Just Bragging About Gen Con

[firstfletch]

I was lucky enough to actually play a Mutants & Masterminds game (the bank heist with Rant & Rave) at Gen Con, and Steve Kenson was actually the GM! It was extremely cool, to say the least.

[Inazuma]

I was lucky enough to actually play a Mutants & Masterminds game (the bank heist with Rant & Rave) at Gen Con, and Steve Kenson was actually the GM! It was extremely cool, to say the least.

We've heard some tales about Steve and others running the Heist scenario, and they've been great. Want to relate the events of your experience?

[Chrono]

Yes, yes, details!

-Chrono

[firstfletch]

I played Protonik and the other five players played, Minotaur, Headcase, Knock-off, Cyclone and Marathon. I was the only one who had played M&M before (actually I GM) so Steve went over the rules. He was detailed enough to teach them how to play yet very quick about it (as if he had intimate knowledge of the game rules or something!).

He then described the scene inside the Freedom City Bank in great detail and that was when Rant & Rave came in with their 6 thugs. We took out the thugs quickly, but because of Rave’s illusion power, we spent a good deal of the battle beating the hell out of each other before we got to Rant & Rave!

Steve had a detailed description of every action and every punch thrown, it was very cool. Needless to say, I have since changed my GMing style somewhat.

Gen Con was tons of fun, but the highlight for me was this game!

[Inazuma]

Heehee, you gotta love it when the GM can trick the players into beating each other up!

[barbedwings]

That sounds awesome! I'm jealous!

[whydirt]

Here's my GenCon report I wrote for another forum:

whydirt's handy dandy Gen Con report

I arrived in Indy around noon on Thursday, so that I would be early to run my MnM demo at 2:30 and hopefully have some time to chat up the Green Ronin folks and the other goons at the con. I hadn't preregistered (BIG MISTAKE!) since I wasn't sure which days I was going to go up there ahead of time. Instead, I'm forced to get into the multiple hour wait line to get a badge.

All seemed grim for me, until I was saved! A guy walked up to the part of the line I was in and said that he had a family emergency and asked if anyone wanted to buy his badge. I asked, "How much?" and he said, "$40." It was a 4-day pass, so that would have saved me $20 right then and there, except I was only gonna be up there one day due to helping my girlfriend paint her new place she just moved into and going to a wedding on Saturday. Instead I payed $20 more than a regular 1-day pass, but got to skip the line and head on into the convention center.

Once inside, I quickly found the Green Ronin booth to speak with Nikchik who is the volunteer contact person from the company. We chatted a bit about her flight in, then I asked about the demo since I'd never run one before and I was a bit nervous. My nerves were jolted even more once Nicole told me that she hadn't brought materials for the demo since she had only been back a day from Comic Con. She tried to find Steve Kenson (author of MnM) who happened to be running most of the demos to see if she could steal his materials, but he was nowhere to be found.

In the meantime, I stopped by the Lone Wolf booth and met Scorponok, who was quite the pleasant chap. He told me the subbes wasn't going to be able to make it, and after a brief discussion about the con I left to gauge the status of my game materials.

Luckily, soon after my arrival to the GR booth another volunteer stopped by the booth with a printed copy of a free MnM adventure from the GR website. A GR staffer also grabbed me some d20s to use and some black & white photocopies of the default characters from the front of the MnM book. I left the booth and hoped that I wouldn't get eaten alive by my demo players.

Once in the gaming room, it took me about 5 minutes to realize that my players had found a different table to play on since another group had hornswaggled the table we were supposed to use. I also quickly discovered that I had 8 willing players and mentally gulped at the notion that I'd never run a demo before nor run a game with that many players at the same time. I decided to roll with it and proceded to pass out character sheets and explain the differences of MnM from DnD. (As an aside, all of the players were at least 6-7 years older than me, which was kind of different for me.)

The original adventure I was supposed to run had the PCs be superheroes under their "normal" guises going to the back when a pair of supervillains come in and try to rob the place. I realized that putting 8 superheroes in the bank at the same time, while having all of them incognito wouldn't sound very plausible nor fun. Thinking on my feet, I changed up the scenario so that the heroes were instead at an amusement park and doubled each of the villains.

The villains began their mischief by attempting to bust a "Demon Drop" ride, then fought the PCs as they foiled their plan. The game went rather smoothly, and the players said that they enjoyed themselves, which was all I could ask for.

Afterward, I went back to the exhibit hall to return the demo materials and browse the booths. I tried to find a copy of the old Battletech Mercenaries Handbook, but my quest was unsuccessful. I also saw Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, which looked very cool, but I didn't buy it since I'm tight on cash and not running a straight DnD game at the moment.

[firstfletch]

Sound like you ran a pretty cool game. I preregistered so I missed the lines (which were super-long every day except for Sunday). It was well worth the $20 to skip that line!

I bought the Arcana Unearthed (and had Monte sign it) the very first thing. It is an awesome book!

[Nikchick]

Whydirt was utterly heroic in taking on this demo for me, especially since I was so utterly unprepared to help out my demo volunteers at GenCon. Getting set up for GenCon was just a comedy of errors, and being back in Seattle for all of one day between ComicCon and GenCon was gruelling beyond expectation.

Just wanted to thank whydirt for putting up with our general disarray, and also to thank Jason Best for stepping in to offer his demo materials. He can vouch for me that we had things in hand for Origins. It's just that somewhere between Origins and GenCon that all my materials and prep went awry.

Nicole

[whydirt]

Whydirt was utterly heroic in taking on this demo for me, especially since I was so utterly unprepared to help out my demo volunteers at GenCon. Getting set up for GenCon was just a comedy of errors, and being back in Seattle for all of one day between ComicCon and GenCon was gruelling beyond expectation.

Just wanted to thank whydirt for putting up with our general disarray, and also to thank Jason Best for stepping in to offer his demo materials. He can vouch for me that we had things in hand for Origins. It's just that somewhere between Origins and GenCon that all my materials and prep went awry.

Nicole

Aww shucks. It was nothin'.

ps-do you need me to file an official report or anything?