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Monday, August 22nd, 2005 10:51 pm
I wasn't planning to post about GenCon just yet, as I still have a playtest report to write from notes, but...

A company called Cheese Weasel Logistics, who make a very cool product called the Card Coffin, have been nice and friendly every time I've been to their booth at a convention, and who not only kindly donated a Card Coffin to the NSO at Origins '04 when I asked at their booth, but gave me another one when I stopped by to thank them during Origins '05 (I didn't ask this time, honest), ran a very cool meta-game at GenCon this year. It started with a man standing outside the Exhibitor's Hall with an exclamation mark over his head announcing loudly, "This item starts a quest."



You got three cards in three different colors. Each had the first stage of the plot of a quest, and the booth number of the place to go for the next step. The booth people could make you perform a task to continue on the quest. (Having to demo their games, oh, the horror, was the usual task.) Then you'd get the next card in the matching color. After six, the last booth would collect your six cards and give you a little raffle ticket to fill out.

Being me, I decided that if I was going to do this, I was going to have fun with it. I'd show up at a booth slightly out of breath, angle for someone in charge, and start rapidly, "I have a letter from the Captain of the Guard in [wherever it was] for the mayor! It's very urgent, there's been an Orc attack!" while holding up the quest card (because I noticed after the first one or two that they tended to get confused otherwise, and, hey, it made as good a phys-rep for a letter as anything else). Apparently very few people, if any, did that, and I think people enjoyed it overall. It certainly made it more fun for me. Actually, I think the ability to inject a little role-play into it may have had a large part in making it the most fun of the meta-games I've participated in at any convention. In others, it's been kind of a, "Hi, can I have your card?" thing. This let me interact briefly with the people at the booth.

Anyway, at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon yesterday, while I was on a Hudson Line train a bit south of Croton Harmon, I noticed my cell phone had a missed call and a message from [livejournal.com profile] wylddelirium. It said that [livejournal.com profile] ninjaslug had called. I'd won the Quest Raffle, I was to haul myself over to the Cheese Weasel booth, pronto. I called her back, got her voicemail. I believe the message I left was, "You're shitting me. Call me back?"

I just got a letter from Cheese Weasel. The subject is, "You were the GenCon Quest Game Grand Prize Winner!!"

It then goes on to talk about how disappointed they were that I wasn't there to see all the stuff laid out myself and have people see my reaction, and talk about all the nifty stuff I won. Apparently it took about three boxes to fit it all.
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005 08:19 am (UTC)
...

You won the GenCon WoW quest game.

You don't even play WoW.

Man, I know soooo many people who are going to die if I tell them this. Congrats on the win. :D
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005 01:05 pm (UTC)
...

Wicked cool, bro!

I am sooo gonna be at NonCon this year to learn and pimp this game!
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005 08:39 pm (UTC)
Three boxes? Eep!

Congrats on the win.
Thursday, September 8th, 2005 02:55 pm (UTC)
I find it pretty amusing that the "this item starts a quest" guy was one of my pet annoyances from the con. I'm glad there was something cool at the end...and that a friend managed to win it.
(Anonymous)
Wednesday, September 14th, 2005 01:46 am (UTC)
Hi all. Actually I am the annoying guy in the both with the funny hat. I pretty annoying, but it helped to bring attention to the game. I am glad that you liked the game and had fun playing it, that was the intent behind it. We wanted to try and give some of the smaller companies a chance to show you their products. Most people just don't give the smaller guys a chance. We here at Cheese Weasel Logistics work to even the odds. We want you to see the new stuff from the little guys and have fun while doing it. If you liked this years game wait until next year. It pronmises to be bigger, better, and have unique items for all who play.