Gen Con 2025: The Gamer Diaspora

When we first began attending Gen Con, some of the biggest booths were from companies such as Days of Wonder, Catan, Fantasy Flight, and Z-Man. Then, in the mid-2010s, that began to change as Asmodee went and bought up all of the companies listed above using investment firm money, and now all of said firms are but a subsidiary of the Embracer Group.

Yes, the same Embracer Group that has been taking a sledgehammer to the video game industry in its quest to make the quickest dollar. I've discussed this before, but one of the side effects of the Embracer Group ruining the quality of a bunch of popular board game companies is that all of those game designers dispersed into the gaming ecosphere and began putting out their own games under new companies. And other people looked at that vacuum created by Embracer and said "Hey, you know what, I bet I could design something new and cool!"

The net effect is that 2025's Gen Con looked far more diverse than what I'd seen in years.

Of course, you couldn't escape the gravitational pull of
Magic: the Gathering collectors, but that aside...

***

This was also the first Gen Con where most of the family got together to attend since 2015. Our youngest took a pass this year (she is also waist deep in her internship, so life, you know) but everybody else managed to make it to Indianapolis. Our oldest and her partner came down from Milwaukee on Saturday to meet up with friends, visit the Con, and go to Critical Role's live show, while the rest of us assembled early on Sunday and drove up from Cincinnati.

We got in early enough that we beat the crowds.

For the first time in forever, we got in early enough that we had no issues parking. If anything, the cars in front of us had more trouble navigating the digital parking lot system than actually fighting traffic itself. (Yes, we slew the Parking Lot Monster without much trouble.)

I realize that the Indianapolis Convention Center has big screens around by design, but I still am surprised by them when I see them in the main entrance:

Even if they're owned by Gen Con LLC, they're still quite impressive. They cycle with different games and other information every 10-15 seconds or so.

Once everybody arrived and the Exhibit Hall opened, we dispersed into the crowd. The idea was to loop back at noon and head out for lunch, so we had a bit less than 2 hours to wander the hall.

A few things stood out to me the moment I walked inside. The crowd was denser on this Sunday than they had been in the recent past --it felt more like a Saturday's crowd-- and that while some stalwarts still held court...

It was likely my son was in there somewhere.

There were a lot of newer booths in the crowd. Such as the invasion of the V-tubers:

And Brandon Sanderson made his presence felt:

One of the many displays around.

I've no idea if Brandon was here --and I just checked and it doesn't appear that he was-- but the Author Guest of Honor was Ohioan and frequenter of my local bookstore, John Scalzi, so if I'd have actually attended on Saturday I might have seen him out and about.

Okay, that's a very cagey "might" there, because I was aware of some RPG content creators who were there*, but damned if I ran into any of them while I fought my way through the crowds. Now, that's not quite fair, since Margaret Weis held court in her usual location in the middle of the Exhibit Hall, and I did briefly see Ed Greenwood at one of the booths over in the far left hand side of the Exhibit Hall --you can't miss that beard of his-- next to the... wait for it... MIT Press booth.

Yes, you read that right.

MIT Press had a booth there at the con, because they print Jon Peterson's Playing at the World 2E, a newer edition of Jon's original self-published work. My son and I got a chance to talk to the guy at the booth, and while they don't print games themselves, he was surprised to discover that there was a lot of interest in MIT Press' catalog of books at the con. (Oh, and Jon's book sold out.) He and I discussed another surprise con vendor, Central Michigan University, who actually do publish board games through their academic press. If you played the journaling RPG Five Hundred Year Old Vampire, then you ought to know that a multi-player version has been released as a CMU published game.

Anyway, we reconvened at noon with me texting out "Avengers Assemble" to the group chat when the time came, and we grabbed lunch at the nearby Old Spaghetti Factory. We didn't go to the nearby mall, because it appears the mall is being/has been sold to a development company and is shutting down. So... no more food court, I suppose. We got a chance to catch up over the hour plus we spent at OSF, and it was a pleasant way to geek out over things we saw at the Exhibit Hall.

There was someone selling "smelly dice" there at the con, for example.

