets closer if I manage to get tickets.

Fyi as a reminded to those going to Gen Con supposedly if things go as plan Event Catalog will be uploaded the 6th of May Registration on the 15th... *Does the Kermit Yay! flail dance*

What format do they usually release the events in? Is it as hard to parse as Origins? Because of so, I'll make a page for it like I did Dreamation.

I'm usually a PAX Prime attendee, so I'd love to game in person with some GP folks!

Off the Gen Con website you can directly put things in your wishlist for purchase on the 15th, I think in the past there's been a spreadsheet, I usually use high programmer's listings to research what I want to try out (Just google high programmer gencon 2015 to see if you like his setup).

I'll check it out; from what you're describing, it sounds like my dreamation app. Should I compete...?

If it's not too taxing for you I guess (HP's version is free but you need to be connected) there was a guy work on an app for Gen Con (also free) that had the maps and was searchable, considering data saturation though being able to have a downloaded map is nice. Maybe for 2017 with a link to the site? This might mean you'd need a Convention area in General also.

If there's a spreadsheet, I can make something to parse the sheet and make it easier to find events. No idea about the app though.

For Dreamation I made: http://dreamation16.gamersplane.com

http://gencon.highprogrammer.com/gencon-2016.cgi/

High Programmer finished his set if you wanted to check it out.

Interesting. I think I can come up with a better way to do it, but I've got a lot on my plate right now; maybe for next year.

But next year you'll have a bigger plate... XD

Yes, but in the next two months, I'll also have the scheduling app I'm building for AcadeCon done, which hopefully I can license to other cons, and then have something prebuilt to just show off schedules :D

I ended up making an event finder, though it was lackluster, specially given I only spent 3 hours on it.

That aside, I've setup my schedule, leaving big gaps to meet with people and play pick up games. I was not nearly discerning enough to find the "good" stuff, and I'm sure it's a lackluster schedule over all. If people have suggestions, I'm sure I can email GenCon about changing my schedule.

RPG1694394 - Tales of the 7: Heroes Arise (Mutants & Masterminds 3rd ed) Thurs 9AM - 12PM
RPG1684530 - Rolling Thunder (Legend of the Five Rings 4th ed) Thurs 2PM - 6PM
RPG1692464 - Pack of Malls (Rolemaster, Pulp) Thurs 8PM - 12AM
RPG1692694 - SynGen Lab Run (Axon Punk: Overdrive alpha) Fri 10AM - 12:30 PM
RPG1696582 - Murder on the Hellstrome Express (Deadlands Classic) Fri 2PM - 6PM
RPG1686354 - Titansgrave: Secrets of Nestora (Fantasy Age 1st ed) Fri 8PM - 10PM (no idea how they'll do a game in 2 hours)
RPG1694197 - Swords Against the Dead (13th Age 1st ed) 10AM - 2PM

I'd love to meet up with people for stuff, and given people's interest in meeting up, how does Friday night sound? We can meet up for a big, grab a drink (or the alcoholic or not variety)? If GP keeps growing, maybe I can afford to have the first round on me :)

So first, I'm confirmed for DexCon at the end June/start of July for those going.

I also keep forgetting to mention this, but if you're going to a con and want to help promote GP, I still have 2 large and one extra large tee shirt I got made last year. They're not amazing, and not usual wear shirts really; they're mostly made for GP promotion. I'd be glad to ship you one free, though if you can help cover shipping, that'd be great. I can also send business cards if you want to help out. If I use enough business cards in the next two months, I'm gonna have to design new cards (if any of you are good at designing business cards and don't mind lending me a hand).

I was always led to believe that the ideal time to buy a flight is 6-8 weeks from departure. Turns out, for a bug con, earlier is better. The flight from NJ is gonna cost me $400ish. Just flight, hotel, and food will cost me about $1200. If GenCon doesn't pay off big, I doubt I'll ever be back.

GenCon definitely isn't cheap. In 2014 I had someone going for their first time purchase their tickets in January for an August flight. Southwest had this goofy thing where they overbook flights from where he was flying from so although he showed up 3 hours early he got kicked from his morning flight since he didn't check in online the day before (was never told about this) that he was going out on the flight. Needless to say he made it the following morning in the early AM. Have you looked into if you're eligible for a TradeDay badge to cut costs?

Somehow, I got approved for a media badge, so that's saved a bit. Guess I'll have to write up reviews or what not now.

Maybe you can talk to some people about giving you playtest sets via email to try out on the site, and/or a coupon code for their stuff on drivethrurpg when users click you link on the site here to promote their products?

