Outlanders, Molemen, and Serpentblood for LotFP (Reskinned Classes)

I will soon wrap up my Warhammer 40K: Wrath & Glory campagin and move onto running Lamentation of the Flame Princess. Not surprisingly, it will be set in a weird-fantasy version of Europe at the height of the 30 Years War. Originally I planned on including Dwarves and Elves, describing them as remnants of pagan faerie empires or whatever. I soon decided, though, that while I wanted to keep the demihuman classes I wanted to make them different from the classic fantasy standbys. Reskinning was the way to go--keep the classses mechincally the same (or with slight tweaks) and change all the fluff.

Changing the Halfling to the Outlander was my least creative change. A lot of people have turned the Halfling into some kind of ranger or explorer class. Their bonuses with ranged weapons and natural woodland abilities make this easy. I decided to stick with the precendent and make them "Outlanders," often Native American or African tribesmen, but also buckskinners or mountain men. Mostly, I just thought Mani in Brotherhood of the Wolf was always cool.

For the Dwarf, I still wanted to keep the class hardy and crafty. If I could inject some Hollow Earth weirndess into their subterranean kingdoms, all the better. Molemen were the obvious choice. They are heavily inspired (that is, lifted almost directly) by mole-men John Hodgman writes of in More Information Than You Require. This is not the first time I've stolen his Molemen.

For Elves, I chose to turn them into Serpentblood. I've always loved the Yuan-Ti in D&D, and I've always been fascinated/amused by the hidden reptilian masters of UFO lore. Of course, the Snake Men of Valusia and King Kull were also an influence. These are all the same reasons I brought the Sneaky Snakes into Hobomancer. Also I'm pretty sure Selena from the core LotFP cast is supposed to be half-snake or something. Anyway, replacing elves with decendants of extra-dimensional reptilian sorcerer kings lets me add some weird conspiracy stuff to the campaign.

Here, then, are the class write-ups...

Outlanders

Outlanders are warriors and survivalists specialized for operating in the wilderness and on the frontier--the lands outside supposed "civilization." Many outlanders are from places that Europeans would disparagingly call “primitive”—often uncolonized America or Africa. Some European frontiersmen also qualify as Outlanders (your mountain man or buckskinner types). 

The Outlander is a reskin of the LotFP Halfling class. In most ways they function identically to that class, except that they have no restriction on weapon sizes and only receive the +1 bonus to AC if they are lightly encumbered or less.

Molemen

Molemen are hideous subterranean humanoids with hunched bodies, withered, rodent-like faces, translucent skin, and borderline-heretical beliefs in liberal democracy. They can pass for ugly, stunted humans. Most people just assume they are foreigners from whatever country their homeland hates the most (“Beady eyes, weird teeth… the man’s obviously Welsh”). Molemanic women are just as hideous as their menfolk. High-ranking Molemen often wear powdered wigs. Molemen will introduce this fashion to European nobility in the latter half of the 17^th century.   

Molemen possess a sophisticated culture and civilization deep below the Earth that values industry and learnedlness. Molemanic societies are sexually egalitarian and comprise some of the few functional democracies in these benighted times. Sadly, these subterranean republics are currently experiencing some unspoken catastrophe. Many exiles and refugees have made their way to the surface world. In 1825, the Molemen will form an alliance with the American president, John Quincy Adams, who well lend them aid and arms in an attempt to reclaim the Hollow Earth.

Mechanically, Molemen are a reskin of the LotFP Dwarf class and function exactly like that class, including combat options and carrying capacity. In my campaign, I have gotten rid of the Architecture skill. Dwarves (and Molemen by extension) replace it with Tinkering.

Serpentblood

Serpentblood are descendants of the extradimensional reptilians that once ruled the Earth from the lost empire of Valusia, back when mankind was young. Modern serpentblood little resemble their ophidian forbearers, but often grow more snake-like as they grow in power. Serpentblood are normally raised unaware of their heritage, and the xenogenetic traits often skip several generations. Around puberty, a newly awakened serpentblood is visited in their dreams by their reptilian ancestors, who make them aware of their alien birthrights and direct them towards other of their kin for training. As decendants of alien sorcerer-kings, all serpentblood have a natural talent for magic and combat. Awakened serpentblood have several conclaves hidden in the jungles of South America and central Asia, as well as Greece and the mountains of Romania.

