I had a blast at Gary Con 14.

Listen to the companion podcast here.

Wednesday

I arrived Wednesday about lunchtime and went to The Pub Next Door and had one of the lunch specials – spaghetti.

I then made a Walmart run for a couple things I forgot before checking in.

My room was about as close as you can get to the lobby. I was on the building closest to the lobby on the Gary Con HQ side of things. My room was the first room next to the stairwell. I was on the top floor, the third floor.

The landing at the top of the stairs has a group of gamers that set up for the entire weekend. A group of AD&D players and they had a long game that was a continuation of prior years that they’ve come to Gary Con. I never heard them. This made it easy to just head back to my room to drop off stuff or get stuff if I wasn’t too far away.

I then went to see what was what and met up a few friends in the lounge and we then headed to the registration for badge pick up. We got there and the line was already long. We had to wait about ten minutes for the registration to open. It took close to an hour to snake around to the registration window.

While waiting I discovered that I was right behind a friend – hard to recognize with masks on and we caught up. I saw a few others ahead of me in line and said a quick hello.

Wednesday is the weekly OSE game I play in. This is campaign two and it was Session 87, I have made every session. I also played in the first campaign that was about 245 sessions. I never missed a session of that campaign and played a couple times on Wednesday night at Gary Con, and once they moved the game to Tuesday just because, so I wouldn’t have to play from the convention.

After the game, I went to the lounge and got in more visiting before turning in.

Thursday

I had a 9 am three hour slot. For Gary Con 12 – the first one to be affected by Covid, I signed up for all wargames and board games, as I wanted to get those in. I got into every game I wanted. Alas, it wasn’t to be.

I tried to repeat that this year, but there were not as many wargames, and the ones I wanted in were already full. I did find a board game, Diplomacy. We had a full roster of seven players. Five players, including myself had never played before. The guy running the game played Italy, and the other experienced player had Russia. I had Germany, and the other novices had England, France, Austria, and Turkey. Each of the other newbies were college buddies.

The game is set in 1900 Europe and the idea is to use negotiation and deceit to grow one’s empire.

The only random element is determining who plays what country to start. For the rest of the game, the players talk among themselves, either as individuals or groups to discuss plans. We had a blast making alliances then stabbing each other in the back.

As Germany, I knew I was surrounded. The other novices decided we should gang up on the experienced players. So we hammered Russia and nearly knocked it off the board. Then we focused on Italy. Austria was wiped off the map.

Being surrounded, I had an initial alliance with Russia, but quickly took Warsaw, a control center. Having control centers determines how many units one can have on a one for one basis.

I also took Denmark and the Netherlands and made an agreement that I got the Netherlands and they got Belgium. I then mostly sat in place to hold my control centers. I did a bit of movement to the south to keep Italy off my territory.

It was only a three hour slot due to a mistake in scheduling so we only had time for four or five turns. At the end of each turn we’d write down our moves. Once all were turned in, the guy running the game would go through them and adjudicate them. Some moves couldn’t be adjudicated until other player’s moves were considered.

The last couple of turns are when I backstabbed Italy, when we all ganged up, and then I backstabbed France and took Belgium. England made an alliance with me to break our alliance with France.

We then ran out of time and when the score was tallied, I actually won! I wasn’t expecting to win. My use of a strategy to avoid a two front war is what saved me.

Diplomacy can never be the same game twice, even if you play with the same players and each end up with the same country.

We had the right mix of players and had a great time. I can see where people who take it too seriously could end up with hurt feelings.

Diplomacy was published in the 1959, so it is older than I am. Dave, Gary, and most of the old guard played Diplomacy both in person and by mail. I see how it influenced the emergence of roleplaying. If you’ve never played, this is something you should try.

WOTC still sells Diplomacy and you can get a PDF of the rules from their website. Since you can get the rules for free, you can use any map. You just need tokens for armies, navies, and territory markers. You’d have to add control points to the map. The Risk Board could work, or a fantasy map, or a map of your own design.

---

In the afternoon, I had lunch, then I took a nap, then I visited with friends and took a quick tour of the vendor hall and ran into a few more friends.

I ran into Yolanda Frontenay, owner of Gary’s old house where he wrote original D&D. See my prior post about the Indiegogo Campaign and the immediate need to take out two trees.

I then dressed up as my character Griswald, the namesake of “Follow Me, And Die!” for the wedding of Satine Phoenix & Jameson Stone. Griswald is the fellow with the raised sword and wolf’s head shield with red eyes that is my social media avatar by Satine. She recognized what I was dressed as.

It was a fun ceremony. There was a vinyl game mat for guests to sign and a stack of various creatures from Figurines of Adorable Power for prty gifts for the guests.

After the ceremony, Satine and Jameson had their picture taken with the wedding party and then the guests. They had two instant copies of each photo. One for the couple immediately placed in a photo album and each guest in the photo signed it. The guests then got a copy of the same photo.

We then had much talking among fellow guests until things wound down late in the evening.

Friday

From 8 am til Noon I played in “Skull Stack Crater” a Holmes Basic scenario by Zach Howard of Zenopus Archives. I played a lizardfolk warrior. We were all third level, the halfling thief was fourth level.

The mix of experienced players easily got through some obstacles. I played my character as a fearless warrior who would gladly go first. I think I had the most hit points.

It was a fun adventure.

I played in Zach’s Return to the Tower of Zenopus at Gary Con 11, the last in person con til now. One of the other players was in that same game and we remembered each other.

