Gen Con Survival Guide

Gen Con is coming in two weeks.  For those of you who are unaware of what this convention is all about, it basically is 35,000 science fiction/fantasy/military history fans descending on Indianapolis for four days of playing role playing, electronic, board and miniature games.  It is a geek-fest second only to San Diego ComicCon in terms of fun. 

I go because I love it.  I enjoy meeting with publishers, playing games, meeting fans, almost all of it.  For several days I embrace my less-than-inner nerd.  If you love gaming and you’re not going – well, you’re missing something. 

Attending Gen Con requires a strategy all on its own.  So, tongue firmly planted in my cheek, here’s my first ever Gen Con Survival Guide! 

Tip Number One:  Plan in advance.  Go online, figure out what you want to do.  Download the Gen Con app so you can figure of where you want to be and when.  DO NOT try and figure all of this out while you are at the counter buying tickets.  This is like that person standing at line at Starbucks for 15 minutes, getting up there and going, “Hmm…I’m not sure what I want…”  Don’t be that guy.  Everybody hates that guy. 

Tip Number Two:  Pack as if you are going to be at the convention center for 16 hours straight…because you are.  Slip in some snacks because let’s face it, convention food is expensive and sucks.  (PS.  Beef Jerky is not a good public snack – no one looks good tearing off a piece of stinky meat.)  Bring pencils, pack your lucky dice (you know the ones!) graph paper, a small tape measure (for miniatures games), aspirin, you know – survival gear.  Think over seriously if you need to bring all of your rules books and game manuals.  Chances are the guys running the game are going to have a copy there.  Don’t over pack.  You don’t need to bring your PC with you, I’m almost positive.  Keep it simple, keep it light. 

Tip Number Three:  Be prepared for the rush to the main hall.  Yes, when the balloon goes up and they open the doors to the sales floor, it is a torrent of people rushing to get in.  Don’t fight it, ride it in.  Yes, it’s that crowded every year.  You can’t get in without a badge, have it out.  Nothing sucks more than being in a crowd of 2000 only to find out you have turn around and run back to the hotel room through a sea of angry and exited geeks. 

Tip Number Four:  Don’t design a costume that is going to injure passersby.  Think it over.  No one is more of a douche-bag than a guy that has designed a costume that is hard to get around or trips/blinds people when you pass. 

Tip Number Five:  If you’re going to be one of those people who stop in the middle of a crowd to take a picture of the babe wearing a chain mail bikini, do it quickly and don’t clog up the corridor.   Trust me, she’s not going to go back to your hotel room with her because you’re taking her photo and you don’t need a photo to prove to your buddies back at the office that there were indeed females at the convention. 

Tip Number Six:  Bathe and use deodorant.  This shouldn’t have to be a tip, it should be common sense.  Based on my own experience moving through the crowd, I had to include it.  Look, you paid for a hotel room right?  Go back at some point and at least use the shower. 

Tip Number Seven:  Taco Bell Burritos are not breakfast.  Frankly, I’m not sure that they even have meat in them.  You are what you eat – and in this case, that makes you “questionable.”  The smell of burritos in the morning is not the smell of victory, it’s the smell of desperation and despair. 

Tip Number Eight:  Eat outside of the convention center.  First, convention food sucks.  I don’t blame the folks in Indianapolis for this, it sucked when the convention was in Milwaukee too.  It is something of a tradition to stand in line at the nearby Steak N Shake for 20 minutes at least once during the con for me, but that’s just me.  I also like the brisk walk to the attached mall.  They have a food court, variety, better prices, and it’s a hoot watching the locals interact with the convention attendees.  While we’re on it…

Tip Number Nine:  Don’t frighten the locals.  Look, Indianapolis really seems to like having Gen Con in town – well, at least they like our money.  Don’t try and frighten that family with your Orc costume on the streets of the city.  Not cool dude.  We’d like to be invited back next year.   

Tip Number Ten:  If people have to guess at what your costume is, it sucks.  Take it off.  Go play D&D. 