Mechanically, Serpentblood are a reskin of the LotFP Elf class. In most respects they function exactly like that class, including spellcasting and combat ability. They are chaotic in alignment and share the same vulnerability to holy water and the like. Their natural Search ability is due to their semi-functional jacobson’s organs. Serpentblood often become more snakelike as they grow in power. At 2^nd level and each level thereafter, roll a Save vs. Magic (using the saves for the new level). If the roll fails, roll 1d8 on the chart below to determine what serpentine trait manifests. Repeated instances become more pronounced.

1. Eyes become snakelike with slitted pupils.
2. Tongue grows longer and forked.
3. Pigmentation becomes mottled or banded like a snake.
4. Character grows a thin (non-prehensile) tail.
5. Character loses all body hair.
6. Skin becomes scaly
7. Character develops a taste for small birds and rodents, preferably live and whole.
8. Teeth become sharp and fang-like.

Golden Humongous NPCS (Wrath & Glory)

We're coming up on the last couple of sessions of out Warhammer 40K: Wrath & Glory campaign. The campaign's going to be shorter than I orignally intended--it's not quite hitting my creative buttons as much as I'd like, and I'm eager to start my historical horror-fantasy LotFP campaign. The warband is going to scour the lost city of Yggdrail on the planet Ymir, then I think we're going to put them on the shelf for a while. It will be a good adventure to end the campaign on.

All that said, I'm pretty plleased withthe NPC crew I came up with for the Golden Humongous--the voidship the warband serves on under the command of Lord Captain Gabriel Galahad.

"WWPHITM" (pronounced WHUP-a-tum) stands for "Who Would Play Him/Her in the Movie." It's a useful character stat Ipicked up from my work with QAGS.

Golden Humongous

• Conquest class Star Galleon 
• 5 km long. Crew of 65,000 
• Massive void ship, ancient and powerful. 
• Several decks have been closed off for 5000 years. 
• Persistent maintenance problems. 
• Giant golden Valkyrie on prow. Custom gravity generators on outer hull to make massive banners flap and wave impressively.

Lord Captain, Gabriel Galahad, Rogue Trader

Servo skull! Take a letter!

• Arrogant and daring. Swashbuckling vagabond hero of the Imperium who’s claimed a dozen systems in the name of the Emperor. Also the ponciest ponce who ever ponced. 
• Writ of Trade signed by the emperor Himself, passed down for over 200 generations over 10 millennia. 
• Currently looking for a proper wife. 
• Bridge crew is all attractive women. 
• WWPHITM: Matthew Berry 

Sister Lucinda

• Adepta Sororitas Hospitaller 
• Ship’s Medicae 
• WWPHITM: Salma Hayak 

Therimus-Stembolt-57

For the emperor!

• Tech Priest 
• Ship’s Engiseer 
• Lecherous and foul 
• Overclocked emotional processor 
• WWPHITM: Matt Frewer 

Captain Boudica Grimm

• Ship’s arch militant 
• Commander of Imperial Guard, 317th Battalion. “Emperor’s Fury” 
• WWPHITM: Angelina Jolie 

Desdemona of House Belphoebe

• Ship’s Navigator 
• Haughty and Serene. Secure of her position onboard. 
• Long proud line of Navigators that have worked on the Golden Humongous for 10,000 years. 
• WWPHITM: Cate Blanchett 

Caliban Cane

• Ship’s Atstropath 
• Blind, spidery, unusually tall. 
• Has 17 cats. 
• WWPHITM: Doug Jones 

Ecclesiarch Hironimus Blott

• Old but fiery 
• Side interest in archaeology 
• Champion swordsman in his youth 
• WWPHITM: Michael Gambon 

Tiberius Grubbs

• Ship’s Bosun and Galahad’s chief aide. 
• Soft-spoken, but fiercely loyal to his captain. 
• WWPHITM: Noel Fielding 

Corporal Daniel “Danny” Daniels

• Shuttle and transport pilot 
• Chirpy, excitable, optimistic 
• WWPHITM: Tom Holland

Voyage of the Golden Humongous, part 2

Between conventions, and work, and people getting sick, we haven't had a chance to get back to our Warhammer 40K: Wrath & Glory game for several weeks. But it looks like Fate is smiling on us finally, and we're going to get back to the campaign tomorrow.

