PAX East Recap

I'll admit right at the start, I was not only a PAX virgin but a convention virgin when I attended PAX East this past weekend. I had absolutely no idea what to expect and that's probably a good thing too since there is no way I could have predicted the experience I had.

Highlights:

• Meeting too many people to name, including Phil Menard, Trevor Kidd, Logan Bonner, Greg Bilsland, Chris Tulach, Quinn Murphy, Dave Chalker, E, Mark Knapik, and Dan Clery. Oh yeah, Wil Wheaton and Scott Kurtz too.
• Having Phil run a quick pimp my game session with me during Friday brunch. Most of the tips were more in the realm of tweaks than complete rewrites, which totally made my day.
• Playing D&D in a bar with most of the above mentioned people.
• Running two games. First, I ran the Dark Sun preview and one of the guys at my table was non-other than Andrew French, the DM of my first Game Day game. Then I ran my adventure for the DM challenge. About 8 hours straight of DMing.
• Giving Mark his first Boston Boston cream donut.
• Sitting in on the Save My Game panel and getting most of the jokes as well as understanding the advice.
• Having dinner with a bunch of the D&D guys on Sunday.

Lows:

• Being so nervous around Wil Wheaton.
• Not running an even better Dark Sun sesion. I know I spoke way to fast and I probably could have made it more immersive. I would love some feedback from anyone who was in that session.
• Not winning the DM challenge. Just kidding, I didn't expect to win and it was an honor just to compete. Congrats to Dave Chalker on his win!
• Having work on Monday which meant I couldn't stay for bowling. I really hope Trevor won.

Overall, I am so glad that PAX East was my first convention. The barriers to entry were much lower and everyone was so incredibly friendly and open. It truly was a magical experience. I'm going to do my best to attend more conventions, particularly Gen Con and D&D Experience. The experience also increased my confidence in my DM abilities a bit, so I plan to post more of my adventures and ideas here.