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Dragon Con 2016 Report

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08 Sep 2016 18:47 #233627 by Michael Barnes
So we actually went to Dragon Con for a while this weekend.

Same old same old, by and large. I think the defining image was seeing this girl wearing a Batman Totoro shirt applying makeup to a zombie. Yes, Batman Totoro. As if that would in any way NOT piss off Miyazaki. As if that in any way honors either of those things. How fucking lame. And I love both Batman and Totoro.

Or maybe it was the steampunk leather fetish POKEMON mask. Maybe that was the defining moment. Seriously, who would buy such a stupid item. Let alone at like $200. So much mash-up shit, so many people trying to figure out how to define themselves and express who they are by the media they consume.

Anyway, the Dealer’s Room had vendors hawking the same shit they’ve been peddling for decades, with the addition of somehow MORE mash-up crap like the Batman Totoro thing. When you have little kids, you also notice how much sleazy-looking white trash garbage gets slapped on T-Shirts, comic books, posters and so forth. Tasteless junk for people with zero taste or dignity.

I saw the CMON booth. I walked right by and didn’t even look, even though I wanted to see what Black Plague stuff they had.
There was no one selling any kind of miniature stuff, which was also disappointing because I was in the mood to make a foolish purchase. Absolutely no out of print or rare games.

We did buy a very nice 1960s advertising print with a pink elephant on it.

Ran into a friend of mine from waaaaay back. Turns out he just got hired to do design work on Stranger Things season 2. Bastard. He gave my kids a pretty neat illustration of Finn and Rey, so I guess it’s all good.

Found out that another old friend of mine, this guy that I thought was a homeless man the first time he walked into my store, is like the 2nd-ranked Netrunner player in the world. I wonder if everyone knows about the “Jimmy Johns Sandwich Incident” of 2005. It may discredit him, I don’t know.

Cosplay, yawn. Lots of stuff, it all runs together after about an hour of it. I’m just genuinely no longer impressed by any of it because EVERYBODY (but me) has an amazing costume. Every other girl was Harley Quinn, so lots of asses ranging from reasonably shapely to shoggothly flabby in hot pants. For some reason, Link was a huge costume this year for boys and girls. Lots of Overwatch. There were adult men dressed like the Stranger Things gang, which was just pretty dumb. Jabba Trump was pretty funny. Best was probably some older folks that did Captain Gloval and Lisa Hayes from Robotech/Macross. My kids were Harry Potter and Cinderella. Every year I think that I will never see anything as cool as the dudes that were the cops from THX-1138. Or the couple that were Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible. Most of the shit I don’t even know what it is, so I surmise it is either some Adult Swim shit or an anime thing that no one over the age of 18 gives a flying fuck about.

Celebrity sightings- none. Celebrities do not attend Dragon Con in any capacity. Well, there was Judge Reinhold. That was kind of cool since I just watched Beverly Hills Cop. I wanted to tell Alex Kingston that I don’t like River Song but she was not at her table. Karen Gillen was there somewhere, but since she’s pretty she probably got harassed and had to leave. I dunno.

The Cruxshadows had their usual table that makes it look like they are a world-class rock band when they are really just sad goths beloved only by other sad goths that gather at large festivals in Europe. And Dragon Con. Seriously, who still listens to this kind of umpteenth generation electro-goth crap? That ship sailed 15 years ago.

The Starbucks line was too long, which pissed me off because I wanted a new chili mocha.

There was a line that snaked all the way through Atlanta to get into some Game of Thrones panel. Quote my wife, who is actually working on some kind of GoT promo as I write this- “what are they even going to talk about?”

I got to do a little gaming with some old friends- we played…SCYTHE! And it was loved by all at the table. No one complained about it not really being a 4x game so take that, internet. I was the Crimeans and played for an early win but got stomped by Saxony. Then we played Crokinole on a board that doubles as a Dune board (seriously, this was awesome and I want one). A friend of mine’s dad makes them, come to find out- wooden-youknow.com. I sat in on a Captain Sonar game, it looked OK but I’m not sure what the fuss is about. Seemed like a way more complicated multiplayer Battleship. Played Kaleidos for the first time, if they ever have a world championship, I am going to stake my claim. I am seriously like the greatest Kaleidos player of all time. I was quadrupling everyone else’s scores.

Wandering the gaming area, I saw tons of games where I had previously thought “who the fuck would ever play that”. Like, people actually playing Ninja Burger. WTF. Lots of the usual, boring junk you’d expect. I swear they may as well have roped off half the room for Codenames. There was no miniatures area that I could see, but I also didn’t really go looking for it. They had an arcade of obscure Japanese games in the gaming area, that was pretty neat.

