Gencon 2017

Around that area?

There are some food courts around IUPUI that have a decent selection. Food in Indy is pretty cheap too.

There's one Brazilian steakhouse in Downtown that's really good, but it's fancy, and would probably only be worth it if you're going with friends. On the other hand, all you can eat.

I would not recommend Indian lunch buffets.

Where will you be staying?

I live in Illinois and went to school in Indiana. Our state is bankrupt and its still better than Indiana. Glad gencon is leaving.

Don't smoke pot, if you do be stealthy as shit. You can and will be arrested. Gencon is going to be inclusive of LGBT shit but other parts of Indy isnt.

I got the full pass cause I'm flying from california. In most of my con experiences, it wasn't worth staying more than one day, but GenCon looks like it has a huge indie market where you can buy a ton of stuff you can't normally, anywhere else, cheaper.

I got an AirBnB not too far from the center.

Where's it moving to? I hope not California.
I'm not a joker or a midnight toker so I'm fine on those fronts.

>Illinois
>Better than Indiana
No.

>I got an AirBnB not too far from the center.
I hope it's at a house and not an apartment. Most of those people are violating their leases and could be at risk of eviction.

IUPUI food court has papa johns, chik-fil-A, a stir fry bar, a burger bar, and a salad bar. There's also a Starbucks inside the campus center, and within spitting distance is a Taco Bell, a Panda Express, a blaze pizzaria and a noodles&co. Pretty decent selection.

They threatened to leave last year but I never heard about them actually pulling out. Source?

Depends on the municipality. Carmel is danger, fishers is eh, zionsville and Whitestown are safe. Don't know about any further south though.

There's also like 2 or 3 buffet places too.

>They threatened to leave last year but I never heard about them actually pulling out. Source?
Their contract ends in like 2021 or something.

People just hate Christians these days.

>Carmel is danger
In danger of getting evicted, or actually dangerous? Because Carmel is pretty fucking fancy.

It's an apartment. It was just listed so I think I'm safe since most evictions take 6-8 months to finalize.

So like... is there any fine dining in the area? Or do concrawlers not normally notice these places? I'm a food snob and I'd like try at least one decent place.

The Brazillian steakhouse mentioned above. Fogo de Chão is a 10-minute walk from the center.

There are probably other stuff, but most con-goers are looking for cheap eats.

Eviction danger, not real danger. There was a big uproar there and broad ripple may follow suit.

St. Elmo's steakhouse and Buca de Beppo are legit fine dining.

Oh! I've been to Fogo de Chao before! Probably not a good idea to be walking around the con with meat sweats though.

Duly noted. Thanks user.

I just checked the map and it looks like there's a sushi place and a tavern nearby. There's also a McCormick & Schmidts too.

>Buca de Beppo
That's just an upmarket Olive Garden.

As an Indi/illinois resident it is.
At the very least people in illinois know how to drive.

Carmel is good if roundabouts give you a massive hardon and not much else.

Yeah, after seeing it I thought it was pants on head retarded.

I skipped gencon that year.

So, first of all, take a water bottle. There are fountains all over the place, but being able to take water with you to keep you hydrated is very important.
Second, if you don't mind walking, you can go to the mall nearby and eat meals there at the food court. Lots of seats, a variety of food, and it's cheaper than food trucks.
Third, try not to eat during the traditional lunch hour or right after the dealer hall closes. Lots of people go to eat then, and the lines will go forever.
Fourth, lunchables are your friend. A small snack you can take anywhere, really, is what you want to carry with you.
Fifth, never use the restrooms in the convention center. The are busy and dirty half way through the first day. Go to an adjacent hotel where games are going on, and use those restrooms. You'll have a better time.
Sixth, the dealer hall is crowded when it opens, especially on the first day. I do not recommend going when it opens.
Seventh, take an extra battery for your cell phone. You won't be able to find an open outlet most of the time. Or, if you don't have one, take a power strip.
Eighth, if you're going to buy something big that isn't going to sell out, wait till the last day. Lots of stuff goes on sale on the last day because dealers don't want to take it back.

>Gencon Thread
>Actual helpful advice
Veeky Forums, I...

Oh god no. I meant strictly to get a change of scenery.
As previously stated, there are a lot of good food courts and options nearby. Avoid eating in the con center. There are several fine dining options, such as St.Elmo's, Fogo de Chao's, etc.

Lucas Oil Stadium

PUNCH BURGER

Are there any recommended games I should buy tickets for online before the con?

Any good events?

Pope table is fun, tho.

I mean, by now all the good games are booked. Try and get into ones you'd actually enjoy playing that are still available and don't be afraid to get a handful of generic tickets and wait near ones you wanted to get into but didn't, a lot of times people will flake and you can swoop in with your generics and take their seat.

Are they really pulling out of Indiana because of butthurt against christfags?

It's a corporate decision, the same as all those companies that pulled out of North Carolina. It doesn't benefit them in the slightest by pandering to religious idiots who'd never play their games to begin with, so you take a stand in defense of your customer base and get good PR and an excuse to move the convention to a location that might provide more incentives.

