Gencon now has a day zero– Wednesday– that I’ve never yet attended until yesterday. The hall isn’t open except for badge retrieval so after that the nerds spill out into the streets of Indy into various drinking holes and hotels. The Ram, the Warmachine bar, was a two hour wait for example. After everyone of the group arrived there were the obligatory stories about who saw the fattest people — which steve won handily due to a 500 pound behemoth who’s labored breathing on the plane was likely not entirely due to the defribulators permanently attached to his chest.
I did see someone with the new DMs guide so there must have been a d&d party somewheres. after reading the new players handbook, I think d&d 5 has some good tech in there, but compared to 13th age? it’s certainly going to have more books but, rules wise it’s straddling this odd middle ground between the old school and 4th edition– where 13th age takes 4th edition and strips out all the stuff people don’t want (and adds in a lot of goodness from FATE and Feng Shui). We shall see where this shakes out. I myself am super tired of the generic fantasy–so that stuff is tough to get through in the new books, I saw a gnome in there and just had to close it for awhile…well on to day 1!