-insert parental advisory here-
 
 

Ruling Britannia XXVIII
 Once again, this will be the second Ruling Britannia in WNOHGB this month.  I did write it last month but there was a long sad story involving corrupted attachments and the like and so as a result it never got printed until this month.  Anyway, because of that and because there has not been an awful lot happening this month, this episode will be fairly
 short.  Hope you enjoy it anyway.
 
 I guess if there is a theme for this month is would be nostalgia and reunion.  The month started with a belated house warming party for our new pad.  We did this with much success when we got our previous house but in terms of number of people, this one was even better.  We had in the region of twenty Trek players and ex-trek players along with numerous other people that we knew from various places.  Fortunately, we didn't manage to break anything this time although this might be due to Snap not being there.  Although the party never really finished until the following morning, I never got the chance to talk at length to everyone I wanted to.  This is especially significant as a lot of the people here
 I hadn't seen in ages including.
 
 Andy Dobson - Good London player.  Top lad as well
 
 Steevie G - Still an accountant.  Can drink better than he could before though
 
 Rob Bowles - The other half of the 'Fat Nike Brothers'.  A Wars player but a nice bloke all the same
 
 Martin Allen - Always good to see him.  Top bloke
 
 Ed Downes - Completely mad ex-Warwick player
 
 
 Plus a lot of the regulars turned up as well.  Since then, Andy and Rik are both making moves to get a Trek tournament set up in London.  Apparently lots of people are interested especially given that Type II has generally been well received by the Trek old school.  Hope something comes of it.
 
 Of course the main event this month was always going to be UK GenCon.  This year it was also two events in one because James was getting married on the Saturday.  If there is any more evidence required that James is completely and totally under the thumb
 then this is it.  He agreed to get married on the Saturday of GenCon!  Actually GenCon caught me a bit unawares this year.  I was vaguely aware of its impending arrival but too late to get the Friday off work.  I also didn't really have a game I wanted to play desperately so I didn't really look at the schedule.  I kind of decided to just play sealed decks of any game I could.
 
 What did make it feel like GenCon was when Neil Palframan was sitting on my doorstep when I got home from work on the Wednesday.  Now Neil is one guy I have a lot of time for.  Whenever we go out we have a good night be it up in Coventry or down here in London.  His arrival signaled one thing.  Beer!  Unfortunately I had soccer training so beer was delayed a bit.  I eventually joined Neil and Noddy in the pub although a bit late to indulge in serious beer.  The two pints I did have only resulted in a nasty attack of cramp from dehydration.  Serious beer would have to wait until the next day.
 
 The following day we all headed off to Kensington to the annual orgy of gaming and beer that is GenCon.  After paying our £25 to get in (for all 4 days) we headed off to find the Decipher crew (or 'home base' as we usually called it).  Neil and I were shocked  to see Noddy already talking to a woman after he got in about 2 minutes before us.  Had the man really pulled already?  Actually it turned out to be Lucy, Sam's fiancée who I failed to recognize because of a different haircut.  Sam turned up shortly afterwards  in full gamer mode.  He had only one day at GenCon and was out to do and see it all.  Sam's latest thing is Hero-Klix (or however you spell it) [Heroclix -Ed].  It's like a CCG except played with miniatures and 'booster packs' are tough to keep in your pocket.  He spent the entire day trying to talk me into getting a demo of it so I could get him the promo miniature on offer.  Strange new worlds!  The main Decipher event that day was a Lord of the Rings sealed deck.  After considering for a while, I decided not to play on the grounds that it isn't a very good game sealed.  I decided to look around the venue instead.
 
 Okay not such a good idea.  After a couple of hours of checking out singles, chatting to some people and laughing at the rubber swords on the roleplay stands I was at a bit of a loose end.  Colin (ex-Warwick player) and Noddy had disappeared (it turned out  later they had gone to the pub).  Sam and Lucy were roleplaying.  Neil was running the LOTR and James and Tobes were playing Raw Deal.  In desperation I signed up for a Magic booster draft to kill a couple of hours.  'Nobody ever needed to find out' were my  famous last thoughts.  Wrong!  I guess my misspent hours playing Magic Online were more productive than I thought as a couple of hours later I had come second in the tournament and was walking around with a load of boosters in 'prize support'.  I had killed a couple of hours at the expense of my reputation.  Decipher card gamers spent the rest of the afternoon laughing at me.  It was very embarrassing especially as I had nothing to do with the boosters.  Still having nothing to do, I organized a few people to go back to the pub where everyone eventually congregated including Ringo who didn't bother coming to GenCon but was well up for beer.
 
 The thought was vaguely in the back of my mind that I had to go to work the following day but the thought didn't obviously shout very loudly because in a couple of hours we were all in the Purple Turtle.  There were about ten of us in all including all the people mentioned so far as well as Danny (another Raw Deal junkie) and some other Raw Deal junkies who I didn't know.  I don't get this Raw Deal thing.  In the words of Ringo 'I'm really into wrestling and really into CCG's and I STILL think it's utter shit'.  Says it all really.  We played a lot of drinking games and most of us got very drunk.  By 11 o clock, I had drunk about 10 pints of beer and courtesy of Lucy had 'If found please return to 46 Addison Road' written on my arm (as did Neil and Noddy).  We attracted two random girls from the Turtle obviously impressed by our macho displays of drinking and singing (or something).  They said they were going clubbing and half a dozen of the crew decided to join them.  I was held back by the 'work in the morning' voice and Neil stayed around too.  Everyone else had already gone home.  Neil and me finished our pints, had one of those drunken 'you're my bestest mate' chats and then went for a kebab.  I was glad to get to bed even though I found out the next day that Danny and one of the Raw Deal players  pulled the two girls.  Lucky bastards!  Oh yes, and Lucy left a load of Sam's Hero-Klix miniatures at the train station.  Dog House!
 
