GenCon 2022: After Action Report

Hey everyone!

Well, as promised, here's my report from GenCon 2022. My buddy Jorge went with me (you might remember him as J.J. from my Two-Headed Serpent campaign diary, the guy who asked if there was a real-estate sign in the now legendary Scott Brown game, and the guy who I kinda-sorta burned his game down by calling "Bombshell" in my 'What Buy? video). He agreed to help me take pictures (something I'm notoriously bad about remembering to do) and we got so caught up in the fun, we missed more pictures than we remembered to take, but between us we still got a few.

GenCon attendance was reported to be 50,000 this year. Due to Covid, we were required to be masked when inside the buildings. Totally understandable, but being masked was terrible for recognising and being recognised by people. I'm sure I could have met a whole lot more fans had they only been able to recognise me. A few noticed my shirts which is how they knew who I was. 

But we got several games in. We played Dark Places & Demigorgons, Cyberpunk Red, Kult: Divinity Lost, Star Wars (WEG 2e), and Bluebeard's Bride. I survived most of them. But I did get to shoot Jorge's character in the face before I died in Kult, so I'll count that as a win (his character totally deserved it). Out of all of them, I had the most sully fun playing Cyberpunk Red. We got to tear around Night City and our GM was a total badass, who did a great job adapting to the fact that we went sideways on him and took the adventure in directions no one ever had before. The game that was the coolest experience and I'd most like to explore further is Bluebeard's Bride. It's almost impossible to describe how emotional and dark that game gets. The GM was admittedly inexperienced, but did a fantastic job. That's gotta be a tough one to run, especially for a bunch of strangers.

I got to see a bunch of people I haven't seen in a very long time or have only known online, such as Michael O'Brien of Chaosium, Chris Spivey of Harlem Unbound and Haunted West fame, Lloyd from Modiphius, and the gang from Q-Workshop who made my dice set. 

Saturday night was the big event. A group of us reserved a room in a restaurant and a whole lotta people came. Professor Dungeon Master, Bud from Bud's RPG Review, Pookie from Reviews from R'lyeh, Eric Bloat of Bloat Games, Matt McCloud of Lurking Fears, Scott and Keith of the Titterpigs Podcast, and several more. Dining experience could have been better (incredibly slow service, no soft drinks, no potatoes, mixed up orders) but the company was fantastic.

All in all, we walked 6-7 miles a day, ate a bunch of unhealthy food, and had a great time.

So far I seem to have dodged Covid (had my 2nd booster the week before we left). I'll be doing some chores and various things that got neglected during my week away, and then starting work on my next video.

Anyway, that's all for now. Thank you for all your support, everyone.

-Seth