Modern Cons?  Hell no.

  It makes me feel better I decided to go back in 2016.  I always wondered what Gen Con would be like since reading about it in Dragon Magazine in 1981.  I enjoyed it to a degree, but I do not know that I could enjoy it in the modern iteration of present day problems.    I also think I needed about a quarter or less of a con to go to as my first con.

I often think a move back to smaller, gaming specific cons would be good.  Too many comic cons and the like just drown out the gaming.

Anyhow, if I could, I'd like to go to a good science fiction convention in, maybe, 1965, pre Star Trek anyhow.  Listen to Asimov, Hienlein, Clarke, Niven, and others talk.   A Gen Con in, maybe 1983 or so would be good too.

What is it about modern conventions that is so despicable? I can think of some answers, but I am curious as to what it is that you refer.

Quote from: Trinculoisdead on February 08, 2022, 01:19:39 AM
What is it about modern conventions that is so despicable? I can think of some answers, but I am curious as to what it is that you refer.

Greetings!

Well, like in the other thread about conventions, Gary Con discussing their new requirements and procedures--hand sanitizer everywhere, vaccines required, and everyone required to wear masks. And of course, all gaming spaces are suitably "socially distanced" and reduced in gamer attendance for extra special safety precautions.

Why don't I just fucking wear my NBC gear from the military, and be sure to wear my military-issue gas mask?

Just cancel the fucking game conventions and have them again when these morons are replaced by people that want to be normal and not act like a bunch of pussy tyrant sheep.

That's what is disgusting about modern conventions, for starters.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on February 08, 2022, 01:37:09 AM
pussy tyrant sheep

I almost want to see this as an entry in a monster manual. Almost.

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 08, 2022, 01:42:53 AM

Quote from: SHARK on February 08, 2022, 01:37:09 AM
pussy tyrant sheep

I almost want to see this as an entry in a monster manual. Almost.

Or a movie.

Mad scientist in Jurassic World 5: After the disastrously independent Indominus rex went rogue and led a raptor uprising, we have combined the DNA of the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex with a more compliant species, the domestic sheep. Meet the Ovityrannus rex!

<mad scientist waves grandly as the tarp falls from a giant cage, revealing the dinosaur hybrid>

<the onlookers gasp>

Onlooker 1: You made a... woolly tyrannosaur?

<as the mad scientist grins madly, the Ovityrannus rex strikes a dramatic pose and emits a sound that's a combination of Godzilla's roar, and a sheep bleating>

Quote from: Pat on February 08, 2022, 02:41:27 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 08, 2022, 01:42:53 AM

Quote from: SHARK on February 08, 2022, 01:37:09 AM
pussy tyrant sheep

I almost want to see this as an entry in a monster manual. Almost.

Or a movie.

Mad scientist in Jurassic World 5: After the disastrously independent Indominus rex went rogue and led a raptor uprising, we have combined the DNA of the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex with a more compliant species, the domestic sheep. Meet the Ovityrannus aries!

<mad scientist waves grandly as the tarp falls from a giant cage, revealing the dinosaur hybrid>

<the onlookers gasp>

Onlooker 1: You made a... woolly tyrannosaur?

<as the mad scientist grins madly, the Ovityrannus aries strikes a dramatic pose and emits a sound that's a combination of Godzilla's roar, and a sheep bleating>

Okay... so, don't judge me too hard. I actually basically did this in my last campaign. Players were in a wilderness that grew over and around a long abandoned high tech city. They keep hearing strange roars in the distance. Finally, they came across a huge footprint with tufts of wool, but were spaced as if it stood on two legs. I let them know that this was the territory of a Llamasaurus Rex. They noped out of there.

Incidentally they eventually fought a shadow magic infused Llamasaurus Rex and, earlier, a pack of Llamasaurus (llama-raptor hybrids).

Quote from: Pat on February 08, 2022, 02:41:27 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 08, 2022, 01:42:53 AM

Quote from: SHARK on February 08, 2022, 01:37:09 AM
pussy tyrant sheep

I almost want to see this as an entry in a monster manual. Almost.

Or a movie.

Mad scientist in Jurassic World 5: After the disastrously independent Indominus rex went rogue and led a raptor uprising, we have combined the DNA of the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex with a more compliant species, the domestic sheep. Meet the Ovityrannus rex!

<mad scientist waves grandly as the tarp falls from a giant cage, revealing the dinosaur hybrid>

<the onlookers gasp>

Onlooker 1: You made a... woolly tyrannosaur?

<as the mad scientist grins madly, the Ovityrannus rex strikes a dramatic pose and emits a sound that's a combination of Godzilla's roar, and a sheep bleating>

Greetings!

*Roaring* *Laughing* Oh, geesus. I about choked on my coffee, with your scene there, Pat!

Well, I get worked up at some of this shit and it makes me say some creative things. *Laughing* Probably more nonsense, but that's ok.

Pussy Tyrant Sheep!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

On the original topic,

I went to my first gaming con in 1985 - Origins XI in Baltimore, and then again to Origins XII in 1987 in Columbus. It's a bit hard to compare since I was only 15 and 17 at the time, but I remember a fair bit of it. I didn't go through my 20s, but I started going again in the early 2000s - including Gen Con but mostly local conventions.

I'll be going to DunDraCon in two weeks. I feel like most of the convention experience is largely the same.

There are differences, of course. There's a wider variety of systems now, which I think is good. DunDraCon has a bunch of AD&D and DCC events, but also a lot of more modern events. In the 80s, there were a lot more of tournament dungeons where groups got points for different goals. That's gone out of style, which I think is fine. Dungeons are challenging, but it's hard for them to be objectively competitive between different groups, because RPGs are inherently open-ended.

