As I write this, I am on the plane leaving Indianapolis and GenCon 2012 behind. The convention was extremely fun and productive for me. Of course, just days before GenCon began, I announced that I will be designing a new rpg. The game, Numenera, also has a Kickstarter behind it, which exploded right out of the gate, raising well over $100,000 before I even arrived at the convention. (It is at $130,000 as of a few minutes before I got on the plane.) In other words, it was already a good show before I ever even stepped into the convention center.

The success of the still-brand-new Kickstarter campaign meant that it was, in many circles, the talk of the show. Everyone I encountered seemed to want to talk about it. While it was gratifying to have people congratulate me on the campaign, it was even better to hear that they were excited about the game itself. A common refrain that I heard over and over was that people weren’t very interested in rpgs at the moment, but they were intrigued and excited by Numenera. If the game can breathe even a tiny bit of new life into the hobby, I’ll be very pleased.

The first day of GenCon, I gave a panel that was, ostensibly, about anything and everything I’ve ever worked on. But everyone there wanted to talk about Numenera. I ended up describing a great deal about the system and the setting, both of which are very different than anything I’ve done before. You can see a video of a large portion of the panel here.

I also got a chance to meet the two game store owners who backed the Numenera Kickstarter at the “ULTIMATE RETAILER” level, meaning that I’ll be visiting their store and running a game. They seemed great. Looks like I’ll be visiting New York and North Carolina. Today I also added another such level to allow another retailer to contribute at that level–I am interested in working with retailers to make Numenera a success in the long-term, not just with Kickstarter.

That night, Jen Page and I debuted the first episode of Geek Seekers. I’m really proud of that project, too. The audience seemed to really enjoy it and the Q&A afterward. The next day, Friday, Jen, I, and the very generous Peter Adkison hosted a special game of Numenera for some of the backers of the Geek Seekers Kickstarter campaign. It went really well, and worked as a playtest for the adventure that I’ll be writing as an exclusive for Kickstarter supporters, called the Nightmare Switch. Plus, it was actually the first time that Jen and I gamed together, and that was fun.

Friday night, of course, was the ENnies. I always love attending the ENnies, and this year it was hosted by my friend (and Dungeon Bastard) Tom Lommel. I had the honor of presenting the Best Game, Product of the Year, and Best Publisher awards.

Saturday was filled with interviews, meetings, and panels. One of the most fun was an interview I did in front of a live audience for the Writing Excuses panel with Mary Robinette Kowal, Brandon Sanderson, and Howard Tayler. Saturday night was another Numenera playtest with friends involving something very much like a hovertrain and spiders made of metal, spinning monofilament wire webs.

The last day, I had more meetings, wasted a bunch of time recovering the credit card I had left at a restaurant the night before, and relaxed with friends.

Overall, a great GenCon. Now, I’m on my way to FanExpo Canada in Toronto, a show I’ve heard great things about, but have never attended. From there, I go straight to DragonCon in Atlanta. At both shows, I plan on giving presentations about Numenera as well as talking about all manner of other topics.

1. 

   Charlie · August 21, 2012 at 11:07 am · Reply

   Any chance you can reveal the NC retailer you’ll be visiting?