February 22
DundraCon Report
The short version: I had a blast and I'm really glad I went. Now, it is good to be home. Special thanks to Bill (
baronlaw) for being my convention room buddy!The long version... Rich (
unkyrich) picked me up Wednesday night from the airport and we chit-chatted for a couple of hours before he went to work on a paper for school and I crashed for the night. Man, it was good time. I've missed talking with Rich face-to-face. I swear, if I were wealthy instead of so good looking, I really would fly down to the Bay Area once a month to game with him and old gang. Thursday included more talking, Rich dropping me off at the hotel and me utterly vegging in front of the TV for most of the night. The only surreal moment came when I walked over to Target for munchies listening to the Lost Boy soundtrack. Sometimes, the world takes on an odd cast when set to music only I can hear.Friday was the start of the convention. I crashed into Blinkie's (
gothboiblinkie) Exalted game because Rich convinced me to give it another chance and promised me I'd have a good time. I did. Mostly because I finally "got" the game, Blinkie had a great plot and Rich, as always, is a blast to play with. Unfortunately, only about half of the other players were worth playing with. The other half were a bunch of pussies. By the end of the game, my scout had been declared leader by Rich's impulsive character and we bullied the others in acting like the Exalted they were. The game ended really late. I crawled into bed around 4:30am and it killed me for the rest of the con.Saturday morning, I had a bad case of the "They're going to hate it" nerves before A Dance of Fate, the 7th Sea LARP that Bill and I put on. Everyone assured me that it would go fine and, fortunately, it did thanks to our spectacular (ace-in-the-hole if needed) players: Rob, Devon (
devonapple), Wendy (deirdremoon), Alex (dancingshaman), Lori (random_girl), David (grandmoffdavid) and Matt (silverstreak). Man, casting Lori and David as the "forbidden couple" was great and watching Alex attempt to woo Lori's character was one of my favorite moments of the game. Saturday night, I was able to crash Rich's Buffy game "Cut Loose" based on "Footloose." It was a take off of the Buffy musical only with dancing instead of singing. (Thank god, Rich didn't want us to sing.) I got to play my favorite character, Maddie, the Slayer. Within the first 2 hours of the game, I had figured out the plot and told everyone else but no one believed me. Such is the life of the Slayer. It was a really good group to RP with.
Sunday, I managed to crash in Cybele's 7th Sea game with Rich and Blinkie (who didn't have to crash - I actually had to crash every game but one this convention). I got to play a hot headed teenaged swordswoman noble who was about to enter into the Musketeers. That was a blast! Especially finally taking the last named bad guy with three consecutive sword slashes, declaring, "This is what you get from the 'inconsequential child!'"
Sunday night, I got into Dreams of Deirdre's Jedi LARP, Forced Lessons. I did have a good time, but, unfortunately, as I have been cast as a bad or evil character in 3-4 of the last LARPs I have been in, everyone looked at me and thought, "Oh, it's Jenn. She's in black. She must be one of the bad guys." Regardless of the fact that I always wear black and they weren't suppose to know I was a bad guy. As it turned out, the only character that did not start off insulting my character or ignoring her was Alex's Imperial character. Everyone else seemed to be too busy or mistrustful of her. It made it very hard for the girl to want to go to the light side. In the end, she was willing to give herself over to the evil Sith presence and was only saved by someone distracting her at the most opportune time. Alex and I talked about how our two characters would, at some point in the future, meet up again and try to convince the other of turning to their particular side of the force.
Monday, while everyone was checking out of the hotel and such, GregE ran an episode of his monthly ShadowRun game and I got to play a recurring character of mine called Chrome Molly, based off of a character of the same name from a Gibson story. She's an interesting character to play that Greg gave me to run on year and I do enjoy playing her with the old group.
In general, I had a great time but, surprisingly, I didn't do the debauchery and drinking I thought I would. In fact, I had only one drink the entire weekend, Sunday night after the Jedi LARP, while I was hanging out with the DoD crowd and Team Volare. Most of the weekend, I was beat and I think it was because that first night just killed me and I kept going and going without a nap. One of these days, I'm going to remember to follow my own Convention rules.
The next Bay Area convention I make it to will be Avalon/Conquest (or whatever the heck they finally name it) in early September and it will be an interesting one. For, I shall be the Tiki for Team Volare in order to earn my Team Volare name and membership. What this actually means for those who do not already know is far to complicated to explain. Suffice it to say, it won't be my usual convention experience and, masochist that I am, I am actually looking forward to it.
Tarot Card for the Day: King of Cups, Inverted
