Typically, for me and I would imagine most others, the after-hours are filled with more gaming, social functions, and about 4 hours of sleep. The magic of Gary Con is not the "scheduled" games, but the interaction and randomness that occurs during it. I've built life-long friendships because of it, as many others have too. Most of the rooms are unlocked to allow 24 hour gaming- while others gaming in their rooms.
As one of those crazy DMs who run 8:00 a.m. games for the Early Birds, I have to get some sleep each night! :mrgreen: However, I have been known to make it a really late night here and there, either gaming or socializing. I wouldn't start playing in a game at 10:00 p.m. but I have been known to play in a long game that'll run until 1:00 a.m. or so. There are definitely folks at GaryCon who make the later hours more of a priority than I do. (Ninja'd by Jon.... Cute. :lol: ) Whaddaya know - I just became a Magician!
I've played in one brutally late session each of the last two years. I was in the last game session to end on Friday night at Gary Con V. It was scheduled to run until 2 am if I recall correctly. Things really wound down in the play halls by 1 p.m. I don't know if there is a lot of play going on in people's rooms at the resort, but there isn't much going on in the play halls overnight. I had a similar experience this year (Gary Con VI). I played until at least 1 a.m. on Friday night and there wasn't much going on in the playing halls by the time we broke. I'm getting too old to play that late and get up for a session before noon the next day. I was a wreck after my late sessions at GC V and VI. I salute the hardcores that can function on 4 hours of sleep throughout the con. Fortunately, there is a ton of stuff going on during the day. I keep promising myself I won't register for another late night session, but then a great GM will cruelly schedule a fantastic event for 10 pm and I start thinking I'm as good once as I ever was. (I'm talking to you, John Wright!) I probably won't be able to help myself at GC VII, either.
I was thinking of bringing my copy of the four player co-op board game "Darkest Night" by Victory Point Games for just such an after hours thing. But since I've never been to Gary Con before, I'm not sure if it's worth it. Do board games get played at all during the con?
Oh, yes. Most definitely! The restaurant gets taken over by the board gamers and the library of games one can borrow. But there are still a lot of board games being played downstairs in the other rooms also.
That was fun game. I played the Egypt area and looking forward to a repeat next year. I hope that we can start the game earlier in the afternoon. Edwin
I plan to schedule the Civilization start time for 2 pm as we discussed. I'm also looking to start at 10 am Sunday for the convention re-debut of Steal Dabrony's Coffee. As many of you know, this game has likely not seen convention play since the late 1970s! SDC should be about a two to three hour event, giving all involved the chance to grab some lunch before Civilization starts if they happen to wish to play in both. SDC is well into re-development and I have no doubt will be ready for a convention re-unveiling by Gary Con VII. I'll probably have a number of sets of the SDC game in case we get a large demand. I'm looking forward to us playing Civilization again as well as playing Steal Dabrony's Coffee!
This last year during GaryCon I was working first shift, normally I work third. Hopefully, I'll be on third when GC VII rolls around next year. My plan was to schedule either one Pathfinder Society game or one large board game (Talisman, Mansions of Madness, Relic, etc) slot each of the 3 nights this year for the late, late slot (2 am or so) as I'll be PFS'ing it up till 1 a.m. for sure each day. If i can get a full table for any of those I'll gladly do it since those are my peak hours normally.
Groovy! We will see. Perhaps a demo copy can be passed around for those who'd like to wrangle some players from time to time over the weekend?
I don't understand this concept of after hours...... there are only 2 types of time at garycon: sleeping and gaming, and they tend to run at a 1:5 ratio for me.