GenCon 2004: Thursday

Posted by Bryant on August 20, 2004 at 01:33 AM

Not a whole lot to report; at first glance there's nothing unexpectedly cool at this year's GenCon. Plenty of cool stuff that I expected to be cool, mind you. I picked up Dogs in the Vineyard and Nine Worlds and they look very sharp; The Red Star Campaign Setting is exceeding pretty and has Green Ronin quality all over it, although I'm not entirely sure about role-based core classes for D20 Modern; and The Authority RPG is just lovely. Walked past but did not look at GURPS 4th Edition. The new World of Darkness debuts tomorrow. But, again, all expected stuff.

Oh yeah -- Paranoia XP is here, and yeah, I've read most of it. (Which is why it's 12:30 PM as I type this.) It is really, really well done. It keeps the best of the tone from old Paranoia and provides new options without forcing you to use them if you don't want them. I was very impressed.

The only big news of which I'm aware is Green Ronin's latest licensing announcement: they have the Thieves World license. Cool!

The lines were once again very long, albeit there have been no registration computer crashes so far. This is probably the only big complaint. The dealer's room is laid out much better this year, without the huge Upper Deck monster booth that blocked traffic in 2003.

To make up for the lack of news and exciting surprises, I took a picture of an Indianapolis bar which should give you an idea of how quickly this city has adapted to GenCon.

Yes, the sign does say "Gaming Area Open." And yeah, the bar really does have a gaming area set up for the weekend.