Wizards announces activities for GenCon Indy 2004

Just in time to help build hype for Gen Con Indy, Wizards of the Coast has announced its line up for the Best Four Days in Indianapolis. Highlights include the conclusion of the Living City campaign, the D&D Miniatures Championship Finals, an early glimpse (and even a few pre-sales) of the new D&D Basic Game, a look at October’s coffee table book, a D&D timeline exhibit, and an “Epic Level D&D Party” on the first evening of the show.

Text of Wizards of the Coast press release follows:

CELEBRATE AT GEN CON INDY AS DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® TURNS 30

May 28, 2004 (Renton, Wash.) – Gen Con Indy, The Best Four Days in Gaming!, is only months away, and Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro (NYSE: HAS), has plenty of exciting events and new product releases planned to usher in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® 30th anniversary in style. Over the years, D&D has taken millions of players on imaginary adventures of epic scale. At Gen Con, Wizards of the Coast will mark three decades of this unique pop culture phenomenon with a variety of new DUNGEONS & DRAGONS products and exciting public events.

SPECIAL D&D EVENTS:

D&D Timeline Exhibit: Revisit the major milestones in D&D’s rich history through our unique 30-year retrospective in the hallway of the Indiana Convention Center. Whether you’re old enough to remember the early days of chainmail, or you plan to start playing D&D as soon as the new Basic Game comes out this fall, you’ll want to explore this visual history of one of the most famous games ever created.

Epic Level D&D Party: On August 19th, Gen Con Indy’s opening night, join Wizards of the Coast for an unforgettable dance party in honor of D&D’s biggest birthday yet. We’ll have plenty of free food, beverages and giveaways, a cash bar and a DJ spinning your favorite tunes. We’ll also host various activities where special prizes will be awarded to participants. The party will take place in the spacious Pan Am Plaza across form the RCA Dome and Crowne Plaza Hotel in Indianapolis and is open to anyone with a Thursday or 4-day Gen Con Indy badge. Badges can be purchased at gencon.com or on-site at the convention center.

“Stump the Designer” Q&A: Think you know all there is to know about D&D? Been on more campaigns than you can recall? Well, just try and stump ‘em, or our designers, that is. Bill Slavicsek, Ed Stark, and other creative talent from Wizards of the Coast will be sitting down and matching wits with D&D players to see who can ask the unanswerable question.

Meet the Authors: Chat face to face with your favorite fantasy writers. New York Times bestselling authors R.A. Salvatore, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, and others will be signing their new books and talking shop with readers.

Meet the Artists: Watch your favorite artists in action. Matt Stawicki, Wayne Reynolds, Tom Baxa, and others will sketch and talk with fans about their creations, the artistic process, and the creative imagination.

NEW D&D BOOKS, GAMES AND MORE: Thirty Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons: Come preview this new collector’s book, which is filled with essays and photographs of the events, products, personalities and art that have graced the world of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS over the years! Set to release in October 2004.

Dungeons & Dragons Basic Game: Also on display will be this new boxed set containing all the basics for those new to the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS roleplaying game. Named for the classic boxed set from the first years of the game’s history, this game is a great way for current players to introduce the game to a whole new generation. The components include a complete set of dice, rules drawn from the core rulebooks, and 16 nonrandom miniatures from the D&D Miniatures line. Set to release in September 2004. Pre-release copies will be available in limited quantities at GEN CON.

RPGA PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS:

For over 20 years the RPGA has brought great DUNGEONS & DRAGONS and other roleplaying experiences to Gen Con, and this year’s no exception! Come take part in our celebration of this adventure gaming milestone with these special events.

Dungeons & Dragons Open: Shards of Eberron™
SHARDS OF EBERRON launches your characters headlong into the thrilling new D&D campaign setting EBERRON™. In this year’s D&D Open, authored by EBERRON co-designer James Wyatt and D&D developer Andy Collins, your intrepid band of adventurers must brave the deadliest environs that EBERRON has to offer, from the towering city of Sharn to the fetid Shadow Marches, from the war-torn Mournland to the steaming jungles of Xen’drik. Your goal: Recover three fabled dragonshards lost to the ancient mists of time and prophesied to usher in a grand new age of EBERRON. Of course, you’re not the only ones hunting for these powerful relics.…The D&D Open is the D&D tournament experience. Enter a group of six players. The best groups advance to the semifinals and the finals. At the end of Gen Con, one group is declared the winner. Besides winning a healthy dose of gaming swag and a top-notch trophy, the winning group is invited to help design a section of the upcoming DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Campaigns: Mark of Heroes, set in EBERRON.

