OwlCon 2007
February 12, 2007:
This weekend was OwlCon 2007. I managed to make it through every block every day this year.
The first night I didn't waste any time getting to the dealer's tables and I immediately bought Bohnanza and Guillotine, both games I have played and enjoyed and wanted to buy for a while now. Then I went off to run my first game slot: Fun, Fast, Friendly and Family Games. I pretty much grabbed all the games from my closet that were easy to learn and fast to finish. We played Apples to Apples, Fluxx, Snorta, 20 Questions, Aquarius, Cloud Nine, 10 Days in the USA, and so many more that I can't remember. I was joined by a 4th grade teacher, a husband and wife with a 4-year old, Renee (who usually volunteers for every con in the area), and a professional singer/computer scientist.
The next morning I had another various game slot. We played some of the games from the night before, but also got in games of Bohnanza and Guillotine (my new games), as well as Easy Come, Easy Go. I was joined by Joe, a random event-goer, and Jennifer and Sven, two of my friends. I was very relieved when this slot was over; I was getting very tired of explaining rules every 30 minutes!
At 3pm I joined in on The Order of the Stick Adventure Game. It was based on a web comic that I had read in the past. Everyone is a character from the web comic and each character has their own special skills. You go into the dungeon, kill monsters (with support from your buddies), collect loot, and upgrade your skills, just like a normal adventure game. The board itself was made up of dungeon cards that were revealed as the game progressed. On the fourth level was the final dungeon where you kill the big bad guy whose name escapes me. Once you beat the big bad guy, everyone escapes the dungeon as it crumbles. Points are based on who killed the big baddy, how fast you got out of the dungeon, and how much loot you have at the end. Overall it was a great game, but I don't think I could get any of my relatives to play it, since the game lasted over 3 hours.
At 8pm was one of the blocks I was really looking forward to: the GURPS Fantasy Demo. GURPS stands for Generic Universal Role Playing System. In most respects, it's very similar to D&D, except the die rolls are different. Character creation itself is based on points, rather than classes and die rolls. Our mission to was reactivate the moon gate and figure out what happened to the elves that used to inhabit the island. I was the only elf in the party, so I got a major role. Two of the players had to cut out early, and the rest of us voted on who role played their character the best. It turned out to be a three-way tie, so we rolled rock-paper-scissors dice, and I won! I won a GURPS fantasy guide, which I ended up ordering from Amazon just a week earlier. I can probably re-sell it or trade it in for something else.
The next morning I bought a game that I had been eyeballing: Hoity Toity. The dealer said it got a lot of good reviews, but the name usually scares people off. It was created by the same creator of Settlers of Catan, so I figure I would like it. "Hoity Toity" is kind of an inside joke between me and my wife, so that's why it stood out so much for me. I guess others don't have the same inside joke we do!
The last day I was signed up for the big big game, Advanced Civilization: The Expansion Project. It is the board game that Sid Meyer's Civilization was based on. We had 7 (out of a possible 18) players, and we limited our map to the India area, since no one had played that map before. Conan and my general thoughts on the game was it was entirely too peaceful, which made it a lot harder for the slower guys (mainly, us) to catch up. Conan was last place and I was second to last, but we still had a lot of fun over the 7 hours we were playing it.
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