Convention Report: Essen 2006: Stories

By Rick Thornquist
November 4, 2006

A lot of the fun of game conventions like Essen is meeting people and chatting.  Often the chatting leads to stories of silly situations that have happened to people at or during the fair.  Normally these stories are told and then forgotten - I have often thought that was a pity as others didn’t get a chance to hear them.  This time I decided to ask some people to go on the record and write down their stories so others can hear some of the silly things that happened during the fair.

As they say in Law and Order… here are their stories (and I added one of my own).

You can’t game in here! This is Essen!
By Jason Matthews

Francis Benno DeLonge, author of Big City, Ben Baldanza and I were having lunch together. He was explaining to us that he had a card game design on the Cold War for 10 years, but had been unable to find a German publisher. We were in the “waiter” part of the Messe cafeteria. I swear to you, Benno hadn’t yet showed us two of his mock up cards, when a 200 stone German “hostess” descended upon him. She notified him, in her most officious tone, that playing at the table was forbidden. Benno, quite sheepishly (for a German judge), put away his mock up. Not only was this the kind of stereotypical German hospitality that one hopes to encounter somewhere, just for reassurance; it also brought forth appropo visions of Dr. Strangelove. Remember gentlemen, there is “No Fighting in the War Room”, and No Playing at the Spiel Fair either.

The Essen Sled
By Ben Baldanza

After storing game purchases all day at the Fragor booth, Thursday was coming to end when Jason Matthews and I realized that we had far too much to carry back to our hotel. Unable to find a dolly, and without enough time to make multiple trips, we packed everything into empty boxes that had been used to ship Hameln. Then, Jason “found” an enormous box bottom and we loaded all eight boxes of games into this and used it as a sled. Everyone laughed as we pulled it through the hall, I almost got trapped on the service elevator, and then on the way out Hanno Girke and the some of the Lookout Games team helped us get the massive and heavy load to the curb. From there, we got a cab to take us the four blocks to the hotel, only then needing to schlep all eight boxes up four flights of stairs. All worth it!

Weighing the Suitcase
By Ben Baldanza

Like many of us who come from the US, I brought a large, empty suitcase with me to ship back full of games. After it was fully packed, I began to worry about the weight. I was flying back on Swiss International, and I wasn’t even sure of their checked baggage weight limits. Being an airline guy, I felt confident in my guess that as long as it was 70 pounds or less, I could get it on even if it might require an excess fee.

Several people picked up the bag to help guess the weight and we all agreed that it likely weighed well over 70 pounds but less than 100. I grimaced but headed to DUS airport, an extra 100 Euro note in my pocket just in case, and on approaching the counter first asked what the weight limit for the bags was. The friendly attendant said it was 32 kg (a tad over 70 pounds, as I had suspected), and I told her that I had no idea what my bag weighed as I hoisted it up onto the scale. Boy was I surprised when she stated “well, you’re quite good. The bag weighs 31.8kg!!” If only I could be that lucky in games…

Do You Really Work Here?
By Rick Thornquist

In my Essen Preview, one game that got a lot of attention was Khronos.  The concept sounded neat and the art and the production looked great.  The day before the show started people were already succumbing to the allure to the game and started buying it in droves.  It seems that every person I saw that day had a copy under their arm. 

I was interested in the game, but held back.  After all, I knew no one that had actually played the game and I was darned if I was going to buy a big box game from a practically unknown publisher without at least one person telling me it was good.

On Thursday I asked people if anyone had played it.  No one had.  Same on Friday.  By Saturday morning I was getting this gnawing feeling that the game was going to sell out and I’d miss the bandwagon if I didn’t buy a copy soon. 

After I finished posting my report on Saturday morning I headed to the Matagot booth.  This was about an hour before the fair was to open and it was still fairly quiet.  I got to the booth and found a small pile of games covered in a sheet and an Asian girl sitting at the table at the booth.

I tried to tell her that I was interested in buying a copy game, but her English wasn’t very good.  I showed her some money and pointed at the games but she still looked confused.  Finally I lifted the sheet, grabbed one of the games, and shoved 45 Euros into her hands.  She still looked a little confused but took my money.  I walked away, finally having procured a copy of the game. 

It was only later that I actually posed myself the question - was this woman actually a working at the booth or was she just some random person who had sat down at the table to rest?  Maybe she just saw me shove 45 Euros into her hand and though, what the heck, I’ll take this guy’s cash!  I never did find out whether she worked there or not (if not, I owe Matagot 45 Euros).

I am NOT Rick Thornquist.
By Greg Schloesser

Over the years, my name has become fairly well recognized within gaming circles, primarily due to my incessant session reports, reviews, articles, commentary, etc. As such, I will often be approached during the Spiel by folks who comment upon my body of work. I wish it were the Amigo girls commenting favorably about my body, but I guess that will never happen!