Our last session was pretty short and direct, as the war band continued to look for the missing techpriest, Thermius Stembolt 57. Looking through the ruins of Stembolt's workshop-shrine, they found the remains of the techpriest's gun serviotrs and found his damaged servo-skull. Nero performed the proper repair litanies and was able to repair the skull as well as access some of its data recordings. The recordinds showed Stembolt barricading himself within his work-shrine before being grabbed by giant crab-claws and drug away. Thinking quickly, the warband was able to hack the servo-skull and use its connection to its master to use the servitor as a guide-dog to lead them to wherever Stembolt was drug off to.

As the warband exited the work-shrine back into the filthy hive alleys, they were suddenly attacked on three sides by several bobs of Crazed Slaanesh Thrill Killers.

Crazed Slaanesh Thrill Killers

Naked, erect, and howling. Tentacles replace fingers and genitals.

Strength: 2	Intellect: 1
Agility: 4	Willpower: 3
Toughness: 3	Fellowship: 2
Initiative: 4	Defense: 3
Speed: 7	Wounds:   3
Shock: 3	Soak: 3
Resolve: 3	Conviction: 2
Passive Awareness: 2
Skills: Weapons Skill 4, Default 3
Size: Average
Keywords: Human, Heretic, Chaos, Slaanesh

Agonizing Tentacles: Damage 5+1ED, agonizing

Naked, erect, and howling (Fear 3): Encountering a Mob of these creatures requires a Fear check (DN: 3)

Crazed: Thrill Killers never fail Resolve tests.

Touch of Slaanesh: A creature brought to 0 Wounds or 0 Shock by a Thrill Killer must make a corruption test.

This was the PCs' first big combat, and they chewed through the cultlings pretty quickly. A timely warp surge from Ayza the scaavy psyker's paralize power took out half of them in one burst. Chainswords and bolters took care of the rest.

Pressing on, the warband followed the servo skull deeper intot he underhive, eventually winding their way into a narrow passageway filled with heretical graffitti. In an abandoned storehouse, they discovered a discarded servo arm and a tech-priest face plate. Bad signs for old Stembolt.

Moist, glowing, underground passages led to a sticky chamber full of discarded matresses that stank of opium and skin. Stembolt-57 the techprist lay slumped against the side of a well, his exposed face glistening metal and raw bone with his eyes rolling senselessly. Two distressingly aluring daemonettes languidly cut long strips of skin from his exposed chest.

Sudeenly a holo-projector flickered into action. Antioch Gol, rogue psyker, cultist, and old enemy of Lord Captain Gabriel Galahad taunted the warband:

“I had hopes that Galahad would have come here himself, but I should have known he’d send lackys instead. Never do yourself what you can have underlings do instead. Speaking of… ladies…” 

The daemonettes attack!

The fight was fast and furious. Toska the Death Cult Assassin took out one daemonette with a single critical hit from her sniper rifle. But the daemonette's sister stuck back with horrific speed and put dow the assasin with her own critical. After that it was a tense but simple exchange of blows while the rest of the warband took out the daemonette and her thrill killer reinforcements. Commisar Elizabeth quickly stabilized the sticken Toska.

After that it was all clean-up. Techpriest Stembolt is brought to the Golden Humongous. With his over-clocked emotional processor, he is vocally and exuberantly grateful for his rescue and happy to be reuinted with his old friend the Lord Captain.

The first short adventure of our Wrath & Glory campaign went fairly smooth. The system's a bit kludgy, but it get easier with each session. I'm not sure how long I'm going to run it (I'm itching to start some Lamentation of the Flame Princess). The next adventure will be a bit more involved and will center around exploring an abandoned city on a dead planet.

