Ok guys, I need some advice. I got Gencon coming up next summer, but it’s looking to be REALLY expensive. I also have Lexicon coming up in April, not near as big but probably more affordable. So I’ve never been to Gencon, so I gotta ask, is it worth it? I can probably only go to one.
If you've never been to GenCon, I'd say that it's worth going to at least once in your life. GenCon is SUPER crowded and the hotel lottery system is a mess, but I've always enjoyed my GenCon trips. But I have a group of friends who go every year to GenCon, so I can latch onto their planning and logistics.
Ok guys, I need some advice. I got Gencon coming up next summer, but it’s looking to be REALLY expensive. I also have Lexicon coming up in April, not near as big but probably more affordable. So I’ve never been to Gencon, so I gotta ask, is it worth it? I can probably only go to one.
If you're trying to price out hotels for Gencon now, just keep in mind that the pricing in the housing block will be much, much better the vast majority of the time and the block will include most of the hotel rooms anywhere near downtown Indy.
I think Gencon is absolutely worth checking out, but it depends a bit on what you want from a convention. If you're mostly excited about the exhibit hall, it will always be crowded at Gencon - especially on Saturday. That said, I've always been able to demo any game that caught my eye and have been able to spend plenty of time talking with actual game devs about their games. If you want to get into every store in the hall you'll need to be prepared to spend a lot of time in line. If you want convention exclusives you'll need to be there early each day and prepared to run straight to the booth with the exclusive you're trying to snag.
If you're open to being more chill about everything though, it's great. There is a limitless amount of things to do and see. Tens of thousands of gaming sessions you can sign up for in advance, and plenty of opportunities to get into games when you're actually there. All kinds of extra events like short film festivals, burlesque shows, acrobatic circuses, concerts and lectures and talks of all kinds. People playing just about any board game you can think of in every possible open space for gaming. Multiple board game libraries where you can check out the new hotness that isn't even for sale yet, or a game you've been considering for a while but just couldn't pull the trigger on without seeing it firsthand. Gamer oriented events at various restaurants and bars and breweries in the area.
I only go to 2 gaming cons each year - PAX South and Gencon. I love PAX South, but almost entirely for the opportunity to hang out with people I like from these forums. As a convention, it doesn't even compare to Gencon.
I go to Protospiel MI every year, and of late also Protospiel Chicago. It is an unmissable event for me.
One thing to know is that there is no central organization. Each Protospiel is managed independently, typically by veterans of established ones like the original one in MI. As such, experiences can vary across them.
It bears almost no resemblance to other conventions and I’d be hesitant to put it in the same bucket at all. Most of the attendees are designers, and really the only activity is playing prototypes and giving feedback. There are no vendors, tournaments, scheduled play sessions, or any of that.
The structure is collegial. Attendees are expected to provide as many hours of playtesting as they consume. So if I have 3 people play my game for an hour, then I spend 3 hours playing other games before I try to table mine again.
The games you see vary from nearly publisher-ready prototypes to concepts that see paper for the first time during the event.
You will see comparisons to Unpub. Unpub is also for prototypes, but is much more highly structured, with purchased table time, games all in a late stage of development, and an emphasis on getting the general public as playtesters rather than on peer review.
Conventions can be many things. On Thursday I'm heading to my favorite event of the year, Great Lakes Games, which is an invitational with about 100 people playing games, talking, and eating good food for the weekend. It is a family event, with much of the attendance being parents and their kids. It's about as far as you can get from a Gen Con within the hobby. Relaxing, friendly, simple.
I have pretty much no interest in going to something like Gencon. Smaller cons where you know people and can chill and play games for a weekend are a totally different proposition.
Just gotta plug PAX Unplugged. It's got a lot of different stuff for all sorts of table (and off-table) gaming. Free play, organized tournaments, community organized games (on BGG right now), painting, LARP, mega games, vendors, first look games from Essen, prototypes, etc.
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38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
edited October 2019
I really want to make it to a PAX unplugged sometime. PAX east pretty much got me into modern boardgaming and I suppose these forums as well.
