I didn't make too many purchases this year, just a bunch of little stuff:
- Two new SW factions and their reinforcement pack (Mercs and the Filth)
- Funky dice for DCC - d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, d24, d30. You don't really NEED all those but it's kinda fun to buy dice once in a while. Ja-el would have liked the gamescience booth because one of their employees was a nice-looking lady with a huge rack who was inking dice the whole con.
- Couple new Savage Worlds books (the new cheap version of the updated core, and the new "Post-apocalyptic Deadlands" Hell on Earth)
- New warjack
DCC was fun to run. The adventure was a hilarious clusterfuck with the adventurers getting terrified by a flame-shooting statue in the central chamber, and scattering off in all directions to face the myriad threats of the dungeon in small groups. Seven PCs and a beloved sheep died, generally in horrible ways. There were a couple moments of impressive heroism (mainly Enron's characters fighting and defeating a pretty tough snake-demon and only suffering one casualty, I was sure they were all going to bite it). Aeryk, even if we never play it (but I hope it will!) it is totally fun to look through, so I say go for it. Really hope we can swing a G+ session for it soon because it's just perfect for it. Fairly lite rules, and not much need for a battle map. I bought another zero-level adventure, so we're ready to roll anytime...
(Also the guys at Purple Sorceror games have a cool set of online DCC tools. They're working on iOS versions as well.)
Enr0n and I played a couple of tabletop events and they were a good time -- it was nice to go to the mecca of RPGing and actually, y'know, do some.
Iron Kingdoms RPG (which Pump also played) -- this was only 2 hours, so more of a demo than anything, but seemed solid. Everything is closely tied to the wargame rules (but different where it needs to be), so it's pretty easy to pick up and resolves very quickly. From other previews I know it has pretty cool rules for things like building your own steampunk magic/mechanical devices, and the magic system was fun in play, so it was promising. Because of its combat system it seems like more of a tabletop game than something that would be good on G+ though. Now selling for a mere $300 on eBay!
The One Ring -- this is a really neat Middle Earth game that really embraces what people do in the books in terms of having pretty interesting rules for travelling, bolstering your side's morale through speech and song, etc. Kinda sounds dumb but cool in play. Also had a fun dice mechanic with a d12 where good things happen on a 12 (a Gandalf!) and bad things happen on an 11 (a Sauron!). Neat endurance rules where the amount of encumbrance you have is a factor in your fatigue/HP. Absolutely terrible GM, but the system was fun and the players were a decent bunch so we had a good time.
Got in a lot of other random games, all fun. (Magic, Infiltration, Dungeon Lords, drunken Space Alert, Summoner Wars, Quarriors). Our Magic tourney was inconclusive so we will have to resume it at a later time.
Not as fun: Peter being sick all Thursday and most of Friday, me way overdoing it on food and beer on Friday night and having horrible upset stomach/poopz until 4:30 AM, the guy at the PP seminar who asked a lengthy set of questions about how ridiculous it was that there was both a spell AND a weapon named lightning strike, and how it had confused his friends one time, and how could they let that happen?
Ratio of good stuff to bad stuff: approximately 15:1. Great time! Missed you guys that didn't go! Can't wait for the pics!
(PS Blackheart asked a couple times when the next ManCon is, so I'd say someone needs to get on planning one.)