Archon Happened! (Archon 42 Convention Report)

Archon is an old-school sci-fi and fantasy convention in Collinsville, IL (just across the river from St Louis) with a pretty decent gaming component. What do I mean by “old-school” convention? Well, they still call it an SF/F convention, they talk about “masquerade” instead of “cosplay,” they still have “filking” and they refer to the dealers’ area as the “hucksters’ room.” Old school, yo. The con attracts about 2,000 people and plays hosts to a lot of room parties. Much of Saturday night just becomes a big nerdy bacchanal. I’ve had a lot of fun there.

Hex Games (makers of QAGS and Hobomancer!) is surprisingly popular there, and we usually sell

decently. Archon’s a bit of a trek for me from Toledo, so I haven’t gone back in about 6 years. But after the fun time I had at Gencon this summer, the Hex boys convinced me to return to Archon. It was, after all, Hex Games’s 20^th anniversary, and we had some celebrating to do!

On Thursday, I made my way down to Cincinnati to meet up with Leighton “Laser Beams” Connor, and we headed out to St Louis bright and early Friday morning. The trip was largely without incident and we made it to the Gateway Convention Center in Collinsville with some time to spare before our 2pm games. We used that time to go to the Hex Games booth and touch base with Steve “Dollar Sign” Johnson, Carter ”Greyhound” Newton, Ian “Erudite” Engle, and Jeffrey “Beloved Family Man” Johnson. We admired our new 20^th anniversary banner and were especially pleased with our new release, the print version of the complete American Artifacts collection (coming soon to DrivethruRPG!).

My first game was “Warlock High School” using the in-development Cinemechanix system:

• The Abernathy Q. Weiterstadt Academy for Thaumic Studies is the Midwest’s third greatest school for young wizards. You’ll quickly find that magic doesn’t make high school any easier for your group of misfit teens. Midterms are on the way and those snobs from Presto Prep are causing trouble yet again. It’s high-school hijinx with a magical twist!

I ran this game at Gencon, so I was pretty well prepared. The plot revolves around the mysterious disappearance of the entire high school, an idea a stole from an old Firesign Theater album. The game went smoothly, and the Cinemechanix system works very well. It was easy to plug in sub-systems for magic and relationships. I have vague plans to adapt the setting into its own game using my own story-gamey system. So, y’know, watch this space.

Later that night, in the dealer’s room, I ran into Jarrett Crader, whose name was somewhere on almost everything I bought at Gencon this year. We talked briefly about the upcoming Mothership horror-sci-fi RPG (looks exciting) and the importance of editing and public gaming in regards to promotion. I wish I had a chance to speak with him more, but we both had things to do. He gave me some sweet Mothership swag, though. Thanks Jarrett!

We had two panels to run Friday night. The first, “Flash Bang Forever!” was about magic in RPGs, and frankly went kind of clumsily. The second panel, “How to Run a One-Shot” went a lot smoother. It focused on running one-shot games at conventions and public venues and I think we had a lot of good advice to share. At some point I’ll put together an article on the subject. I’ve run a lot of one-shots over the years.

Friday morning we carbo-loaded at the Drury Inn’s breakfast bar and made our way back across the street to the convention center. I had two games on Saturday, with only a half-an-hour between them. 

My morning game was QAGS: Apocalypse Truckers:

• Civilization may have crumbled beneath a rain of nuclear fire, but folks still need their toilet paper, beer, and Molly Hatchet 8-tracks. The irradiated highways are dangerous for any lone trucker. Your best bet is to team up with some other wasteland weirdos and form yourself a CONVOY! Grab your shotgun, jump behind the wheel, and get ready for some post-apocalypse grindhouse fun with QAGS!

The set-up was pretty simple. Take cargo from point A to point B with weird stuff happening in between. I had a fun random-cargo table, and I had a bunch of Matchbox cars for the players to use to represent their vehicles. It was Smokey and the Bandit meets Road Warrior.  I made good of the copy of Country Crawl Classics I got from Jarett at Gencon, for times when I had to decide “what happens next?” It was bloody and violent and weird.

My afternoon game was Hobomancers in Space:

• It’s the height of the Great Depression, and the Hobomancers are a rail-riding fellowship of drifters and shamans. You’ve fought monsters in a dozen small towns, you’ve even traveled through time, all to protect the soul of America. Now, it’s time to head into outer space and confront a cosmic threat from beyond the Outer Dark!