Oh weird I'm surprised I never heard of that Chicago con in the year I worked at the biggest Chicago game store where we actively had designer meetups regularly. I guess if it's explicitly designers caring about it the store might not be that interested but I'm sure we could have had like a community Meetup or something
Just gotta plug PAX Unplugged. It's got a lot of different stuff for all sorts of table (and off-table) gaming. Free play, organized tournaments, community organized games (on BGG right now), painting, LARP, mega games, vendors, first look games from Essen, prototypes, etc.
It's also relatively cheap for a con, but I don't have to explain to this thread what happens once you hit the exhibitors.
Just gotta plug PAX Unplugged. It's got a lot of different stuff for all sorts of table (and off-table) gaming. Free play, organized tournaments, community organized games (on BGG right now), painting, LARP, mega games, vendors, first look games from Essen, prototypes, etc.
It's also relatively cheap for a con, but I don't have to explain to this thread what happens once you hit the exhibitors.
Just gotta plug PAX Unplugged. It's got a lot of different stuff for all sorts of table (and off-table) gaming. Free play, organized tournaments, community organized games (on BGG right now), painting, LARP, mega games, vendors, first look games from Essen, prototypes, etc.
It's also relatively cheap for a con, but I don't have to explain to this thread what happens once you hit the exhibitors.
I guess some stores are able to sell Marvel Champions today, because they are "Asmodee platinum partners" or something.
Yet my store has to strictly enforce Asmodee street dates. So even though my FFG stuff comes in (and I get called about it) on Wednesdays, I can't pick it up till Fridays. And Marvel Champions officially releases next Friday, Nov. 1st.
That's ridiculous
Yeah what? My roommate pre ordered it and received it Monday. We already played it. Not sure who he got it from, does FF do direct sales?
I guess some stores are able to sell Marvel Champions today, because they are "Asmodee platinum partners" or something.
Yet my store has to strictly enforce Asmodee street dates. So even though my FFG stuff comes in (and I get called about it) on Wednesdays, I can't pick it up till Fridays. And Marvel Champions officially releases next Friday, Nov. 1st.
That's ridiculous
Yeah what? My roommate pre ordered it and received it Monday. We already played it. Not sure who he got it from, does FF do direct sales?
You can preorder most things from their website, however they do encourage you to buy local.
Yea I tried to get a game of Fury of Dracula together today but it didn't gel. Hopefully I can get it played tomorrow at my game group, but it's a hard sell to basically play one game all night.
I remember looking at that on KS. Describe the game flow some?
It's technically an area control, tableau builder I guess? You get some money bits at the start, then draft super powerful Court cards that you can use for one of two actions during the turn, then get a quest for the turn, then get an action phase where you can hire guild folks or recruit powerful Mourner cards or send guild members to various areas using Influence. Then you have to check if there too many guild members at a certain area and if they're are then they all have to roll to see if anyone goes feral and runs off, then all players need to contribute some money to keep Heaven and Hell from invading, then you resolve all the spaces for rewards based on who has the most guild members there, then you get guild rewards (or penalties) based on who has the most of that guild's figures.
End of game scoring is based on Unity tokens, how much Influence you have with each faction (Bone, Flesh or Spirit) and how well you completed your secret task.
Yea I tried to get a game of Fury of Dracula together today but it didn't gel. Hopefully I can get it played tomorrow at my game group, but it's a hard sell to basically play one game all night.
I'm convinced at this point that Fury of Dracula is strictly a 2 player game. It's one of those "the team is only as good as their weakest player" games. There's just so little wiggle room for the hunters to not all be exactly following one cohesive plan, that you either secede control to the most experienced player or lose. At that point the hunters are basically all played by one player anyway.
I remember looking at that on KS. Describe the game flow some?
I looked this up and couldn't stop laughing at this (slightly NSFW) image.
Clearly the "flesh" faction is for hotties with bra pads shaped like groping hands. So who was the ghoul with a few shreds of rotted skin left fooling when he tried to sneak into the club? It's like seeing someone who is clearly pushing 50 at a "young singles" event.
I remember looking at that on KS. Describe the game flow some?
I looked this up and couldn't stop laughing at this (slightly NSFW) image.
Clearly the "flesh" faction is for hotties with bra pads shaped like groping hands. So who was the ghoul with a few shreds of rotted skin left fooling when he tried to sneak into the club? It's like seeing someone who is clearly pushing 50 at a "young singles" event.