"Want to smell my dice?" my oldest asked with a savage grin.

Uh, what?

She got the one named "Cemetery Soil", which smells like moss, although to me it smelled like allergies: pleasant but full of earthy overtones.

I tried to link to the pic from Studio Woe, but
it wouldn't take. So here it is.

My son has gone far enough down the rabbit hole of Warhammer 40K that he picked up an Eldar t-shirt. "Space Elves", I translated for my wife. 

Speaking of my wife, she discovered this game that is going up on Kickstarter soon, called Mystic Curling Club, which looks a bit like Sorry Sliders but with using dice:

I'd have gotten a pick of some people using it next to this
display, but I figured this photo would be enough.

My nephew is really into owls, and my wife also found a 100 piece puzzle this is about owl anatomy, or "owl-atomy"...

I mentioned the 4 person chess set that I discovered, and my son's partner just kind of gave me the "Okay, NOW I'm interested" look about it:

I looked and that and thought,
"My brain would hurt keeping track of that."

When we returned from lunch, I made sure to get a few extra photos...

The obligatory front view of the entrance.

For the record, not a Pandaren.

Gotta respect the classics...
Dungeon Crawl Classics, that is.

This was also the 50th anniversary of Chaosium, the creators of Call of Cthulhu, Runequest/Glorantha, and Pendragon. There were several glass displays out in the hallways celebrating the company's 50 years in business:

There was another display for Chaosium in general,
but it was taken down close to closing time on Sunday.
Given all of the rare items on display, I can totally 
understand why they made it a priority to make sure
the items were safe.

There's also the obligatory Dwarven Forge display pic:

That chimney in the bottom left was actually smoking.
And this year I actually signed up for their mailing list.

I told my wife the surest sign that we won the lottery is that I started buying Dwarven Forge items.

And oh yeah, here's the obligatory "gamer table" pic, although I could have chosen one of several companies to display:

Okay, they're two photos because I couldn't fit the entire thing into one pic, but you get the idea. The DM screen is wooden, like everything else, and it just screams luxury. And ambience. And "I'm an AI developer with money to spare."

At 3:30, we assembled, said our goodbyes to the family, and headed for home.

***

I really feel like what we're seeing in this Gen Con is the impact of Embracer's attempt to dominate the board game and RPG industry. As Princess Leia said in the original Star Wars...

From memegenerator and Reddit. (And Star Wars.)

That's what's happening in the industry right now. As people tried to dominate the industry by buying up all of the companies and intellectual property, developers have gone independent (by choice or layoff) and their separate companies are now bringing games to Gen Con. The ability of people to utilize better design and build techniques at home enable them to bring far more polished prototypes to places like Gen Con to generate interest. Crowdfunding enables small groups and companies to generate capital without relying upon venture capital firms who have proven to only have short term goals at heart.

There were a lot of people interested in supporting new designs and games, as well as a lot of people flocking to the Artists' Alley and Authors' Alley areas; it was so thick there I couldn't make it through and kind of gave up. Still, despite my disappointment, it shows that art in its various forms is still generating interest.

This atmosphere lent an air of a trade show to the con, something that you'd have seen in Origins in years past. 

And before you ask, there was an unsaid amount of concern about tariffs there, but given that nobody at the con had the least bit of control over said tariffs, it just kind of was just there as a dampening effect.

***

As for me, I didn't buy anything this year. A good part of that is due to finances: I'd already committed to Gen Con before some of our major car repair bills made their appearance, and I had a hard time buying anything with all of THAT hovering over my head like the Sword of Damocles. 

But even more than that, I wasn't feeling well. 

I believe I've mentioned before that on average of twice a month my digestive system reacts to my medications and kicks me in the ass for a day or two. Well, Sunday was one of those days. The moment I woke up I felt something was off, and sure enough before I could even eat and shower I began feeling like crap. Still, I soldiered on, hoping that the bout would pass and then I could get back on with enjoying things. That didn't exactly happen, but I concealed my issues as best I could** and tried to enjoy things at Gen Con. The crowd was energetic, people weren't assholes (not too much, anyway), and ordinarily I'd have had the time of my life. For this introvert, that's saying a lot. But I just couldn't get into the groove, and I decided to take some time off and stroll about the hallways to recharge my batteries.