I grabbed a ticket at Battletech bootcamp. At least I'll learn how to play.

For the most part, I'm not entirely interested in joining games unless they don't require any experience with the game. I'm severely underexposed to modern board games despite following industry news a lot.

It's not certain if they're actually pulling out. They threatened it over the religious freedom law, like Salesforce did, but the law was "amended" and so far Salesforce has expanded in Indy instead. Gencon might leave at the end of the contract, or they might stay. It's too soon to know.

I would argue it is about being butthurt about people not having the same sense of morality as coastal urban dwellers. I'm from the West Coast, and lived for years in New York, and while I can understand why people want gays and lesbians to have equal treatment and protections under the law, the issue is whether that means Christians should be forced to support the religious activities of gays and lesbians if its against their religion and personal morality. That seems pretty wrong to me.

>I would argue it is about being butthurt about people not having the same sense of morality as coastal urban dwellers.

Human rights are not a rural vs. urban issue. Nor is morality uniform depending on where you live.

>the issue is whether that means Christians should be forced to support the religious activities of gays and lesbians if its against their religion and personal morality.

Show me in the laws where it forces Christians to allow gays and lesbians to come into their churches and give their sermons, teach their Sunday school, etc. Because, barring that, it's not impeding their religious activities. If, however, you mean that Christians should be protected in their bigotry from doing secular business with gays and lesbians, you're wrong. Just as we don't allow racists to kick all the black people from their shops or refuse to issue driver's licenses to Asians, we cannot allow people's private beliefs to oppress and denigrate others.

>Nor is morality uniform depending on where you live.

Then what gives you the right to judge christfags for their morality? Are you not demanding that they change their beliefs because you find them morally offensive? Their morals make sense within their value system.

If you're not a complete autist then I recommend NationStates.

I'm not demanding anything from them except to conform with the laws of the land, the same laws I subject to. You don't get to opt out of laws based on personal beliefs. I personally don't care what they think is moral or not, you shouldn't be able to circumvent the law, especially laws designed to protect people or give them basic human rights, because of your religion. The law agrees with me.

>Human rights
It's not about human rights. It's about the suppression of natural human rights in favor of a false equality.

When you write laws stating that gays and lesbians can sue churches for refusing to host their civil union ceremonies, that bakers can be sued for not baking cakes for their weddings, and that services must be compelled for a special interest group when no other group gets such privileges, you are engaged in oppression and tyranny.

Secular business is not secular when it is used for a religious purpose, such as an explicitly religious wedding. Why should a Catholic baker be forced to bake a Jewish kosher wedding cake, for example? Can a chicken farmer refuse to sell their chickens to a Santeria church knowing that they won't be fed to people but will instead support a church ceremony? Why would you even buy from such individuals? Because you just want to martyr them, hold them up as examples of what you, the tyrant, will do to those who oppose you.

The laws of the United States allow the free practice of religion. They do not allow people to be forced to violate their religion because secular law demands that their religion change. The aforementioned Santeria won court cases on this very basis, protecting their right to sacrifice animals in their religious ceremonies despite the objections of local lawmakers. But that doesn't mean governments can then compel other religions to adopt animal sacrifice, in the same way they cannot compel believers of those religions to act in ways contrary to their faith, such as telling Moslems to desegregate mosques. In the same way, government cannot compel believers to violate their deeply-held religious beliefs.

>people's private beliefs to oppress and denigrate others.
See Matal v Tam. You can register Niggers, Spics, and Squints as a trademark now for a RaHoWar successor, and there's nothing the government can do about it.

>It's about the suppression of natural human rights in favor of a false equality.
There are no such things as 'natural human rights'. There are human rights, which extend to all humans regardless of things like gender, religion, sexuality.

>When you write laws stating that gays and lesbians can sue churches for refusing to host their civil union ceremonies, that bakers can be sued for not baking cakes for their weddings, and that services must be compelled for a special interest group when no other group gets such privileges, you are engaged in oppression and tyranny.

If the churches advertise those services then they are required to provide them for those who pay for them, and just as we wouldn't allow them to refuse an interracial couple we shouldn't allow them to refuse a gay couple.

>Secular business is not secular when it is used for a religious purpose, such as an explicitly religious wedding. Why should a Catholic baker be forced to bake a Jewish kosher wedding cake, for example?

That's a faulty example. No one is telling the baker to do anything other than bake a cake, at no point are they being forced to condone the sexuality of their customers or bless their wedding. They are being asked to provide the service they advertise, which is baking cakes, and by refusing to do so strictly because of someone's sexuality THAT is oppression in its most obvious forms.

>The laws of the United States allow the free practice of religion. They do not allow people to be forced to violate their religion because secular law demands that their religion change.

The law already forces them to violate their religion in many cases. If someone wanted to stone their adulterous wife they would not be allowed to, that's basic. Your freedom of religion ends where it oppresses other people's basic freedoms to exist and be a part of society.