Oh hell yeah, the objectification is just STUPID with a capital dumb. Every male character is a skeleton or ghoul and, while there's some few skeleton ladies; they still all have perfect bowling ball breasts while the rest of them are just porn models in spooky outfits.
Yea I tried to get a game of Fury of Dracula together today but it didn't gel. Hopefully I can get it played tomorrow at my game group, but it's a hard sell to basically play one game all night.
I'm convinced at this point that Fury of Dracula is strictly a 2 player game. It's one of those "the team is only as good as their weakest player" games. There's just so little wiggle room for the hunters to not all be exactly following one cohesive plan, that you either secede control to the most experienced player or lose. At that point the hunters are basically all played by one player anyway.
I think 3 is the sweet spot personally. Gives the hunters someone to bounce ideas off but keeps downtime to a minimum.
Yea I tried to get a game of Fury of Dracula together today but it didn't gel. Hopefully I can get it played tomorrow at my game group, but it's a hard sell to basically play one game all night.
I'm convinced at this point that Fury of Dracula is strictly a 2 player game. It's one of those "the team is only as good as their weakest player" games. There's just so little wiggle room for the hunters to not all be exactly following one cohesive plan, that you either secede control to the most experienced player or lose. At that point the hunters are basically all played by one player anyway.
I think 3 is the sweet spot personally. Gives the hunters someone to bounce ideas off but keeps downtime to a minimum.
I guess if the 2 hunter players are both experienced. But man I always feel sorry for a new player. His entire team loses if you just let him play and he doesn't let the more experienced people play for him.
It's got the same quarterbacking problem as Pandemic, but even worse because the opposition in Pandemic isn't a human mind consciously exploiting the weak player.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
I played ghost stories tonight with someone i invited to a party who doesn’t like that sort of game
Mistakes were made
That game seems to have a worse quarterbacking problem than pandemic
I can see a Quarterbacking problem in Ghost Stories, but nowhere near Fury of Dracula. You can get away with sub-optimal moves in Ghost Stories. In Fury of Dracula, you NEED people in exact spots in order to close a dragnet and one person out of position will totally screw up several turns of setup (one person engaging Dracula before they're equipped can spell fatal "gg" disaster).
Yea I tried to get a game of Fury of Dracula together today but it didn't gel. Hopefully I can get it played tomorrow at my game group, but it's a hard sell to basically play one game all night.
I'm convinced at this point that Fury of Dracula is strictly a 2 player game. It's one of those "the team is only as good as their weakest player" games. There's just so little wiggle room for the hunters to not all be exactly following one cohesive plan, that you either secede control to the most experienced player or lose. At that point the hunters are basically all played by one player anyway.
I think 3 is the sweet spot personally. Gives the hunters someone to bounce ideas off but keeps downtime to a minimum.
I guess if the 2 hunter players are both experienced. But man I always feel sorry for a new player. His entire team loses if you just let him play and he doesn't let the more experienced people play for him.
It's got the same quarterbacking problem as Pandemic, but even worse because the opposition in Pandemic isn't a human mind consciously exploiting the weak player.
I mean you only get experienced by playing the game. You're working together as a team, presumably you are working together to form a plan and then execute it. I don't see how it's worse in FOD than other hard coop games. It certainly works as a 2p game too, if the hunter is alright juggling that many hands of cards.
I played ghost stories tonight with someone i invited to a party who doesn’t like that sort of game
Mistakes were made
That game seems to have a worse quarterbacking problem than pandemic
Maybe the worst I’ve ever seen
Games don't really have innate quarterbacking problems; literally all coops can have that issue but they're caused by the players, not the games.
To this point, any game can have a quarterbacking problem for this exact reason. You could be playing anything, and a player could go, "oh you shouldn't do that, you should do x instead because you'll get more points or it's better for reason y". It's really on the players, not really the game.
Ok guys, I need some advice. I got Gencon coming up next summer, but it’s looking to be REALLY expensive. I also have Lexicon coming up in April, not near as big but probably more affordable. So I’ve never been to Gencon, so I gotta ask, is it worth it? I can probably only go to one.
