“O M F G” ~ Editor of Neuroglyph Games

Day One of PAX East 2010 kicked off today at 2 pm, and it was off to a jaunty start.  In fact, the first hour of my convention experience was spent jaunting through a series of turnstiles in what was called the Queue Room before I could even get in.

I guess that should not be surprising since PAX East was a sold out event.  In fact, all 3-day and all the single day passes were sold out before the convention in Boston even started!  However, despite the time spent wandering through turnstiles hunting for the right queue to get my media badge, it was still an awe inspiring site to see so many gamers in one place.

And being an all-encompassing gaming convention means you see a great diversity among the gamers. From roleplayers and board gamers to console and computer gamers, they are all there, young and old, jostling the crowded hallways of the Hynes Convention Center and having all manner of fun.

The day started early for me in Albany, which was as far as I got last night in my drive from Detroit to Boston.  It was nine and a half hours drive to Albany from Detroit, passing through Canada, and it was a solid trip after working part of Thursday.  But from Albany it was only another three hours to Boston to reach the convention center, and a really scenic drive on a cold spring morning.

I was very fortunate to have gotten a hotel within walking distance of the convention center, and was able to get checked in and hustle down to PAX site with relative ease.  By the way, if you’ve never used Priceline, you don’t know what you’re missing.  I had never used the service before, but I managed to book an amazing room at a very reasonable price.  So I guess Captain Kirk is right and you can get great deals on hotels, and I am definitely going to be using Priceline when I book hotels for Origins and GenCon this year!

Anyway, walking down to the convention center was a singular experience.  Wandering past Boston landmarks such as Boston Commons, Trinity Church, and the Boston Public Library is a lot of history crammed into a few blocks and it tends to be a little awe-inspiring.

So far, the convention has been fun, but a little frustrating.  On the frustrating side, the “first-come, first-serve” queues for events and panels were a bit troubling.  It would be nice to be able to pre-register for at least some of the panels so that you could be assured of getting in to see what you’re interested in.  So far, of the four other guys I know at the convention and myself, only three of us managed to get into one panel even we wanted.   I wanted to see the Keynote speech, but was turned away because, even thirty minutes before the speech, that panel was filled up.  Three of the others made it into that panel, and were lucky to get in for SRO “seating”, but then we failed to get into every other panel we wanted to attend.

However, we were lucky enough, once we realized we could not get into the keynote, to manage to hop over and get into the D&D Encounters session.  I managed to have a great afternoon playing the Undermountain D&D Encounter 1 and Encounter 2.  In both sessions, our DM was Jason, a Bostonian  D&D player, and he did an excellent job running the encounters.  His knowledge of 4E was extensive, and he was really helpful with the newer Players.  For me, it was a real treat to sit on the other side of the screen, and play one of the new Classes from Player’s Handbook 3: the Monk!  We had six players in Encounter 1: Forrest, Josh, Bob, Matt, Seth, and myself, and we played a Psion, Battlemind, Sorcerer, Cleric, Swordmage and Monk, respectively. 

I have to say it was a great time, and once we got rolling, had some great synergy.  In the second encounter, sadly we lost Forrest, Seth and Matt, but we added Nick, who had never played D&D before and he had a great time learning the Cleric class.  His friend Jessica, who was also a newcomer to the game, watched and admitted after the encounter that she wished she had played as well, as she really liked the game.

I love those moments at a gaming convention where you get to show gamers something new and enjoyable, and act as an ambassador for a Dungeons & Dragons at the same time.

We also got a chance, between D&D sessions, to hit the PAX Exhibition Room, which I am pretty sure will take another entire blog to cover. Suffice it to say, it was freakin HUGE and full of games. We managed to wend our way over to the WotC booth and check out a session of Life-Size D&D 4E play. There will definitely be more about the Exhibition Room in my next blog.

And as it turned out, it was a good thing that we were hanging out in the D&D Encounters Friday afternoon, as we were on hand to sign up for the D&D Dark Sun Preview set for Saturday afternoon, and the DM Challenge on Saturday night.  I’m glad the D&D coordinators chose to not let “first-come first serve” reign there and use the tried and true method of just a sign up list to organize things.  I can’t wait to play tomorrow, particularly the Dark Sun event, as it is the one D&D setting I have no experience with.

Overall, Day 1 of PAX East was good time, but a lot of walking, yet I am definitely looking forward to a good night’s sleep and a lot of D&D tomorrow!

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

Tags: D&D 4e, gaming convention, news, PAX East, review

This entry was posted by Editor-in-Chief on Saturday, March 27th, 2010 at 1:28 pm and is filed under RPG News & Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.