They See Me Rollin'...

 A tradition among the gang I go to Con with – Team Zulu – is to gather at Morton’s Steak House on Wednesday evening. Heading downstairs, we make a sharp right directly into the bar (typically, we are not dressed up to the standard required to be seated in the dining room). As Zulus make their way from the airport and then hotel room, they eventually begin to show up in twos and threes at the bar. Drinks and appetizers are the order of the evening. Everybody gets relaxed and reacquainted, and full, because happy hour prices apply to appetizers as well.

Meat

And Morton’s appetizers are seriously enjoyable.  They make a mean cheeseburger slider, piled high with tomato, onion, and cheddar cheese. Another delicious choice are the Fillet Bites. The three sauces are a pepper sauce, bleu cheese, and a hollandaise. Also, a margarita, because duh.

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One Minute Game Review: Boss Monster

Boss Monster is a dungeon building card game in which players draw and play “room” cards to construct a dungeon, which is then assaulted by a continuous stream of Heroes. Each player starts with a Boss card which has unique special abilities, and a hand containing room cards and spell cards. Players can play one room card each turn to construct a dungeon which can grow up to five rooms long. Different rooms contain different kinds of loot, which in turn attract different kinds of heroes. Heroes are automatically generated each turn, and explore the dungeons to which they are attracted. As the Heroes move through the dungeon, the rooms invoke their own special properties and deal damage. If the hero dies, your Boss Monster collects the hero's soul. However, if the hero successfully penetrates all the rooms in your dungeon without being killed, the hero will attack and deal damage to your boss monster. Players can play spell cards at almost any time to influence play, and players can upgrade rooms in their dungeon or replace any room with a non-upgraded room, to alter the powers and weaknesses of their dungeons to suit conditions as play progresses. If your boss monster is killed you are out of the game. If you are the first to collect ten souls, you win.

Boss Monster is a compact game, and can easily be played in under 30 minutes. Team Zulu sez: check it out. 

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There are not only a plethora of gaming events at Gen Con, but also a category of “spouse” events. As it happens, the two events I have been looking forward to most are from that section of the catalogue, the first of which was: Sushi Making for Beginners.

Pro Tip: Adding plastic wrap to the rolling mat helps minimize cleaning hassles

We were each issued a rolling mat, a very sharp knife, and three sheets of nori. The next thing to appear were balls of freshly cooked rice.  Our instructions were to spread the rice on the nori at a thickness of one grain. This proved to be more difficult than we thought.

Foetal California Roll

Our first project was a California roll. The instructors provided faux crab, avocado, and cucumber. We were advised to go easy on the portions, lest we end up with a “sushi burrito”.

Going easy on the ingredients proved wise; those who did not embrace that approach the first time around quickly went that direction by the end of class. We got to make three different rolls – a California Roll, a veggie roll, and a spicy tuna roll. We were exhorted to be as creative and elegant as we could for the final roll.

I am delighted to report that my roll was judged to be the most elegant in the class.

***

Kayso, with what do you follow “Sushi Making for Beginners”? That would be “Sushi Making: Intermediate”.

We had a three hour break before the next class began, and we all agreed that there was something that we needed to add to the scenario for the afternoon class.

My friend Bill brought a bottle of sake. Yin and yang.

In the intermediate class, we would be learning to do Tomaki (hand roll), Sashimi, and Nigiri. For the sashimi and nigiri, cutting the fish properly is key. In order to get some practice before cutting on actual fish, we were all presented with a chunk of a substance which is – presumably – a thing that exists here on earth, but which I had never seen nor heard of: gelatinous yam cake.

Say it with me... "Gelatinous. Yam. Cake."

It wouldn’t disappoint me to never encounter this stuff again, though in fact it was possessed of no truly obnoxious qualities. It had no odor. We didn’t taste it, so I don’t know what that would have been like. It was simply weird. Frankly, I’m not sure why it exists. However, it closely replicated a chunk of fish as far as cutting-with-a-knife practice was concerned. So, thank you, gelatinous yam cake! Because it prepared me for this:

This stuff was no foolin’ around, for real. Actually, it wasn’t shaped optimally for the sushi we were going to prepare, but it still qualified as a huge honkin’ chunk of raw tuna, and as such, made each of us feel quite happy and like we were actually badass sushi chef type persons.

The fact that my piece of tuna was shaped like a Star Trek insignia was an added bonus.

I was reasonably happy with how my sushi turned out, although I think that the Sauv Blanc kicked in properly about halfway through the session and had something of an impact. We were given some shredded daikon radish, and I did my best to make a pleasing sashimi arrangement. The pieces of tuna we were provided were not optimal for nigiri – the pieces we were able to cut were significantly shorter than would have been desirable – but I gained a huge appreciation for the skill required to prepare it.