Got to hang out with the legendary Will Kenyon for a while, haven’t seen him in a minute. He was NOT playing TI3, which was weird.

Games not seen in the gaming area- Zimby Mojo, anything GW, Star Trek: Ascendency…so in sum,not anything I am really interested in right now.

I dunno, it was more fun than last time, except for having my badge get snatched right as I walked out of registration. Right off my lanyard. That was pretty shitty. Oh, and my wife’s friend took her son to the parade and they were BOTH sexually assaulted by a man who unzipped his pants and rubbed his dick between them. Only at Dragon Con, I swear to god the losers that go to these things.
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08 Sep 2016 19:13 #233630 by jason10mm
Replied by jason10mm on topic Dragon Con 2016 Report
So, what are your feelings for putting gaming out at Americas Mart? Maybe you only saw parts of it? Those massive miniatures tables have been at DC for YEARS (those jumbo Battletech mechs especially), did they leave or just set up somewhere else?

DC is definitely a con that has outgrown its britches. I almost want it to split into a spring/fall con or something, but any one aspect of it can't carry itself, it has to be the whole sloppy mess. Except the film screening track. That tiny screening room can burn and die for all I care, I wish that panel was run by a guy who WANTED the films to be SEEN.

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08 Sep 2016 19:31 #233632 by jeb
Replied by jeb on topic Dragon Con 2016 Report

Michael Barnes wrote: I dunno, it was more fun than last time, except for having my badge get snatched right as I walked out of registration. Right off my lanyard. That was pretty shitty. Oh, and my wife’s friend took her son to the parade and they were BOTH sexually assaulted by a man who unzipped his pants and rubbed his dick between them. Only at Dragon Con, I swear to god the losers that go to these things.


[blinktag]WHAT [/blinktag]

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08 Sep 2016 19:33 #233633 by Michael Barnes
Well, it's not the first time they've had it out there...in fact, some of the best DCs in the past (I'm thinking specifically of DC 1995/1996) they did it there even though at that time the con was still really just at the Hilton. So I don't think that was a big deal. I actually liked the dealers' room and artist alley thing being in the other Americasmart building together, and I definitely like that they didn't do that crap like last year where half the vendors were like in hallways and little rooms.

I didn't proactively look for it, but I was told there was SOME miniatures gaming in the downstairs gaming room...which I was also told was almost all D&D, Magic and Pathfinder. So I'm not sure what happened there, there's always been lots of minis tables. Maybe they were somewhere else, I don't know.

Yeah, you know, when I started going in 1992 it seemed like a big deal that attendance was 4,000. Back then, it was still called Dragon Con and Atlanta Comics Expo, so it was still very classic SF TV, fantasy literature, comics, and games oriented. I remember when it hit 18,000 and it was like WHOA. And then all of the other stuff started creeping in until it turned into this catchall "pop culture" thing with bands and everything. Now it's even more than that with way more attendance and all kinds of disparate, random stuff. And virtually no Trek fandom, which still makes me kind of sad...no more drunk, aging Klingons.

But yeah, I've seen it change a lot. From Bettie Page look-a-like contests to Cry for Dawn look-a-like contests (give me a break) to the outrageous costuming now. I've been through the Crow craze, Whedonmania, Charlton Heston cancelling his appearance, the rise of Star Wars fandom...the furries showing up...Pern fandom disappearing...nobody ever really caring about Tron like they should.

Screening rooms...heh, I haven't gone into one of those in a decade. I remember DC '92, my girlfriend was cheating on me with some guy there so I went down to it and watched an almost unwatchable, 25th generation dub of Spider Baby. Long before internet fan films, I saw anime cut-ups where they'd splice Captain Harlock fighting Darth Vader. And back when the Hong Kong thing started happening, I remember seeing City Hunter for the first time there at like 3am and then of course buying a shitty bootleg of it the next day. The last time I went in one was in the late 1990s...my friend and I hijacked it. They were watching the Star Trek cartoon, it was late at night, so we took it over and started showing Japanese wrestling videos...this was back before that stuff was really known in the US. Scorpion matches, rings floating in pools filled with mines, that kind of stuff. Some people bitched, but within 15 minutes the room was full to bursting and people were gathered at the door trying to see. I've slept in screening rooms, which is as far as I'm concerned part of the teenage con experience.

I actually won the film festival one year. I had the only film shot on actual film. Fred Olen Myers, director of "Nude on the Moon" was one of the judges. I never did pick up my trophy or whatever.

