IT IS A KIND OF MAGIC, LITERALLY!

“Magic” the card game was a hit at this year’s game section of Dragoncon in Atlanta, Georgia.

Hundreds of players from around the country crowded around long tables in one of the Hyatt Hotel’s large banquet rooms. A grand Magic competition was gearing up on Friday for the “Magic: The Gathering” Grad Prix tournament starting on Saturday.

I spoke with 16 year old gamer Greg Schwartz who told me that he had come in from Farmington, Massachusetts, for the Grand Prix Magic competition. He explained to me, a non-Magic player, that this is a card game played with a 60 card deck. This collectable trading card game’s object is to kill your opponent by reducing his/her life total to 0. While Greg has won some local tournaments in Farmington, he admits that the competition in Atlanta is pretty stiff. He told me that the best known players at the Grand Prix event were Kai Budde and Brian Kibler. Maybe, months of play testing will pay off for Greg and he will face one the professionals in the finals.

I walked to the corner of the large room to find Mr. Kibler, a professional gamer, whose lifetime winnings are reportedly in excess of $50,000.00. The Atlanta Grand Prix event features $25,000.00 in prizes and cash awards for the top 32. When I saw Kibler, he was sitting at a table with other young professional gamers participating in something referred to as a “Rochester Draft” which apparently involved opening booster packs of Magic playing cards and using them to form a 60 card deck. Judge Jeff Vondruska told me that good players are good at building the right deck for competition.

Although the decks could include thousands of variations, the rules for this special feature event are limited to specific decks. Banks of computers line one end of the banquet hall where the results of the games will be tabulated. For more information on Magic, The Gathering, Grand Prix visit the website by clicking here.

Other card games include the “Lord of the Rings” card game in which each player takes up the side of good or evil. The game, based on the popular Tolkien series of books and now the blockbuster movies, follows the players as they attempt to reach Site 9. In addition to collectable playing cards, colored glass beads are used that are a kind of money. Like Magic new decks are introduced periodically to advance the game. My understanding is that smaller booster packs bring new cards into play making games fresh and unique.

CHESS FOR STAR TREK FANS?

No, this isn’t the three-tiered version of the classic game of chess played by Kirk and Spock aboard the Enterprise. Although, one look at the complexity of “Star Fleet Battles” makes you thing that there might be a space age Bobby Fisher in the mix.

In the other side of the large banquet hall board games were played. I caught up with Gregory Hodgin, Jeff McKelvey, and Fred Manning who were playing a game called “Star Fleet Battles.” This board type game had a rulebook that had to be housed in a two-inch binder. The game developed by Amarillo Design (formerly Task Force Games) involves a player being a captain of a ship out of the Star Trek universe. The object is to destroy or take over your opponent’s ship.

On one table there were many ship schematics to be used in playing the game. The ships which range from Klingon to Federation (and folks in between), have all the traditional weaponry including phasers and torpedoes as well as warp drives and cloaking devices.

While there is a computer version, the players I spoke with prefer to play the game in person. The nature of the computer version involves typing which is avoided when the parties are face to face. Unlike Magic, these games last for hours with some campaigns lasting for months. Typical games will last for an hour and half but longer games are not unusual. I noticed many people playing this game although it has not been updated since 1999. A card game version of it is also available.

For more information visit the website by clicking here.

YOU CAN’T BEAT MY TALKING RAT!

Walking farther into the domain of the gaming culture, I discovered many tables of folks playing the classic board game “Dungeons and Dragons.” Role playing games were alive and well at this year’s Dragoncon.

In one corner, I caught up with Brandon Key and Dave Silva inventors of a game called “The 6th World.” This role (and roll—think dice) playing game is for experienced role playing gamers. It will be distributed by Housedok Productions for sale online and in Atlanta area game stores.

“The 6th World” starts with filling out a character sheet choosing different characteristics for your character. According to game co-creator Silva, the idea for the 6th World came from the beliefs of several different cultures but primarily from the Chinese belief in stages of the world, the first being paradise and the sixth being the end of the world. According to Silva, the game “The 6th World” starts at the end of the world, which is really Hell on earth.

For more information visit the website by clicking here.

CONFIGURE YOUR MECH!

In another room at the Hyatt Hotel in Atlanta, preparations were being made for all out war. Several different miniature games were being assembled. Wiz Kids Games (www.wizkidsgames.com) had an elaborate section including different variations of miniature role playing games such as “Mageknight,” “Heroclix,” “Crimson Skies,” and “Creepy Freaks.”

The collectable miniatures used in the various games can be the outgrowth of Marvel and DC comics as in “Heroclix” and even independent comics are getting into the act with Wiz Kids’ “Indieclix” game being played at Dragoncon. I asked Wiz Kids community coordinator Matt Dull if we could be expecting an “American Splendor” miniature and he smiled and responded that you never know.

Winners of the Wiz Kids competition would be getting limited addition miniatures, like a Doombot Matt showed us. For more about Wiz Kids Games click here.

The landscapes for play ranged from what could have been a Scottish countryside ala “Highlander” to something set in outer space akin to “Star Wars.” These well-crafted tiny environments were impressive and really set the stage for the fun and enjoyment that was sure to follow.

In another portion of this room were the “Battletech” folks who were putting together their own worlds to be fought over. I spoke with Jonathan Miller who told me that the Battletech universe was ruled by humans who had been separated into 5 houses each attempting to control the others with armies of robots controlled by humans.

The “Battletech” game permitted players to imaginatively change the character of their fighting forces by configuring their “Mechs” as they were called with particular weaponry for particular fighting environments. I was shown a cityscape where some battles were to take place. Players were assembling their armies consisting of groups referred to by size as “Lances,” “Companies,” “Battalions,” and “Regiments.” The game utilizes dice and a sheet listing the “Mechs” and their tonnage. Everything has a value (as best I could tell was referred to as “tonnage”) that can be destroyed during a battle.

I spoke with Ken Seay who was assembling the World War II Historical Miniatures game. He told me that they were preparing a Naval combat battle featuring the Japanese and the Americans. His group is the North Georgia Gaming and Paintball Association and they have been coming and playing at Dragoncon for 10 years. Their historical games present a historical setting and situation and allow the players to decide the outcome. I kidded with him that his game sounded a little like an Oliver Stone movie in which history might be rewritten. The players control the outcome of this history, Seay responded, and he will control many of the factors in the environment like the weather and the time of day or night.

Gerald Dockery a miniature game director took time to show me many personalized miniatures. The differences seemed subtle to me as a non-player, but as you sat there and listened to these guys, you realized that the small differences can be very important in determining a winner or a loser.

Though involving small worlds and small figures, miniature gaming was huge at this year’s Dragoncon.

DragonCon2003 Links
Introduction
Day One with Jonathan Hickman
Gaming is Magic at Dragon*Con
Day One with Rusty White
The Sexy Side of DragonCon
Day Two Interviews with Rusty White
DragonCon Costume Gallery
An Interview with Brad Dourif
An Interview with Lloyd Kaufman
Day Three Actor Interviews with Rusty White

DragonCon2002 Links
Day One: Dragon*Con 2002
Day Two: Dragon*Con 2002
Day Three: Dragon*Con 2002
Day Four: Dragon*Con 2002
Linda Blair: Dragon*Con 2002
David Naughton: Dragon*Con 2002
David Prowse: Dragon*Con 2002
Peter Mayhew: Dragon*Con 2002

Jonathan W. Hickman