Subject: Convention Report: OrcCon in LA Dennis Ugolini ... Recently I was introduced to the Strategicon family of conventions, which apparently run three times yearly in Los Angeles (President's Day, Memorial Day, and Labor Day weekends). Though I've never had much opportunity to attend cons (one Pacificon and one Origins), this was easily my favorite of the three. Here follows my first impressions. The Good: The Events - No event fees! The $33 entry fee ($27 for pre-reg) gets you into every event. Signups are placed in one central location an hour before each event, and I did not see a single board-game event fill, even the heavily-attended Settlers tournaments (roughly 40 people each). There's a decent selection of games, and for hyper-competitive folks like me, ribbons for the top three finishers. I managed three in six events (1st in Pit, 2nd in Cancellation Hearts, 3rd in Hearts). Dealer Dollars - Many of the board games, as long as 8 or more people show, offer dealer room credit to the top two finishers ($12-20 for first, $6-10 for second). Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to games played with a regular pack of cards (gambling laws, I guess). As you can see above, I'm a much better card player than board game player...c'est la vie! Dealer Room - Small but well-stocked. I only found one (Vinci) of the three games I was looking for (the others were Bohnanza and the Apples to Apples expansion), but I think I was just unlucky. The price was right, though, and for miniatures players, the dealer room and flea market was paradise. I even saw Man O' War ships for sale. Open Gaming - One major complaint I had about Origins was that the open game seemed to be spread all over creation, making it hard to reach that critical mass necessary for a spontaneous game. It was both ample and centralized here, and I was able to get two pickup games of Ricochet Robot within an hour of each other Saturday morning. The Bad (not really that bad; I'm saving the worst for last): Large Event Organization: Late starts. People wandering in 20 minutes late and demanding to be included. No randomization of tables (a _huge_ no-no in Settlers, where two or three friends can guarantee a loss for the outsider). People sitting down to a game without signing up. People leaving after a win, coming back late, and demanding to be in the finals. No advancement conditions given until the game is half-over. And _ludicrously_ long rounds due to slow play. Most of these are the players' fault, to be sure, but a good, firm organizer could prevent a lot of this. Persistent Play-by-Mail: There were a couple of play-by-mail games running turns every two hours during the entire con. Now on the surface this is a great idea, and I'm kind of disappointed I missed out on the Forgotten Realms wargame; I would have at least liked to see the rules and how the game worked. But at least two of my games were negatively affected by a player paying _no_ attention, because (s)he was too busy talking about and writing up the next turn. Social Skills: I only encountered one really bad sport all weekend (in my first game of the con, unfortunately), but there were a whole lot of folks who needed to _just shut up_ once in a while. Not everything you say is that funny, not everything you see needs to be spoken aloud, and especially not everything you say needs to be screamed (I'm thinking of a particular Settlers player here). Oh, and then the kid who coughed messily, than leaned over the shoulder of a female friend of mine playing Hearts, about an inch away, then wondered why she recoiled. I only recognized one r.g.b. denizen (Allen Doum, playing Formula De in open gaming). Vinci: Boy, was I let down after the advance buzz of this game. Almost four hours in length on our _second_ play-through. Enough calculation every time you move a piece that some players were agonizingly slow. Poorly written rules (I didn't have the errata with me). And the last turn is so completely calcuable, I don't see how you can avoid an endgame problem. There's a good game in there somewhere, but it needs a few fixes. It also may be the first game I've seen where I wanted to _add_ a luck element (make the movement of pieces more Risk-like to relieve the tedium, even though I don't like Risk...have to work on that). The Ugly: The Hotel: Tiny rooms. Insanely expensive and piss-poor food, especially the breakfast and lunch buffets (Carl's Jr., Taco Bell, and Subway are all within two blocks -- use them). 20+ minute waits at the check-in/out counter. Power outages all weekend (one group was stuck in an elevator for half an hour). And in a fairly scary area to boot. Things I'll do at the next con: Play less Settlers -- it's just too much of a cattle-call, and seems to draw most of the unpleasant folks that the RPG's and CCG's miss (ooh, I'm gonna get letters for that one). Play more short events -- Long tournaments (Settlers, Hearts, and even Uno) drained a lot of time from more goofy events that might have been fun (Taboo, Claydonia). Try the Forgotten Realms PBM -- If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. And you can hardly get bored when you always have another turn due. Run my own events -- The con really needs a well-run Formula De or Ricochet Robot tournament (my two favorite convention games). Thanks for your time, Dennis Ugolini ugolini@caltech.edu Subject: Re: Convention Report: OrcCon in LA Scott Alan Woodard wrote in message ... Douglas penned a very nice (and extremely thorough) convention report about OrcCon this past weekend. (Pop back and read through it if you haven't already). Typically, I attend all of the various Strategicon events throughout the year, but this past weekend, the event clashed with another non-gaming convention I attend so I was only able to make OrcCon on Sunday (and for only six or seven hours...) Douglas, I did see copies of the "Apples to Apples" expansion for sale at All-Star Games (first booth to your left as you walked in the door). Some very fair prices in the dealer's room this time around (and probably the best dealer's room I can remember for some time). One booth was having a "Buy Two Get One Free" sale and she had a number of excellent German games on the shelves. I went with "Katzenjammer Blues", "Digging" and "Kahuna" there. All-Star Games had some great prices as well (20% off most German games) and I snagged a German edition "Medici" there for less cash than the English edition. The only game I played (with more than the one friend I went to the con with) all day was a "Medici" demo run by the guys from All-Star FOR Rio Grande and yes, it was the first time I have ever played it (I bought it based on this demo and word of mouth). A great game, and the gentleman running the demo ran things fairly well. It was only when one of his associates (or perhaps it was just a fellow conventioneer) began tossing rules and things out that slightly clashed with the other guy's technique and this got a bit confusing (I know, "Medici" is pretty straight-forward, but this was early on...) I did play a couple two-player games with a friend of mine inlcuding "Stratego: Legends", "Katzenjammer Blues" and "Before I Kill You Mr. Bond..." Also, I managed to grab a copy of the old (circa 1981) card game "Dragonmaster" from one of the folks in the Flea Market area for a mere $4.00. The game is in great shape and if you've never seen it, it features some beautiful fantasy art by the same artist who did the stuff for "Dark Tower." A neat-looking card game that comes with a pouch full of plastic "crystals", a deck of cards, rule book and scoring cards. As I say, normally I try to do all three days of the Strategicon events, which results in me getting in a number of boardgames and RPGs, but I had to cut this event short in favor of another... I will definitely be all over the next one, though (Memorial Day). TTFN! Scott ogma01@earthlink.net From: Alan Poulter To: "'grognard'" Subject: Fw: Convention Report: OrcCon in LA Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 07:41:02 -0000 SACENTAUR wrote in message <20000222144541.26554.00001335@ng-ba1.aol.com>... Dennis Ugolini writes: >>Recently I was introduced to the Strategicon family of conventions, which apparently run three times yearly in Los Angeles (President's Day, Memorial Day, and Labor Day weekends). Though I've never had much opportunity to attend cons (one Pacificon and one Origins), this was easily my favorite of the three.<< I had the best time ever of any local show (and I only went all day on Saturday). The new Wyndham Hotel is an improvement over the old site. I found some great deals both in the main show room and off the flea market tables. I even