     Gencon - 2000
     August 7th - 14th, 2000
     Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Ok. Alrighty then! (I can't do a good Wisconsin accent to save my life.) Time for a trip North to watch a freak show... I mean to visit friends! I left Monday afternoon to head up to Jen & Aron's place in D.C. Spent an hour visiting with them and then crashed for the night. Aron and I took off Tuesday morning for Illinois.

We drove the 12+ hours to the University of Illinois where we met up with Jenny and Jason. We spent the evening catching up with them and then rested again. On Wednesday morning, we drove North to Wisconsin, stopping in Chicago along the way. I had never been in the Sears Tower before so I wanted to stop and see it. I don't think that Aron had been to the top either. We managed our way through town and then found the line for the elevator to the top. After an hour wait and some flirting with a cute Irish redhead, we were able to see Chicago from the top. The pictures don't really mean much to me. I have no idea what buildings are in them. But it is definitely neat to see.

After Chicago, we made it to Milwaukee and found Derek waiting for us at the hotel. We wanted to beat the rush to the conference the next day, so we just hit the sack and left the hotel shortly after 7 AM. We made it into the registration lines and then found the event lines. By the time we got to the front of the event lines, pretty much everything we wanted was sold out. We made it into a few events, but weren't happy with the choices. As it turns out, a lot of other people weren't happy with the organization of the conference either.

Despite the event fiasco, we managed to make it around to the exhibition floor and see some really neat booths. The Wizards of the Coast booth was selling the 3rd Edition of the Dungeons & Dragons players manual, so there was a *huge* line waiting to get their copy. We waited until a little later in the afternoon to tackle that one. The sad thing was that the events at the conference were planned to use this new 3rd Edition, despite the fact that no one had seen it before Thursday.

Here are shots of the convention center as seen from a nearby hotel's rotating restaurant.

Here are some shots of the gaming areas of the conference. All sorts of games were being played, from the card playing: Magic the Gathering, Legend of the Five Rings, etc., to the miniature games: Battletech, Mech Warrior, etc., to the role playing games: Dungeones & Dragons, Shadowrun, etc. There were even some live-action role playing games like Ravenloft happening in the evenings.

The basketball auditorium show here was divided up into about a 100+ booths for the purpose of the role playing games. It was here that all of the tournament and ladder games were being held. Teams were judged on problem-solving ability, role playing finesse, and teamwork. Depending on the type of match, either the whole team would advance to the next round or the team would submit votes for the top three players to go to the next round. It mixes things up a bit, but still provides fun for everyone.

The convention offered more than just game playing. There were all sorts of exhibits of art, books, cards, games, miniatures and costumes. Some famous artists and authors made appearances at the show. I had the chance to meet a few of them and talk for a short bit. Here are shots of Margaret Weis (1) and Tracy Hickman (2), creators of the Dragonlance Saga, and authors of scores of novels. I grew up reading their works starting in junior high.

Next were some famous artists and their works. They had some amazing displays setup in various show rooms around the conference hall. Most of the pieces were original works, selling for a high price. There were several that I would have loved to have, signed by the artist with a price tag at only $400 apiece. Larry Elmore (3) is known for his art in the fantasy genre from cover art to various game pages. In addition to paintings, there were some sculptures being crafted on-site for auction later in the convention (4).

Just to show the variety of games being played and shown on display, here is a shot of Scooby's Mystery Machine (5). One of the larger audience halls was reserved for all of the Wizards of the Coast (6) talks. Since this convention marked the release of the Third Edition rules, there were many questions asked and answered during these meetings.

And what Dungeons and Dragons convention is without a solid d20 (7).

One of the more popular attractions was the Dungeon Delve. This ran every hour and gave pepole a chance to play pre-generated characters in a quick hour session through the model dungeon. Not too many people made it through the Delve... a list of casualties was kept on the board, which grew larger each hour. These first two pictures show the Delve on the conference floor.

The last session we played on Sunday was similar to the Delve. Two parties, good versus evil, start at the same time and work their way through the dungeon and at some point, run into each other. Then they battle it out in a fight for survival. This final battle took hours to play due to the number of people involved and the too recent release of the rules. Many rules were bent and stretched to fit the needs of the individuals. These last three shots show this last battle and the end of our conference adventure. We started back home that afternoon, stopping in Ohio for a night.