So, I'm not an expert, but I have been attending Gencon for a few years now. Full disclosure, the last two of which have been working with a company at a booth running Demos, so while I've been 4 times now, only 2 of them were purely as an attendee.
As with everything YMMV, but since you have explicitly said you're down for cons, that's great, no convincing needed there.
Tickets go on sale in early January, and shortly thereafter they open the housing portal to tickeholders, with a randomly assigned time when it unlocks for each person, at which point you can snap up a room from what is left at that time. I know people who have gone AirBNB instead, or even gotten a room outside of the portal, but it's usually more expensive. The holy grail is getting a room downtown, something in walking distance of the convention center, but that can be very much a luck of the draw sort of thing.
My first one was in 2015 with a group of 3 other friends, we drove down from Toronto (which is a good 9'ish hours on the road), and ended up with a hotel a bit further out that allowed us to save a bit of money (also the downtown core was entirely full due to a mess with their (at the time) new hotel portal system thing). I attended a few small panels, spent a bunch of time on the Exhibitor floor, snagged dice/a few odds and ends, played in demos, and made a point of playing True Dungeon with two of the gents I went with.
Sidebar; True Dungeon is a roughly 2 hour long 'live action D&D' kind of game. There are puzzles to solve, props to handle, combat to survive, and a token based system for determining what weapons, armour, and gear you're carrying. When you join a game you get a 'sealed' pack of 10 like a lootbox, and can buy more. Some people buy a LOT more. They used to run 2 different quests per convention, but now run 3 or 4, with at least one being a 'redux' of a previous year's event, but you cannot use anything but the starter baggie of tokens, making it more like a limited/"sealed" game. It's great fun, because instead of sitting down and having a couple of old veterans around handing out piles of rare and powerful gear (compared to the negligible starting stuff most players will have), nobody has anything, you're practically begging/borrowing what you can just to get a weapon of some sort, oh god why doesn't the Paladin OR the Fighter have any armour? Who has some plate? NO ONE? Okay okay, mail? Leather? Duct tape and thick twine?! SOMETHING?!
It's not for everyone, but it is an experience worth at least knowing about, and trying to make an informed decision. The tickets for the 'normal' True Dungeon events are extremely expensive. The Redux editions aren't as bad, but still expensive.
So, back to the Con. If you're going alone, as I did on my second trip in 2017, it's still quite possible to have fun. There is an endless stream of panels, pre-arranged game demos and events, open gaming areas, and more. Part of this comes down to how outgoing you are, whether gaming with strangers is going to cause anxiety or be unappealing. It's not usually my thing *at random*, but after meeting the Flying Frog Productions team in 2015, and offering to run a few demos for their game Shadows of Brimstone for a few hours in 2017, they brought me back in 2018 and 2019 to work the booth full time (this year was the first time I was in on the early set up crew AND tear down afterwards, I legit worked harder on that week of vacation than I have in years at my day job). So, while pick up and play experiences with people wandering the floor weren't quite my thing, I really enjoy sharing something I love with others, and that has been a hell of an experience for the last few years (I will also be back at their booth in 2020, and it's always a blast to run into forumers who happen to swing by, though its usually infrequent enough that it always catches me a little offguard).
Overall, it is... a thronging mass of humanity, a bunch of the biggest names in gaming all under one roof, with new stuff and promotional swag and something I've really come to enjoy and look forward to. It is a place where I run into friends I only ever see there (@MorganV) , get to wander artist alley (which is filled with authors, artists (especially who have worked on Magic the Gathering; so many playmats and tokens!) and other neat odds and ends), and experience a city that really leans into the whole experience. Literally. For blocks and blocks, it's easy to find Starbucks filled with staff in nerdy shirts, restaurants with Gencon specific menus and creations, and a local brewery (Sun King Brewery) has a Gencon specific beer crafted each year. I haven't gotten to try them each time I'm out, but the 2015 one was delicious and opened my mind to new styles of beer (you can sometimes find old releases available under a different name, they don't seem to just abandon the recipe after the one event).
