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[Mike]

Apparently everyone else is still recovering from the long weekend, so I'll start this thread. I thought Dreamation '11 rocked and was a lot of fun. Some regulars were missing. You figure these bad economic times affect some people. But most of the usual suspects were there. As usual, I had fun running my board games and seeing familiar faces of people I now consider gaming friends.

Most of my games had a good turnout. Tsuro, Malarkey, Man Bites Dog and Wits & Wagers (which Henry Chi won) were fun. Some new games made it to the schedule. The T-shirt Game, Sounds Like a Plan and Say Anything each had a half-dozen players. Boggle had five competitors on Sunday at 3 pm. It came down to Bruce Neiger and Judah Rabinowitz as the high scorers, but Bruce pulled it out and won.

Ironically, two standards, Scrabble and Yahtzee (on Sunday at 1 pm) did not go off. Judah got the three points for showing up to play Scrabble on Saturday. That also allowed me to introduce a pick-up game, 20 Questions, to the crowd. Veteran gamers Cheri, June, Paul, Brett and Steve played while I emceed and read the clues. At one point, Vinny came over to see what was going on. Maybe another game to add to the schedule for Dexcon in July.

My pickup games also got good reviews mostly. These were games not on the schedule but got played to fill in the two-hour slots. Perfect Sense, Faces, Thanks a Lot and Word on the Street worked well. Truth Be Told didn't work well and will not be back - long story, I'll spare you the details.

To be continued . . .

[Mike]

I got "Gamer's Fatigue" on Saturday after midnight. I went from the Board Game area to the Con Suite to get snacks and a soda to take to my room. I left my bag with my games in the suite. I didn't realize this till Sunday at 11:30 am when I was packing up stuff to check out - thank God I wasn't set to run a game till 1 pm. The bag was right where I left it. It had the sheet for Say Anything on it with the winners' badge numbers and such. As a GM, I try to be good with the paperwork. My apologies to Linda and the Board Game staff for giving them a mild panic attack. At least that got resolved.

Took part in Family Feud. My team lost but it was fun. Unfortunately, 1 vs. the Mob was at the same time I was running Sounds Like a Plan, and I had seven people for that. Sorry, Bruce & Brendan.

One of my two games sold at the auction - yay. One less game taking up space in my closet.

That food court set up in the lobby ran out of burgers on Saturday afternoon, so they made money. By the way, if you showed your badge for breakfast in the hotel, the buffet was $14 instead of $18. Also, the pizza place across the street from the hotel gave a 10% discount to those showing their Dreamation badges, though I heard a few people saying the service there wasn't exactly the best (incompetent, as one person told me).

Thanks to the Staff Suite for the sandwiches, potato salad, bagels and refreshments. Being a staff member has its advantages.

I also found time to use the hotel facilities and relax in the sauna and steam room. The facilities are free if you show your room key.

My thanks to all the staff for putting it together, particulary Linda, Ruth & Eddie in the Board Games room. Good to see my fellow GMs and the people who played my games. Carol, KC, Cheri, Charlie, Brett, Lee, Rowan, Bruce, Judah, Henry, Randy, Joshua and those mentioned earlier. Also Matt Lee (my roommate), Gil Hova, Dave and Maddie (now hubby & wife). Apologies to anyone I left out.

Thanks especially to Vinnie and Avie for overseeing the whole ball o' wax. I had a ball as always. See you all at Dexcon in July. The snow will be gone by then.

Mike C.
Tired but happy board gamer

[Mike]

I now see I put this in the wrong section. This should be in the DE Conventions section. Is there a way to transfer this thread over there?

[Mark]

Since you started the thread there should be a tab near the bottom of the screen (scroll all the way down) that says "Move Topic".

Try using that.

[Mike]

Thanks, I just did that. You learn something new every day. Apparently I still have "Gamer's Fatigue" from the weekend. 

Feel free to post here about your experiences at Dreamation 2011.

[Ricin]

Dreamation was the first DE convention I had the pleasure to attend and I would like to thank everyone whose hard work resulted in a very fun convention.

The Good: Con Suite is amazing and it helps keep everyone alive over the weekend. Very good vibe, everyone was kind and understanding. Very affordable con. Anime room had interesting programming every time I went in.