I also ran this game at Gencon, so I was good and ready to run it. It’s a sequel to last year’s “Hobomancers in Space” which was a sequel to the previous year’s “Hobomancer’s in Hell.” I’m not sure what the next step will be. This adventure was fun because I got to tap into all my knowledge of weird UFO lore—shapeshifting reptilians, blue doctors, planet Nibiru, all of that. It also lets me play one of my favorite NPCs, Thermal Vent Terwilliger, the alien hobomancer.

Saturday night we had our “20 Years of Hex Games” panel-slash-birthday party. We didn’t have a huge turn-out, since we were scheduled opposite the masquerade contest and drinking. Still it was a fun panel that went over the various ups and downs of Hex Games over the past two decades.

As I had said before, Archon is a party con. Much of Saturday night is given over to room parties, drinking, and nerdly frolicking. Not too many years ago, my friends and I were all eager participants in these celebrations. We stayed out until 4am, stopping only because the booze ran out, crawling into bed only to wake up a few hours later to run 8am games, hungover or still drunk from the night before.

Yeah, we don’t do that anymore. This year we just went to Carter’s room with a bottle of Jefferson’s bourbon. We poured liberally from the bottle, reminisced about days gone by, and made wildly inappropriate jokes with Hex Games corporate mascot Happy D20. We were all in bed by midnight.

Calm down, fellas!

Happy D20 sez: "The 90s never died, y'all!"

Sundays at Archon are pretty hit-or-miss. Leighton’s game didn’t go off (no players) and Steve only had a short 2-hour game that attracted a handful of players. We made a few last-minute sales in the dealers’ room, and then it was time to break everything down.  We had our traditional Archon dinner at the thoroughly-average Mexican restaurant next to the convention center, and it was time to part ways.

I used to go to Collinsville twice a year—once for Archon, and once for Diecon. This was my first time back in 6 years, and I was happy to make the trip. The people at Archon are always welcoming, and it’s good to decompress with a smaller con after focusing on Gencon so much. More importantly it was good to see my friends again. I hope to come back next year.

Voyage of the Golden Humoungous (40K: Wrath & Glory)

WHAR-HAMMAHRRRR!

We wrapped up our Silent Legions game not too long ago. It ended with world-hopping and body horror and sacrifice and explosions. At least the world was saved. My group needed to decide our next game, so we held a committee meeting to vote on what to play next. We decided upon the new Warhammer 40k RPG Wrath& Glory. (The other options were Vampire 5, Lamentaions of the Flame Princess, and Crawling Under a Broken Moon. Tough choices!)

My home group has a mixed level of familiarity with Warhammer. Three of my players are Warhammer veterans. My wife and kid are mostly unfamiliar, other than what she’s picked up from me. As for me, I’ve been gaming for 30-plus years, so I’ve picked up a lot by cultural osmosis. But aside from a couple of video games and a Death Watch one-shot using Fate Accelerated, I actually haven’t had a lot of table-time with the 40K universe. Thankfully, there’s like a ton of info out there on the Internet, so I’ve tried to be diligent with my research.

We started with a Session Zero to create characters and discuss setting elements. The next week we had a short session to give those new characters a whirl. Wrath & Glory uses a point-based character creation system. Many of my players aren’t used to point-buy, and I haven’t done much myself since running Champions in high school. So, character creation took a few hours, but with a group that size that included several 40k newbies, I don’t think that’s too bad.

The basic set up of our campaign is this:

The PCs are Tier 3 characters, all working for a rogue trader named Gabriel Galahad. Depending on who you ask, Galahad is either a swashbuckling  hero of the Imperium who’s personally responsible for claiing a dozen systems in the name of the Emperor, or he’s the ponciest ponce who ever ponced. Neither opinions are incorrect. He’s kind of as if Zapp Brannigan or Zaphod Beeblebrox was good at his job.

His ship, the Golden Humongous is an ancient Star Galleon, 10,000 years old. The players are his personal troubleshooters. “There’s trouble on that planet that I don’t feel like dealing with personally. I need you to go down there and shoot it.”

