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Monday, August 14

Gen Con: The Day After

Well, Sunday actually turned out to be a pretty good day. Waking up at 6:30 a.m. sucked, but it did keep us busy. We had a great gaming group and an even better DM. Unfortunately, the adventure was a murder mystery; given that these adventures are timed slots, mysteries can drag on and on and on. Fortunately, the DM knew this and ushered us along nicely. That, and Blast memorizes charm person and hypnotism for just such an occassion.

Anyway, we faced down a bunch of ghouls with a fireball and then tracked the bad guy to his lair...only to have the bad guy come up behind us while in said lair. He successfully cast "hold person" on Blast (how embarassing!) only to be rescued by one of our clerics who cast protection from evil on him, giving Blast another saving throw.

Things went downhill for the bad guys from there. One fireball and two lightning bolts later and the adventure was over. Overall, Matt/Perin leveled to 4th, Eric/Darius leveled to 3rd, and Blast got a shiny new 1st level spell called Kelgore's Firebolt that inflcts 1d6 fire damage/level (max 5d6). This makes Blast's first level spells much more powerful than a mere magic missile, especially when he has two pearls of power to back him up.

We hit the dealer's room one last time. I bought a whole pile of miniatures, including MageKnight, miniatures from Goodman Games, and the starter kit for HorrorClix. I just couldn't help myself!

Flying back was terrible, as expected. Going out of New York is bad enough, going into New York is downright insane. Everybody gets searched, even boarding the plane. You've got to love Airtran, who handed out what was meant to be a snarky/cute bag of pretzels on every flight. Here's the text from their pretzels (parenthetical commentary mine):

HOW TO EAT GOURMENT PRETZELS ON A LOW-FARE AIRLINE
1. Think about our wonderful low fare at airtran.com as you open packet (LOW FARES?! It was over $200 for a connecting flight!).
2. Place a pretzel in mouth. With each crunch, be reminded of our low fares (yeah, it reminded me of how much Airtran sucks).
3. As you swallow, remember again just how low the fares are (oh, I swallowed something all right, but it's not pretzels...).
4. Repeat until pretzel packet (or wallet) is empty.
5. Keep empty packet to remind yourself to book at airtran.com for our lowest fares and no booking fees (or to remind yourself never to take airtran again).

I was also handed a 1 million dollar bill on the street. It's a trap of course (failed my Spot roll, d'oh!). On the back is this:

THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION: Will you go to heaven? Here's a quick test: Have you ever told a lie, stolen anything, or used God's name in vain? (insert text as "proof" from the bible that it's bad to do all those things) Have you looked with lust? Will you be guilty on Judgement Day? If you have done those things God sees you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer at heart. The bible warns that if you are guilty you will end up in hell.

Then, and I love this part, there's an explanation of what to do...with a translation. The parenthetical note is NOT mine:

Please, repent (turn from sin) today and trust in Jesus, and God will grant you everlasting life.

So now we have to define what the word repent is? What's the world coming to?!

Labels: conventions and travel

posted by Mike Tresca at 8:03 PM

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