There was still a large crowd out in the hallway
where the balloon sculpture was.

Here's a closeup of said sculpture, complete with
a sea monster attacking a ship.

The walk helped me feel a bit less stressed, but I just had to grit out my health issues for the rest of the day.

All in all, it was an okay Gen Con for 2025. On the plus side, most of the family was able to get together, and we enjoyed each other's company. On the minus side, health issues. But aside from that, it felt good to be away for a day. 

*Hi, Professor DM! Sorry I didn't run into you. I did keep an eye out, however.

**Apparently I did it well enough that when I finally got over this late Monday, my wife was surprised that I was feeling ill any part of Sunday.

#Blaugust2025

Dodging Potholes in Indiana (Again)

By the time you read this, we'll be on the road up I-74 toward Indianapolis and GenCon Indy 2025.

Yes, it was just announced that it's sold out.
From Gen Con's website.

Before you ask, no, my yellowjacket stings are not going to keep me from going. They're an itchy annoyance on Saturday, but still no swelling.

My oldest and her partner will already be there by the time we arrive, as they came down on Saturday. They were invited to go see Critical Role live during Gen Con, and that was a no brainer for them.

Even if you can't make it, celebrate gaming by just going and playing a game this weekend. It doesn't matter if it's a boardgame, a tabletop RPG, a card game, or a video game, just go play something and enjoy yourself.

Oh look! It's a little Genevieve!!
From Gen Con's Instagram account.

I'll provide a full report... probably Tuesday? Maybe Wednesday? Well, one of those two days...

#Blaugust2025

Gen Con 2024: Forward Into the Past

If there's one thing about Gen Con, you're never sure what will attract your attention. To borrow an overused term, you think you do, but you don't.*

And 2024 certainly delivered on that premise.

My wife hadn't attended since 2015, so she was excited to go. We picked up my son and his partner at 7:30 and pointed our car west on I-74. Destination: Indianapolis.

We parked just outside of Lucas Oil Stadium and headed north a block or two to the Indianapolis Convention Center.

Yes, the Colts play here. Does it show?

Along the way, there was evidence that there was going to be a crowd inside.

Uh oh.

Yes, Gen Con was sold out all four days beforehand. According to the post-con press release, there were over 71,000 attendees throughout the entire con, and yeah, once you got inside the Convention Center you could tell.

I apologize for the blurry photo, but I was
in a hurry as I was being jostled along. But
hey, dice are dice and Chessex was everywhere.

(The rest of the report is after the jump break due to the sheer number of photos.)

While You Were Away...

NOTE: The Gen Con report will come out on Wednesday at the earliest, as I'm still letting everything cook in my brain for a while.

But in that absence, here's a YouTube link to Saturday's Cosplay Parade:

There are a few notable tweaks that came into play during Wrath of the Lich King, such as the automated dungeon finder or the 10/25 person raids. While TBC Classic added random compliments from an NPC if you became Exalted with their faction, Wrath saw an expansion of that by having more NPCs throw an "atta boy" your way when you pass them by.*

In a similar vein, there's the interaction with Gryan Stoutmantle out in Grizzly Hills that highlights what Blizzard could potentially do with a toon. If you've gone through the Defias quests in Vanilla Classic that lead up to and through The Deadmines, Gryan greets you as an old friend. If you haven't finished those quests, Gryan gives you a generic greeting. The decision tree on that sort of interaction isn't very difficult to implement --it's pretty much "if X is marked complete, then do Y else Z"-- but it provides a certain amount of familiarity to a player. The customization makes you feel a bit like you're part of a larger narrative in a small way.

But what happens when the game acknowledges you concerning events that you never performed, such as raids and whatnot? It's kind of hard to be the Champion of Azeroth if you never went raiding or even played 10+ years worth of expansions.

