GenCon Flashbacks...

The most surreal/cool moment at GenCon happened as I was standing in the middle of the aisle looking at the copies of WEGS 101 sitting on a shelf just waiting to be sucked up by the GenCon hordes. Suddenly my wife poked me and pointed to a woman standing in the booth to the right. She noted "Doesn't that woman look like Donna?" - and it was!

Donna was a friend who we had lost touch with for easily seven years now. She was part of WEGS at its inception, when we made the jump from Warhammer to WEGS 99. We had no clue that Donna was still involved in gaming, or for that matter attending GenCon assisting a vendor!

We had just been talking about her the week before as we regaled ourselves with memories from the games of yore. The campaign Donna was a part of (as a Dwarf Warrior who was constantly sharpening her axe blade) was the greatest campaign we ever ran. It ran for at least six months straight, mostly bi-weekly, and at its apex involved 20 players in what could be considered a mid-season finale.

Actually, the really cool thing about this game was that it started as two different games that I ran simultaneously in weekly rotation with two different groups of players. Both groups however shared the same plot trajectory and ended up at the same location for one big game that we called The Night Of Chaos. In addition to these two original parties, I introduced a third party of gamers as the enemies set to destroy both parties. It was one of the best games that we ever ran and has some of the greatest post-game imagery burned into our heads. There were so many cool things about this campaign, I could rant for hours - but for those of you who are just checking out this blog, the excitement of it all would be lost. And the point of this thread wasn't about a campaign we ran over seven years ago...

The point is that there, right next to the GenCon premiere of WEGS 101, was a friend I hadn't seen in years who witnessed the first WEGS baby steps. Neither of us knew what the other was up to and, yet, we converged at the perfect moment in time. We all talked excitedly about what we had been up to. I pointed to WEGS 101 a few feet away. We joked about getting the old group back together or just getting together once we got back to NJ.

Of all the things that happened at GenCon, seeing an old friend in happy circumstances unexpectedly trumps all.

7

As I was wrestling with the fact that we sold a mere 7 books at GenCon, I started to laugh. Yes, it is a pathetic number of sales, but it also is the most important number in Craps. On the come out roll, I would have just won - and been paid a matching amount to my initial bet (assuming I had my money on the pass line...). Now it's just a matter of me finding the pit boss and getting paid...

I've been telling folks that this trip to GenCon was like a vacation to Vegas where I lost all my money, but never actually got a chance to gamble or sit by the pool drinking rum runners. So, it was a Vegas vacation without the vacation. From airfare to hotels to shipping, a trip to GenCon is an expensive proposition.

Inauspicious beginnings aside, 7 has been associated with this game from the start. Heck, we finished the book on 07/07/07! I'm no sayer of sooths but if I had thought about it, I could've predicted the GenCon sales... and that wouldn't have stopped my from going to the con.

The game is on, folks!

'Twas The Best Of Cons...

'Twas the worst of cons... Back from GenCon for three days now. Still bleary-eyed. Here's my top three best/worst, as I recall...

The 3 Best
The official launch of WEGS 101!
Folks showing up for games with copies of WEGS 101!
Some WEGS games were canceled due to no attendance. (Yes, this was actually a good thing. We scheduled an aggressive 18 events - we welcomed the break big time!)

The 3 Worst
A modest 7 copies of WEGS 101 were sold (no way to sugar coat that!).
The expense of it all (con fees, food, hotel, taxi, travel).
Some WEGS games were canceled due to no attendance.

Still trying to make sense of it all. From the highs to the lows, it was a non-stop endurance test, much worse than any opening week for a theatre production (aka hell week) all jammed into four days.

Would I do it again?

Heck, yeah!

More details to follow...

WEGS 101 Old Skool Cover...

Here's the front cover, folks!

And the system ain't half-bad either...

The cover art and interior illustrations are by Kennon James - an amazing artist with a knack for nailing the old skool spirit. Wait until you see some of his interiors - there's this one spread for "The Five Strengths" that just blows me away. Lots of cool art awaits! Visit the man who drew it all at his blog:

http://kennonjames.blogspot.com/

or

http://www.kennonjames.com/

He'll also be at GenCon, pay him a vist on Artists Row. He rocks!

Sound Some Trumpets Or Something...

WEGS officially was being printed this morning. The books will be shipped directly from the printer to GenCon; and unless something goes seriously wrong, WEGS will be officially released at GenCon next week. I signed off on the printer's proof earlier this week. It was the fourth proof from them in the course of the last month. Since announcing WEGS was finished on July 7, we've been through three more revisions/proofs. Every time we got a new proof back, we found changes that we needed to make. This culminated in a final proofreading which generated even more changes. It was a process that could have probably gone on forever. It's just my style to keep working and working and working on something until the final possible moment. I think I'm the type of person who can finish the 90% without a problem, but the final 10% kills me...

For the first time in three years, I'm walking around without a proof or draft of WEGS in my bag. It's a very strange feeling, but there are so many other tasks associated with getting this book published that I haven't allowed myself to enjoy this new found freedom. It'll all catch up to me post-GenCon when the book has finally be launched.

Besides, I need to start to put the finishing touches on WEGS Copper...

No sleep for the wicked...

Ark Triumphant!

Historicon was a WEGS highpoint for so many reasons. One of which was a player named Robin who attended our first session and stayed right through until the final die roll on Sunday. There were many players who did the same, but Robin made it a point of pushing his Ark (character) to levels no other player heretofore has achieved. By the end of the con, Delvis (his Dwarven Warrior Elvis) had a Prowess that broke the 90 mark. This is the first time an Ark could command top of the inning no matter what Minion level was placed on the table. (Ok! Ok! This is all bordering on incomprehensible game lingo for those of you out there who have yet to dive into the system...) Delvis learned the hard way that with great power comes great responsibility. He became a Minion Magnet by the last game, where it became Will The 2nd's job to destroy the Ark Triumphant. It took FIVE* 88's to do it, but Delvis was sent Off To The Spheres by the end of the con. (Yeah, yeah, that's whole bunch of game lingo, too...)

We all joked how there was no way we could let that Ark leave the con alive. You just can't unleash that much power into the unsuspecting WEGS world. All in all, it was a great test of the Ark advancement rules and players got a taste of where WEGS is going. It's not a system about petty skills and experience points. It's about heroics, spoints and dice!

Thanks to all the players at Historicon who made this game rock!

* There's some confusion here. The number of 88s might have been as high as seven! Willy The 2nd was stacking all sorts of minion levels towards the end of the game!

Delvis has left the building... for now.