Dragonflight wrapped up last night and seemed to go well enough. It was hard for me to get a bird’s eye-view of the situation, as I was too busy going from one small issue to the next. Financially we know we did at least better than OK, and people seemed to be having a good time. The big ballroom where the board games, some miniatures games and many of the dealers were was the most happenin’, though way to noisy for me to do more than quick darting visits. RPGs were so-so; many GMs apparently were no-shows, and the rooms where we’d been stuck were way too noisy for good gaming.
Prize-wise, it was a mixed bag. We had well over $6,500 in prize donations — that’s good. But I never realized until I was right there that the downstream distribution system was non-existent — that’s bad. I prepared detailed lists sorted by event and by prize so event coordinators could let the GMs know there were prizes assigned to their events — that’s good. About three-quarters of this information was never passed along to the GMs — that’s bad. Yesterday afternoon, we still had mountains of unclaimed prizes so we started distributing them at large through the convention. Some people were really happy! I’ll have lots of “lessons learned” noted later this week.
I should also add that I started the weekend by spraining my knee. Friday at noon, I had to take a bus route I’m unfamiliar with to get to the convention. I was sitting in the back, watching street names roll by and thinking about everything I had to do. Glimpsing an intersection, I suddenly thought I was about to miss my stop so I jumped up to run to the front — and collided with another rider doing the same. It was entirely my fault for not looking where I was going. My leg caught on the armrest, I went right over and my knee bent in a direction unintended by the manufacturer. It popped good, but then the kneecap popped back where it should. Still, I had trouble standing so I had to call for Edmund to come and give me a ride to the hotel (he was already there).
The knee seemed to get somewhat better through the afternoon as I moved around, but on Saturday morning it felt awful. We got the location of an emergency clinic from the hotel front desk, and Edmund drove me there. The triage nurse and the doctor saw me, and after examining the knee declared it to be a simple sprain (phew!) They taped me up real good and Edmund drove me back like a bat out of hell. My game was starting at 9am… I made it just in time. Barely. Then through the weekend I proceeded to do none of the three things the doctor instructed me to do (keep the leg elevated, stay off it, and put bags of ice on the knee every hour or two.) I’m an idiot, but it seems to be limping less today anyway.
We were in three and a half games this weekend. On Friday night I played in Edmund’s Nyambe game that used the Savage Worlds system. We had played “Savage Nyambe” a couple of times before, so it was pretty easy to handle. Aside from myself there were 4 other players. I played a mean little Agogwe brute. 🙂
On Saturday morning, my Seven Leagues game “Atlantis under the sea” went well too. I had the game on a little stretch of rails because otherwise convention games can, ahem, flounder so badly, but I made sure that there were several ways to get at a satisfactory solution so that it wouldn’t be a complete railroad game. I had five players, including two people I had never met before, and they were all very nice. After the game, we had lunch together at the hotel restaurant. Then in the afternoon I played in Edmund’s Zorcerer of Zo game, another episode of the “Tales of the Playful Watch.” As usual, he had a bunch of dollar store toys wrapped in Christmas paper which people unwrapped and used to create characters. And once again it was great fun! The climax occurred inside a huge, mechanical volcano where enslaved Oopa-Loompas were being forced to make toxic candy for children. Once again the Playful Watch saved the day, and the machinations of the sinister Devil Ducks were thwarted!
After dinner (we split a Subway sandwich and chips), we headed for Taylor’s LARP game. Unfortunately, the game collapsed after about an hour because there were too few participants to support the key plots. So instead Edmund, Taylor, Megan and I went for drinks at the hotel bar and invited Gabriel Vega (of ConQuest/Avalon Games) so we could brainstorm about setting up large con games. At least it was a pleasant evening. We gave Meg and Taylor a ride home after.
On Sunday morning, it was a bit of a disappointment that Edmund didn’t get enough players to run his TĂ©kumel Questers of the Middle Realms game, but on the other hand we were getting a bit tired because during the whole event we kept running/limping around to take care of all sorts of tasks. Edmund was the convention photographer, of course, and I kept nursing the prize distribution along, etc. So in-between errands, we spent most of the morning at the auction, watching the excellent Chuck Monson host the event. We didn’t buy anything, but it was fun to watch.
By mid-afternoon Sunday we went home to prep for an Emerald City Gamefest meeting that evening. We went back to the hotel to pick up our two non-voting Flying Committee members, Ian and Gabriel, and headed for Third Place Commons where the Committee met with Mr. Robert Masarik-Williams, programs coordinator. He was very nice and helpful, and we discussed the limits on space and schedule for use of the facility for this year’s event. After that, the Committee discussed logistics for the event and made a few key decisions (info will be posted mid-week on the ECG Website.)
We finished with a discussion over dinner of cooperation between ECG, ConQuest NW, Dragonflight, and other gaming events in the Northwest. I’m hoping we can bring in Go Play NW on board as well — I’m very enthusiastic about creating bridges between gaming organizations. I will have more news in a few days when we have met with more people and hammered some agreements in writing, but I feel very positive about upcoming activities.
And today at lunch time I limped over to The Tasting Room: Wines of Washington at the the Pike Place Market, and got a gift certificate on behalf of the other gals in the office as a wedding present for a colleague getting married next week. We’re taking her to lunch tomorrow. I had considered buying a walking stick while I was at the market, but decided my knee was fast improving and I would probably just hurt someone by wielding a big stick. :-}
The Reef 