I've been meaning to post here after working Gencon and it kind of slipped my mind, so thanks for the reminder that prompted a bit of a mixed informative post and sharing the great time I had this year demo'ing for dozens and dozens of people across the weekend. I work 3 events per year for a friend's chocolate/cake shop here in Toronto (Comic Con, Fan Expo (basically an even bigger Comic Con), and Fan Day (1 day event in December), plus Gencon and FFP's "Dice Fest", a weekend long event they hold near Seattle. I'd love to one day hit up another big event like NYCC or SDCC, but mostly I want to some day get to a PAX (likely East, maybe West, but I'm not ruling out Unplugged). And to this day I don't even really consider myself a 'convention guy', as noted, most of this is stuff I take time off from my day job to work at, to share the enthusiasm and passion I have for what these two companies do. As such, I get that it won't necessarily be a representative experience for all, and have tried to balance that enthusiasm with that reality.
I really need to dig up a bunch of pictures from Gencon and Dice Fest, though this year I wasn't as focused on documenting my time there. Still, being surrounded by people in costumes and fun t-shirts and brimming with fandom for all kinds of things.
If anyone has any questions feel free to toss them my way. I know there are a number of folks who attend, and will try to pop into the Gencon thread that usually forms up a few weeks before things get underway.
To quote my friends and I on our roadtrip half a decade ago; GENCON WOOOOOO!
The border agent was very patient with us.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
I played ghost stories tonight with someone i invited to a party who doesn’t like that sort of game
Mistakes were made
That game seems to have a worse quarterbacking problem than pandemic
Maybe the worst I’ve ever seen
Games don't really have innate quarterbacking problems; literally all coops can have that issue but they're caused by the players, not the games.
Well, Hanabi and Space Alert can’t, right? And it’s less likely in Spirit Island due to individual information - Spirit powers and power cards hand. There are structural details that affect it game by game. Ghost Stories is slightly worse than pandemic just because it’s so much less teachable.
We played with two Lo Pans and won as weakly as possible. As you say, there wasn’t much quarterbacking for social reasons, however inviting the game made it
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
I can see a Quarterbacking problem in Ghost Stories, but nowhere near Fury of Dracula. You can get away with sub-optimal moves in Ghost Stories. In Fury of Dracula, you NEED people in exact spots in order to close a dragnet and one person out of position will totally screw up several turns of setup (one person engaging Dracula before they're equipped can spell fatal "gg" disaster).
Yeah I’ve never seen that one. It seems worse, indeed
I played ghost stories tonight with someone i invited to a party who doesn’t like that sort of game
Mistakes were made
That game seems to have a worse quarterbacking problem than pandemic
Maybe the worst I’ve ever seen
Games don't really have innate quarterbacking problems; literally all coops can have that issue but they're caused by the players, not the games.
To this point, any game can have a quarterbacking problem for this exact reason. You could be playing anything, and a player could go, "oh you shouldn't do that, you should do x instead because you'll get more points or it's better for reason y". It's really on the players, not really the game.
There are games that are designed with quarterbacking in mind. I mean, in Space Alert, there's a captain's role whose literal job is to quarterback the rest of the players, but the gameplay is so frantic and fast-paced (and in real time) that you kinda need that job to make quick and decisive decisions.
Also, one thing that I discovered when playing with non-board-gamers is that a lot of people LIKE quarterbacking. Which makes me go "huh?" but these are people who are just there for the company and the narrative and will happily go along with anyone else's suggestion. Agency doesn't mean anything to them, and they actually get bored if you aren't helping them along or suggesting the best moves. Everyone is wired differently. I personally prefer games with meaningful agency and the ability to think through my own moves without succumbing to analysis paralysis, but that's my (and probably people in this thread) way of playing games and not necessarily what other people want out of their board game experience.
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
Also, one thing that I discovered when playing with non-board-gamers is that a lot of people LIKE quarterbacking. Which makes me go "huh?" but these are people who are just there for the company and the narrative and will happily go along with anyone else's suggestion. Agency doesn't mean anything to them, and they actually get bored if you aren't helping them along or suggesting the best moves. Everyone is wired differently. I personally prefer games with meaningful agency and the ability to think through my own moves without succumbing to analysis paralysis, but that's my (and probably people in this thread) way of playing games and not necessarily what other people want out of their board game experience.
There's some room for quarterbacking without taking over the game as well. Spirit Island has a number of potential combos that only work with coordination of some kind, for example, and if you see one, getting the other player to work with you is - in at least some sense - quarterbacking.