I fully intend to purchase a high quality sushi knife as soon as I get home…

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It always makes me smile how Indy really gets into Gen Con. At Bee Coffee, the staff were all wearing Star Trek TOS attire. Also, they were offering this for sale.

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This what happens when you nail three quarters of a bottle of wine, and then visit the dealer’s area.

ALL the Power Grid.

Gen Con 2015 Warmup

On final approach to Atlanta Hartsfield, I feel the first stirrings of excitement burning through the dull haze of having rolled out of bed at 3:15 AM to get to my flight. My destination is Gen Con 2015. From its humble origins in the living room of Gary Gygax, celebrated as the creator of Dungeons and Dragons,  the annual gathering grew and relocated to bona fide convention spaces in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, hence the name "Gen Con". In the present day, Gen Con is now held in Indianapolis, which plays host to 50,000+ distinct attendees annually. 

Although there will be computer and console games to be found if you look hard enough, such are not really Gen Con’s focus (see Quake Con). Gen Con is for gamers who play the kinds of games that existed before the advent of video games.  When the term used to describe ‘tabletop games’ was simply ‘games’. Convention goers include board gamers, role players, collectible card gamers, LARPers, cosplayers, and miniatures gamers of all stripes.

***

Waiting in the boarding area for my flight to Indy, I look around for other attendees. Some are easy to spot – gathered in groups, toting rolled up maps and game mats, miniatures cases, or any of the hodge-podge of paraphernalia readily identifiable as particular to gamers. Snippets of conversation  - sometimes boisterous – waft by. The content might seem obscure to an outsider, but clearly heralds the presence of Con attendees. Others are more subdued, particularly the <ahem> older attendees, of which I myself am one. But I’m starting to feel the excitement, and I kinda want to let others know that I’m going to Con too. I reach into my carry-on, pull out a deck box, and begin quietly sleeving cards. From time to time I look around the boarding area. On a few occasions, others make eye contact and nod briefly, smiling. I smile and nod back. I am content.

***

In the mainstream press, the cosplay crowd gets a lot of attention. This is no surprise, as the painstaking attention to detail put into some of these costumes is beyond amazing. Many cosplayers are faithfully and painstakingly portraying particular characters from games or fantasy literature/manga, while other folks simply dress up as characters they like, or characters they invent. And at Gen Con, some wear costume items simply because it's fun. Here is a sampling from past conventions.

I took this picture while walking, coffee in hand, to the convention center one morning. The thought came, unbidden, “corporate flame-lords”. It simply struck me, the way they were just walking along down the street, toting their chain-sword and flamethrower, as if they were perhaps on their way to check in at the office before doing whatever it was that they needed the weapons for.

Hey, have you met that new girl over in Heretic Counseling? 
She's, like, off the chain...

Anyone sporting a good costume can expect to get stopped every fifteen yards and asked for a photo op. Dark Leia elicited applause and cheering as she walked by.

Her costume includes other people.  Hard core.

I don’t know who this woman is, but she appeared again next year in an equally impressive costume.

Yeah, hooves.

Goat Girl is... goaty

Other costumes are not quite as elaborate, as shown below. Yet this Captain America is one of my favourite Gen Con photos ever.

This is not a minutely detailed, ultra-faithful recreation of a beloved character. This is a dude unabashedly dressing up like a beloved character, regardless of the fact that in certain ways his appearance diverges significantly from that of the beloved character. He does not care. Nor should he, nor should we. Today, he is Captain America. I still remember taking this photo. His enthusiasm was infectious and irresistible, and for me, represents everything I love about Con.

For fans of Firefly, one of the coolest items to get your hands on is a Jayne hat. They can be hard to come by, though, because any serious attempt to market them commercially gets shut down by Fox over intellectual property rights. 

The colors of yarn used are an exact Pantone match. Seriously.

But in the dealer’s area, you can start your own Jayne costume with the help of this septuagenarian fangrrl, who knits them by hand.

Sometimes, the costumes aren’t even of a character. They're just cool. 

“The Best Four Days in Gaming” – six days if you do it right – brings together tens of thousands of people who exhibit one characteristic above all else: unabashed and unapologetic mirth and joy in their hobby. They don’t care if what they are doing isn’t mainstream or particularly popular, or whether anyone thinks they’re weird. They are reveling in a gloriously fun time, and express it openly, unashamed and welcoming. It’s a great vibe, and I can’t wait to immerse myself in it.

Fifty thousand game nerds.

This is my tribe. I am sooooooo stoked!