Gen Con 2026 - Emptying the Backpack

When I mentioned in the previous video that there were things to unpack, I wasn't kidding.

I typically bring the backpack I use for work when I go to Gen Con.* It prevents me from going crazy and buying all sorts of stuff at Gen Con because it had all better fit in that backpack. I realize I could just carry around an extra bag, but come on. Have you SEEN the crowds at Gen Con? We're talking about ~74,000 attendees over four days, and the place was already crowded enough without me lugging around an extra bag. I also held some things for my son, so my parts of my backpack were already spoken for.

That means I didn't end up buying board games at Gen Con, but that's okay. If I wanted to buy a board game, I'd rather support my local game store.

Funny thing, that...

My Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS) held an "RPG Celebration Sale" on July 18th, where all RPGs and both Reaper and WizKids Minis were 20% off. Oh, and if you spent enough ($50) they had a bunch of goodie bags full of freebies to give away. 

So...

Yeah, I indulged there, knowing full well that it was coming out of my Gen Con budget. Therefore, I'm counting what I purchased there as part of my Gen Con haul. My blog, my rules.

...and that's it.

Yes, I bought a RuneQuest splatbook that fills in the gaps of some of the RuneQuest mythology, and what's ostensibly the Pendragon Gamemaster Screen but with several extras...

Yeah, just a few.

The map actually won awards at Gen Con last year, so I was happy to have that included in the bundle, but there was also a Gamemaster Gazetteer and some Gamemaster Resources tucked away in separate booklets.

(Hmm... I ought to do an RPG From the Past on Pendragon in general.)

Both of these items were printed by Chaosium, who were well represented at Gen Con, but I thought it better to purchase these at my local store so not only would Chaosium get paid but so would my local store.

***

Now, about Gen Con itself...

I gave serious consideration to picking up another Traveller book, and my oldest espied me perusing the volumes there in the Exhibit Hall and teased me a bit about that. However, in the end I decided to not purchase my typical annual Traveller book because I had other things in mind.

One item was a pure impulse buy:

Published by Goodman Games.

Yes, it doesn't look like much --more like a notebook that someone had doctored with stickers-- but I was quite surprised to find this at Goodman Games' booth because I hadn't heard anything about it. You see, several years ago I'd purchased this book from my FLGS:

I'm always up for a book of short pieces from experienced game designers and game masters to help me understand the process behind adventure design, and this proved to not only be a great read but full of great tips as well. So when I saw its sequel at Gen Con, I immediately snapped it up. The listing of authors on the back of the new volume didn't exactly hurt, either:

Even my wife, who looked over my purchases when I got back home, recognized some of the names: Luke Gygax (one of Gary's sons), Steve Jackson ("THE Steve Jackson??" she asked), and Sean K. Reynolds. I knew a lot more of the authors than she did, and that alone made it worthwhile to pick up.

A bit later I wandered by the MIT Press booth, and I pretty much geeked out a bit. Yes, I am a real geek if I get excited about a university press being represented at a con such as Gen Con, and unlike last year they brought enough books that they still had products to sell on Sunday. And being the history nerd that I am, I bought two books about the history of Role Playing Games:

Both of these books are THICK, each at least an inch thick, and I've listened to Jon's podcasts off and on over the course of the past year so I knew what I was getting when I bought these: well researched and well written. I mean, MIT wouldn't have published them if that wasn't the case.

I did pick up a short and sweet game about cat cuddles for my youngest --no, she's not going to play it with Mooch-- and I stopped by Many Worlds Tavern because I saw something that spoke to me: coffee. I remembered that Many Worlds sells coffee and tea, and while the only ground or whole bean coffee they had left on Sunday afternoon was decaf, I picked up some loose leaf black tea to drink when I'm not in a coffee mood:

Morning Mists Breakfast Black Tea

It'll go well with a present my oldest gave me at Gen Con which she'd gotten from a local coffee shop in Milwaukee:

From Stone Creek Coffee. I've discovered that
Milwaukee has quite a few good coffee shops.