Anyway, twice during this year’s convention folks approached me and began to compliment me on my insightful and detailed writings. I smiled and graciously thanked them for their compliments. On both occasions, however, the individuals then proceeded to thank me profusely for the work I did in compiling the previews of all of the games being released at Essen. Of course, it was a case of mistaken identity, to which I could only reply, “I’m NOT Rick Thornquist.” On both occasions, the embarrassed individuals quickly attempted to cover their mistakes by reading my name badge and quickly commenting how much they enjoyed my reviews!

The Jason Matthews / Cow Pasture Saga
By Greg Schloesser

James Miller and I arrived in Germany on Sunday, October 15th, with plans to spend 3 days sight-seeing prior to the convention. Jason Matthews was supposed to fly into Frankfurt on Monday, and take a train to Rothenburg, where we would meet him at the train station. German trains are known for the punctuality, so James and I arrived at the train station well in advance of the 14:59 scheduled arrival time of the train. The train arrived 3 minutes early, but Jason did not emerge.

James and I were a bit perplexed and worried, and decided that Jason’s plane must have been a bit late arriving at the airport. The next train from Frankfurt departed a full one-hour later, so we figured he MUST be on that train. We occupied the time by browsing through a mini shopping mall across from the station, where we spotted Thurn & Taxis on sale for 22 euros (not a bad price) and enjoyed a warm pretzel.

We scurried back to the train station in anticipation of Jason’s arrival on the next train. The train arrived as scheduled and immediately disgorged is contents of 50 noisy school children. Again, no Jason.

The horror struck us that we had no way of contacting Jason. We had not brought our cell phones with us, as neither of us had ones that would operate in Germany. We figured that something must have happened to cause Jason to either miss his plane from the U.S., or that he had to cancel his trip for some insidious reasons inflicted upon him by his evil employer (that would be U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, who is actually rather nice for a Democrat! :o) ) So, left with little choice, we reluctantly left the train station and headed back to town.

After dinner, I called home to my wife Gail to see if Jason had contacted her. Jason knows my phone number, so I figured it would be our only common contact source. No, Jason did not contact her. James and I figured we would see Jason at the Spiel in Essen.

The next morning, there was a knock on our gasthaus door, accompanied by a voice uttering “room service”. Perplexed, I opened the door to find Jason in the hall. Seems that his plane had cargo bay problems when it arrived in Frankfurt, so he missed the first train. He did get on that second train as we thought he might. So what went wrong?

Ahh, my friends, that is where Jason’s training as a Democrat really rose to the surface. It appears that he had to switch trains on his way to Rothenburg, so Jason immediately jumped on the train headed LEFT! Of course, it was the WRONG train! Jason apparently realized his mistake 3 stops down the line, and frantically hopped from the train at its scheduled stop in Steinach. After the train pulled away from the station, Jason realized to his horror that the Steinach train station was little more than a bus shelter smack-dab in the middle of a cow pasture! The town’s lights could be seen glowing dimly in the distance. Jason’s horror was complete when he noticed that there was only one set of train rails. The realization dawned upon him that he would be forced to wait until the train reached the end of that track, turned around and returned before he could board a train in the right direction. Meanwhile, the cows were eyeing him suspiciously

Eventually, the train returned and Jason once again boarded. He arrived at the train station in Rothenburg long after James and I had departed. He forlornly walked across the street to a nearby hotel and secured a room. Fortunately, the hotel had an internet connection, and he was able to search through his Gmail account and locate the message I sent him weeks ago confirming our hotel reservation in Rothenburg. Thus, he was able to locate our hotel and arrive at our door step on Tuesday morning.

The story doesn’t end there, however, for our “wrong-way Matthews”. Jason, along with his co-designer Ananda Gupta, was the recipient of the International Gamers Award for Twilight Struggle. He had been informed several times of the date, time and place of the awards presentation, most recently in person on Friday morning by me. The presentation occurred at 5:00PM in Hall 12 from a booth that was demonstrating Caylus, which had won the IGA in the General Strategy, multi-player category. The booth had been adorned with a large IGA banner for the entire convention. Immediately prior to the presentation, I frantically searched the crowd, but Jason was no where to be found. Since GMT Games did not have a presence at Essen this year, Ben Baldanza was forced to accept the award for Jason, Ananda and GMT.

Seems that Jason had gotten lost again. He had wandered over to the Ystari booth, only to find that Cyril, William and the rest of the Ystari hierarchy had already departed for the IGA presentation. The remaining staff member didn’t know the location of the presentation, so Jason was forced to vainly wander the halls in search of the booth ... which he must have passed dozens of times during the 3 previous days.

So there you have it ... the saga of my good friend Jason Matthews misguided adventures in Germany!

© 2006 Rick Thornquist

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We were around at the Fragor stand picking up our own bags (thanks guys!) when Ben and Jason were loading up the Essen sled.  It was VERY funny ... Posted by Brian Robson on Nov 5, 2006 at 08:34 AM | #

Rick, if you were thrusting sizable sums of money into the hands of strange women in Essen, you might be lucky if the only thing you have to worry about is if you shortchanged Matagot! Posted by Larry Levy on Nov 5, 2006 at 11:17 AM | #

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