Ghost Stories is a little different in my experience because you're frequently faced with a large and imminent problem that someone needs to address ASAP. Someone who can't contain themselves and trust the other players to see it as well is going to be a real bummer to play that with.
In stuff like Descent or Shadows of Brimstone I often play enabler characters because my usual playgroup tends to rely on me to coordinate and sanity-check moves anyway. But them being okay with me going "you're gonna get wrecked by the Tengu if you do that," is very different from "move to that space and attack that."
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If you're trying to price out hotels for Gencon now, just keep in mind that the pricing in the housing block will be much, much better the vast majority of the time and the block will include most of the hotel rooms anywhere near downtown Indy.
I think Gencon is absolutely worth checking out, but it depends a bit on what you want from a convention. If you're mostly excited about the exhibit hall, it will always be crowded at Gencon - especially on Saturday. That said, I've always been able to demo any game that caught my eye and have been able to spend plenty of time talking with actual game devs about their games. If you want to get into every store in the hall you'll need to be prepared to spend a lot of time in line. If you want convention exclusives you'll need to be there early each day and prepared to run straight to the booth with the exclusive you're trying to snag.
If you're open to being more chill about everything though, it's great. There is a limitless amount of things to do and see. Tens of thousands of gaming sessions you can sign up for in advance, and plenty of opportunities to get into games when you're actually there. All kinds of extra events like short film festivals, burlesque shows, acrobatic circuses, concerts and lectures and talks of all kinds. People playing just about any board game you can think of in every possible open space for gaming. Multiple board game libraries where you can check out the new hotness that isn't even for sale yet, or a game you've been considering for a while but just couldn't pull the trigger on without seeing it firsthand. Gamer oriented events at various restaurants and bars and breweries in the area.
I only go to 2 gaming cons each year - PAX South and Gencon. I love PAX South, but almost entirely for the opportunity to hang out with people I like from these forums. As a convention, it doesn't even compare to Gencon.
Anyone been?
One thing to know is that there is no central organization. Each Protospiel is managed independently, typically by veterans of established ones like the original one in MI. As such, experiences can vary across them.
It bears almost no resemblance to other conventions and I’d be hesitant to put it in the same bucket at all. Most of the attendees are designers, and really the only activity is playing prototypes and giving feedback. There are no vendors, tournaments, scheduled play sessions, or any of that.
The structure is collegial. Attendees are expected to provide as many hours of playtesting as they consume. So if I have 3 people play my game for an hour, then I spend 3 hours playing other games before I try to table mine again.
The games you see vary from nearly publisher-ready prototypes to concepts that see paper for the first time during the event.
You will see comparisons to Unpub. Unpub is also for prototypes, but is much more highly structured, with purchased table time, games all in a late stage of development, and an emphasis on getting the general public as playtesters rather than on peer review.
It's also relatively cheap for a con, but I don't have to explain to this thread what happens once you hit the exhibitors.
i would hope they hit back
They do.
In the wallet.
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
SHUX is the West to Unplugged's East.
Yeah what? My roommate pre ordered it and received it Monday. We already played it. Not sure who he got it from, does FF do direct sales?
You can preorder most things from their website, however they do encourage you to buy local.
It's a good game, y'all. Reel purdy too.
I kinda wanna play Don't Turn Your Back again.
I remember looking at that on KS. Describe the game flow some?
It's technically an area control, tableau builder I guess? You get some money bits at the start, then draft super powerful Court cards that you can use for one of two actions during the turn, then get a quest for the turn, then get an action phase where you can hire guild folks or recruit powerful Mourner cards or send guild members to various areas using Influence. Then you have to check if there too many guild members at a certain area and if they're are then they all have to roll to see if anyone goes feral and runs off, then all players need to contribute some money to keep Heaven and Hell from invading, then you resolve all the spaces for rewards based on who has the most guild members there, then you get guild rewards (or penalties) based on who has the most of that guild's figures.
End of game scoring is based on Unity tokens, how much Influence you have with each faction (Bone, Flesh or Spirit) and how well you completed your secret task.
