This year at Gen Con

I have been neglectful at keeping up with new game releases and events happening at Gen Con this year. I only have a handful of events and products that are on my radar for this year.

In the past few years, we've been catching up with some of my friend D.'s childhood friends at the con. This has included some memorable Saturday night gaming sessions:

• Playing Munchkin inside Champions Sports Bar. This was made more memorable by the cheers of the crowd that night watching Michael Phelps win gold in the Beijing Olympic Games.
• Playing Descent in the bar at McCormick & Schmick's
• Playing D&D Miniatures at the hotel, with Mrs. Kaiju bringing in more role-playing to the minis game, asking J. for more details about the world and what brings the party into this particular dungeon

Last year before everyone left town, the group discussed playing the module B2: Keep on the Borderlands this year. I'm assuming that this will happen, as D. recently picked up the Moldvay Basic and Expert books, B2 and X2: The Isle of Dread from the used section of our FLGS.

If schedules permit, I hope to meet some of the gamers I've chatted with online through blogs and G+. A panel discussion about the RPG Blog Alliance is scheduled on Friday. There may be other informal meetups.

The podcast This Just In from Gen Con will be recording two shows daily throughout the convention.

I have two main goals for shopping in the Hall this year. First, receiving my pre-order print copy of Ken Hite's "Jason Bourne vs. the vampire conspiracy" RPG Night's Black Agents. Although one loses out on the shipping charge, it does count for their con special 4-for-3 sale. Second, a copy of Barbarians of Lemuria from Cubicle 7. It has received great reviews, and it's one of a group of rules that I'm looking at for running pulp-inspired sword-and-sorcery.

I have a small list of some other items that I will look for while there, particularly some OSR products such as Carcosa, Stonehell, The Dungeon Alphabet, and the like. I just found out about a 10mm sci-fi miniatures game titled Dropzone Commander. Some friends have been playing it already and the minis look neat. That reminds me that I've been wanting to check out Uncharted Seas, a fantasy naval combat minis game, as well.

Games on Demand/Indie Games Explosion gets a larger dedicated space this year, and I hope to find a couple of hours to try some of the indie/story games that we don't normally get a chance to play. I'm very curious about Fiasco, Dungeon World, and Swords Without Master in particular.

EDIT: I forgot to mention two board games: Star Trek Catan and Relic, the 40K version of Talisman.

If you are going to Gen Con, have a safe and fun trip! If not, check out the online activities for CONcurrent, also running at the same time.