It was the 50th Anniversary celebration of Dungeons and Dragons and there was going to be a plethora of historical panels with the folks who made the game.
My plan was to drive down to Indianapolis, stay overnight, say 'hi' to some friends, do a little shopping, and then drive home. But, as fate would have it, I had enough cash saved up to do three days in Indianapolis so decided to make the most of the experience.
Gen Con is one of those places where the artwork takes center stage--even to all the games. You could have the best game out there, but if the artwork is 'meh', well, it's hard to catch the eye of potential players (customers). So, I set out with camera in hand and a willingness of spirit to soak in all that wonderful sci-fi/fantasy artwork.
Catalyst Game Labs had some nice treasures in their display case but "The Battle for New Avalon" was the theme for the annual CamoSpecs diorama. If you look closely, you can see the the Republic of the Sphere forces backing up the Davion Guards against the Sword of Light.
As always, the detail on those miniatures is always top-notch! Wish mine looked that good.
There was a fair amount of interesting art at the con--lots of it was on banners.
I'm not into Pathfinder, but Paizo's artwork is always top-tier.
The 50th Anniversary of D&D "museum" was both overwhelming and underwhelming. Given how the Con pulled out the stops for the Gen Con anniversary back in 2017, I was expecting more than a number of display cabinets with some D&D artifacts--back then they built a facade for the Horticultural Hall and had tons of historical artwork and gaming books and artifacts from the history of gaming.
Now, a lot of the books and papers they had in the display cabinets "were" pretty cool. And I did like the "D&D by the versions" display. Overall I think Peterson and Kammer did an okay job with what they had, but it was not what I expected given the enormity of the anniversary of D&D.
Every year, there's group art project. Not much to say here, I just thought it was pretty neat.
Was a real treat to meet Gary Gygax's son Luke (and his wife Bouchra) during the "Growing Up Gygax" presention. Real quality people. Would love to talk to them again.
Spent some quality time looking at the miniatures competition.
Am truly humbled by the skill and the patience it takes to produce work of this quality and on this scale.
Not a lot of statues at the con this year, but there were a couple good ones in the dealer room.
Heh. The annual balloon sculpture turned out to be a promo for a Gnome game.