 If asked to list the worst sounds in the world most people would put an alarm clock pretty high on the list.  It's even worse when you have had about 3 hours sleep on top of a dozen beers and a kebab.  Nevertheless, at 6:00 in the morning the task of getting ready for work presented itself.  As the GenCon armband was non-removable I had a choice of either going to work with a luminous green armband from a games convention or turning it inside out.  Unfortunately the reverse still said 'If found please return to 46 Addison Road'.  After a small amount of thought I chose the later on the assumption that being really drunk the night before was more easily explained to workmates than being at  a games convention.  With the help of caffeine (lots of) and a 30-minute power nap I made it through the day.  Unfortunately, this left me in no fit state to go out that night and so I stayed in and got an early night.  I think I'm getting old.
 
 The following day was to be different however.  It occurred to me on the tube on the way to GenCon that in a few hours, the first of my mates were getting married!  This was quite a sobering thought.  We were not even going to the wedding but we were going to drop in on the party in the evening.  This meant of course that I had to go to GenCon dressed in a suit.  I walked in and immediately became assured that I was the best dressed man at the convention (although to be honest, the competition was not exactly high).  I was going to play in the Star Trek Movies sealed deck.  I am good at sealed deck and Mark Radford said he would pay my entrance fee if I gave him the uncut sheets when I won (it's nice when someone has this much confidence in you).  Unfortunately I realized that I wouldn't make it to the wedding in time if I played the whole tournament so I had to sit it out meaning I had yet another day with nothing much to do.  Figuring I had no dignity left to lose I decided to play another Magic booster draft using some of my winnings from the previous tournament to pay my entry fee.  Imagine my horror when I won!  Now I had even more Magic boosters, a whole load of cards that I would never use and a lot of explaining to do to everyone especially the Magic players who I had gleefully told before the start that it was only my second ever tournament.  Realizing that James was now married I grabbed Tobes and Danny and headed off to the wedding reception.
 
 
 Now Danny had a bit of a problem in that he was still in 'gamer clothes' as he hadn't had a chance to go back home and get changed.  So Tobes, Ringo and myself all turned up wearing suits, while Danny was in jeans and T-Shirt.  He probably took a little bit of comfort in the fact that Ringo could still look scruffy even in a suit.  Only a little bit though.  After drinking a few cans of beer on the train as a 'head start', we arrived at the reception shortly after it started.  It was not the largest party in the world and mainly seemed to consist of James and Angela's families (which are admittedly quite large) and a few friends.  Familiar faces were there in the form of Sam (best man), Lucy (drunk),  Big Angry Mike Campbell (thumbed), Mike's girlfriend Rise (thumbing) and a couple of people I vaguely recognized including Angela's mum and James' fit sisters. Unfortunately, as we had to get the last train home we could only stay for about 3 hours.  Danny decided fairly early on that he didn't really fit in dressed as he was and went home.  I spent most of the evening taking advantage of the free bar, debating the pointlessness of vegetarianism with Ringo and chatting with Lucy about various things (alcohol impedes memory).  By the end of the night, we had formulated a plan for a party in Glasgow in December and tried to find a way that we could stay for the rest of the night without having to sleep on a park bench but ultimately failed.  The plan for Ringo and me to sleep on Sam and Lucy's hotel room floor was vetoed by Sam (unsurprisingly) and so we were forced to say our goodbyes and make our way back to London with that very strange feeling you get when the first of your mates gets married.  Haven't spoken to James since as he is still on his honeymoon.
 
 Back at GenCon the next day things were winding down although the biggest Trek tournament of the weekend was on.  As my cards are all still at my parent's house, I didn't have a deck (would have been rubbish anyway as I don't have any of the new expansions) but I was still keen to check out the tournament.  Notable presences included Stuart Marsh (see autobiography two months ago) and Andy Dobson (current pioneer for restarting the Trek scene).  10 players played in total with Andy winning the tournament with an annoying German bloke (not my opinion but this is the consensus I got from the  players) coming in second.  I played a couple more Magic drafts to use up my boosters making sure I didn't win anything this time but finished in time to be a part of the funniest moment of GenCon.  Ed and myself were commenting on the crapiness of Live  Action Roleplaying after seeing it going on in a partitioned area behind us.  I happened to comment on how funny it would be if someone just walked in there and gave a meaningful sounding speech and then walked out again.  Would they think it was part of  the game?  Now never one to turn down a challenge, Ed walks straight into the LARP area and rattles off the Brotherhood speech from Pulp Fiction word perfect.  He got a couple of cheers and a couple of very strange looks before he walked out as calmly as  he walked in.  Throughout the whole episode, I was left standing in the corner of the LARP area trying to keep a straight face and wondering if I should contribute anything.  5 minutes later the game organizer came out and gave Ed a stern telling off.  Wanker.
 
 This pretty much concluded GenCon for another year although like all good things it has left ripples in the Lake of History.  As a result of the GenCon weekend:
 
 - Rik and Andy are joining forces to get Trek going again in London.
 
 - Based on the idea of a Christmas party in Glasgow, the 2002 Drinking Pro-Tour has been devised.  We will take a week off work and get drunk in as many cities as we possibly can.
 
 - James is married
 .
 - Drinking games are very much back in vogue.
 
 - I am considered a Magic player
 
 
 It's always sad to leave those smelly halls of RPG
 gamers for another year but there is always next
 year.  Long Live GenCon!

Ian
iptaylor@dialstart.net

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