#Genericon 2017

[fantasyfantasygames]

Pure Dysfunction

Pure Dysfunction, stop bothering me about a name games, 2017

Written by a game designer who had been to one too many bad cons, Pure Dysfunction (PD) is a game about running a gaming, comics, or other fandom convention. You play the con chair, ops, other officers, and volunteers dealing with your total inability to plan ahead.

Having been involved in the running of a con myself, it usually does not go this way, and you should thank the many people who made the event happen for their role in not having everything fall apart. This game takes all the bad stuff that happens at a dozen cons and crams them all into three (in-game) hectic days.

Your character is rated on four stats, each of which have a different scale. You have a Typing Speed (in words per minute), Sprint (in meters per second), Customer Service (rated in number of cards), and a Frustration Tolerance (rated in blocks, with 1 being good and 4 being bad) You use different resolution mechanics for each, so you'll have a deck of cards, a pair of d10s, and a Jenga tower on the table. You also may or may not have Card Access to the various rooms where events are happening, and that might change as you're forced to shuffle events from room to room. You spend an initial split of Enthusiasm and Experience on your stats - they add up to 10, but of course each stat costs differently. Completely separate from all that, you have an Archetype that determines what stuff you have access to. You might be an Otaku with a massive collection of anime and video equipment, a Tinkerer with a bajillion tools, the Dice Hoarder, etc.

The game comes with a few sample floor maps and schedules, from Genericon-sized to Gencon-sized. It also has several d66 tables of what can go wrong. The tables often point you to other tables, so generating an "encounter" (yup, they use that word on purpose) can take a few rolls. The events are mostly realistic - or maybe they're all realistic and I just haven't run into the more outlandish events. The game could run GMless if you wanted to have someone who's not in the scene play out the NPC interactions.

PD's main drawback is that it's a bit short. Much like a play about putting on a play and a movie about making movies, a game about game/anime/scifi cons only really works for people who have some experience in the arena already, or when you can provide lots of context. PD tells you what's going to happen, but if you're not familiar with the experience it's not going to give you a detailed explanation of what's going on.

Pure Dysfunction is passed around in much the same way as The Eye of Argon - photocopies of photocopies, mostly person-to-person. A number of copies were lost in 2020/21 because of the 'rona, but odds are about 100% that your ops person has a copy. Just don't bother them during the con.

[mercutihoe]

GUESS WHOS BACK UP ON THIS MUTHA FUCKIN ISLAND

[sky-dump]

My cosplay for genericon. it was so fun i cant wait for next year

[melonami]

tabling for the first time at genericon A9! 💕

i’ll be here the 4th-5th :>

[the-rat-bastard]

[reaganridley]

The real MVP of genericon

the paper airplane

[lexi-ebubbles]

Things Team Skull did at Genericon 2017

-danced almost everywhere we went -threw ourselves in the trash -cottoncandyshipping became a thing -out Guzma praised our group -got third place in the death match and the whole of Team Skull got grounded for it -started the Macarena -STARTED A SING OFF -SO MUH SQUATTING -got beaten by Yaoi fangirls -left dab coupons everywhere -literally a highlight of the con

[capslockapocalypse]

Genericon was a blast, even though all my curls fell out by the skit competition.

[thewalkingmikcosplay]

So Kyubey gave me a contract after I defeated them in the Death Match (Great job btw!), and I've heard bad things happen after someone accepts... but picture... Magical Girl Reaper...

[fakesysdef-moving]

KERMITS FUCKING DEAD

[giving-myself-to-ashes]

I found @queer-knight as Hawke at Genericon. I saw them on Tumblr and really hoped I would find them, so I am super excited.

[mercutihoe]

I already posted jack merridew pics but oh my GOD am I hot here

[50-shades-of-blue-eyes]

It's been such a long time since I've been on here regularly, and I plan on changing that this year and getting back to being active like I used to! 😰 @mokuba-the-celery-slayer and I were at Genericon this past weekend to kick off our 2017 con year, and it was awesome! We met up with a lot of our UNY Cosplay Society friends and I got to duel a bunch of "losers" haha. If anyone has photos of us as Seto and Mokuba Kaiba, please tag us so we can see them!

[takokotakopus]

These were my favorite pics from Genericon this weekend! I was Repressed Nerd Pearl and Mystery Girl was @tombstonesandcollarbones

If you saw us this weekend, feel free to tag me!

[queer-knight]

Pics of my Hawke cosplay for Genericon 2017! Photos were taken by @blink-kid

[reaganridley]

Saturday at genericon!!!! I had so much fun! Team skull grunt - @frencnavy Team skull grunt - @lady-palutuna D.va - @oceanvybe Tell me if you see yourself! I'll be sure to tag you