Oh, I guess I ought to mention a few freebies I got as part of attending Gen Con:

The little die in the pouch came from Many Worlds Tavern for purchasing the tea, the poster of the Daggerheart expansion that came out was being just handed out at the end of the con, and I figured "why not" and picked it up. That last one, the Knights of the Dinner Table comic, came from Kenzer and Co., and for me was a blast from the past. I have several KotD comics around (somewhere) that I'd picked up a couple of decades ago, so seeing a freebie just being handed out like that made me happy. I got to see an old friend again.

***

So, that's it. Not all that much, but enough for me. The books alone will keep me busy when I'm not working on radio or writing or gaming.

The crowds aside, I'm looking forward to next year's Gen Con!

*Minus my laptop, of course.

#Blaugust2026

Gen Con 2026 - Under Construction

This year's Gen Con began with rain on Saturday.

I'd reserved a car at one of our local rental agencies for Saturday, and I figured that I'd drop my wife off for work in the morning, then when it was time to pick up the rental I'd leave her car at her employer and walk to the rental agency. It's about a 10 minute walk, and I didn't mind getting in some exercise. 

But I hadn't counted on it being a very rainy walk. It absolutely poured (and thundered) for all save for the last minute of my little jaunt, so even though I wore a rain jacket I looked very much like a drowned rat when I got to the rental agency. I waited in line for about 20 minutes, because they were absolutely swamped with people showing up looking for a rental*, and when my turn came they asked me if I was flexible with what rental I got. 

"Sure," I replied. I mean, I wasn't going to be an ass about it; the compact SUV I'd reserved was just cost effective and decent in gas mileage enough that I could work with it.

They ended up giving me an upgrade, a Toyota Camry SE Hybrid.

This is it, parked at Lucas Oil Stadium.

While I've driven a hybrid before (a Toyota Prius as a rental for a work trip last year), I've never driven a car that had over 200 hp under the hood. My '97 Accord gets something around 125 hp, so while it's peppy enough I know it takes a few moments to get going. The moment I mashed the pedal on this car on the drive home, however, it absolutely took off. That took some getting used to.

What also took some getting used to was the mileage, where (in US terms) I got 45 miles per gallon for the entire trip. With the exception of that Prius, the best gas mileage I've ever gotten out of a car on a long distance trip was about 30 MPG in my wife's old 1990 Pontiac 6000 back in the day.**

Anyway, the trip up to Indianapolis was somewhat uneventful, outside of the fact that it started raining the moment I crossed over from Ohio into Indiana, and only let up when we got to the Indianapolis city limits. 

The walk from Lucas Oil Stadium to the Convention Center showed me two things: that Ravensburger was heavily promoting their Disney Lorcana collectible card game...

Yep, Pooh Bear in a wizard's hat.

And that Indy is under a LOT of construction.

Here's a view of some of it from the inside
of the Convention Center.

It was as if Indianapolis looked at all the construction around Columbus and Cincinnati and said "Hold my beer." There was a new hotel going in across the street that was also going to be connected to the Convention Center via a Skywalk; they were reworking the entire walkway (shown above) leading to what used to be the mall; the old mall itself is being rebuilt into a mixed-use open air space called the Traction Yards (first phase to open in 2030); and the street north of the convention center toward the Statehouse is being rebuilt with cobblestones. 

Part of the gravel base. There might have been sewer line
work going on too, but there was so much gravel and brick
around that I couldn't tell for sure.

All this construction didn't deter any Gen Con attendees, as the place was completely sold out.

Inside the Convention Center the place looked blessedly free of construction as the foyer near the Exhibit Hall had the three video screens recycling ads for games...

This was just a brief view of what was up there.
It's amazing just how much space these GIFs take up.

Including one unexpected advertisement...

Yes, that's a realtor.

I can understand why people might be interested in moving to a place with a lower cost of living and a central location to a lot of the Midwest (Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, and St. Louis) and the South (Louisville, Memphis, Nashville), but as my son pointed out, you'd have to live in Indiana. So... 50:50, I suppose.