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08 Sep 2016 19:35 #233635 by Michael Barnes

jeb wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: I dunno, it was more fun than last time, except for having my badge get snatched right as I walked out of registration. Right off my lanyard. That was pretty shitty. Oh, and my wife’s friend took her son to the parade and they were BOTH sexually assaulted by a man who unzipped his pants and rubbed his dick between them. Only at Dragon Con, I swear to god the losers that go to these things.


[blinktag]WHAT [/blinktag]


Yeah, this happened. The guy was arrested. He had a badge, it wasn't just some random guy that showed up.

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08 Sep 2016 19:46 #233637 by Ancient_of_MuMu

jeb wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: I dunno, it was more fun than last time, except for having my badge get snatched right as I walked out of registration. Right off my lanyard. That was pretty shitty. Oh, and my wife’s friend took her son to the parade and they were BOTH sexually assaulted by a man who unzipped his pants and rubbed his dick between them. Only at Dragon Con, I swear to god the losers that go to these things.


[blinktag]WHAT [/blinktag]


Michael Barnes wrote: Well, it's not the first time they've had it out there....


Accidental masterpiece of comic timing.
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08 Sep 2016 21:51 - 08 Sep 2016 22:49 #233657 by Mr. White
Replied by Mr. White on topic Dragon Con 2016 Report
I love these.

It's been about 15 years now since my list trip to the D*C. I feel like I bring the same stories up in the comments to these articles, so maybe this'll be the last time.

I think I first went in '94 or '95. It was my first real con and it was amazing. I played a demo of Dragon Dice with Lester Smith (and my friends and I played that almost exclusively for about a year), bought a bootleg SFII anime movie (before they hit US retail) in the dealer's room (which was an amazing place at the time), got in on the ground floor of the Street Fighter storytelling game, sat in on a panel with TSR reps where they revealed the upcoming Birthright line (which was hype...but we never played) played a lot of fantastic games (Catan for the first time!), and just generally had a great time reveling in gaming. I went to a few tracks and yes there was the Pern stuff, the Star Trek stuff, rooms playing exotic films, I visited with Wendy and Richard Pini (elfquest) I think Danzig was even there trying to launch his comic line. Cruxshadows played their shows, but so did GWAR so it was alright. It was really cool as there was all this, at the time, niche stuff to celebrate.

A couple years go by and we still attend. I join a group that wins the D&D tournament (which paid for the trip), ebay is hitting it's stride so no real need to hit the dealer room anymore, we start seeing some really cool costumes (the first real 'chrome dome' Cobra Commander was my favorite). Cruxshadows played their shows, but Graves era Misfits play once or twice and seems like half the crowd came to just tell him that he and Only suck. One of these years, I have a memorable evening drinking and playing a parlour game with Larry Elmore and his crew. The D*C does start to take on a more party like atmosphere than I felt it had prior, but maybe it was me.

However, as the years go by the gaming recedes into the background, the Pern type stuff starts disappearing, costuming, drinking and general partying takes center stage seemingly everywhere. Space that would have been used for gaming is turning into evening discos. We have shattered hotel doors, dragging buddies out of stalls with puke in their pants, etc dumb stuff. Cruxshadows played their shows, and I think the organizers start bringing in some wrestling. I'm not saying the new crew was having bad wrong fun, but the event lost it's charm for me. I liked that it was a place I could go and play a game with the designer of Minion Hunter or talk Vance Astro with Kurt Busiek between game sessions. But that sort of thing started happening a lot less.

I began to realize it was cheaper and more fun to just have friends over at my place for the weekend.

My last trip was in 02 or 03.

Seems the Cruxshadows don't care and still play their shows.

Now, I see friends on my FB that go. Half never would have gone with the programming that was put up on the 90s, and just about all of them talk all year about their costume they're gearing up to reveal, like we're all waiting with baited breath. Some are cute, but in the end I really don't care about costuming. oh, one or two are always looking for ways they can humorously genderbend your favorite genre characters...what a riot...*yawn*

Again, I'm not knocking people that go, but this seems to have turned into more a celebration of being into being into things (queue Legomancer) more than anything I'd be into and sounds like almost all gaming I'd be interested in is gone.
Last edit: 08 Sep 2016 22:49 by Mr. White.
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09 Sep 2016 08:40 #233694 by Legomancer
Replied by Legomancer on topic Dragon Con 2016 Report
Look out, Michael, you're going to be called a humorless robot who hates fun.

I sort of felt this way about Gen Con a few years ago. If I go to a game con I want to go to a game con and play games. If I go to a comic con I want go to a comic con and see comics. I don't want to got to a Generic Fandom con. I'm not a fan of Fandom Itself. Gen Con felt to me like this. Corsets are not games. Realistic replica weapons aren't games. I have a friend who makes some fantastic comics that the people here would love, who has a KS going right now, who recently tabled at a gaming con and I love the guy and his work, but it's not games.