>They are being asked to provide the service they advertise, which is baking cakes, and by refusing to do so strictly because of someone's sexuality THAT is oppression in its most obvious forms.
Then that gay couple is free to go to another bakery. The homophobic store loses out another customer, their loss.

Except we don't live in a free market dystopia, We have agreed as a society that you can't deny service based on these sorts of characteristics, and enshrined it in law. You can weep bitter tears into your copy of Atlus Shrugged all you want, but society has functioned fine for generations by enshrining basic decency to one another into our laws and business transactions.

Because basic decency means dropping the full weight of government onto a store because they decline to bake a cake for a ceremony they don't agree with? Also, we aren't crony capitalist to the point where every bakery is owned a select few pharaohs. Aside from weird anomalies like Hobby Lobby or Chik-fil-A, most corporations tend to be very progressive, so odds are the hammer of this "basic decency" law is going to drop on a small store that has little relevancy, if any, in whatever town they're in.

This is an easy law to abide by, and letting companies slide, even mom and pop stores results in genuine harm to people. What if that bakery is the only one in the small town? Does the gay couple just have to not have a cake because of the hideous crime of being gay? What if all the churches could refuse to hold the ceremony? In fact, what if their employers or landlords could just toss them out for being gay as well. At what point do you feel they go from being inconvenienced to genuinely oppressed? Then, in reverse, how much should the law protect their rights and at what point do the business owners go from being merely inconvenienced to genuinely oppressed? Because, from my accounting, it's the people who are denied services that reach the stage of oppression a lot quicker than those who are asked to provide their services as usual just to people whose lifestyles they don't personally agree with.

There's at least shit to do in Chicago, even if you might get mugged by a crackhead. Indianapolis is a shithole where there's jackshit to do AND you'll still get mugged by methheads.

Luckily the cops tend to roust most of the junkies away from the convention center area for Gencon. They actually keep a pretty good eye on the nerd herd, but I'm guessing that's because their bosses tell them to because of all that NEET money coming into the city.

In the example of the churches refusing to host the ceremony, that is well within their rights. It's a religious building used for religious ceremonies. And if their religious ceremony says it can only be done a certain way, then that's that. There is no right to have your sacrament of marriage in a church.

Most states have the option for civil unions, which offer the same economic and legal benefits that a marriage does, and even with traditional marriages, you do have to file that with the state government for it's to be recognized legally.

I'm all for freedom of choice when it comes to civil marriage, but not religious. That has to come from within the religion itself.

P much this. Gencon makes so much money for Indianapolis it's disgusting. Last year's Gencon had a greater profit margin than the fucking Super Bowl.

Shut the fuck up, you commie faggot.

To be fair, Indianapolis isn't really a tourist city aside from having some big event areas like the Speedway. Their actual level of preparation for tourists, like having walkable streets and not just tiny sidewalks next to 2-lane roads, hotels close to attractions, and space for parking, is really lacking.

They just don't know how to make themselves attractive to tourists because they were always just another industrial city like Detroit or Pittsburgh until recently.

I'll concede that. I mean, there's a reason it's called "Nap Town" 51 weeks out of the year. Maybe losing the Carrier plant is going to get some gears turning.

A you said, recently the city seems to have started to get their shit together. The convention center is connected to 3 or 4 hotels and several more are within reasonable walking distance. The central downtown area is mostly walkable with a bikeshare thing that's available if you're into that. Parking isn't GREAT, but it's reasonably plentiful if you're willing to do a bit of walking.

Could it improve? For sure. And this year will push the city to its limits. But I have hope it'll turn out well.

Go back to your containment board and stay there, asshole.

Do people actually sleep in the convention center?

There's a bar a few blocks from the CC called Granite City Brewery that is fucking sweet (order the Admiral). Go there, I'll be there throughout the con.

Some might take naps, but it's closed at night so anybody caught trying to stay would be kicked out. A few might be able to find a good hiding place to sleep at night, but mostly, there's not a good place to do so (though to be fair, I haven't been in the convention center since I last went to Gen Con - and that was in 2012).

Sweet! I saw it on the maps but couldn't find it again. I'll check that out for sure

You will probably be able to get some exclusive model or two at the Kingdom Death booth. Even if you are not interested in it you could sell it later for triple the price.

As shameful display as it is, I really like those models. That'd be cool, but I'm sure the greasy lords of the underbasements will slip through using their butter bodies and steal them all.

But I'll defo check it out.

Knowing Poots there will probably be some preview shit from the last kickstarter, or even some copies of the 1.5 game. If you, or someone you know, wanted to get into KD and didn't have the chance to back up the last KS you should check their booth out as soon as you can. I heard this year it will be triple the size.

>the extremely unwashed masses
the worst.

>but it's closed at night so anybody caught trying to stay would be kicked out
Doesn't Gencon run 24 hours? What are all those events running through the midnight hours?