GenCon 2010 Thursday

Today I got to play in two (2!) Paranoia events, and they were both a blast.

I got going a bit late, but still was able to make the walk from the Holiday Inn Express around the ICC to the Hyatt in 20 minutes. That's a pretty good clip for me, your almost stereotypical fat gamer. (I shower! :)

Anyway, the title of the event was Botpocalypse. Bots were going haywire across our sector, and we were assigned to hunt them down. Hilarity ensues, from turning a PLC blast shield into Cold Fun to being caught between the bots busy rewiring other bots to kill everyone and the scrubbot army replicated from one of our R&D devices, intent on cleaning everything in their path mercilessly. We even had a party wipe before getting out of the corridor from our dorm to the elevator. It was a good time, and was inordinately pleased to see that the GM used my character sheets. (Yay, they're helping!)

We also talked a bit about how there's less Paranoia going on nowadays. (Mongoose hasn't been pushing it as much lately, IIRC.) Still, 8 events is better than 0.

Early afternoon was spent spending money in the Dealer's Room and Auction Store. Picked up the new Dungeonquest game, the expansion for Galaxy Trucker, some more Queen's Blade books, the Gambling? I'm In! set that can be used with Red Dragon Inn, this year's dice set from Crystal Caste (blue speckly, much prettier than last year), and a bunch of other miscellaneous cool stuff. Also got my 11th RiddleMaster badge sticker from Cloud Kingdom's booth. (Their books are good if you want some riddles for your RPGs, and Castle of Magic's a fun group game! Poke, poke.)

It took a bit to haul all that back to the room in the ~90 degree heat, and I zoned out a bit after I got back. Still, I was able to eat some stuff and lumber back (again with 20 minutes before game time) to the Hyatt for Paranoia Trek IX: The Shangr-I-LAA Ripoff.

Folks, if you're looking for some fun events, Evil Fleet Productions runs some great ones every year. Their signature event is Can of Whupass ("the only slugfest where good role-playing increases your chances to win", and it sounds like a blast) but the one I play in every year is Paranoia Trek. It's pretty much what you'd think: Romulans replace Communists to produce Rommie Mutant Traitors, Klin-G-ONN guards are everywhere, you play as various characters from across the Star Trek incarnations, and so on.

We were off to experience the greatest vacation spots that the complex had to offer, and what a whirlwind trip it was! We earned a bit of money playing Weakest Link (without questions, just multiple choice answers). Then we cruised on the LUV boat, singing karaoke with our "partners" (Scott-Y and Mcco-Y, who would've guessed?) and trying to escape after we hit the inevitable iceberg. Next was wandering through the woods and some horribly ineffective dice rolling in a combat between us and Robin (60's Batman) and his Merry Men. It all finished up with some southern puppet comedy in NAS/CAR sector followed by the giant car race that ended with the anticipated giant explosion that took us all out. Debriefing followed with typical results.

Two interesting demographic notes about this session: the Brits outnumbered the Minnesotans 4-3, and the ladies outnumbered the guys 4-3.

On Friday: M.U.L.E. and Car Wars!