99 Days till GaryCon!

Laserbeak: Prepare to Roll for Initiative!

Prepping for a gaming convention means figuring out what you will and will not be bringing with you on your trip. There are a lot of essentials that one must remember to bring to a convention. And since I have 100+ days to blog about it, I'm going to stretch it out as much as I can. But I guess a good place to start is deciding what books to bring.

As you can see from the above picture, I have a decent collection of game books. This year I am running two games, a HackMaster 'Learn to Hack' session and an Aces & Eights shootout. Now for the shootout, I'll need my Aces & Eights book since I'm not as innately familiar with all of the rules, plus I'll need to verify things from the tables. For HackMaster, I'm running the same adventure I've ran at the last three GaryCons, Monsters in the Barn (which you can get a copy of in HackJournal #39 if you are so interested). Since I know that adventure like the back of my hand, I won't need to bring as much with me as far as needing material to refer to, HackMaster Basic is more than sufficient. However, I will likely be playing in a few games as well, so bringing my Player's Handbook is going to be a priority. I also have a 'unique' version of the Hacklopedia of Beasts that I would like to get signed by the rest of the Kenzer D-Team, so I should bring that too.

As for the other books, I am planning to play in quite a few other games while I am there, otherwise why show up at all? But in a lot of those games, I probably have the rules down pretty well, or I'll be sitting down as a newbie and learning from the other players. At best, I might bring my Rules Cyclopedia or Pathfinder Core Rulebook. But I don't know how much use I'll get out of them.

There's one other book I'll be bringing with me to GaryCon, though it has little to do with gaming.

Since I moved to upstate New York, my only way of getting to GaryCon is by plane. But since there are no direct flights from Elmira to O'Hare, that means a layover in Detroit. I got into the James Bond novels after Casino Royale came out a few years ago. Nowadays, I only seem to read the books when I'm at the airport. I'll probably need to grab The Spy Who Loved Me before I leave since I'm sure I'll be done with Thunderball over Christmas.

Any other game book/reading suggestions? I do have plenty of time before GaryCon to grab a few more.