We met up with my oldest and her partner (who'd come down from Milwaukee) under the video screens, I distributed badges, and we had a good chat with my brother-in-law before heading into the Exhibit Hall. 

I tried getting a nice panorama shot of the hall, but
it didn't work out. There were artifacts I couldn't remove.

So, we split up and wandered the Hall for a while before reconnecting for lunch and then a second round of divide and conquer.

Some of the displays were for games that began as video games but then went "retro" into card and board games:

Yes, a Palword card game.
Somewhere, Nintendo is fuming.

Supposedly the Stellaris board game will be
out this fall. Given that this is about 4+ years
in the making, the crowdfunding backers are
a bit annoyed by now.

Okay, it's not a video game to board game 
transcription, but come on. Were it not for Link
and The Legend of Zelda, they wouldn't be selling
ocarinas at Gen Con. And boy could she play!

I'd mentioned this card game last year,
and boy howdy was there a crowd at the booth
this year. No idea if any VTubers were actually
there, but I'd bet that at least a few were.

Now, another part of going to Gen Con is viewing the art...

Sadly this is one of two booths in my pics that qualifies.
But also, rugs/tapestries!

This is the other one, but I'm not sure if it's for sale or
whether it was to attract people to their booth.

or the authors (who I sadly did not take any pics of), but there were other creators present that caught my eye. Maybe it's because it's about time for the Ohio Renaissance Festival***, but I checked out a lot of clothing and leatherworking booths...

Geek Orthodox had tees and other shirts
that made me chuckle.

And they also had "stained glass" designs
as well. Really impressive.

Is anyone in need of a corset or a puffy shirt (tm)?

And more outfits. The prices were pretty
high, but given the quality involved, 
I think it'd be worth it.

There were even jerseys for the
Catan World Cup. Yes, it's a thing.

Given that yesterday afternoon's weather-related events made some of Saturday's Gen Con a bit of a wash (pun intended) I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at just how crowded the Exhibit Hall was. Even by 2 PM, when there's only 2 hours left and the crowd normally thins out quite a bit, it was still incredibly packed. So, I did what I normally do when things are far more crowded than I like: I escaped into the larger Convention Hall and wandered around.

As I took in the hallways of the Convention Center, I found crowds and all sorts of other interesting things going on...

The game put out by Critical Role and Darrington Press,
Daggerheart, was very much in evidence.

Speaking of Critical Role...

Given that Brandon Sanderson's
Cosmere was everywhere last year,
it'd make sense that there's a Mistborn
game out this year.

Oh yeah, League of Legends has
a Trading Card Game. No, I didn't go
check it out.

And I couldn't resist, given that
I've been keeping up with Aywren
Sojourner's blog and YouTube videos.

After some of these breaks, I went back inside the Exhibit Hall and found more interesting things over the course of the day. My Questing Buddy's son is heavily into Star Wars Legion, the minis game that you could look at as a gateway drug into Warhammer 40k, and I passed along this pic for her to show her son that his favorite game is well represented:

There were a lot of people playtesting Legion and some other Star Wars properties, such as the Trading Card Game and Shatterpoint.

But this is a Legion terrain setting that you can play with:

As for other games, here's some other highlights:

The name alone got me intrigued.

I could get behind a game called Charmed and Dangerous.

Paizo brought out their iconic goblins,
because you can't have a Gen Con without
a goblin or three around.

Pink Hawk Games had stuff that would be right
up my youngest's alley, given the cat themes.

And speaking of cats...

I did stop by the Dwarven Forge booth again this year, but I didn't take any photos of their displays. They are just too good looking (and expensive) for me to justify checking them over, so I decided to not linger. There were at least 3 vendors who specialized in making gaming tables (yes, Wyrmwood was there again), but every time I look at them I think "I can make that myself", or rather "I can try to make that myself", but I don't really have a place to put a gaming table right now.

The end of the day rolled around far too quickly for my taste, but that's what happens. We said our goodbyes and headed back home to Cincinnati. It didn't rain until we crossed over into Ohio, and then we got some downpours. 

I swear...

As for what I snagged at Gen Con, given the size of this post I'm going to bump that for another day. After all, I've got some explainin' to do...