I'm convinced at this point that Fury of Dracula is strictly a 2 player game. It's one of those "the team is only as good as their weakest player" games. There's just so little wiggle room for the hunters to not all be exactly following one cohesive plan, that you either secede control to the most experienced player or lose. At that point the hunters are basically all played by one player anyway.
I looked this up and couldn't stop laughing at this (slightly NSFW) image.
Clearly the "flesh" faction is for hotties with bra pads shaped like groping hands. So who was the ghoul with a few shreds of rotted skin left fooling when he tried to sneak into the club? It's like seeing someone who is clearly pushing 50 at a "young singles" event.
Oh hell yeah, the objectification is just STUPID with a capital dumb. Every male character is a skeleton or ghoul and, while there's some few skeleton ladies; they still all have perfect bowling ball breasts while the rest of them are just porn models in spooky outfits.
I think 3 is the sweet spot personally. Gives the hunters someone to bounce ideas off but keeps downtime to a minimum.
I guess if the 2 hunter players are both experienced. But man I always feel sorry for a new player. His entire team loses if you just let him play and he doesn't let the more experienced people play for him.
It's got the same quarterbacking problem as Pandemic, but even worse because the opposition in Pandemic isn't a human mind consciously exploiting the weak player.
Mistakes were made
That game seems to have a worse quarterbacking problem than pandemic
Maybe the worst I’ve ever seen
I mean you only get experienced by playing the game. You're working together as a team, presumably you are working together to form a plan and then execute it. I don't see how it's worse in FOD than other hard coop games. It certainly works as a 2p game too, if the hunter is alright juggling that many hands of cards.
Games don't really have innate quarterbacking problems; literally all coops can have that issue but they're caused by the players, not the games.
To this point, any game can have a quarterbacking problem for this exact reason. You could be playing anything, and a player could go, "oh you shouldn't do that, you should do x instead because you'll get more points or it's better for reason y". It's really on the players, not really the game.
Steam ID
So, I'm not an expert, but I have been attending Gencon for a few years now. Full disclosure, the last two of which have been working with a company at a booth running Demos, so while I've been 4 times now, only 2 of them were purely as an attendee.
As with everything YMMV, but since you have explicitly said you're down for cons, that's great, no convincing needed there.
Tickets go on sale in early January, and shortly thereafter they open the housing portal to tickeholders, with a randomly assigned time when it unlocks for each person, at which point you can snap up a room from what is left at that time. I know people who have gone AirBNB instead, or even gotten a room outside of the portal, but it's usually more expensive. The holy grail is getting a room downtown, something in walking distance of the convention center, but that can be very much a luck of the draw sort of thing.
My first one was in 2015 with a group of 3 other friends, we drove down from Toronto (which is a good 9'ish hours on the road), and ended up with a hotel a bit further out that allowed us to save a bit of money (also the downtown core was entirely full due to a mess with their (at the time) new hotel portal system thing). I attended a few small panels, spent a bunch of time on the Exhibitor floor, snagged dice/a few odds and ends, played in demos, and made a point of playing True Dungeon with two of the gents I went with.
Sidebar; True Dungeon is a roughly 2 hour long 'live action D&D' kind of game. There are puzzles to solve, props to handle, combat to survive, and a token based system for determining what weapons, armour, and gear you're carrying. When you join a game you get a 'sealed' pack of 10 like a lootbox, and can buy more. Some people buy a LOT more. They used to run 2 different quests per convention, but now run 3 or 4, with at least one being a 'redux' of a previous year's event, but you cannot use anything but the starter baggie of tokens, making it more like a limited/"sealed" game. It's great fun, because instead of sitting down and having a couple of old veterans around handing out piles of rare and powerful gear (compared to the negligible starting stuff most players will have), nobody has anything, you're practically begging/borrowing what you can just to get a weapon of some sort, oh god why doesn't the Paladin OR the Fighter have any armour? Who has some plate? NO ONE? Okay okay, mail? Leather? Duct tape and thick twine?! SOMETHING?!
It's not for everyone, but it is an experience worth at least knowing about, and trying to make an informed decision. The tickets for the 'normal' True Dungeon events are extremely expensive. The Redux editions aren't as bad, but still expensive.