Tone-wise, I’m trying not to make this a comedy name, but there’s only so much I can go against my nature. We’re going to lean into the skulls & violence vibe of the setting, but it’s going to be more like Heavy Metal and GWAR. The universe is certainly terrible for the characters (although the PCs are mostly above the daily grime), but we the players don’t take it too seriously.

Here’s our current warband:

• Tyst Toska: Death cult assassin who acts like Aubrey Plaza and has a secret stash of frilly pink girly clothes. In addition to her swords, she totes around an Astartes sniper rifle and melta gun. She has some history with the Sisters of Battle, too.
• Ayza Yuutha: A mutant scavvy and psyker. He’s got a couple of tentacles and poorly controlled biopsychic powers. His fate could be interesting.
• Nero:  A techpriest who didn’t want to be a tank, but somehow still managed to have the best armor and weapons.
• Elizabeth Armisted: Commissar from the Death Korps of Krieg. She duel-wields chainswords and has utterly terrifying intimidation skills. Somehow, she wound up being the group medic as well. (“She glares at you, and you suddenly realize you’re not as hurt as you thought.”)
• Gorgozak Hellkrushah: Black Sunz Ork Nob with a small pack of boyz and squigz. Galahad saved his life on Armageddon against the forces of Chaos. Now he’s pledged to Galahad's service, because he gives hi mopportunities to kill bigger and badder things. 

Pay no mind to the dracolich. 

I don't have any warhammer minis, but that just gave me an excuse to put together some lego version of our merry warband. I didn't have a lot of time, and I had limited pieces, but I think they turned out pretty okay.

I was actually very surprised that no one chose to play a space marine or sister of battle. I consider those to be super-iconic 40k archetypes. Meh, what do I know?

The warband’s first mission was to travel to the hive world Sombra and pick up the Humongous’ new engiseer, a tech priest named Thermius Stembolt-57. Stembolt is an old friend of Lord Captain Galahad’s. Of course, the tech priest didn’t show up at the spaceport like he was supposed to, so the warband has to descend into the and find the guy.

So far they’ve run into a less-than-helpful arbiter and wandered into a sleazy bar that hosts squig fights. Our first actual play session was shorter than I’d like, and we’ve barely gotten a taste of the combat system. The next session, however, promises to be exciting and violent.

DCC Road Crew Game at the Edge House (Sanctum of the Snail)

Leighton and Alice Connor are friends of mine. Leighton is another member of Hex Games, and my co-author on Leopard Women of Venus. Alice runs the Edge House, a progressive Christian campus ministry at the University of Cincinnati. I love the Edge House. It has a great welcoming vibe and is a comfortable atmosphere for creative works. I’ve drawn a number of comics in the House’s upstairs. There was an RPG group that met regularly at the Edge House, but they’ve recently lost a number of players, and the group’s kind of fallen apart. The RPG group wanted to attract new players, the Edge House wanted to attract new students, and Leighton and I wanted to run some Dungeon Crawl Classics, so everything conspired in our favor. Even though Cincinnati is over 3 hours away from Toledo, I was excited to drive down to run some DCC for a new audience.

Alice spent the preceding week promoting the game day by both fliers and word of mouth. By the time Saturday, September 15 rolled around, we had 11 people signed up, enough that Leighton and I could spilt them into two groups and run two different tables. We decided to Run “Sanctum of the Snail” from Crepuscular #1 because we were both familiar with the adventure (Leighton was my editor), and we wanted to able to compare notes with each other afterwards to see how each group handled things differently.

Our players were all young college students, men and women, and they were delightful. None of them conformed to the typical negative gamer-caricatures. Those post-millennials were super-cool to the two jaded old Gen-Xers running their games. Great people. All of them were avid D&D players (mostly 5^th edition), but none of them were familiar with DCC. We were excited to introduce them to the “more awesome” hack of D&D.

Our sessions ran a little over 4 hours, with a break in the middle for pizza and Indian food. Of the 18 zeds at my table, only 4 managed to survive until the end. Leighton’s table were luckier, and managed to escape with something like 9 or 10 zeds intact. Both groups managed to avoid running into the Chthonic Snail (unfortunately). Both were disgusted by the giant tapeworms, and both groups found the secret armory. Also, both groups totally avoided the sepulcher and missed the magical axe therein. (No group I’ve ever run has bothered exploring the sepulcher.) 