Tip Number Eleven:  There is always someone that knows the rules better than you.  He’s arrogant, overweight, and wearing a black tee-shirt (then again, who isn’t?)  Nothing kills a game faster than two guys trying to prove who is smarter about the rules regarding the splatter effect of a Mark IV plasma rifle in zero-G.  We get it, you read and memorized the rule book. 

Tip Number Twelve:  Don’t just sit around.  Go and check out the miniatures games, or some of the big events like the Live Dungeon.  You didn’t shell out all of that money to sit and read a catalogue you picked up did you? 

Tip Number Thirteen:  Do some prep work.  Some companies are bringing limited quantities of games to the con for each day, or a certain day.  If you aren’t in line at the right time, you’re hosed.  Check the web sites and Twitter feeds of your favorite companies to see if that new product will be available and when. 

Tip Number Fourteen:  Wear comfortable shoes.  Preferably shoes that do not have an aroma (see Tip Six.)

Tip Number Fifteen:  Go back to your hotel at night and get some sleep.  You’ll need the energy.  All night gaming is great, if you’re young, but even then you need some sleep. 

Tip Number Sixteen:  Attend the auction.  You’ll be able to tell your wife/mother/cat/significant other that that shelves and containers of games you have ARE of value.  You’ll be surprised at what games people collect and what they will pay for one.  It’s also kind of fun to see last year’s hot products being sold for a pittance of what people paid for them a year ago. 

Tip Number Seventeen:  Play the demo games.  Look, games cost money – a LOT of money.  I sit in on demos, watch tournaments, etc. to figure out where I’m going to spend my cash.  I recommend you do the same. 

Tip Number Eighteen:  Don’t insult your favorite writer or game designer intentionally.  These guys work hard to produce your fun.  Don’t be “that guy” that shows up to tell someone how horrible a product they wrote in 1992 was, or how they made a mistake in an out-of-print 1989 book.  We get it, you can read.  If you’ve traveled all of this way to show off your knowledge, you’re a decade or two off.  If you meet writers, authors, artists, designers – be cool and respectful. 

Tip Number Nineteen:  Go early.  Get out of bed and get to the convention early.  There’s a lot going on and the lines are significantly shorter.  I hit the MechWarrior pods usually at 8-9am when the convention hall is empty-ish. 

Tip Number Twenty:  WIN.  Savor your victories.  Cherish the lament of your foes as they are crushed under the weight of your killer die rolls and strategy!  Don’t rub it in, but enjoy it.  You didn’t travel all of this way to lose did you?  Hell no!  In other words, have fun!

There you have it guys – GAME ON! 

The Twilight of the Clans that Never Was

Okay, now picture this without the 'Mech and a warship instead...

I’ve told this story before at Gen Con but never in my blog.  This is the story of the original first story of the BattleTech book set, Twilight of the Clans.  For people who write novels in a shared universe, or writers in general, this is a story to help you see some of the thought process that went into a big event in the BattleTech universe. 

When this idea was first floated up, Sam Lewis told me, “We’re going to take the fight to the Clans and wrap this phase of the universe.”  Prior to the Gen Con BattleTech summit, we were given preliminary assignments.  Somehow I got the first book of the set.  My job, “pave the way for the Inner Sphere to get to the Clan homeworlds.”  Bill Keith was to follow me with a two book set about the attack.  Mike was to tie the bow on the entire affair. 

The BattleTech summits were really just meals with the authors where we could brainstorm ideas, talk about the next year’s products etc.  I always got a chuckle watching the serving staff bring us our food while we talked about how we could kill Melissa Steiner-Davion.  They must have thought we were crazy – but then again, it was Milwaukee and Gen Con…they probably just ignored us. 

The original plan I came up with was to hijack a Clan warship and take the information of the route to the homeworlds from their navcomputer.  That was what I drafted at least.  There was a ground battle at a spaceport (you had to have some ‘Mech combat after all) then the team would make their way to the ship in orbit, seize her in a furious shipboard battle against Elementals – and the route to the Clan homeworlds would belong to the Inner Sphere.  I called it Exodus Road, the route back along Kerensky’s exodus route.