Here, have a video of Mooch in the meantime...

*Which also included people making video calls on their phones while they were talking to the rental people. I mean, why do people do this? Everybody can hear whatever private conversation they're having.

**That was when the 65 MPH speed limits were just starting to appear back in the early 90s, so a completely different era. The 6000 also had a 4-cylinder engine that got maybe 100 hp, and boy did it struggle going up a hill with a full load of people inside. So if you doing purely highway miles and on flat land, it could hit 30 mpg, but otherwise it was in the low 20s.

***I don't think we're going to the Ohio Ren Fest this year; maybe next year.

EtA: Updated links.

#Blaugust2026

Gen Con 2026 - A Brief Appetizer

I'm working on a full Gen Con report, and that'll come tomorrow. (I think.)

Still, I did want to mention something that happened this year at Gen Con that was something now.

Tornadoes.

Yes, that wonderful scourge of the Midwest and the Plains decided to pay Indianapolis a visit on Saturday. There were thunderstorms, yes, but we've seen t-storms at Gen Con before. I mean, it's Summer out here, and t-storms are pretty much what you get in a Midwestern Summer.

But tornadoes actually happening on Gen Con weekend? Well, that's new.

As you can see, people weren't exactly that concerned, but the Block Party scheduled to happen when storms rolled in was cancelled. And for good reason.

From WTHR on 8/1/2026.

Oh, and in a massive case of irony, the rain was invited into the Indianapolis Convention Center.

From WISH-TV.

According to Convention officials, the thunderstorms damaged the pipes that drain the roof, and, well, this was the result.

Where it was raining was where people play card games such as Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon. My brother-in-law was laughing about it later, because while a lot of people scattered, some people just stayed around, playing their games.

The rain inside the Convention Center spawned jokes in social media, such as the Gen Con "Body Odor" detectors went off due to people not showering and, uh, they got a shower after all.

Since this was Saturday, I wasn't affected, and neither was my brother-in-law. The place he was in at the time was central to the building and not close to any outside doors or windows, and when he looked at the radar track of the tornado he saw it was southeast of the Convention Center and was tracking away from Downtown Indy, so he figured they were going to be fine.

The storm --and its aftermath-- is what likely lead to a heavier than usual Sunday crowd in the Exhibit Hall. I'll mention that more tomorrow.

#Blaugust2026

Meme Monday: Gen Con 2026 Memes

I'm not going to miss a Meme Monday, as I'm too tired to put together a full report until later in the week, so here's some Gen Con memes for this year's Gen Con.

I feel for ya, buddy.
From Instagram.

Ah, Jake and Elwood Blues. The Blues Brothers.
From Instagram.

If you're hip to it, yeah. From Imgflip.

Yeah, been there. I've seen this live.
From Facebook.

You can't not have Gen Con without some
Murder Hobos around. From Tumblr.
(Wait, is Tumblr still a thing?)

Surrrre. Whatever you say.
From @lukemckay via Facebook.

#Blaugust2026

On The Road Again, 2026 Version

By the time you read this, I'll already be on the road up to Indianapolis for Gen Con 2026.

This year, I didn't quite trust my almost 30 year old Honda Accord to make the trip* so I decided to get a rental this time around.

Why a rental? Because my wife is working today, and she kind of needs her car for work. (She doesn't like driving my old Accord, so why make it hard on her?) At least I got a "free upgrade" to a Camry hybrid, so gas won't be much of a factor for the trip.

Still, I'll be here for the day:

From the Indianapolis Star's coverage of Gen Con.

I'll likely provide a report on Tuesday or Wednesday, although work might get in the way of that.

Happy gaming!

*The car has reached the point where I think I'm no longer going to do any major repairs and just keep it running as long as it can before it dies. I could be talked out of that, given how expensive even used cars are right now, but that's my current state. I've also been told numerous times by people that if I were selling the car it would go really quickly as it's in overall great shape for a Fifth Gen Accord, and even for a 4-cylinder car it is really peppy and fun to drive. 

#Blaugust2026