There is no easy way to let a player experience a story if they come into a game that's been running for ~20 years, or if they've been away from the game since Cataclysm or Mists. There's too much story, too many NPCs, and too many changes to the world** to easily digest. Therefore, I have to wonder if Blizzard hasn't simply thrown in the towel and is tailoring expansions to the 'in-crowd' who have already been playing consistently through the years and only stopped playing after Legion or during Battle for Azeroth.

This is inherently a self-limiting design, because a design team would want to draw in as many new players as possible. However, this becomes more feasible if the overall pool of lapsed players is large enough, but only to a certain extent. My complaints about WoW's story focus since about Wrath onward aside, once you are away from a story long enough it simply becomes impossible to catch up with what's going on. 

I liken this to taking a break from watching a soap opera and then coming back to find yourself so out of touch with the story that you have no idea what's going on. And yes, I do have experience in that manner, having spent part of my sophomore year at UD watching Days of our Lives. Soap operas crank out new half hour episodes every day during the work week all year long, so you kind of have to keep watching to stay current. Taking even a week or two break from watching --and this was in the days before people had widespread access to online services, never mind the internet itself-- put me so far behind that I had major issues following the plot. 

Or, to put it another way, if you stopped reading a book series at book #4 and you want to step back in at book #15, well... I hope you like reading, because that's going to be the easiest way to catch up in a comprehensible manner. 

After a while, the publishers/producers just have to simply shrug their shoulders and just keep moving on, even at the cost of limiting their overall potential readership/viewership.

And that's what I think Blizz has done at this point with World of Warcraft. Sure, they'd like me to spend money on a Retail expansion, but they're moving ahead whether I do it or not. They get far more profit out of fewer subscriptions but a lot more cash shop activity than more subscriptions but far less out of the cash shop. 

*The first few times it happens, it's cute. But after about the 20th time it starts to get really old. Especially if you're like me and want to blend in with the crowd, being called out in Dalaran by Linda Ann Kastinglow with "You couldn't ask for a finer person than Quintalan, I say."

**Dalaran? Whaddya mean there's more than one Dalaran? It's still back under a bubble north of Southshore like in TBC, right? And what's this about a spoiler? What?

#Blaugust2024

Meme Monday: Post Gen Con Memes 2024

Iz ded.

Gen Con has come and gone, and while I only spent a single day up there, I can identify with these aspects of the post con aftermath.

I made sure to get new inserts for
my shoes so I was ready this time.
From TheSixParkers.

This is pre-Doctor Doom Robert
Downey Junior. From WhiteMetalGames.

Squidward or Henry David Thoreau?
Who knows? From Reddit.

I've learned to not discuss my geeky hobbies at work,
even if the post con letdown hits hard.
From TheYearofHalloween.

#Blaugust2024

Coffee for the Road

I prepped this ahead of time, so by the time you read this we'll be on the road up I-74 to Indianapolis and Gen Con. Unlike last year, we're not going to experience any rain, so parking outside by Lucas Oil Stadium* and walking to the Indianapolis Convention Center ought to be pleasant. That's relative, given the heat and humidity of summer in the Midwest, but a lot better than a downpour.

In case you're wondering, I'll be somewhere in the Exhibit Hall....

*Where the NFL's Indianapolis Colts play.

#Blaugust2024

Meme Monday: Gen Con 2024 Memes

Yes, it's that time of the year again.

Gen Con is this week, from Thursday, August 1st through Sunday, August 4th. As usual, I'll be attending on Sunday along with my son, his SO, and my wife. I was kind of surprised when my wife wanted to go since she'd not expressed interest the past few years, but hey, I'm fine with it. 

Well, duh.
From Giphy and the Gamers.

I've got a few items I'm going to want to look for that aren't at my local game store, and I think that this year I might actually buy some artwork. Not exactly sure where I'll put it, but I'll come up with something. While I can appreciate some of the art at Gen Con,  not all of it really fits into the decor for the house. 

Although these are really damn cute.
From Gen Con 2023.

So, in honor of this year's Gen Con, time for some more memes!

I have only been there one day all of the years
I've been going, and I'm drained after that.
I shudder to think what it'd be like being there
for multiple days. From Reddit.

Hey, we got ours early this year too!
From Elon Musk's place.

