Dice-fueled Adventure: GenCon Day 1
GenCon 2024, Thursday, Shopping Day
What an exhausting day.
The first day of GenCon always is. It’s shopping day, when my family hits the Dealers Hall hot and heavy for a marathon of buying games and dice and pins. We stop by booths inhabited by friends, sing songs at pirates, peruse new artists and authors, and generally have a slightly stressful but overall amazing time.
GenCon officially opens on Thursday morning at 9 am with a presentation in the 500 Ballroom of the Indiana Convention Center. Many people are still in the Will Call line at this time (that wait gets up to 6 hours at the busy times), and everyone else…is gathered outside one of the several entrances to the Dealers Hall, which opens at 10 am.
After the crowd gets through the bottleneck of the doorways (don’t push, don’t crowd, hold your badge up and facing out for security to see), they disperse as each hurries to be among the first to grab whatever new game or collectible or convention exclusive thing they’ve had their little heart set on.
For me, this year, it was dice first. The two sets of the GenCon exclusive dice sets from Crystal Caste. This year, they’re swirled green and silver with a brushed matte finish, the first matte dice I’ve seen them release for a convention set. And…the first year that I chose not to get a set for myself.
Instead, I wanted to explore what Fan Roll had to offer. We discovered them at GenCon last year, and I shopped them again for Christmas. Because of this I was really looking forward to seeing what they had to offer for GenCon, and they did not disappoint. I got a set of black-light-reactive liquid core dice, and a black-light GenCon 2024 velvet/PU leather dice tray. As in…the dice tray is rimmed with UV lights that make the dice glow.
But the big thing, the special thing, the must get item on my list this year was stopping by to see fellow Anvilite Peter Chiykowski and grab a physical copy of The Story Engine and the horror, mystery, and backstory decks to go with it. I’ve had the complete Story Engine and Deck of Worlds sets as .pdf since Worldbuilding Con earlier this year, but nothing is quite as exciting as having my favorite sets at hand whenever I need them.
I also picked up a few games, a few new pins (including 2 of The Dark One), and a plush stuffy of The Dark One.
But more on that later. Now, sleep, for tomorrow I build worlds!!!
The best way to stay caught up on this year’s GenCon adventure is to subscribe. I’ll be posting highlights all weekend long in Rhapsody in Realms and also in Notes.