Valerie Putman:  Prose On Cons—Dragon*Con, 2008

I think I’m finally, a week later, starting to catch up on my sleep.  Dragon*Con is kind of like my grown up version of Spring Break and once again, I had a great time.  Most of the highlights aren’t gaming related, so I’ll keep them brief, but I did also get to play some new stuff.

Best People Watching Ever The main reason why I love Dragon*Con is the people.  I get to see one of my best friends, Mark (think “Dale’s evil GA twin”), and several friends from my Georgia gaming days.  One of our primary activities is just watching all the great costumes (or lack of costume!).  For years the primary hotel for the convention was the downtown Hyatt on Peachtree and this is still where the Masquerade is held on Saturday night.  Unfortunately, the Hyatt has switched to a no photography zone and so now all the people who want to be seen and remembered mostly congregate in the Mariott next door.  Overall, though, the people watching areas are more spread out then they used to be.  I felt like there were fewer spectacular costumes this year and I’m hoping it’s not that I just missed them.  I did make it to the parade this year, which was a first for me.  There were lots of Klingons, Browncoats, Storm Troopers, The Colonial Fleet, Super Heroes, Hobbits, Wizards, Fairies, etc.  Steam punk was also really big this year.  There were also way too many Naughty Nurse Jokers.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog For years Whedon fans have loved the Live, Interactive, Buffy the Musical production at Dragon*Con.  This year, we also had a Live, Interactive, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog.  The cast did an amazing job and there is nothing that makes a geek feel quite at home like 1000 people singing, “Everyone’s a hero in their own way!  You, and you, and mostly me! - And you!”

Famous People Ok, so no Dr. Knizia or Mr. Moon sightings, but I got to see Hayden Panettiere (Claire from Heroes) and James Callis (Dr. Baltar from BattleStar Gallactica) and Michael Hogan (Colonel Tigh from BattleStar Gallactica).  Actually, the list of famous people is way too long to list.  Most of the big Sci Fi shows had at least a few cast members there.

Gaming Too! I did get a few hours of gaming in each day.  We played some Tichu and other fillers, but I also got to try out two games that were new-to-me.

Ilium is a new Reiner Knizia title published by Playroom Entertainment.  It’s a nice set collecting game with just enough hidden information to keep it interesting.  Players are collecting artifacts and they score at the end of the game for having the most tiles for each kind of artifact and also for complete sets of all of the different artifact types.  Unfortunately, before you can score you have to donate the most valuable of tile of one kind to your secret benefactor.  Players collect the tiles by placing 1, 2, or 3 workers on the stone paths between dig sites.  When a stone path is full, the player with the most workers takes the lowest value tile from either site.  If the second place player has at least half as many workers, he takes the lowest value tile from the other site.  Otherwise, the first place player gets the tiles from both sites.  The game takes about 45 minutes and it is very tactical.  The game mechanic was clean and elegant and it felt new enough to make this game a very nice addition to the collection.

Moto GrandPrix, published by Fantasy Flight Games, was our other new game for the weekend.  I’m sorry to say this, Tyler, but you wasted your money.  Hubby was excited about this motorcycle racing game with variable track set ups.  The playing pieces were certainly cool—they could be tilted to show that you were leaning into the turns.  The movement rules sounded promising—the player rolls 2 dice and they can flip dice to the opposite side to increase or decrease speed (unless they are in a turn, where certain rules apply).  Unfortunately, in our game, a few players took an early lead (rolled high) and a few players got behind (rolled low) and there was little passing or player interaction.  So while there were some cool rules in the game, the reality was that you rarely used them.  On your turn you rolled the dice, flipped them to create the highest number you could, moved forward, rinsed, and repeated for 6 laps.  It was quite dull.

Sigh.  Another year over.  I’m sorry that I missed ThatBoardGamingThing in Raleigh this weekend, but I knew that I’d need some recovery time.  My next event is Buckeye Game Fest, the local Columbus Area Boardgaming Society convention October 2nd – 5th.  Maybe I’ll see you there?

I’d rather be gaming,
Valerie Putman

Comments:

< Back Home