There were flaws with the idea in terms of a novel.  One was that it was going to lack cool ‘Mech battles which were the mainstay of the novels at the time.  That made everyone, including me, a little nervous.  At the same time it would get us onto a warship which opened up some cool possibilities. 

To execute this book I had to map the Clan homeworlds (an honor I might add) and map out the planet that Bill would be attacking.  The map I drew up was originally for Strana Mechty.  My thinking (and Bill’s at the time) was that we would be hitting that planet for the main assault. 

Bill came up with a great idea for the attack – one he shared with me and I was allowed to contribute to (albeit in a minor way).  The Inner Sphere fleet would jump on Strana Mechty.   Their target, the Clan’s central genetic repository which was a massive pyramid.  The premise he floated was that the Clans kept all of their genetic material in one secure location, never really fearing an external attack.

The assault would come in several parts.  One DEST team was going to seize Kerensky’s flagship (which held his coffin) orbiting the world and use it to augment the planetary bombardment.  This was my little contribution to all of this – I loved the idea of using the McKenna’s Pride to bombard the Clans.  The rest of the forces would drop on the pyramid and take it.  Holding their precious genes they would force the Clans to submit.  Sure it was blackmail, but it would work…I was sure of it. 

But we all know that the Clans would come in – with everything they had.  The battle would be horrific.  In the end the Inner Sphere would beat the clans (thanks to the bidding system) but the losses would spell the end of the Gray Death Legion (Bill told me that Gray would simply walk off into the jungles, horrified at the level of war he was forced to unleash).  Holding the Clan genes as a bartering chip, they would force the Clans into eventual submission. 

Bill and I both thought it was awesome.  And to this day, I still think so. 

But at the breakfast summit we bounced the ideas off the other writers.  Sam Lewis and others were concerned about my thought of simply stealing the map of the Exodus Road from a warship.  As I remember it, “Blaine, the Clans wouldn’t be that stupid.”  (Notice that he didn’t say they weren’t stupid in general – just not that stupid.)  I preferred to think of it as arrogance on their part, but ultimately Sam said, “Let’s make it a traitor to the Clans that betrays them.”  Thus the concept of Trent was born in a hotel restaurant in Milwaukee.  I remember thinking, “oh boy (sarcasm) a traitor as the lead character in a book.  Yeah, people will bond with that guy.” 

Mike Stackpole, (if I remember correctly) suggested that we didn’t have to go after all of the Clans, we needed to wipe out one of them.  There was some discussion about which one we should target too – a fairly active debate.  Ultimately the Smoke Jaguars were chosen as the sacrificial lambs of the Clans.  So, my map of Strana Mechty was changed, albeit slightly, to become Huntress – the new target of the assault. 

Bill’s thinking of the genetic repository seemed sound but there was a lot of debate that the Clans wouldn’t keep their genes in one place.  There was some logic in that – but we were talking the Clans.  Logic alone didn’t work with these folks.  Bill pointed out that going after one Clan didn’t make sense.  The Clans would clamor for a chance to wipe out the Inner Sphere task force.  Holding their genetic material as hostage seemed to be good way to blunt all of the Clans pouncing on the Inner Spherers.  Politics, it was decided, would leave the Smoke Jaguars isolated and forced to fight alone. 

Bill’s invasion obviously had to change as a result of all of this.  Bill never complained to me but I think he was pretty disappointed.  He had really mapped things out pretty well.  It is hard sometimes to work in a shared universe.  Bear in mind I was still trying to figure out how I could make a Smoke Jaguar turn traitor.  Bill ended up taking a pass on doing the novels.  The Gray Death Legion didn’t die on Strana Mechty – it clung on for several more years. 

