GenCon Indy 2007 report (part 1)

Filed under Events on August 20, 2007
Keywords: Dungeon Crawl Classics, Dungeons and Dragons, GenCon, Goodman Games

The Bloopers

I knew this Con would be much more hectic than last year because of a schedule full of GM sessions, and any time you’re in a crunch to get prepared, there are bound to be hiccups. Fortunately, all of the ones that happened to me were more of the humorous nature (looking back) than the fatal. It all began with a 1.5 hour delay in Denver because the plane’s bathroom was leaking water . . . .

I didn’t arrive in downtown Indianapolis until 10pm. While the flight time was a little over 4 hours, I lost the whole day due to time zone changes. The ride service dropped me off at the Hyatt and I headed to the font desk to check-in, only to be told that no one by any of the names I provided was registered in the room number I gave them. I called Harley, only to learn they were at the Westin, not the Hyatt. All my events were at the Hyatt, and I had confused the two. Fortunately, the Westin was just across the street.

Once in the room, and after chatting some with Alex, Jacob and Will, I set to generating some PCs for the games I would be running. Yes, I failed to do so ahead of time. I mistake I will not repeat again. Read on.

After spending 3 hours writing out only half the number of characters I had originally planned, I forced my cramped fingers to uncurl and headed down the hotel’s business center to make copies. It is now sometime around 2am, which for me would be about my normal bedtime on the West Coast. I notice the one-and-only copier already has a print job in progress, but paused. No one else is around, so I press the Delete button. Nothing happens. Assuming the control console is locked until payment is made, I swipe my credit card. I see a message that it is ready for use, so I press the Delete button again. Nothing. Just to make sure the touch pad isn’t broken, I attempt to browse around the different menus and am successful.

I really don’t want to have to rewrite the character sheets should a player decide to keep theirs, which is expected, so I bite the bullet and let the previous print job continue. I note the job number and call the front desk to inform them of my situation and my expectation of a refund. They tell me that the business center is actually run by a contract service and give me an 800-number to call. I do so while waiting for the remaining 40 pages of the previous job to complete. However, there is only a message service at this late hour and someone will call me back tomorrow.

They better, because the final bill for what should have been a $4 job came out to be $80. The job that wasn’t mine had been set to color (the default setting) and even though I cleared all the settings before starting mine, the copier decided it wanted to make four sets of the 11 copies I requested. The management company that ran the business center did call me back Friday evening and assured me a refund.

I finally hit the sack sometime around 3am. I don’t set any sort of alarm, assuming I’ll wake up long before I need to be anywhere (my first scheduled “event” is a signing at the Goodman Games booth at 1pm, though several of us novel and adventure authors planned to get together for lunch around noon). When I do finally rub the sleep from my eyes and check the clock on my cell phone, I see it is a quarter ’til 10. I do some math in my sleep-fogged mind and begin to panic. I have only 15 minutes before I’m supposed to be at the booth. I begin scrambling around the room, gathering my things for a quick hop in the shower. Will asks me what my schedule is, and when I inform him of my impending tardiness, he laughs. It seems that cell phones update their time based on the local service towers. It really was just 9:45am. Who woulda thunk?

There were several bloopers with the scheduling of my events that were more frustrating than humorous. The GenCon published guide listed all my games in the exact same location. Harried as I was, I didn’t bother to stop by the RPG HQ desk beforehand on Friday. As a company-sponsored GM, I wasn’t required to actually check-in for each event. So, I’m sitting at the table prior to my second Friday session waiting for the group to show up. It’s about ten minutes after the start time and I’m debating how long to wait. I remember seeing online that one of the games had been listed in a different room, but I can’t recall which, and the published guide doesn’t say. So I head to the RPG HQ desk and ask. Sure enough, the group was waiting in a different room, and packing up their dice just as I entered. Everyone was still keen on staying, and we ended up having a great session.

There was also a mix-up Saturday afternoon concerning which table we were supposed to be on. I had actually checked with the RPG HQ desk prior, but they still couldn’t get it right. Not as detrimental, as we were still in the same room.

I’ll talk about the actual events tomorrow, and I should have a video up on MySpace by then as well.

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• GenCon Indy 2007 report (part 2)
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