Yeah, it's like that. I've kind of given up
explaining gaming to my non-gamer friends,
but if I tell them "it's like going to Gatlinburg for
the week" they all nod their heads. Yes, I live in
the Midwest; does it show? From Musk's place.

Although to be fair, given some people's
addiction to board and/or role playing games,
"Dealer's Hall" might be more appropriate.
From Musk's Place.

D&D Gets the USPS Treatment

D&D is 50 years old this year, and because of that anniversary it has now been given a status like that of other pop cultural icons: on the cover of US stamps.

The official US Postal Service announcement included stamp series honoring legendary basketball coach John Wooden, photographer Ansel Adams, and the classic summertime pastime of carnivals in Carnival Nights.

From the USPS.

The stamps will be officially released the first day of GenCon, on Thursday August 1st.

Before you ask, no, I'm not going up there on Thursday just to get the stamps; I can get them at our local post office without much of a big deal. (We're going on Sunday, however!)

What does amuse me is just how much the anti-D&D crowd is likely to explode when they discover that the Post Office is peddling SATANIC MATERIALS!!! I'd better prepare myself in the event my mom has a coronary when she goes to the post office.

Gen Con 2023: Gamers Cranked Up to Eleven

Our Gen Con trip began with a surprise road closure.

I was heading to pick up my son and his SO when I encountered a highway shutdown for road crews to work at precisely the interchange I was about to use, so I had to go past that interchange, get off the highway at the next exit, and then swing around and head north instead of south. 

So... Although I began my trip earlier than in past years, we arrived at Indianapolis about 1/2 hour later than usual. 

"Slight chance of rain" my ass.

This year was going to be a bit of a throwback to years past, when I had to tightly control my budget due to unforeseen costs.* If I hadn't already bought tickets for this years' Gen Con, I would have likely had to beg off. Still, we had already committed to the trip and arrived at the Indianapolis Convention Center with a half an hour before the Main Hall opened up, and all we had to do was pick up our badges from Will Call and head inside.

Uh, about that Will Call line...

That line on the left? That's the Will Call
line behind us. Our line snaked to the doors
at the end then doubled back where
we were going. Yikes.

From that pic, the Will Call line in front of us stretched the entire length of this hallway, turned right and across a busy intersection, and then entered the "official" Will Call line. Although original estimates posted online were for a 2 hour wait, traversing the line took slightly less than an hour. Or, for people who ride roller coasters, the equivalent of one length of time to wait to get onto The Beast at Kings Island.

My occasional plug for The Beast,
the world's longest wooden roller coaster.
It is still the best coaster I've ever ridden on.
Photo from Kings Island.

In the meantime, I became "acquainted" with the fact that there's apparently an RPG based on Avatar: The Last Airbender:

The signs were everywhere.
Really.

Eventually, we made it through, got our badges, and then set forth to go to the Main Hall. I asked the other two if they were planning on heading off their own way, and he said, "Yeah, I'm gonna take a few pics and then we'll do our thing."

"Okay." I saw the big balloon display, this time with an Apollo Moon Landing theme:

Human Not Included.
(She was posing, but for who I don't know.)

After I snapped a pic or two, I turned back to my son and.... They were gone.

Okay, that's fine. Time to enter the Main Hall.

Looking left....

...center...

...and right.

Hoo boy.

***

I decided early on to limit myself to two items. I didn't have much choice in the matter, and I seriously considered reducing that to one, but I figured I should aim for something that's not easily found at my Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS)**.

The first area I spent some time in was Studio 2 Publishing, where RPGs such as Savage Worlds and Traveller could be found. And yes, because it's Traveller, that's where I stopped first.

Traveller isn't nearly as popular as Savage Worlds --hmm, I should do an "RPG From the Past" about Savage Worlds-- so when I showed up at the Traveller section one of the Mongoose Publishing people was happy to find another Traveller fan. We chatted a bit about the game and the new revised High Guard sourcebook that was published over the past year, and what campaigns he liked to play. 

Yes, this was one of my two purchases.

Among the ships inside is the iconic Far Trader,
the Empress Marava class. It may not look
like much, like some Scoundrel I know
likes to say, but it's got it where it counts.