The Bad: Board Game room schedules too many events, they need to move the scheduled events to the lobby tables and have freeplay tables in the board game room so that the games can be properly secured. RPG tables in the hallway between Con Suite/Wargaming/Registration and the lobby were susceptible to vasts amount of noise pollution from those heading to the movie theater.

The Verdict: It is a very nice con and if I was not cutting back cons for 2012 I would come back. I hope to see many of the new friends I made at PAX East this week.

Thanks
Ricin

[Salvius]

Dreamation was the first DE convention I had the pleasure to attend and I would like to thank everyone whose hard work resulted in a very fun convention.

The Good: Con Suite is amazing and it helps keep everyone alive over the weekend. Very good vibe, everyone was kind and understanding. Very affordable con. Anime room had interesting programming every time I went in.

The Bad: Board Game room schedules too many events, they need to move the scheduled events to the lobby tables and have freeplay tables in the board game room so that the games can be properly secured. RPG tables in the hallway between Con Suite/Wargaming/Registration and the lobby were susceptible to vasts amount of noise pollution from those heading to the movie theater.

The Verdict: It is a very nice con and if I was not cutting back cons for 2012 I would come back. I hope to see many of the new friends I made at PAX East this week.

Thanks
Ricin

Hi Edward,

Thanks for posting the feedback, and we're happy to have had you come out to  DREAMATION 2011. FYI, I would personally like to have you back to DEXCON 14 and next year's DREAMATION; so if budget is tight, let me see what I can do to ease it for you.

Regarding the Board Gaming tables - we have a LOT of board gamers with varied interests, and we have honed that schedule down through years of experimentation - the "library" of games we use for the tournaments were NOT ever supposed to be for "open play"; so the outside tables were certainly available for games that we don't need to police ourselves.

The funny part is, most of the comments we get are that the board game schedule doesn't have ENOUGH on it

Regarding the hallway tables - there are pluses and minuses to each of the role playing locations. We have so many diverse role playing games that we HAVE to use hallway tables - and at the larger convention, DEXCON, all of them AND the waterfall tables are in constant use throughout the weekend. The BIGGEST noise complaints we get are from the players in the Manhattan room, where sound echoes all over the place. The GMs of the conventions always tell us if their game needs extra quiet for whatever reason, and we accommodate that with private rooms where appropriate. But many GMs (and we've heard a lot of positive feedback from the players as well) prefer the hallway tables because A) It gives them some exposure to the rest of the convention (a lot of them have interesting displays, battlemats, and game systems that they LIKE to show off to passers-by), B) It is much closer to the Con Suite and the hotel's COD, so everyone can take a quick trip to get snacks AND food, and C) There is a lot of extra room to stretch and have private conversations when necessary.

Any GM who has a preference for where his game runs is usually taken seriously. You should take heart in the fact that the movie-goers got an education in RPGs just by looking at your table

>>>Vinny

[Frigemall]

Sorry I could not be at Dreamation, I had a wedding to plan. It was really beautiful. I will try to make it up for at least Saturday of Spring Fling.

[Yuri_Prime]

Dreamation was the first DE convention I had the pleasure to attend and I would like to thank everyone whose hard work resulted in a very fun convention.

The Good: Con Suite is amazing and it helps keep everyone alive over the weekend. Very good vibe, everyone was kind and understanding. Very affordable con. Anime room had interesting programming every time I went in.

The Bad: Board Game room schedules too many events, they need to move the scheduled events to the lobby tables and have freeplay tables in the board game room so that the games can be properly secured. RPG tables in the hallway between Con Suite/Wargaming/Registration and the lobby were susceptible to vasts amount of noise pollution from those heading to the movie theater.

The Verdict: It is a very nice con and if I was not cutting back cons for 2012 I would come back. I hope to see many of the new friends I made at PAX East this week.

Thanks
Ricin

Sorry I'm just getting around to reading this now. As the Head of the Anime / Video room, it means a lot to me to know that people enjoy what we show. Thank you very much,

Mark, "Real Life" rears it's ugly head every now and then. Fortunately, it sounds like in this instance it was a lovely event. Congratulations to the new couple, and look forward to seeing you again!

- Buddha