I don't mind Generic Fandom cons existing, because I know not to go to them. I wouldn't set foot in Dragon Con, because I won't be interested in 90% of what's there. No burn on them, just not something I'd be down for. But getting that vibe also at Gen Con was bothersome, which is a shame, because it would be no big hassle for me to do GC every year or so, organizationally. Just no interest.

I liked Heroes Con as well, because it was a comic con that hasn't grown so big it's now just about Generic Fandom. It's still focused on comics, for the most part.

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09 Sep 2016 09:03 - 09 Sep 2016 09:04 #233696 by Mr. White
Replied by Mr. White on topic Dragon Con 2016 Report
I look online at pictures of Gen Con from the late 70s and early 80s. Pics of regular looking people in regular clothes getting together with other like minded gamers to play out some game/adventure. Likely one of the few times a year some of these folks get to play said games. Or you've got some running their own homebrew game. It all comes across as rational people who have lives, but get together for this event solely to game. Probably corresponding via snail mail prior to. That looks perfect for me and I'm nostalgic for these events I never attended. Of course, I could be totally wrong in how it actually was as, again, I wasn't there.

There's no aspiring models dressed up in professional grade costumes trying to make a name for themselves as cosplayers. No folks wearing Dr. Who/Firefly mashup shirts while playing some licensed pap game cashing in on nostalgia like Gremlins or the A-Team.

Two totally different vibes.

Yeah, seems a lot of these cons (D*C, comic con, wizard world) have become waterdowned celebrations of media consumption.

Hard Pass.

Conversely, PitCon '17 looks to have the following so far:
DreadBall - 'Glitch in the Machine' season
Dark Future - US Road Cavalry contract competition
DungeonSaga - Base Campaign
DeadZone/Necromunda - TBA event
Man O War - TBA event

(Hmmm...maybe we should sub in Dreadfleet for MoW, so all games will start with 'D'...a theme?)
Last edit: 09 Sep 2016 09:04 by Mr. White.

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09 Sep 2016 09:06 #233698 by JEM
Replied by JEM on topic Dragon Con 2016 Report
I'm pretty sure that I saw plenty of photos and videos of people playing games that would pass approval of the Lofty Elite here at Gen Con. I mean if you don't like cosplay, then just don't pay attention to it? Just play TI3 with people or whatever you're there for.
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09 Sep 2016 09:14 #233700 by Mr. White
Replied by Mr. White on topic Dragon Con 2016 Report
Yeah, I'm probably coming off as a judgemental jack@$$ in this thread. Honestly, I don't mean to, but yes, I did say somethings in that last post that maybe I shouldn't have.

I guess what I mean is, if focus on gaming stuff has gone and it's just open play style gaming in the corners...I can do that at home/game cafe's/game stores. I'm not sure what I'd gain from going to a con anymore.

Likely I'm off base and out of touch though.

Gonna hang up on this thread now and just listen.

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09 Sep 2016 09:17 #233701 by Msample
Replied by Msample on topic Dragon Con 2016 Report
I get that these cons grew into what they are because its what makes the organizers money. GenCon is pretty much a license to print money.

I also think that a lot of the stuff that raises people's ire here like cosplay gets a lot of the media attention and press. Some rando reporter strolling the halls isn't gonna stop and take a picture of 6 FATers playing TI3 . I know people that go to GenCon and even play wargames. Sure they are a tiny minority. But they do exist .
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09 Sep 2016 09:59 #233706 by Josh Look
Replied by Josh Look on topic Dragon Con 2016 Report
There's a pretty good chance I go next year. My wife might be getting a table, so I expect to get thrown out for fighting.

So yeah, I might be there, so don't go next year.
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09 Sep 2016 10:10 - 09 Sep 2016 10:18 #233712 by wkover
Replied by wkover on topic Dragon Con 2016 Report
No offense, but what I'm hearing is that an adult who still plays with star wars toys thinks that certain types of cosplay aren't cool. Interesting. :P
Last edit: 09 Sep 2016 10:18 by wkover. Reason: Grammar stupidity
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09 Sep 2016 10:58 #233725 by SuperflyPete
Replied by SuperflyPete on topic Dragon Con 2016 Report
Agree with Dave - GenCon and many other cons suck. GenCon is the mecca of the consumerist gamer who buys 4,000$ in games he'll never play and brings back 4 suitcases of them. Despite 75$ per bag being much more expensive than the free shipping.

That whole "dick rubbing" thing is apparently an Atlanta thing. Wasn't the DragonCon originator also a convicted sex offender? Guys like that just need to be beaten to death by a mob while a bunch of fuckers record it and yell WORLDSTAR

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