So, back to the Con. If you're going alone, as I did on my second trip in 2017, it's still quite possible to have fun. There is an endless stream of panels, pre-arranged game demos and events, open gaming areas, and more. Part of this comes down to how outgoing you are, whether gaming with strangers is going to cause anxiety or be unappealing. It's not usually my thing *at random*, but after meeting the Flying Frog Productions team in 2015, and offering to run a few demos for their game Shadows of Brimstone for a few hours in 2017, they brought me back in 2018 and 2019 to work the booth full time (this year was the first time I was in on the early set up crew AND tear down afterwards, I legit worked harder on that week of vacation than I have in years at my day job). So, while pick up and play experiences with people wandering the floor weren't quite my thing, I really enjoy sharing something I love with others, and that has been a hell of an experience for the last few years (I will also be back at their booth in 2020, and it's always a blast to run into forumers who happen to swing by, though its usually infrequent enough that it always catches me a little offguard).
Overall, it is... a thronging mass of humanity, a bunch of the biggest names in gaming all under one roof, with new stuff and promotional swag and something I've really come to enjoy and look forward to. It is a place where I run into friends I only ever see there (@MorganV) , get to wander artist alley (which is filled with authors, artists (especially who have worked on Magic the Gathering; so many playmats and tokens!) and other neat odds and ends), and experience a city that really leans into the whole experience. Literally. For blocks and blocks, it's easy to find Starbucks filled with staff in nerdy shirts, restaurants with Gencon specific menus and creations, and a local brewery (Sun King Brewery) has a Gencon specific beer crafted each year. I haven't gotten to try them each time I'm out, but the 2015 one was delicious and opened my mind to new styles of beer (you can sometimes find old releases available under a different name, they don't seem to just abandon the recipe after the one event).
I've been meaning to post here after working Gencon and it kind of slipped my mind, so thanks for the reminder that prompted a bit of a mixed informative post and sharing the great time I had this year demo'ing for dozens and dozens of people across the weekend. I work 3 events per year for a friend's chocolate/cake shop here in Toronto (Comic Con, Fan Expo (basically an even bigger Comic Con), and Fan Day (1 day event in December), plus Gencon and FFP's "Dice Fest", a weekend long event they hold near Seattle. I'd love to one day hit up another big event like NYCC or SDCC, but mostly I want to some day get to a PAX (likely East, maybe West, but I'm not ruling out Unplugged). And to this day I don't even really consider myself a 'convention guy', as noted, most of this is stuff I take time off from my day job to work at, to share the enthusiasm and passion I have for what these two companies do. As such, I get that it won't necessarily be a representative experience for all, and have tried to balance that enthusiasm with that reality.
I really need to dig up a bunch of pictures from Gencon and Dice Fest, though this year I wasn't as focused on documenting my time there. Still, being surrounded by people in costumes and fun t-shirts and brimming with fandom for all kinds of things.
If anyone has any questions feel free to toss them my way. I know there are a number of folks who attend, and will try to pop into the Gencon thread that usually forms up a few weeks before things get underway.
To quote my friends and I on our roadtrip half a decade ago; GENCON WOOOOOO!
The border agent was very patient with us.
Well, Hanabi and Space Alert can’t, right? And it’s less likely in Spirit Island due to individual information - Spirit powers and power cards hand. There are structural details that affect it game by game. Ghost Stories is slightly worse than pandemic just because it’s so much less teachable.
We played with two Lo Pans and won as weakly as possible. As you say, there wasn’t much quarterbacking for social reasons, however inviting the game made it
Yeah I’ve never seen that one. It seems worse, indeed
There's some room for quarterbacking without taking over the game as well. Spirit Island has a number of potential combos that only work with coordination of some kind, for example, and if you see one, getting the other player to work with you is - in at least some sense - quarterbacking.
Ghost Stories is a little different in my experience because you're frequently faced with a large and imminent problem that someone needs to address ASAP. Someone who can't contain themselves and trust the other players to see it as well is going to be a real bummer to play that with.
In stuff like Descent or Shadows of Brimstone I often play enabler characters because my usual playgroup tends to rely on me to coordinate and sanity-check moves anyway. But them being okay with me going "you're gonna get wrecked by the Tengu if you do that," is very different from "move to that space and attack that."