EPT
Sunday: Short and Sweet
I originally planned to go to three or four panels on Sunday, but I lost interest in them early that day. Instead, I spent the day exploring the half of the main expo hall that I somehow missed on Friday. Thank goodness I fixed my mistake because that hall had a ton of exciting games. I watched demos and videos of upcoming AAA titles, such as the impressive Evolve, the hilariously addictive Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, the fantastically realistic The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and the creepy The Evil Within. Yet none made me as excited as the demo for Super Smash Bros. 4 on the 3DS. Even though the demo was short and I was incredibly bad at it (which I hope is just my unfamiliarity with Greninja), I’m definitely picking up the game. My only worry is that the 3DS’s small screen might make the game exhausting to play, but either way I’ll find out in about a month. PAX Prime’s largest “indie game area” also resided in this half of the hall, and I joyfully perused the strange and unique games crammed into the small area. The only indie game in the hall I got to play was Project Totem from Press Play Studios. Project Totem is a platformer in which you control two characters at once and progression requires swapping, stacking, and leaping at the right times for both avatars. The idea was unique and the gameplay was extremely rewarding, so I’d love to play more of it. Sadly, the game is currently an Xbox One exclusive, and I’m not buying the system for that game alone.
I restrained myself (for the most part) through the first half of the weekend, so it was time to buy a few things. On the skybridge outside of the expo halls were booths selling games, books, and a variety of other nerdy accessories which attracted my interest. One such purchase was The Resistance, a spy-based party game designed by Don Eskridge. The game is set in the universe of Coup, another of my favorite games, so I wanted to check this one out as well. The other card game I purchased was Boss Monster, a deck-building strategy game where the players are the titular boss monsters tasked with killing heroes who enter the dungeons they create. To do so you place treasures in your lair to lure heroes and traps to destroy them. The game appealed to my recent obsessions with the retro-gaming aesthetic and card-oriented tabletop games, so I had to pick it up. My final purchase in this area were Eolian talent pipes, a.k.a a pin that’s also an amusing reference to Patrick Rothfuss’s Name of the Wind. Besides, who can resist buying talent?
My only panel that day was Digitizing Tabletop Games. I’ve been using Roll20 to participate in my friends’ Pokemon tabletop for the last year, so I couldn’t miss my opportunity to meet one of the application’s creators. I also started watching RollPlay recently, a D&D webshow hosted by JP McDaniels and featuring members of the Starcraft 2 esports community. JP, djWheat, and Adam Koebel (all featured on RollPlay) also attended the panel to discuss their use of Roll20 and other technologies in their campaigns as well as strategies for broadcasting them on Twitch. A streaming D&D show is something I’d love to do eventually (RollPlay and Acquisitions, Inc. have both been great motivators), so picking up some of these shows’ “tricks' was great. My favorite advice was to construct a well-rounded group and always keep the campaign moving (instead of blindly following the rules). Even if I weren’t interested in streaming, those are great ideas to pursue.
That panel was the end of my short Sunday at PAX. Even the joys of my favorite gaming convention to date started to get a bit stale after two straight days of immersion. Plus, my friends and I wanted to see the Patrick Rothfuss panel and had no chance to get a good seat in the theater (we didn’t line up nearly early enough). Instead we went back to the apartment and watched “An Evening with Patrick Rothfuss” on Twitch. It was a cute show. Rothfuss is an entertaining character, which I didn’t know until he demonstrated that during the Acquisitions, Inc. session. He answered a few questions in an entertaining fashion and read a strange little story he wrote about a princess and her bear (it’s an enjoyable experiment if nothing else). He also mentioned his upcoming novella set in the world of Temerant (the world the Kingkiller Chronicles), which is a story about Auri, the odd young woman who lives in the tunnels beneath The University. It was a fun way to conclude the short day, especially because it meant we could spend the rest of the evening playing games instead of just looking at them and talking about them.
Monday: PAX at Play
By Monday, even I was wondering what I would do with another day wandering around PAX. There was one more D&D panel I wanted to attend, but I was a bit unsure of what to do afterwards. Then I had a revelation.
There’s always been a part of conventions that confused me. At anime conventions, I never understood the reasoning behind all the movie and television showings. At comic conventions, the reading rooms mystified me. At gaming conventions, game-playing lounges and console rooms always felt a bit superfluous. I’ve always thought that there was no reason to go to these areas because that’s what you did at home anyways. To me, the most important parts of the conventions were those unique to conventions, the ones you couldn’t find anywhere else. While those unique elements will always be amazing, I suddenly realized the opportunities those simple community spaces provided. I rarely play D&D at home these days. The Pokemon campaign meets occasionally, but it’s hard to get everyone together (and also to write it). However, at PAX, there were tons of gamers with whom I could play, tons of systems and rules I could ty, and tons of GMs from whom I could learn new tricks. While I arrived at the D&D booth far too late to get a game, I did manage to play a mini Pathfinder campaign.
A pair of rooms on the second floor were dedicated to Pathfinder Society Organized Play, the initiative that brings together interested strangers to play the game. When I arrived, I signed up to be grouped with a party and a GM to play through a short session. After the other five party members sat down and selected their classes, I chose to play a Samurai: honorable, heavily-armed, and leading a noble steed. Our campaign was set in a small village where a cultish religion took the town by storm. With some lucky rolls and sly acting, our party deceived and ensorcelled the leader of the cultists, gaining his trust and luring him away from his followers. The d20’s favor was truly with us that day: we even managed to render leader’s four guards unconscious before guiding him out of the town, stealing his beguiling magic rod, and smiting his evil face. At least, that’s what four of the party did. The party’s druid and I stayed to fight the guards as came to. Though we did well at first, their numbers quickly overwhelmed... me. A few good stabs knocked me unconscious, and only the timely arrival of my allies, a skillfully-cast healing scroll, a wealth of constitution, and my honor-borne resilience kept me alive. All in all, it was a good adventure, even if the rules became overly complicated at times. Overall, I was just happy to play with a group of strangers who shared my interest in games. I’ll definitely be doing more of that at game conventions in the future.
My final panel of PAX Prime 2014 was also about the techniques of the people who run adventure games. This one was called Art of the Table: GMing Beyond the Basics. This panel brought a host of experienced GMs and game designers together to answer audience questions about how to run a campaign. They gave amazing recommendations throughout, a few of which I definitely want to include in the games I run. For example, I over-plan all of my sessions, but one of the panelists recommended against that, saying that too much preparation can take the fun and (more importantly) the flexibility out of DMing. Finding the best game for you and your players was another important topic, since the question-askers frequently ran into issues with “that one player” who ruined the campaign, played contrary to the party, or just didn’t have fun. Going into a game with the knowledge of what it will be like solves so much of aforementioned difficulties for everyone. Finally, I loved that the panelists insisted that players should contribute to the game’s narrative. The DM isn’t God; they’re just playing a different role. Everyone should contribute to their games. Of the panels I attended, Art of the Table was definitely the most interesting and helpful.
In the afternoon, I finally left the Washington Convention Center for good. PAX Prime 2014 was an awesome experience, and I’m glad I was able to attend. It helped me better understand myself as a gamer and showed me the kinds of games I’m excited to play in the future. I can’t wait for my next PAX.
You can read this recount of a day long past and a few other tidbits (including Part 1!) at the N3rd Dimension.
