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Friday, March 1, 2013

Games The Con Within a Con: Gaming at ECCC

Posted by The Stranger Testing Department on Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 9:38 PM

Take note, gentle gamers: once again, Emerald City Comicon has a whole nested world of gaming within it—with the return of personalities like Jennifer Hale (the storied voice of FemShep) and Felicia Day (i.e., Felicia Day) and gaming-flavored events like "How to Become as Fit as Your Avatar" and "The Critical Hit Show: A Live Dungeons and Dragons Comedy Experience."

Scheduled programming aside, there's a veritable mini-PAX of casual and organized play, too—just across Pike and down in the basement, open until midnight both Friday and Saturday. You can play not one, not two, but three kinds of D&D (13th Age, D&D Next, and Pathfinder), all available in not-too-long, novice-friendly demo form. Story Games Seattle is also running and teaching games, like Fiasco and Microscope (whose creator was even there today), and Munchkin has a couple tables going, too.

If you're just ducking out of the show floor for a bit, the Game Library is back, where you can borrow a game to play with friends—everything from Bananagrams to RoboRally, Cosmic Encounter, and the crazy Order of the Stick game (which we've never found a way to play in under 13 hours, so okay maybe that's not a good option this weekend). Serious players no doubt already know that there's a whole slew of HeroClix and Magic tournaments going on, too.

The Stranger Testing Department is Rob Lightner and Paul Hughes.

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13th Age and Pathfinder aren't kinds of D&D. The former isn't even an OGL themed derivative.

Come on guys, you can do better than this

Posted by That one geek on March 1, 2013 at 11:10 PM

@1, forgive us our taxonomic license. you're totally right about the distinction. We've played a bajillion hours of pretty much every D&D ever (and even both playtested 3E, 4E, 13th Age, and D&D Next), and—with apologies to Hasbro—we almost always find ourselves calling them all "D&D."

(And fwiw, funny true story: when we were explaining the many gradations to Mary today, one of the Pathfinder folks even piped in and said "it's basically D&D 3.75.")

Posted by The Stranger Testing Department on March 1, 2013 at 11:31 PM

That's "Story Games Seattle"—you know, like it says in the URL…

Posted by philaros on March 1, 2013 at 11:50 PM

Whoops, got it—thanks, philaros...

Posted by The Stranger Testing Department on March 2, 2013 at 8:10 AM

Gotta say - Emerald City CC has got to get its act together. It took 45 minutes to get in. Then you have to go outside through a crazy chute (good luck if it rains) like cows then into an indoor chute to get your badge.

Also, they do NOT clear the room after each panel so if you want a good seat, go see the panel before the one you want, otherwise you'll be at the back.

Also, they only sell a limited number of items per day (like the Walking Dead special edition comic).

Also, the ECCC t-shirts? Better have cash because they randomly decide not to use credit cards at some point. (There are ATMs but naturally there's a charge and more hassle.)

I loved seeing and hearing Billy Dee Williams and Christopher Lloyd but this was not an easy event to navigate.

Posted by westello on March 2, 2013 at 9:06 AM

ComiCon...I know where you can find endless numbers of virgins in Seattle!!!

Posted by Stewie Griffin on March 2, 2013 at 10:22 AM