DAY ONE: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Total Con.

By Tuna Farrell

This is a first instalment in a series of posts dedicated to our adventure at Total Con. Tuna secretly kept a detailed journal of the events and items of interest and we have decided it is important for us to not only share these bits of geekery with other folks but also to save them for posterity here.

Feb 20th Not just another Geek Day, but a whole long Geek Weekend! Mike and Al arrive to pick me up around 10:20, so we can drive towards our long planned trip to Total Con: New England’s largest gaming convention (according to them). This differs a bit from Temple Con last year in that this convention is only about board games, whereas last year we went to a con that had a mix of themes and events. Our hope is that this one will have more access to games we can try out and more developers promoting new games (also for us to try out).

The drive down only contained two things of interest. One, the prerequisite stop at the New Hampshire Liquor Store TAX FREE BOOZE!! … you may have noticed I typed that all in caps. Because it’s important.

Second, Mike played us a pod cast called “The Dice Tower”. They review games and they talked about a game called Marvel Dice Master that sounded pretty cool to us. Plus one of the guys, Eric Summerer, from the pod cast was going to be at the convention and after listening we were hoping we could talk to him about it.

We arrive at the hotel too early to check in, but not too early for lunch so we go to a local sports bar that you can see from the highway but can only actually find by sheer luck. No, really, we drove around for a while and couldn’t find it; we turned into a side road thinking to turn around and then we could see it at the far end of the street. Still, we all got a decent beer and I got a mountain of buffalo wings.

Mmmm. Beer.

So, back at the hotel we go to check in aaaaaand there are three of us, two rooms and according to the desk clerk only two beds total. When Mike specifically reserved the rooms with 2 beds in one and 1 in the other. The response? “All the rooms are taken up by the convention”. Yeah, that’s US. Mike reserved these rooms the first day they were available. Y’know, so we could attend the convention!

So, they offer to comp Mike breakfast and send up a roll out bed. Mike tells them to "Piss Off" with the breakfast, well not really, but he was extremely angry about the mix up and refused the gesture. I offer to sleep in the roll away because I’m shorter than Mike. Plus I’m not sharing a room with Al. No offense.

The Sanctuary.

And it wouldn’t be Booze and Boardgames if we didn't talk about booze. We set up the bar in Al’s room, because he has a fridge and brought all his mixing paraphernalia. Al experiments with a new drink involving Elderflower liqueur and gin, and a couple other things. It’s a fancy gin and tonic really, but people who like gin (i.e. people who are not me) seem to think it brings out some of the flavor in the standard gin/tonic thing. Me, I’m sticking with the old standby: the Dark and Stormy. For the record, Mike did not provide any extra stormy during this trip, though he did offer.

Drinks in hand we prepare to invade the Con floor.

Okay, stuff in room, drinks in hand (secretly because you’re not supposed to drink at this convention) we head on down to the convention floor.

The first thing we see? The guy from the Dice Tower, Eric Summerer, who we listened to on the drive down. And he’s setting up the game we wanted to ask him about: Marvel Dice Masters. This may be really, really, really geeky; but that’s totally awesome. We introduce ourselves and ask him about the game and he offers to walk us through it. More totally cool.

Eric Summerer was really cool and down to earth, not like Al.

The game is sort of a cross between Quarriors and Magic: the Gathering. If you have no idea what one or more of those are, Quarriors is a deck building game but with Dice, and Magic: the Gathering is a collectible card game. And if you still don’t know … why the hell are you reading this? Anyway, Marvel Dice Masters is an awesome game. If you like Magic: the Gathering, dice games, and deck building you’ll enjoy this game.

Midgard.

Our second game was Midgard, a game about Vikings taking control of the various realms of Nordic myth. It’s a simple strategy game, but I had a lot of fun playing it. Not enough to go and buy it outright, but fun enough that I’d play it again.

Ticket to Ride.

Surprisingly, Al agrees to a game of “Ticket to Ride”. Al not being fond of games where there is no fighting or killing I did not expect him to go for this. And even more surprising he didn’t hate the game either, and thinks it might be a game he could play with his wife. It is considered one of the “Gateway Games” that brings people around to the wonderful world of tabletop gaming. ;)

After gaming around for a bit, we discover that a late night dinner is in order so we find our way to the hotel restaurant and enjoy some nice beers and burgers. Well, Mike had a fruity girly drink from the menu called a Gandalf, of course we quickly renamed it to “Gandalf the Gay”, seriously look at the picture.

Yup mike getting his Con on, drinking a "Gandalf the Gay".

Back at the room Mike and I play a round or two of Magic: the Gathering. Al actually seems to take an interest and we think we might have convinced him to perhaps start playing, but it turns out he was just exhausted. So, we have finally figured out the secret to getting Al to start playing Magic: the Gathering, just wear him down to exhaustion and put some cards in his hand ;)

Later
Tuna