Chris Crockett – Gaming and Computer Geek

GenCon is over and I have several new gaming products to read, review and plan campaigns for.  I purchased five books and one GM screen, only two of which products are for the same game.  Most of them are, in fact, core rulebooks or settings for entirely new games… or mostly new games.  Pathfinder, also known as Dungeons and Dragons 3.75, did not sell out by dint of Paizo bringing many thousands of copies of the book to the convention.  Eclipse Phase, a new game that I was unaware of until I arrived in Indianapolis, did sell out in approximately seven minutes of total sales time spread over four days because Catalyst Game Labs only had 100 copies.  I picked up Geist from White Wolf  games because apparently I buy White Wolf products regardless of my need for them.  I also snagged the Slahser book for WOD2 because, for some reason, most bookstores seem reluctant to sell a supplement detailing how to pretend to be a serial killer.  Reality Blurs surprised me by having Realms of Cthulhu at the convention, which I purchased because I do need the ability to inject Lovecraftian horror into every game system and Savage Worlds is one of my favorites.  Pinnacle dropped a Deadlands GM screen on us, which I bought for the included adventure but I was less than impressed with their poker chip style every-flavor-bennies.  I have riverboat themed poker chips that I bought several GenCons past.  They look better and I assembled three full sets for less than the cost of one set of “official” bennies.

I also played several games I’ve never played before and plan on getting the Battlestar Galactica boardgame as well as the Pegasus expansion because I enjoy ending every sentence with “You damn dirty Cylon”.

Would anyone like to help me form a new gaming group in central Florida?

Allow me to paint a picture for you: imagine one geek, on his EEE-PC (running Ubuntu naturally), with Tweetdeck on one virtual desktop pinging every few seconds with updates from GenCon, a broweser open on another desktop with Google Voice (for SMS contact with my agent at the convention), GMail, Facebook and a blog post running.. now put that geek on a plane at 23,000 feet on his way to that very convention.  Now, if you know me or what I look like, you can complete the picture by putting my face on that geek.  I’m pretty sure I’m right in the middle of having a full-on nerdgasm.

As some actually useful information: AirTran’s inflight WiFi is fairly impressive.  It occasionally slows to a crawl but given the technological wizardry required to maintain an internet connection with an object travelling at 30,000 feet and moving a couple of hundred miles an hour… not bad.