Some things did get reused, though in different ways.  I loved what we came up with about stealing General Kerensky’s flagship (McKenna’s Pride) and using it to bomb the planet.  So, when I did Betrayal of Ideals (the infamous Wolverine saga) I leveraged the scene and finally got it into print.  That little scene is a private tribute to Bill Keith. 

I liked the final product of the Twilight Series with one minor exception, how Trent was dealt with. Mike and I sent some emails back and forth about the scene.  He argued strongly that Victor would never fully like or trust Trent.  I felt that made Victor a little two dimensional.  Trent was a man of honor just like Victor.  In the end, Trent’s alleged demise seemed somehow inappropriate.  (Don’t worry folks, I laid a plan to resolve this several years ago – you will one day see this in a slightly different perspective.) 

So there you have it, a nugget of BattleTech history.  What are your thoughts?  Would you have liked the story that was originally proposed?

Getting my game on - preparing for Gen Con 2011

I’m mentally getting ready to go to Gen Con.  Now for those of you out there that don’t know what Gen Con is, let me lay it out for you.  It is a science fiction/gaming convention in Indianapolis.  That sentence doesn’t really do it justice.  Picture, if you will, 30,000 nerds and geeks converging on a Midwest city for four days to play every kind of game conceivable.  Many of them (not me!) are dressed in everything from Goth to Steampunk to superhero to anime character. 

They are a fun-loving group, but geeky beyond all definition.  Obviously I fit in perfectly. 

Why do I go?  Well, I am a writer in the game industry.  My 12 novels have been tied to the BattleTech (MechWarrior) games.  Many of my early books were tied to other games.  I even do a little game design on the side.  Truth be told I was playing D&D back in the era when it first came out (in the little white boxed set which I still have).   I got into gaming by playing wargames, so when role-playing-games (RPGs) came out it was a logical leap for me.  Hell, back in high school, Tim Hopkins and I went to game conventions at Oakland University back in 1978. 

Yes, I am an uber-geek and Gen Con is like some sort of weird mental pilgrimage for me every time I go.  

This year I am looking forward to a game I did some work on, Leviathans!, to be released at the convention.  If you haven’t checked it out you should – since it is a game that will really be the big steampunk release at the convention.  Catalyst Game Labs has been working on this miniatures board game for some time and (if all goes well) we’ll get a chance to see it at Gen Con for the first time.  My son Alex is going with me and I think he’ll get a kick out of seeing the final product being released (with his name in the list of playtesters).  I really want to get a chance to play Leviathans! and see how people react to it. 

I don’t do a lot of pre-planning for the convention.  Alex and I both enjoy the showroom floor the most.  I sometimes join in game demos, sometimes I sign up for events and play them.  I hope this year to get in some Flames of War (WWII miniatures) gaming as well as a chance to actually play BattleTech.   While I have written over a million words for BattleTech, I really don’t play it too often.  It’s always a challenge at the cons because:  1.  People assume I know the rules inside and out and that’s not always the case.  2.  There’s always someone who wants to say, “I killed the author!” which paints me as a marked man. 

While I’m here I will be doing a book signing over at the Catalyst booth at some point – so you’ll see me there.  I have some friends I am hoping to meet and chat with about the industry and stuff.  But mostly, I am looking forward to doing some gaming. 

There are a few things I don’t like about Gen Con.  Sometimes there are people that need a bath in all honesty.  I also don’t like convention food (Alex and I sneak off to the nearby mall for a meal – well worth the walk).  

The things I enjoy the most are the people, the industry insiders I know, and the occasional fan that I bump into.  I love watching the miniatures battles unfold.  Some people prepare a full year in advance to put on a hell of a show for the attendees.  I love doing some shopping in the game hall, and sitting through the auction (which is always a treat).  The Mech Pods are a blast – especially for me as an author that writes material related to them (last year my son handed me my butt in a basket, wasting his old man in two sessions).  The final thing I like is the people of Indianapolis who always seem warm and inviting to all of us nerds and geeks. 

So, who’s going to be there this year?