The Mongoose team was going to leave at 1 PM that day, but Studio 2 was planning on being there until the Main Hall closed, which was 4 PM, so I didn't have to purchase right then and there, but that didn't stop the salesperson from trying. I did resist at that point --barely-- because I did want to peruse more sections first before circling around and buying the splatbook.

***

As I wandered the booths, I recalled another goal I had: to visit the Art Show area and provide some artists for my old WoW Classic friend/raid leader, Jesup, to peruse. She is unable to attend Gen Con, but is on the lookout for art for her house. So I spent spent some time talking to the artists at the show and taking some photos of their art to send back to Jes. 

I really liked the whimsy behind these drawings.

Jesup, for her part, was appreciative, and getting a chance to speak to the artists was fun as well. One thing that stood out to me during my chats was that a lot of the artists really liked to paint women. It didn't matter what gender the artists themselves were, that just seemed to be a universal constant. A lot of them got into art through reading Fantasy and Science Fiction, and naturally RPGs had an influence on them as well. Watercolors as a medium were very popular, as was digital. The one term I did NOT hear --and I dreaded bringing it up-- was AI.

The colors absolutely pop here.

One of the artists I spoke to at length admitted he was here to determine the viability of a store. He paints a lot of contract work, but he wants to branch out and reach people for direct sales, and he said that the reaction he's been getting at Gen Con has been very encouraging.

The stylized designs are fantastic in person.

I spent a bit of time asking this artist about
her inspiration, and she was happy to
'talk shop' for a bit. She also enjoyed getting
a chance to be at the con to talk with her
friends and fellow artists.

If there was one place that was going to test my resolve to limit my purchases, the Art Show was it. I survived, but oh was I tempted. I think the thing that kept me from pulling the trigger here wasn't so much a lack of desire, but in the back of my head I kept saying "Just where would you put this artwork, anyway?" And to that, I had no answer. (Yet.)

***

We reconnected for lunch, which for us typically means hitting the food court at the nearby mall. Given my dietary requirements, I tend to choose the least problematic path and get a few tacos from Taco Bell, although the food from the couple dozen food trucks outside the Convention Center looks far more appealing.  I know that Taco Bell and 'least problematic' aren't what you typically put together, but I know the nutritional data for the crunchy taco and can fit it into my dietary restrictions without much effort. Almost all of the other options, while potentially better tasting for me, have a lot of carbs or sodium (frequently both), and I can't really risk that. 

During lunch, I asked my son if he went to the Warhammer area first, and he sheepishly grinned and admitted they made a beeline for there as soon as my back was turned. I then noticed the rather large bag with "Warhammer" designs all over it. He'd acquired a pack of Aeldari, which he informed me is one of the least popular factions in Warhammer. Apparently they weren't even in stock at the game store near Lancaster University, which he attended when he was studying abroad, so when he found it at Gen Con he quickly snapped it up. 

"Do you want to drop it off at the car?" I asked.

"No, because I can use the bag to carry other stuff as well."

His SO was in the process of tracking down a pair of ears --bunny ears, wolf ears, or something of that sort-- so they were plotting out their path to success. But that's one of the things about the con: you'd think it was strictly gamer related, but in spots it's just purely a geek hangout. Sure, it's as if Hot Topic had been dunked in a gamer vat, but that's fine. 'You be you' is what I'd say.

One thing I did see coming back from the food court was --ironically enough-- MMO related:

Who knew that World of Warcraft players
had an entire garage devoted to them?

***

When we returned the Main Hall, I encountered more evidence of Airbending:

Did I mention there was an Avatar: The
Last Airbender RPG out?

I made a point of picking up that Traveller book and then focusing on games that I found interesting. 

Such as The Plot Thickens by Bright Eye Games.

Yes, the box for each version is cleverly designed
to look like a book.