LC working his magic.

All the players had a very fun time, and there was a lot of cheers and laughs from both tables. I hope we converted at least a few of them to DCC. I passed out the DCC bookmarks I had, as well as copies of the Free RPG Day Third Party companion. I had an extra copy of the DCC Quick Start Rules, so I awarded that to the player at my table who still had one of her characters left and had the highest remaining Luck score (16!).

Leighton and I considered the game day a great success. We exposed several new players to Dungeon Crawl Classics, we helped a bunch of gamers find each other, and hopefully the Edge House will be able to get a regular game group together again.

SHARKBOY!

Bernie the Flumph's Gencon Survival Guide

I’ve been going to SFF and gaming conventions of varying sizes since I was 15. I’ve been going to Gencon every year for about 8 years. Gencon has become my family’s annual summer vacation. Over the years I’ve collected and developed a number of tips for surviving conventions, and now I’m going to share them with you. It should be noted that I go to Gencon primarily as a RPG gamer, so I don’t have any tips for cosplayers, filkers (is that even still a thing?), or other sub-branches of fandom.

This certainly isn’t the ultimate Gencon survival guide. Everyone’s experience is going to be different, but these are the tips that this simple Ohio boy has come up with for Gencon. I hope it will be helpful, especially for neophyte conventioneers.

1) Use basic manners. This is the first rule, the Golden Rule! This rule should trump all others. You are going to be out in public, interacting with thousands of strangers. Use the basic rules of civility you learned in grade school. Memorize these four basic phrases and use them often:

“Please.”

“Thank you.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Have a nice day.”

This goes double for service employees! Gencon is fun for you, but this is a super busy and stressful time for every worker in downtown Indianapolis. Treat them with respect and tip your waitstaff.

Courtesy also includes basic hygiene. There’s a long-standing stereotype of gamers being smelly and gross. Don’t be a stereotype.

2) Plan your week, but be flexible. Gencon is huge. 60,000 people attended in 2017. My home town only has 8,000 residents. Whether it’s games, shopping, movies, food, or seminars, there’s always something to do. Recognize right now that at Gencon, as in life, you are not going to be able to do everything you want to do.

Make yourself a schedule. I made a simple little spreadsheet that shows what times my games are. It also shows when various seminars and other events take place. You’ll want to make sure to leave time between events to eat, and don’t forget to consider that it takes to walk from once building to another. If you’re planning on participating in a lot of events, you might want to schedule some time specifically for socializing. I also have my friends’ arrivals times on my schedule, as well as the times for their events.

You don’t have to be a slave for your schedule, but just having everything you want to do written down in one place helps reduce stress and can keep your mind at ease.

3) Skip the hotels downtown. Hotels in downtown Indy are stupid expensive, and I don’t know why anyone uses them. I guess if you’re the type of person who wants to be able to stay out as late as they want then stagger back to their bed at 3am, it’s kind of cool, but I don’t think that’s worth $500 a night.

Hotel prices immediately drop as soon as you get outside of the city. For the past 3 years, we’ve stayed in a hotel in Franklin, about 20 minutes outside of Indianapolis. It’s only $70 a night. We can stay there the entire 4 days of Gencon for less than it costs for one night downtown. It’s a 20 minute drive into the city, but that’s less than I drive to work every morning.

4) Be prepared for traffic. On Thursday and Friday morning, not only are 50,000 nerds driving into Indianapolis, but hundreds of thousands of residents are going to their regular jobs. The freeways and off ramps in and around Indianapolis get pretty packed. Be patient, use your defensive driving skills, and allow yourself some extra travel time to get into downtown. Traffic gets a bit easier on Saturday and Sunday.

5) Get yourself a parking pass. Parking is insane in downtown Indy during Gencon. Unless you are very, very lucky, you’re going to spend 30 minutes frantically searching for an open parking garage, only to have to settle for one that’s a 20 minute walk to the convention hall. Plus you get to pay $20 for the privilege.

