2004 was, if possible, better than 2003 for BYOV. We had some really great players in our games, and we pulled off a Gen Con first by playing one of our LARPs in actual Pullman train cars, inside the Crowne Plaza hotel. We had a documentary film crew there shooting, and we're hoping to get some footage from them for our own use here.

Let's start off with the important things: US! Here's a shot of a number of us, after enjoying a post-con dinner at Claddagh. Standing, from left to right: Jimmy, Ed, Shauna, Tom, and Jay. Seated: Mar. Ed and Jay joined us this year, and we are happy to welcome them. (Not pictured: Doug, Christina, Joe, Kevin.

Note: Click on any thumbnail for a larger picture.

That's us. But what did we do for four days? Wednesday is where to start, with the First Annual Gen Con Forums Stink! The Stink was a great place to meet all those people that we'd been laughing with and at online before the Con. (A stink is defined as a gathering of gamers. If you don't know why that is, you either haven't attended a large gaming convention, or you're part of the...olfactory problem.)

Here's a quick pan of the event, which was well attended.

It was at the Stink that we were treated to our first experience with Nordic Distance Dice. New recruit Jay pretty much ended the event for everyone, however, with a throw of the huge die that has gone down in history...as the die cracked right in half. Jay doesn't know his own strength! (I do...I checked his sheet.) We have some video of the event, although not, unfortunately, of Jay's notorious throw. Still, it's something to see.

As we did in 2003, we had Offworld Designs make us a really great shirt in 2004, too.

Our shirts got a lot of attention both years, as Ray from Offworlds has been airbrushing them on Thursday of both 2003 and 2004.

Go see our entire T-Shirt page for past year's apparel.

We also cannot fail to mention our historic journey through True Dungeon. Truly historic. True Dungeon is one of the truly unique new experiences to hit Gen Con in the last decade or so. Several large ballrooms in a nearby hotel are converted to a full-scale dungeon, including an attached tavern/marshalling area. For two hours, your group of seven adventurers hacks it's way through monsters and traps, hoping to simply survive to the end. Great fun. And great people running it. Flash photography is not allowed in the dungeon, but Jeff, the head honcho of True Dungeon (TD to it's fans) gave us permission to bring our night vision camera with us into the dungeon, and so we're able to bring you pictures of our travels. This event has completely sold out both years it's been running, and 2005 looks to be the same, even though they've doubled the number of tickets available by creating two entirely separate dungeons. BYOV will be meeting TD again this year. (Carpe Caseum!)

The training room is fairly important to TD. Wizards and clerics learn to cast their spells, bards read up on volumes of lies...er...'legends', fighter-types practice combat, and little 'ol thieves (heh heh) can try to swipe whatever they can...although technically, they are supposed to be learning to disarm traps. But hey, when you're good, you don't need much practice. Pictured here from right to left are Jimmy (learning his wizardly ways), Jay (learning his...clericy...ways), and the guy who filled in our group as the bard, reading his book of horrible lie...legends. I think his name was Chris. Nice guy.

Here, Shauna tries her hand at combat, which is a shuffle-board sort of affair.

Shauna, Mar, Jimmy and the rest of us spent way too much time trying to figure out the 'fountain puzzle'. Well, alright...the thief didn't contribute at all, as he was still busy searching for loot.

And, okay, this guy...aside from killing a couple of us, about made me pee my pants when I first saw him.

Speaking of that guy above, Mar ended up being his first victim...

Other random neat things:

Tom's new 5-sided die. Statistically accurate!

Some shots of and props to Aegyptus, a nifty new miniature combat game. Got the rulebook for free last year. If you've got the cash for mini games, this one looks good. Not many BYOVers are into mini games, but we're giving this one some bandwidth just for the sheer cool factor of their booth display.

Among the many costumes at the Con, this was perhaps the most stylish. And old lady in a wheelchair. She never said a word herself, but the younger woman with her agree to the picture. Way to go, old lady!

The Gen Con staff always tries to fill every nook and cranny with sites to take in. In 2004, one offering was a giant clay dragon, being built throughout the Con. When it was done, they allowed people to climb aboard and get their photo taken. Tom shot some software Gen Con's way, for use in superimposing the 'dragonriders' over fantasy backgrounds.
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As much fun as BYOV has had since the new management of Gen Con, some people have...other opinions. Hey, we've never been bothered much ourselves, but yeah...the lines in 2003 were quite long for a while, after the registration system got hit with a nasty virus. Some people posted their frustrations in 2004, although these flyers didn't stay up too long.

In 2004 we also added another GM, member and longtime acquaintence and friend, Doug. Doug runs Paranoia games for us. On Sunday, Doug and Tom stumbled across a group demo-ing the newest version of Paranoia in the Exhibit Hall. We decided to try to add some flavor to their game.

That's the team leader on the bottom left...

That's all for now. Hopefully we'll get some Train pics soon, and we'll be back with more pics after Gen Con 2005.