The Gen Con Diaries, Day Two: Swords, Trivia, Improv and More!
Held annually in Indianapolis, In, Gen Con is where gamers and fans come together to celebrate their love of all things gaming by participating in tournaments, exhibits, live shows, auctions and seminars.
Sword Fighting 101
Friday kicked off with a major bucket-list item (for me, anyway) with Intro to Sword Fighting, brought to Gen Con by the awesome folks at Creative Combat Club! As a fantasy author, taking a sword fighting class has been something I’ve always wanted to do, and let me tell you, I don’t think one class will be enough!
This was the highlight of my day, for sure. We got to run through a series of simple strikes and defense moves as well as some (very low-key) sparring. It was so fun, and not to mention, a really great way to meet other con attendees. If you’re flying solo at the con, I definitely recommend attending interactive programming like this to meet new friends.
The RPG Game Show
Later in the day, I swung by The RPG Game Show, created by panelists James D’Amato (author of The Ultimate RPG Series), Jef Aldrich, and Jon Taylor (the cohosts of the podcast, System Mastery). This is the show for all the trivia buffs in the crowd! They let audience members line up and answer questions all about our favorite TTRPGs with some really cool giveaways for people who answered correctly!
Decide Your Endangerment
Decide Your Endangerment was an interactive storytelling game where the game master set up our intrepid adventures in a story only to have the audience immediately derail everything to a purely hilarious effect!
This one was a lot of fun. The story followed our intrepid heroine, a very talented gnome bard, who just wanted to make some coin and save the day. The audience participation parts were thought out very well with pre-scripted lines for the people on the shy side, as well as lots of opportunities for fun improv for the more daring in the crowd. The folks over at Nat 21 Adventures have a background on the Red Faire circuit, and that experience really shone in their ability to roll with an unpredictable crowd and still make a fun story for everyone in the room. Highly recommend!
Gamers Improve: Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the BLANK!
Is the name of this one tripping you up? That’s because with this event, the audience was integral to the story. The audience got the chance to create the mystery–even lay out clues– for the legendary detective, Sherlock Holmes.
I’m not gonna lie, this one was a little bit rough to sit through… but that’s the danger of audience participation improve. >Insert shrug emoji here< Oh well, you win some you lose some!