Two Great Delves: Castle Greyhawk™ and Undermountain™
The Living Greyhawk and Legacy of the Green Regent campaigns team up to bring you special events taking place in two of the greatest dungeons in the D&D game. Bring your campaign characters, and delve into the twisted labyrinths of two mad wizards. Surely the stories of Halaster and Zagyg’s cruel humors are greatly exaggerated…right?

Numerous sessions of both adventures will run every slot. Four special tables of each adventure are set aside to run games with premiere set-ups. These set-ups include pre-printed battle grids and Dwarven Forge MasterMaze dungeons.

Living City Finale
In 1985 the RPGA announced the project that would eventually become Living City™. Over the next 19 years, thousands of players, Dungeon Masters, and writers participated in the groundbreaking campaign that creating the Living phenomenon. Don’t miss the exciting conclusion, Ravens Bluff: Gateway to the Vast™. This two-round, high-level adventure features 10 hours of action-packed Dungeons & Dragons play! So bring your Living City character, and make your final mark on Ravens Bluff.

More Than You Can Possibly Play!
This year we are offering 23 separate adventures, including Star Wars™, d20 Modern™, Dragonstar™, Spycraft™, Arcanis™, and Kingdoms of Kalamar™ adventures. Needless to say, you can’t play them all in the course of the entire show. There are so many great adventures offered this year, there’s surely something in the schedule that will tickle your roleplaying fancy. And all games are double DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Rewards earnings, so you’ll earn twice as many reward points at Gen Con Indy than you would playing at home.

D&D Miniatures™

D&D Miniatures Championship Series: Finals
The tension mounts as the final qualifiers in the D&D Miniatures Championship Series clash head-to-head in an epic struggle for ultimate supremacy. Having fought their way through previous qualifying events the battle-weary warbands must face their final and ultimate challenge and bring home the spoils of victory!

D&D Miniatures: Events
Throughout the weekend warbands will clash on the field of battle vying for supremacy. Good will face its nemesis evil, and law will strive to vanquish chaos as troops struggle to win the treasure horde for their commanders. Check out the action with 100 point and 200 point constructed formats running daily. Is your warband up to the challenge?

Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE:HAS), is a worldwide leader in the trading card game and tabletop roleplaying game categories, and a leading developer and publisher of game-based entertainment products. The company holds an exclusive patent on the method of playing trading card games (TCGs) and produces the premier trading card game, MAGIC: THE GATHERING®, among many other trading card games and family card and board games. Wizards is also a leading publisher of roleplaying games, such as DUNGEONS & DRAGONS®, and publisher of fantasy series fiction with numerous New York Times best-sellers. For more information, visit the Wizards of the Coast website at wizards.com.

Gen Con, LLC produces the largest consumer fantasy, sci-fi and adventure game convention in North America. Its operations include Gen Con Indy, Gen Con So Cal and Star Wars Celebration III under license from Lucas Film Ltd., and licensee for the European Gen Con shows. It was founded in May of 2002 by former CEO and founder of Wizards of the Coast Peter Adkison, who solely owns the company headquartered in Seattle, Washington. The company’s mission is to create The Best Four Days of Gaming! every year for its customers. For more information visit the website at www.gencon.com.

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WIZARDS OF THE COAST, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, D&D, EBERRON, SHARDS OF EBERRON, CASTLE GREYHAWK, UNDERMOUNTAIN, LIVING CITY, RAVENS BLUFF, D&D MINIATURES and MAGIC: THE GATHERING are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast Inc. in the U.S.A. and other countries. ©2004 Wizards.Star Wars © 2004 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. GEN CON, the Gen Con logo, and The Best Four Days in Gaming! are trademarks of Gen Con LLC. All rights reserved. Used under authorization.