I remember the old days of Comic Con. Those were the halcyon days, gamers sitting in the aisles playing games, wait, no I don't actually remember those days too well strangely enough. I remember my first Comic Con was in the late 80s, I remember there were a LOT more game companies on the floor back then, but I don't really remember gaming, I think possibly because I didn't know where the game room was, and I was only at Comic Con for one day and I spent it mostly on the convention floor; looking for comics, talking to the artists and buying games with what little cash I had.
Well Comic Con still has gaming, if you haven't gotten to the back of the program before you might not know this unless you're part of San Diego's Pathfinder Society, then you might have known to go to Marriott Marina Ballroom E. There were a full 11 Pathfinder society slots run at SDCC this year, I will confirm with Eric Brittain the total number of players who played in the PFS games this year at con, and if any special boons were granted like at KingdomCon earlier this year.
Gaming at the Marriot also included the Wizards of the Coast area. There was plenty to play, from the DND Next playtest (under an NDA), the D&D Convention Delve (Lair of the Dread Witch), D&D Learn to play, D&D Rise of the Underdark, D&D Dungeon Command Tournament, and the new Euro style Lords of Waterdeep. So if you were a 4th edition fan, and you missed SDCC, you missed quite a lot of gaming. I'm sure Wizards of the Coast will be back again next year, and with a probable release of D&D Next coming at GenCon, there's a good chance that will be featured again at SDCC 2013.
If CCGs (Collectible Card Games) are your thing, then you would have wanted to check out the Marriot Hall F for Magic or Mezzanine Room 14AB for Pokemon, perfect place to bring the younger kids if you're looking for a respite from the Con floor.
But if you really wanted to get away from the Con floor sit down, maybe even eat your lunch, there was really no better place than Mezzanine Room 15AB. This was the Steve Jackson Games MIB game room, featuring many of your favorite SJG Games like Munchkin, Zombie Dice, Frag, even out of print stuff like Knightmare Chess was present (This is one of my all-time favorite SJG Games, and I still have both of my copies excellent condition.) In the SJG Room was also SoCal Malifaux, running demos and tournaments all con. Tanto Couro the Dominion 'style' anime fan service game was being demoed as well as many other smaller games.
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| Robert and some volunteers getting down with some ZOMBIE DICE! |
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| Table 1 of Munchkin |
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| Table 2 of Munchkin at the same time! |
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| Tanto Coure demo...1 love, 2 love, 3 love... |
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| SoCal Malifaux doing demos for newbies |
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| Octave getting annihilated in the second turn of the demo. |
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| SoCal Malifaux has some nice demo boards |
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| Tanks for a great con San Diego!!! err what?? |
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| Malifaux Lightning tournament which went from 7-11pm |
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| Second table at the lightning tournament |
On the floor, there are way less RPG Booths now than in past years, Privateer Press was there again with "Big Blue" so it was hard to miss. Of course the best place to buy games at Con is Adventure Retail! One of the really cool things I found out was that the,
Colt the Outlander of Heavy Metal fame, is going to be having a RIFTS RPG sourcebook according to RC Aradio. I picked up the limited edition reprint from Heavy Metal, featuring a crossover story from Rifts. As you all know, I love the Rifts fluff, not a huge fan of the MDC system.
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| Colt the Outlander |
I talked with Simon of Privateer Press' booth as well as getting a demo of their new Card game, it was pretty fun. We also discussed the upcoming Iron Kingdoms RPG, which they will have preview copies of at GenCon, man wish I was gonna be there!!
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| Simon of Privateer Press teaching a Con goer how to play Heap! |
All in all, I wish I'd had more time to spend at Comic Con, 1 1/2 days wasn't enough to do everything I wanted to do. So if you're going next year, don't forget to check out all the game areas, they're all listed in the Events Guide, and make a great place to relax when you're not busy doing everything else.