I then went to a seminar by Jameson Stone, Indie TTRPG Publishing & Kickstarter. He and those attending the seminar mentioned several helpful things for those doing Kickstarter or other crowdsourced fundraising. He mentioned several things I had not heard or read before in all my reading.

I then took another nap. I live in the Eastern time zone, so I keep waking up as if it is 7 am, when it is 6 am Central. That made for long days. I also hadn’t slept well the prior days.

After supper I attended GM Tips by Satine. I’ve been to several GM Tips presented by Satine, most recently at Gamehole Con last October. She always has something new to say.

The main thing is that there is no one size fits all answer anymore. There are three possible applications: live games, online games, and streamed games. Each of them is different, so the answers for the same question is different for each. Very insightful and something to think about.

After Satine’s seminar I had a brief moment to tell her something I didn’t get to tell her after her wedding. Then we got our annual Gary Con picture. She and Jameson would fly to England for D&D in a Castle the next day, so it was a whirlwind for them.

I then visited with friends in the lounge.

The next day, I didn’t have anything until 11 am so I was planning to sleep in.

Saturday

NARRATOR: “Despite his good intentions, he did not, in fact sleep in. He awoke at the same early hour as every previous morning. He realized this as he looked bleary eyed at his watch.”

At 11 am I had the two hour screening of the documentary, “The Dreams in Gary’s Basement” by Pat Kilbane. I saw a teaser of this at my first Gary Con – Gary Con 8. That was also the first Gary Con for both Satine and I and we kept ending up in the same seminars, and we became Gary Con buddies.

After the screening I bought Pat lunch so we could catch up. We met up with Dave Wesley and he joined us and regaled us with stories of his father’s WWII service. Near the end of that Grif Morgan of the Secrets of Blackmoor documentary joined us.

I then took another nap.

On my way to get supper I talked with a table of younger gamers who liked my denim vest. (I got a LOT of complements about my sleeveless denim jacket with various pins and buttons, and a Death Dealer patch on the back.)

I got the three of them to play my card game. It was the first playtest I got in.

I then ran into Zach Howard and we got to talking about Holmes Basic. Pat Kilbane walked by and the three of us talked about how Holmes Basic was the first D&D for each of us.

I looked down at the desk with Gary’s books on it and realized that one of the books is the Penguin Atlas of Medieval History. I still have that book from college. I can’t find it to get a comparison picture.

I made another trip to the vendor hall. I missed the presentation of the Gary Con Lifetime Achievement Award, but figured out that it was Lou Zocchi of Game Science, when I saw the award at his booth.

I bought a 5 die set from Lou. I think that’s my fifth set of Game Science dice.

I bought a new dice bag from another vendor.

Next I bought a set of dice from Role 4 Initiative. I didn’t realize that they were a Michigan based company. They are in Portage, MI about 15 minutes from where I live. They are all online sales since they don’t have a storefront.

An online friend gave me a 3-D printed mini of Gary Gygax. He said that there were ten around the convention free to whoever found them. He had two.

I then spent the evening in the lounge visiting. I tried and failed to get any pick up games to try my card game.

Sunday

I sat at a table in the restaurant near the table where Todd Stashwick was having breakfast with someone. When his friend departed someone else walked up about the time I was finished. Todd mentioned he grew up near Lake Geneva (Chicago). I then struck up a conversation with him about old games, like D&D 1e. This was his first Gary Con. He then gave me a card with a Spotify bar code for his gaming/travel playlist. It’s a bunch of songs from late 70s & early 80s and got me all the way home with playlist to spare. He honored me by following me on Instagram.

I managed to get in two playtests with two new players and one of the players from Saturday’s card game.

I then did a playtest of the original deck and the alternate deck. I was glad to learn that the never before played alternate deck was not broken. I did find some phrasing that was wrong, and I used the wrong term on a card that didn’t match the correct term.

I had comments that the art is perfect and that they would have bought the game if it were for sale.

I think this means that I’m finally ready to put together the final deck. I’m not the one to do layout. I can make it look good enough for a playtest, but I need a layout person who knows cards. If you know someone who won’t cost me an arm and a leg, let me know.

I got in a great visit with Steve Winter and we talked about all kinds of things and other gamers joined in.

I talked to someone else and they went to follow me on Twitter and found out they were already following me.

On previous days of the con, I had several tell me that they read the blog, or follow me on Twitter. I met someone at the lounge bar Saturday night and they said that several people said that he needed to read my blog. That is always a cool ego boost.

About 3 pm, I found myself reluctantly ready to head home. I couldn’t afford it, but I could really use another week or two like that. I found my mood lifted, the drudgery induced by Covid isolation eradicated. My spirits were lightened and my creativity renewed. The drive home was easy and not too big of a pain. There weren’t too many drivers that were scary.

I made it home safe and after I unpacked I scripted and recorded, edited, and posted episode 199 of my podcast.

I have ideas ready to flow for more blog posts, podcasts, and more. I don’t have the time or energy to get them done as quickly as I want, but I’m pressing ahead as quick as I can.

For those of you who were at Gary Con and we didn’t connect, I’m sorry we missed each other. For those new people I met, it was wonderful to meet you. For all my friends who I did get to see, it was awesome catching up! I hope to see both those I didn’t encounter and those who couldn’t make it next year, or at Gamehole Con or UCon later this year.

My only negative is that one evening I left my black zippered hoody with my logo and “Follow Me, And Die!” in red letters. I reported it and gave regular updates via Twitter. No one turned it in. I hope whoever has it was able to keep warm and that they get a lot of use out of it.

GAME ON!