The Plot Thickens is a card game with three different yet compatible editions: Sci-Fi, Detective, and Romance. The game revolves around your ability to string together plot elements to create a story, and after the first round, you can begin to use cards that the other players have played to "thicken the plot" as it were from your own plot. For example, I held the cards Time Traveler, Undersea Base, Portal, Derelict Spaceship, and the profession "Engineer". I then had to string together the cards into a plot, such as "I'm an Engineer, and while exploring we came across a Derelict Spaceship, so we towed it back to our Underwater Base, and once we did so a Portal opened up and a Time Traveler stepped through." I'd have gotten 4 or so points for that work. Now, on the next round, another player could use one of the cards I played to incorporate it into their story, placing a marker on it, and gaining extra points for using the already played card.

I'm a bit hazy on final scoring, but the game played well enough, and even if you're not into playing the game the potential for writing prompts are pretty broad. The three published versions can be integrated with each other, so you could mesh Sci-Fi and Romance together, for instance. Apparently the "Loins" card in the Romance version has been used to hilarious effect in this fashion. The designer is working on new genres of the game, so watch this space for future iterations. 

I eventually made it over to the Modiphius Entertainment area, where I was hoping to see a copy of the Star Trek Adventures RPG splatbook Star Trek: Lower Decks Campaign Guide. 

The graphic is from Gizmodo.

Yes, the cartoon has come to life. So to speak.

Modiphius had the book ready for release just in time for Gen Con, and given that I've been a fan of meshing Star Trek with humor ever since the Original Series' Harry Mudd stories, I've been hoping to get a glimpse of how the splatbook worked.

Alas for me, they had none left on display by Sunday afternoon. I mean, if they sold out the copies they brought to Gen Con then that's a good thing, but I was kind of hoping to check it out.

Modiphius was also leaning heavily into their Dune RPG, which I still find... puzzling. It's not that the Dune universe couldn't be mined for RPG material, but that the novels focused so much on factional plotting that you don't get nearly as much of a glimpse of the universe as you'd expect. Or as my son put it, "the book focuses so much on Paul that I'm not sure what you can do for an RPG." The Dune boardgame has been rereleased after a long hiatus, and the factional nature of that game fits perfectly with the Dune universe, but still, I'm not sold on a Dune RPG. But apparently I'm in the minority, as Modiphius was doing some brisk business with the game.

Finally, there's a new RPG that Modiphius had a Starter Set available for sale: Dreams and Machines.

If you can imagine an RPG that scratches the itch that video games such as Anthem and Horizon: Zero Dawn, in a post apocalyptic world with sleeping gigantic terraforming robots littering the landscape, waiting to come back to life to finish their "programming" of destroying humanity. 

It looks really well done, but what especially interests me is the card-based character creation. I picked up the Quickstart available on Free RPG Day (because of course I did) and I came really close to pulling the trigger on this Starter Set.  I decided to wait until later, however, while I perused other game companies' work.

Such as, oh, What Steve Jackson Games has for Munchkin these days:

WARHAMMER Munchkin??
And Age of Sigmar at that.

But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that an old classic was back for another drive around the block:

Oh wow.

Yes, Car Wars is back.

I remember playing the Commodore 64 equivalent of the game back in the day, so seeing the game back on the market makes me smile.

***

At one point I passed by a rather uniquely closed off booth with the entry guarded by a couple of people. "18+ Only" were the signs.

"What the--" I began, then I saw who it was.

Ah. That explains a lot.

I knew of Cosplay Deviants, so I understood why it was protected that way. 

Okay, I have to admit I was tempted to take a peek inside. I had some idea as to what might be there, such as calendars and even some of the Deviants themselves in their trademark risqué outfits, but I told myself that it wasn't worth it to take a look 'just because'. 

Good thing too, because after I took that photo and kept on going, less than a minute later my son caught up and surprised me from behind. Yeah, that would have been awkward.

***

The Modiphius Entertainment booth was on one corner of the Main Hall, and on the other end, diagonally, was Chaosium. Okay, Paizo was nearby, but there was a big crowd there already and I didn't feel like sticking my nose in there at the time. After working my way through a metric ton of people, and some with that characteristic "gamer funk" smell, I was happy to be away from the crowds for a bit.

So I got to pick the brains of a Chaosium rep, talking about a game I'd known about for a long time: Runequest. 

