Wednesday: The Westin, Batman, and Pizza at 3:00 a.m.

"Help me...I've fallen down."

Well, here we are again at the annual Gen Con Report, the magnum opus, the deus ex machina, the grammatical tragedy recounting of all the things 6 people can do in one weekend at the largest gaming convention in the country. Or, if you prefer a shorter title: Here's What Happened....

10:15 a.m. One of the earliest departure times in recent memeory (if you don't count the 5:00 a.m. Thursday drives to Milwaukee with the blaring AC/DC being the only thing keeping us awake...but that's another year). The terrific trio (myself, Jeff and Tim) left our house at 10:15 but immediately stopped again in Urbana for breakfast at Cracker Barrel, which should have been an early indication of just how much of the weekend we were going to spend eating, but we were oblivious. We didn't end up actually pulling into Indy until about 1:30, about the time our fourth team member's plane was landing in the same city. The Westin immediately received a gold star for letting us check in hideously early, but it was subsequently revoked when we saw our room and realized it was essentially a box squeezed into a corner of the eleventh floor. I have never had this experience with a hotel room before, but almost as soon as I entered our room I wanted to leave again and do something else, preferably something that involved running through a large, open field.

We met up with Todd in the hotel lobby, and the fearsome foursome was complete...at least until Friday, when Joe and Jake would arrive to completely screw up my clever wordplay. But for the moment, the four of us were ready to take on the convention, or at least the registration portion of it.

Badges in hand, led by Urban Ranger Tim, we headed over to the convention center to pick up the Holy Grail of Gen Con survival: the program guide, with its sci-fi, Gen Con/gaming-at-the-center-of-the-universe theme. Shiny.... =) Then it was off to the Gen Con store for lanyards, t-shirts and the optional hat, in Todd's case. We could already see the tell-tale signs of the convention starting to heat up. The event/badge registration line eventually stretched around and outside the building, but people seemed to be taking the wait in stride.

After the loot pickup, we headed over to what has become an annual haunt, Claddagh, the Irish pub, for a late lunch/early dinner before our evening kicked off with a trip to the Imax theater, another tradition. Over plates of fish 'n chips on the patio we discussed our plans for the weekend and what had been going on in our 'real world' lives. My favorite part was Todd's reaction to the news about my writing.

Me: "I get to write a book."
Todd: "No *&@#in' way?!"

Love Todd. After the chips and Smithwicks and Guinness had all been consumed, we headed for the Indiana State Museum (future home of The Lord of the Rings exhibit) and Imax for the 6:25 showing of Batman Begins on the big screen. Because of the crowd, we ended up having to sit farther down than usual, so at times it felt like the batmobile was going to end up in my lap, but the movie rocked.

From caped crusaders to tavern wenches, we went from the movie to our sister hotel, the Marriott downtown, in search of True Tavern, the companion to the live, walk-through event known as True Dungeon, which we would be playing later in the weekend. The True Tavern, with its adjoining magic shop, blacksmith forge and rogues' area, gives players and convention-goers a fantasy atmosphere in which to hang out, drink, trade treasure tokens or play games--three-hour long checker games if you're Tim and Todd. Oh yes, checkers can last three hours, trust me on this.
We hung out, purchased our magical, mystical, Mountain Dew-filled comemorative True Dungeon mugs (Mug of Brawling for Tim, Mug of Wisdom for me, Mug of Courage for Jeff, and Mug of Beauty for Todd) and tried to trade for some healing tokens from the magic shop for our run through the dungeon, but alas, healing, we soon found out, was a very popular commodity.

We left the tavern a little before midnight and discovered perhaps the only thing better than a life-sized fantasy tavern in a downtown hotel...a life-size fantasy tavern with a J.K.'s Pizzeria next door that's open until 3:00 a.m. all convention long. So we sat in the Marriott lobby, eating pizza cut with Todd's pocket knife and contemplating the convention to come.

We stumbled back into the box at about 1:30 a.m. and crashed into the Westin's so-called 'heavenly beds,' which actually were quite heavenly for a hotel mattress. The heavenly shower on the other hand....let's just say I really, really hope there's hot water in heaven.

We fell asleep, gearing up for the events to come...

Go to Thursday