| From: | Bahamut Mighty Dragon Lord bahamut@**.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | [Gen Con Report] Card Land |
| Date: | Mon, 9 Aug 1999 22:49:58 -0400 |
needed to pass out for a while watching TV. So I Decided to raid his
account and post a little bit. This is off topic, but... This was too
cool not to tell about :]
One of the absolute coolest things I've ever seen took place at this years
GC. They were giving out freebie demo decks of Deciphers Young Jedi
Knights card game in the GC Goodie bag this year. A couple of guys in the
Card Game ballroom on Thursday night got bored with it really quickly and
started to build a card tower out of them. Three days, 16 tables (In
groups of 4), and hundreds of thousands of cards later, a Gen Con event was
born: Card Land.
It was absolutely amazing. Bridges, roads, castles, buildings, towers that
stood over 5 feet off the floor. It was amazing, especially since it
wasn't an organized event, just something a few bored gamers started and it
caught on. Several people kinda appointed themselves "Guardians" of Card
Land and started keeping track of people who helped build and a list of all
the different card games used (44, BTW). They and a few others (Including
several members of my home group, Steve and Shawn Pettifer along with
Bahamut, whose account I'm stealing here) sat up all night long to make
sure no assholes came along and trashed the city, as well as helped rebuild
parts of the city each morning after "Hurricane Andon" hit each morning
when the air conditioning fans kicked on.
I didn't get involved until the last day, but I had a blast when I did, and
it absolutely blows me away that it became what it did. This was
un-freaking-real. Tony Glinka, Gurth, and a few others took some pictures
that they promised to scan for me, and I'll be putting some of those up on
my web page as I get them. Until then, hit
http://www.andonunlimited.com/CONS/GEN99/virtual_fri.htm#MINI and check out
the Card Land pictures from Friday and Saturday.
The coolest thing about it was that Saturday night they raffled off the
chance to "destroy" card land in any manner you chose. The tickets were
$1.00 each, and they raised $120.00 from this that they donated to Toys for
Tots, a charity that buys toys for underprivileged kids. Dvixen was bummed
she didn't win :] Anyways, the winner decided to give us builders a couple
more hours to build the city, then he was gonna let everyone help wreck it,
but in a special way. Instead of just playing Godzilla or whatever, he
decided that we would all stand around and flip or toss coins onto the
city, destroying it with a "meteor Shower" of coins. The coins would then
be collected and also donated to Toys for Tots, and any salvageable cards
collected and donated to a WOTC charity they call "Cards for Kids". When
the time came, it was really something to watch. I personally watched one
tower get hit with several dollars worth of coins and stand rock steady.
Conversely, someone tossed a penny at the huge tower I built and it
promptly collapsed :] I do have the distinction of having the highest
building in Card Land (Not the tallest though. That building was over 5
foot tall and built off the floor. But mine was about 3 1/2 feet tall off
the table, and built REALLY badly :)).
Anyways, they raised ANOTHER $135.00 in Change, and a group of about 10
people (Myself included) spent about 3 hours cleaning up cards from Card
Land, collecting change, and sorting the cards out by set. Once again,
really amazing. This is the type of event that really says something good
about the gaming community (As well as our absolute lack of a life, even at
a con :)) Hell, even most of the card game companies (Including the ever
tight fisted WOTC) donated cards to the cause :] Oh yeah, yes there was a
Shadowrun tower. It wasn't that big, being built from just a starter deck,
but... It was built by Bahamut :]
One of the guys who kinda took charge is planning to make Card Land an
official event for next year, and we've already got plans for a good,
strong Shadowrun section of the city, including, if me and Jon Szeto can
figure out a way to do it, the Seattle Space Needle :]
Welp, I'm gonna wrap up. More from me later when I get home and get back
on my normal account. I'm back from Nomail, and I'm back from the con :]
PS: To everyone who was at GC... As always, it was a pleasure to meet
ya'll and hang out. We'll have to do it again next year. And for some of
you, I expect to see you at Origins too :]
Bull
