I am so glad I was able to make GenCon this year. Although I wasn't there last year, I heard FRPG was a little booth near a corner. This year, it was THE place to be, occupying a large chunk of space in the middle of the exhibit hall. Dune demos looked like a big hit as well, and I like the game already. Unfortunately, neither Time of the Void nor Dune were available for sale; FRPG and Last Unicorn Games would have made a mint otherwise. I will say one thing about TotV; I'm sure it's still well balanced, but I for one will not want to play someone with those cards if I don't have them myself. A common reaction to seeing the new cards was "Oh my god!" :) It was also nice to meet the FRPG staff and design team and see the people behind the e-mail names on the list server.
The Thunders tournament was something I will never forget. I don't know the final count, but around 200 people were in the tournament, with another 100+ skirmishers competing for slots as well. No other tournament at GenCon was even in the same league. You could tell the design team, especially David Williams, were even more excited than the players, witnessing the fruition of all their hard work in the orignal storyline.
Some of the more memorable moments:
1) Out of the ~200 players Friday night, only 3 were Nagas. Two of them got paired against each other early on. They decided that fighting was a human thing, and refused to fight each other. They would have a 6 turn game with no fighting, and whoever had the most force on the board would win. And that's what they did!
2) Two Dragons paired against each other went to a far off table, figuring they should duel up in the mountains.
3) Two Unicorns had a Scorpion approach the judge to ask how many koku it would take to get Lions paired against each other in the next round. He said 2500, so they got Junzo players to pledge the amount. Unfortunately the judge took back his offer and refused the bribe.
4) If the Crane in the final had won, he would have taken off his Crane shirt to reveal a Junzo shirt, and declare himself the false Hoturi!
5) As the finals approached, John Wick would stand up on a chair and make dramatic readings from the Book of Void (which are printed on the back of the new stronghold cards), revealing the events leading up to final confrontation in the throne room between the Thunders and Fu Leng. People would cheer or boo at the appropriate times. The final reading was after Lion beat Crane in the final, giving Toturi the right to slice Fu Leng's head off with the Lion sword as Hoturi plunged the Crane sword into his heart.
How they will top this next year this I will never know.