You mean in terms of raising funds? I'm not worried fiscally; I just don't like spending more than I have to, and when I spend money, I expect to get my money's worth, be it in physical or emotional returns. If I go to GenCon and have as much fun as I did at Origins, at twice the cost, it doesn't pay back. But if going to GenCon ends up landing GP a lot of attention, or I catch one big name to help me out, I'll consider the cost worth it.

Hope you like crowds, GenCon is x5 the people at Origins. If this is your first GenCon I don't know what to tell you on what to expect I think it's great personally since there's so many other outlets to check out I'm not around that much. It's the only place I had a five minute conversation about the Green/White/Red ranger.

I'm sure it will be a blast, and it's affording me unique opportunities already. I just hope it lives up to how much I'll end up spending, heh. Right now, I can't even decide if I should buy the plane ticket now or wait a few days and see if the price improves.

Generally, the earlier you buy a plane ticket, the cheaper the price is. That's been my experience, at least.

That's what I always expected too, but a lot of Googling put 6-8 weeks at the sweet spot.

Don't fly that much but is there a way to have a script run for a check in case it drops with a price you like or by a percentage. Like if it's under 300 notify me or if it drops 30%+? I've been driving in the last five times since it's under eight hours.

I would drive but it's 11 hours for me :/ I can look into writing a script, but I guess for now, I'll ahve to bite the bullet and pay the cost.

Pretty sure Kayak.com can do this for you - set it up to send you a notification if prices drop on a particular itinerary. It also estimates if the price is likely to drop (not sure on what basis)

Yah, i have a price alert set up with them. They're recommending buying now. I'm just saying I should have bought a month ago :/

Looks like the plan is for me to head to GenCon to do demoing with the Fantasy Flight crew. I sounds like I may get to do run games of Star Wars. Hope to see you there, Keleth.

The nice thing about the demo team is free room and entry, the downside is the lack of voice I'll have after 4 days of shouting on a Con floor.

Yes! I would love to see you there. And I'll have you demo something for me!

Closer to the Con, I'll confirm for a meet-and-greet Friday night, if nothing else, hanging out at a hotel bar or something, where people can come and meet up and learn that yes, we are not all robots responding to each other, hoping to fool the others that we're human. Or we'll learn that some of us are exactly that.

I'll have to be there and make sure to fail all my CHA checks. My character was built to stealth in the background, not interact socially.

#809, #817, # 1105, or #1117

No clue yet. The person I know sorting out who can do what just asked if I know much about it and would want to run it.

I'll try and swing by during early access before the hordes descend upon you...

I'll teach you all about it, and then you can correct me on everything I said wrong. :)

Wait, what is early access? I have a media badge... will this give me early access?

Wait...you are media?

Nope. VIG.

Yes. I applied for a media badge and got it. No clue why they said yes. I guess I'll have to write stuff up on what I see/do now...
Ah, ok. I am a VFM (very fake media).

@ Keleth technically didn't you just blog about 7th Sea in a way?

I actually do want to get into the habit of writing about games I play at Cons, old or new. I did a TON of tweeting at Origins last year, helped promote a few new games, etc. I just don't want someone at GenCon to go "So, can I see your blog?" and I go "Hey, look over there! SMOKE BOMB!"

You can always say something like that.

Someone get this guy a media badge.

But what do I do with this hundred pack of smokebombs...

You play RPGs I'm sure you can figure out something creative...

@ Keleth

If the character sheets are kosher with FFG for Star Wars I wonder if FFG will let Phantom Nimbus pass out cards so people can play Star Wars online if there isn't that many people in their area at the booth...

Well, I doubt that PhantomNimbus would be allowed to promote another product while boothing, but as I've mentioned, I'm glad to give people business cards if they wanna help promote GP. And the character sheets fall within their license, so unless PhantomNimbus happens to meet/know someone who'd want to take a look and is impressed, I doubt it stands out.

FFG Has control of the biggest booths at the con, last year theirs may have been the largest by far. Now this year the demo team also has Asmodee and Days of Wonder under them. I have a feeling they won't want me promoting anything else, and it's not some dark corner of the con where I could do it in secret. They are front and center with a LOT of demo volunteers. I may still take some cards from you if we meet Keleth. I can always hand them out in my off hours. :)

I think they are up near 150 volunteers this year for everything.

Sneak in shady side deals!

"Hey man, if you like RPG stuff, have I got the stuff for you! Cheap! If someone asks, just say it fell off the back of the internet..." *slide business card in handshake*

of course, the first game is free...