Get a parking pass. Gate 10 has a great program where you pay like $60 for the entire con, and you have guaranteed parking in their great big lot on the edge of town. They have shuttle busses that run pretty much all day and night from the parking lot to the convention center on a pretty quick schedule. They people who run it are all super friendly, too. This is easily the best $60 you’ll spend all week.

6) Dress for the weather. August in Indiana is hot, sunny, and humid. Expect heat in the 90s, and about 60% humidity. Dress appropriately--light fabrics, sunglasses, deodorant, etc. You’ll also want a good pair of walking shoes, because you will be walking a lot. Gencon sprawls across many buildings, indoors and out. On the opposite side of things, many of the buildings have the AC cranked super-high. If you get chills walking in and out of heat and cold, then wear layers as appropriate. Note that you will not feel the AC in the Dealer’s Room.

7) Bookbags are good, but be aware of your surroundings. Apparently some people are vehemently opposed to folks carrying bags at conventions. Those people are wrong. You are at a gaming convention; you need something to carry your dice and pencils and program. Also you’re probably shopping, so you need something to carry your new loot. All this to say nothing about whatever personal items you might require. Bookbags, messenger bags, and satchels are great.

But here’s the thing, Gencon is super crowded so you need to be extra aware of your surroundings and mind the personal space of others. Keep your packs moderately sized, like the bookbag you used in school not like the backpack you took when camping in the Appalachians. Keep your pack close and tight to your body, especially if it’s something that hangs by your side. You don’t want to turn quickly and have your bag swing out of control and slam into someone. And if you do accidentally bonk into someone, for God’s sake apologize and mean it (see rule 1).

8) Remember your meds! I might have mentioned before that Gencon is crowded. Well it is. If you take anxiety medication like I do, remember to take them. You might want to take a little more. Just thought I’d put that here.

9) Eat and Sleep. This seems obvious, but it’s easy to forget in all the excitement of the convention. When I started going to conventions, Marcon (my first con) had a rule of thumb called the “Four plus Two Squared” rule, meaning “four hours of sleep plus two square meals a day” rule. That was fine when I was 16, but that seems way to low now that I am post-youth.

I’ll admit, I rarely get enough sleep at Gencon, and by the time Saturday comes around I am thoroughly burnt out. It’s probably unrealistic to expect a full 8 hours, but make sure you at least you get the minimum required to maintain your physical and mental health, especially if you’re going to be at the con for all four days. There’s only so much that caffeine can do, and the Starbucks lines are long. I’m shooting for at least 6 hours a night this year (good luck, me!)

Food is a little easier, and I’d recommend trying to hit all three meals in some fashion. I usually eat breakfast off-site, at or near the hotel (which is outside of town, remember!). Get some protein and carbs in you to start the day, and avoid paying con prices for breakfast.

Food is easy to get at the conventions but there are two hurdles: 1) It’s expensive, 2) The lines are long. There’s always a good selection of food trucks outside of the convention, but they have a massive lines. The restaurants downtown are also crowded, and you can expect to have a good 60 minute wait for a table (or longer if you want to go the Ram or something). There’s nothing much to do about this except learn to accept it, or schedule your meals between the lunch and dinner rushes.

Food inside the convention hall is always expensive, just like at any tourist spot. Like $2 for a pop, $4 for a hotdog expensive. Budget accordingly.

Also, make sure you eat some fruit or veggies at some point during the week.

10) Carry cash. We live in an electronic society, and many people just don’t carry cash any more (I certainly don’t). While most Gencon vendors are set up to take credit cards, there are still many who do not, especially if they are from overseas (looking at you Lamentations of the Flame Princess). So, make sure you carry at least some hard cash so you don’t have to run back and forth to the ATM. There are a few ATMs on site at Gencon, but it’s not unheard of for them to run out of money on Friday or Saturday. Get that money ahead of time!

11) Have fun! Looking back on all I just wrote, it feels like I’m making Gencon sound like a massive, stressy nightmare. It’s not. It’s a bit daunting if you’re used to smaller conventions (or no conventions at all!), but it’s super fun and we always have an amazing time there. It’s a great opportunity to meet new people and try new games you’d otherwise never have a chance to play. Just remember to be patient, respectful, and kind, and you’ll do fine.

Next time… how to run convention games!