The Little People in GenCon's Exhibit Hall

by Frances Moritz


Summer convention season has come and gone, which leaves just a little time to reminisce before rolling right into fall convention season. My biggest convention for the summer was GenCon, which I enjoy going to for a number of reasons. I see a lot of friends there that I only get to see once or twice a year, which is always entertaining, trying to catch up on that much somewhere in between all the games. (Which frequently comes out as "Whaddaya mean you want to have breakfast at 7? In the morning?") I also find new games, often ones that don't even hit our local games stores. (And that's saying a lot, because we have some really good game stores in the area.)

It's easy to walk through the exhibit hall and spot the big names – Wizards of the Coast, Upperdeck, White Wolf – they have the huge booths that just sprawl over large areas. Then there are the midsized booth, with names like Mayfair, Chessex, Looney Labs, Atlas Games, or West End... all names that most gamers recognize.

But what about the little booths? You know the ones – they have the smallest booths available, often because they're a new company with only one game to promote. Did you just walk on by without looking? You'd be surprised what you missed.

These are a few companies that caught my eye. My gaming bias is certainly reflected in what I stopped at – I don't play collectible card games anymore, our gaming group's d20 campaign was short-lived, and the extent of my interest in sports generally amounts to checking ESPN.com the next morning to see if the Hurricanes' football team won. And while I stopped at Dreamworks' table and took a sheet of the Shark Tale stickers, they hardly count as "little people" or gaming-related, any more than the Save Farscape group does.


Art for gamers

There are some fabulous artists hidden in these small booths: Clyde Cadwell and Chris Appel, for example, both have prints of recognizable cover art from assorted gaming magazines and books. In less traditional media, Honeck Sculptures was showing off wonderful bronze work and Versatile Printing Technologies had fabulous artwork on ceramic, marble and granite, and will produce custom work on those or glass through their website.


Gaming necessities

There are gaming necessities... dice, dice bags, LARP weaponry and costumes. For the costumers among us, there was a nice selection at Wolfhome Adventuring Outfitters, only a couple rows from the center concessions area. And once you have the costumes, wander to a booth for the LARP weaponry: Dragon's Nest, Edhellen Armory, and Rampant Mouse all offer a variety of LARP weapons.

Dice are, of course, available at some of the larger booths, but Koplow Games offers the stranger dice – place value (1s, 10s, 100s, 1000s), decimal dice (.75, .67, etc.), interrogative dice (who, what, why, etc.), among others. For dice bags, Starwind Design, who sell custom and licensed dice bags, or The Gamer's Bag, with Bags of (dice) holding, also customizable, are ideal places for people like me who have ever growing dice collections.


Gamer Wear

You question the need for some of those dice? So do the people over at Gamer Concepts, who are "bringing you the lamest in gamerwear," including their new t-shirt about 30-siders. Or custom order a t-shirt from Thread Impressions – mine says "I'd rather be a perky sort of evil" (which is a separate article entirely on how to be completely miscast in a LARP). For the brave, there are also Utilikilts, available in a variety of different colors and materials.


Gaming Accessories

Then there's the selection of more eclectic gamer accessories. These are the items that gamers can live without, but why would you want to? Sure, you can use colored bits of cotton or other loose markers for your miniatures games if you want to stick with tradition, but (if I ever got around to painting my miniatures) I think I'd prefer Alea Tools' magnetic disks, available in a variety of colors. Or how about Flash Point's ID rings for your collectible miniatures games? When your Marvel characters just have to fight themselves, you can tell them apart by using different colored rings.

Along the lines of "It must be mine!", NBOS Software continues to produce software for gamers – mapping software, both for world creation and star mapping, character sketcher and a program for running online games, complete with maps, character grids and a chat panel. If you're not sure whether you're interested in their software, that's OK – they have trial versions available for download.

But my personal favorite in the "I really don't need this, but it would be fun" category is Cheese Weasel's card coffin. I can just picture showing up with my Munchkin deck comfortably nestled in a Hunting Season card coffin. Or just buying a black coffin and some of the magnet art they offer to customize the coffin.


Games

And most importantly, there's the games. RPGs, card games, board games, miniatures, LARPs, online gaming... how do you choose where to start?

Start small, I guess – the miniatures and scenery that are available nowadays are incredible. I think John Kovalic summed it up nicely in this strip comparing old and new miniatures. Thunderbolt Mountain, for example, has incredibly detailed figures. I particularly like the "30mm Female Warrior in Sensible Fighting Attire". And the models at H.G. Walls are equally impressive – they offer both scenery and figures, though I'm not sure which one the Middle Earth Ents qualify as. There's some fabulous battle terrain over at Battleworks Studios, and Miniature Building Authority specializes in pre-painted buildings and accessories.

One of our preferred lunch time games at work is Zipwhaa's Management Material, which sums up the travesties of corporate life while trying to avoid projects. Their newest game, Marriage Material , has the same play style, but with the purpose of avoiding commitments. It's a fabulous engagement present, as my co-worker discovered.

From what's currently a one-game company, Goldbrick Games features Perpetual Commotion , a free-for-all style game that relies on speed and strategy. For the truly ambitious, they even sell two additional decks to bring the game up to eight players.

EOS Press has an assortment of games, but what caught my attention was the re-release of Creatures and Cultists, labeled as "The Furiously Fuggly Card Game!".  Abuse: The Final Insult looks pretty interesting, and I've heard wonderful things about their Godlike RPG.

And on the subject of RPGs, Laughing Pan Productions has an attention-grabbing game called Deliria - Faerie Tales for a New Millennium . Imagine being an ordinary person walking into a faerie tale. Imagine GMing in that world. Now imagine running the game by e-mail and letting me know where to sign up.

Of course, if you're interested in online role-playing, that's Goldleaf Games' specialty. Their game system – Code of Unaris – is specifically designed for playing through online chats. Or for other online gaming, check out Skotos – prose, graphical and strategy gaming, all crying out to be played.

And how can anybody miss Flying Buffalo? RPGs, unusual dice (including pizza dice for the indecisive), Play by Mail (or E-mail) games, but most importantly (to me, at least), this is the company that publishes Nuclear War . There's just something fun about asking for change for ten million people.

Dragonlords has a fun looking board game named Quest for the DragonLords . The rulebook comes printed and on CD, there are over 170 miniatures in the basic set alone, the game board is gorgeous, and it's only $49.99! I find myself staring at the website wondering how they can produce such an expansive set for such a low price. (And then I remind myself that I can't buy it right now. And then I remind myself again....)

Did you even know that there's a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory board game? I didn't until I saw it at Winning Moves. It's nice to know there are some children's games showing up at GenCon, proving that it is a family friendly event. That said, the game's for ages seven and up, and I qualify under the "and up" part.

But my top choice for board games from this year's GenCon is a spin off of a traditional game. Far Out! Games produced TwistGammon , a variant on backgammon. Instead of going around the traditional path, the two paths twist together at the center of the board, altering the strategy of the game. The playing pieces have white dots on one side to denote when you enter the second half of the board, since you can approach your Homeland going either direction through the "Flip Zone." You can even run around in circles in the center four spaces, avoiding spaces that might leave your pieces unprotected.


That's all, folks

Actually, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Those are just some of the small vendors that caught my eye – there were far too many to mention each and every one of them. But the next time you're at a convention, keep in mind that the "little people" offer a vast array of options that may surprise and delight you. Don't walk on by just because you're fixated on the giant d20... it will still be there when you're done.



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