Figures of Text

Next tuesday, I’m off to England for three weeks, two of which will be spent communing with the Mongoose mothership in sunny delightful fascinating singular Swindon. For much of the rest of the time, though, I’ll be at GenCon UK. I’ll admit to being rather apprehensive about it – in my past experience, GenCon UK’s not even a pale shadow of the US show (and that’s a whole other post in itself). It’s too big to be a nice friendly local con, and not big enough to be really impressive. The last few times I’ve been have there haven’t rated highly compared to other cons, and that’s probably because the con has fallen off the circuit of events attended by friends of mine. At Gaelcon or Warpcon or Conpulsion, I’ll have to fight to find time to talk to everyone I want to see. At GenCon, I fear that I’ll be wandering around a lot.

There are two ways the convention could redeem itself. Firstly, there might actually be some fun games. I’m supposed to be demoing Traveller and Babylon 5 at some point, and I’m looking forward to getting in some play experience with the new D&D. I may even play some Magic or a board game.

Secondly, there’s a chance that delichan might be coming along for part of the con, which raises the stakes for GenCon UK considerably. It’s one thing to fail to impress me – I’m a jaded old con-goer – but if she makes it there, it will be her first exposure to a convention. Previous GenCons UK have been less than ideal as an introduction to organised gaming, but maybe a new venue and a gap of a few years can revitalise the GenCon experience.

At least it’s not Butlins.

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