WINTER FANTASY 20001: A REVIEW Jan 25-28 Fort Wayne, Indiana RATING 3 out of 5 stars. Searching for conventions on the Internet, several links led to the above event. The web site gave me most of the info I needed, but I was two days past the Pre- Registration. Counting on luck, I thought I'd try On Site Reg. A few weeks later I found myself in Indiana. It would end up snowing every day I was in Ft. Wayne. The locales had the mild precipitation under control. Evan most of the parking lots were cleared shortly after each squall. If I had I tried sooner, I probably could have got a room in the Ft. Wayne Hilton which is attached to the convention site. Instead, I found myself in more frugal lodgings an easy 5 mile drive from the action down town. I had little difficulty finding the Grand Wayne Convention site. Nearby parking and concessions were readily accessible The area was smaller than I was expecting but it turned out to be large enough even on Saturday, the busiest day. There was no advertisement for the Con on the site's windows. Nor in the reception of the Hilton. Games were usually run on large, round tables with clean clothes and 8 folding chairs. In the largest room there were 40 tables. Nothing separate the settings from each other or any of the high traffic areas such as the ticket lines or mustering areas. Most of the games were of the LIVING Variety, I.e: LIVING FORCE, LIVING CITY, etc. For the uninitiated that means that the RPGA encourages you to play your same LIVING JUNGLE character in LIVING JUNGLE events held in many cities and at different times. Your character gains Experience Points and sometimes awards ( magical items for instance ) with every successful scenario. A few old timers carry libraries of characters and their certificates to play in a wide range of events. Every GM I played with had years of game time under their belt. They worked smoothly with their friends among the fellow GMs and the convention staff. Unfortunately, 3rd Edition seemed to throw a few kinks in. Sometimes it was as simple as items not being where GMs remembered them in 2nd Ed. At other times it was murkier. I over heard hours and hours of GMs discussing rule clarifications they thought were settled earlier that day. The talent of the GMs mentioned before quickly and fairly overcame these difficulties. I would say 90% of the attendees were white, males 25 years and older. This was a big plus for me since I didn't have to hear a steady stream of Pokemon this and Digimon that interrupted only by "My dude's got a +12 sword! I traded it for his personality!" Pre-registered GMs had to stand in a line that stretched for yards and yards. Many of them could not run their events scheduled in less than two hours without doing so. I heard some complain that after standing in one long line, they would have to stand in another for tickets they paid for in advance but did not receive. My on sight registration was much shorter, maybe 35 people. However, I waited in line for over an hour before the line moved 8 feet. Roughly parallel to registration was the line for event tickets. It was wider and longer than my line and moved slower still. I could clearly hear one player after another being told the game they wished to play had been sold out. After receiving my badge, I had no desire to stand in this line so I blew off the next three hours. I was hoping that the lines would be shorter when I returned. At that time I was thrilled to learn that the organizers had wrangled a much larger number of GMs. In minutes I walked away with a handful of tickets for events that I was actually looking forward to. I plan to go next year if its held at the same time and place.Want to know more? Drop me a line. ---------------------------------------------------------------- GMAST Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