I remembered Runequest from the days when Avalon Hill --yes, the same Avalon Hill that is now owned by Hasbro-- owned the rights to publish the RPG. The Avalon Hill edition was nominally based on the world of Glorantha --a Bronze Age fantasy world created by the late Greg Stafford that actually predates Runequest itself-- but it was also generic enough that you could plug other sorts of homebrewed campaigns into the system. However, the current edition of Runequest is tightly integrated into the world of Glorantha, and the sourcebooks and whatnot are of very high quality. The rep strongly suggested I pick up the Runequest Starter Set to play, because it would do a much better job of explaining the world than he could. 

While I was considering that, I found a new version of Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur come to life:

Holy crap.

"I'd heard that a new version of Pendragon was coming out," I confessed to the Chaosium rep. "I just had no idea it was going to come out so soon."

The Chaosium rep told me that they started planning on a new version when they got the license back, but Greg Stafford had passed away before they could finish the job. So they spent a lot of time looking over the editions and Greg's sketches/notes, and have been steadily assembling a new edition.*** The new core rulebook is due out this Fall or Winter, so given the quality of the work that Chaosium has been putting out recently, it should be well worth the wait.

And yes, they had me at "Pendragon Starter Set".

I'll have to do "An RPG from the Past" on both
Pendragon and Runequest. For now, here's what's
inside the box for the Pendragon Starter Set. And
yes, unlike the early editions, you can have female
knights in the game. Score one for Linnawyn!

So I hit my two item limit and spent the rest of my time wandering around, enjoying the Main Hall without buying anything. I won't say I wasn't tempted, because I sure as hell was, but I set a hard budget and I stuck to it.

I did see some designs for games that I've already played in video game form, and while they look pretty I do have to wonder how they'll play out.

Such as Stellaris:

Yes, it does look pretty.

There was one item I was definitely curious about, which was the Ravensburger Limited Edition Gen Con 2023 jigsaw puzzle:

From comicbook.com.

I was at least curious as to whether it was still around and how much it cost. If it cost $20 or less, I could probably make it fit in my budget. When I arrived at the Ravensburger booth, however, their sign up on a door behind the counter had a lot of "Sold Out" all over it. 

I began to maneuver for a better look to see what was exactly sold out and I was stopped by one of their personnel. 

"This is the exit," they said. "You go around that way to the front."

"Okay," I replied, and stepped back.

Luckily for me, someone opened that door and the full sign swung into view, so I could get a good look.

"Sold Out, Sold Out, Sold Out, Sold Out. Got it. Thanks."

So yes, I embarrassed myself by not realizing the one location was the exit (it wasn't marked as such, btw), but I got over it. The puzzle was long gone.

***

Getting out of the parking garage was an adventure in patience, as we were on the fifth floor, but after about 20 minutes or so we finally got out and on the road home.

Unlike prior years, I actually got enough sleep the night before that I wasn't konking out on the drive back home. And believe me, that's a pretty rare event for me at Gen Con.

The crowd was significantly larger this year at Gen Con than last year, and today I saw the press release that over 70,000 attendees were at the con, up from 50,000 the year before. That explains the crowds and sweat and gamer funk in spots. 

As I told my son and his SO on the drive back, "Next year we're getting our badges early enough so that we don't have to stand in Will Call." That does have the additional advantage of being able to relax a bit before the Main Hall opened at 10 AM. And believe me, not standing in line for an hour does have its advantages. 

We did miss my sister-in-law's husband this year, as he was unable to attend due to a family matter. And hopefully, next year we won't have all sorts of money tied up with car repairs. (Or anything else, for that matter.)

#Blaugust2023

*This year it was the cars. All three cars required hefty repairs over the past 12 months, and 2 of them required major repairs in the past 2 months. And two weeks before the con, the A/C on the oldest car started misbehaving, so I know that I have to get that fixed this week. Oh yay.

**Woo, YottaQuest!

***For reference, Greg was able to see the current edition of Runequest's core rulebook out in print before he died, so at least he had that.

EtA: Clarified that I was talking about the Dune novels, not "books", as that could be construed to mean RPG books.

EtA: Added the #Blaugust2023 identifiers.