Friday, August 7

Got lazy and slept in today, so we didn't get up to the Convention Center until close to 10:00. Attended the second of three FASA seminars: "What's Up with Shadowrun?" Mike Mulvihill spent over an hour telling us all about the changes to Shadowrun 3rd Edition and what was in the pipeline for the next year or so. I won't repeat that information here because I know it's available in lots of places on the Web, but it sounded like a lot of exciting changes are coming up. Dan and I sat in the front row of the seminar (as we had for the previous one). This doesn't seem important now, but it will be later.

After the seminar Dan had to leave to go to his "Spammers" and "Cosmic Encounter" games, so I spent the next couple of hours wandering around the dealer's room, taking pictures, spending money, and continuing to check out FASA's booth. In addition to their sale area, they also had a model of part of Seattle in the 2050s that was very cool (I think parts of it were pictured in Sprawl Sites) and layouts for two of their new games: Crimson Skies and another unnamed game that looked like a miniatures monster-fighter type thing.

While waiting for 1:30 and the hardback sale, I bought some dice from a place called Crystal Caste (odd-looking 10-siders), a couple of T-shirts (including one from Miskatonic University that I'd been wanting for quite awhile), two prints from Jennifer DeCamp (yeah, more dragons!), and a couple of "What's New?" comics from Phil Foglio (he even signed 'em). It was kind of an odd feeling seeing somebody whose work you've read for years just sitting there signing books and chatting with folks, but I guess that's just my lack of con experience. I liked his "Gentleman Pornographer" button.

Moving along, I wandered by the booth where John DeLancie was signing autographs to promote his "Alien Voices" book. I didn't want to spend $10.00 for an autograph, but I noticed that quite a few folks were taking snapshots of him and he didn't seem to mind, so I did the same. He's more impressive looking in person than he is on TV, something that surprised me. There were other celebrities signing autographs, but since I'm not a fan of "Lost in Space" or "Babylon 5," I pretty much ignored them except to be frustrated by the lack of line management.

During my travels I picked up quite a few freebie items. It seemed like everybody was giving out something, and I was happy to have it. Got a Babylon 5 deck, several CD-ROMS (including the Earthdawn rules, which I'd been trying to get over the net before I left), and a whole bunch of other gamer-related effluvia that I'm still sorting through. Some company was giving away big red cardboard dice advertising a game called "Rubies of Eventide"--these were nifty but quickly became the annoyance of the weekend because they ended up everywhere.

Somewhere along the line FASA's "Hardback on sale at 1:30" sign morphed into a "Hardback on sale at 3:30" sign. There was quite a bit of grumbling, but people took it in stride. While hanging around waiting for a line to form, I met several members of the ShadowRN list, including Gurth, K, and NightLife, all of whom were very cool. They encouraged me to rejoin the list in digest form to get around my problem with too much list mail. I said I would do just that.

There was a mixup regarding who was actually in line, and as a result there were quite a few folks in line before we found out that we weren't. Continuing to grumble we made our way into the line (Gurth and some of the others tried to protest that we'd been waiting longer, but to no avail). By this time it was close to 4:00 and I had to leave for the other half of Mike Stackpole's writer's workshop, so I called Dan to take my place in line. (An aside: cellular phones are great companions at conventions. I was very glad that we had ours with us.) At this point FASA was saying that they were only going to put "reasonable" limits on purchases, so I was secure in the knowledge that Dan and I would each get our copy even though I had to leave.

Next thing I know, Dan's calling me at the seminar (fortunately before it started) telling me that they're only allowing the purchase of one book per person! Auugh! I didn't want to miss the seminar, so I told him to just get one, but I was disappointed. With the size of the line when I left, I figured they'd sell out and we wouldn't have a chance to get another. Oh, well. Mike's seminar was great and well worth attending, so at least I missed another book for something worthwhile. (That's Mike on the right, there.)

Dan met me at the end of the seminar. "What would you say," he asked, "if I told you I got two books after all?" "Huh?" I responded (yeah, I was eloquent). He opened up his backpack, and sure enough he had two hardbacks. Apparently (see, I told you this would be important) Mike Mulvihill had remembered me from when Dan and I were front-and-center at his seminars, and taken pity on the fact that I had to go to a workshop, so he okayed Dan being allowed to buy one for him and one for me. Thanks, Mike. You are the greatest! We got #70 and #71.

Hardbacks in hand, we set off for dinner at a nearby pizza parlor and then headed back to the hotel. Maybe we're getting old, but staying up until all hours of the morning to play games didn't seem like the same kind of fun it was when we were 18. Besides that, Dan had a game first thing in the morning.

Saturday...