I think that there are the foundations of legendary conventions happening NOW.

Locally, and mainly miniatures - but I will be running Classic Traveller on the days I am off work.
http://rockytopgamecon.com/

Venger Con looks like it will be great, although I still don't know if I will be able to attend. I'm trying, though.
https://tabletop.events/conventions/venger-con-2022

It isn't that yesteryear is long gone and should be bemoaned, it is that not enough people have told the "pussy tyrant sheep" to fuck off and start their own thing. You aren't going to do GenCon II - Electric Boogaloo immediately, but a local game day can become a small con can be grown further if people want to.

Here, have an article about small cons and some considerations.
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/small-but-mighty-how-local-cons-are-made?fbclid=IwAR34OtP1D4eXPnqvRBlds-vTVxmpc8TuJKhjLcpG3xmOi8fSuJxp7vHt6Ak

I've never really been into them myself. The only thing I liked about them was buying stuff (and the booze after). I actually don't really like playing one-shots (in general).

That said if a con was being run by small indie creators (a bit like Venger is doing) then they'd be a lot more appealing for me.

I think the way forward, is this type of indie-con where like-minded gamers gather and just have fun gaming and chatting. But without all these silly baby rules.

I went to a bunch of local cons during the 80s. They were great. This was before the internet so it was one of the few places that you could talk to other gamers about gaming. Especially people that played different games or with different play styles. So there was more of a sense of comradery amongst the people.

By the mid 90s the atmosphere had changed. RPGing was more established and commercial but, also, gamers had self segregated into several groups: D&D purists, NO D&D EVER types, AD&D-only, etc. But the biggest change was the emphasis on cosplaying which brought in a whole new crowd that weren't really gamers.

Ahh... the 80's Cons were glorious.

I did the big three LA Strategicon Conventions - OrcCon, Gamex, and Gateway. Back then, if you showed up to the Con, you *really* felt you were among your own kind. The Satanic Panic was very much a "thing" - yet here are a couple of thousand (by the end of the 80's OrcCon was busting out 10k+) fellow gaming cultists letting their nerdery fly. And it was truly amazing.

All these old hoary wargamers with their boxes of shit, taking up an entire ballroom where their entire goal was to simulate the entirety of WWII via major engagements over the course of the long weekend. Cosplay! The first cosplayers in their janky-ass Ren-faire outfits (some were actually legit).

And all the gaming! Everyone talking shop, sharing house rules, showing off new games, swag. It was exciting.

I remember it feeling like going to a Vegas casino OFF the strip, but instead of gambling, it was nothing but TTRPG's and Wargaming. And you'd get to meet the occasional TSR rockstar, it was quite impressionable for me, especially considering in my "civilian" life I had NOTHING in common with the vast majority of these dorks, but I felt super-united in the fact we played D&D.

Every con there was always people talking about the hype of the next "big thing" which since this was pre-Web, unless you ran on BBS's you often didn't know what that "thing" was until you got there. Or more often it was something you read about in Dragon magazine. You'd start seeing the first computer-gaming Play-by-Mail stuff - DuelMasters (now called Duel2) was huge. Because you could play your turns inbetween gaming sessions (it took hours to process and they'd post results). I don't think I slept more than 2-hrs over the course of four days.

After my first Con (1984) I was like - pff! I can do this. So I immediately started writing my own Con adventures and signed up to GM and never looked back. I received a *massive* amount of exposure to other games, ideas, and even the nascent industry itself. I never felt particularly connected to other gamers, mainly because my primary contact was with other FLGS locals that I ran into - and they were way too dorky for me hang out with socially (we're talking real cellar-dwellers by my idiot-teen standards of cool). But that first Con knocked me of my high-horse for sure. That Con really showed me how diverse the LA gamers were... and how far and wide it went.

One of my favorite memories I've mentioned before, and I swear to fucking Galactus, I know there is a pic of this somewhere, because my friend took it, and I later saw it in a print publication (it might have been Polyhedron! or maybe some Strategicon thing) - anyhow, this was around 1988, and I was pumped, I show up with my crew, and I remember it was really loud. I was lugging a dive-bag full of books (I swear it must have weighed 80lbs) and wanted to get set up as I was running a 4-day tournament adventure, and we were standing there for a moment taking it all in.

It was in front of the ballroom adjacent to the Free-gaming area (which was three-ballrooms jam-packed with people... oh the smell! Books and Body Odor!) and the ballroom next to us was filled with Wargamers. I hear this voice behind us boom in a HORRIBLE German accent "Oh my! It looks like the Allies have taken over!"

We turn around and there is this older black guy, in full Nazi Officer regalia with a big-ass afro (which alone was crazy as this was the era of the high-top fade and jheri-curls - no one had straight-up afros). I remember all of us dying laughing, we were like DAAAAAAMNN! But here's the thing... That look on that guy's face was one of pure utter delight. Here we were, sharing in this moment that could only have happened right there and right then. He wasn't even a TTRPG player - he was a fucking wargamer, but goddamit that juxtaposition of a middle-age black guy, in LA, in full Nazi-gear, and simply letting it fly with wild-abandon, I remember thinking "That's pretty awesome." I felt like, this must be some kind of watermark for how gamers didn't give a *fuuuuuck* about anything but having fun doing *our* thing - no matter what that "thing" was.

Today? dude... I would pay to see that shit happen.

I have so many good memories of early-80's to mid-90's conventions, a lot of bad ones, but they're nothing compared to the good ones. But I also think I was just lucky that I was in a place where the scene was just starting to become a "thing" - and I had no frame of perspective. When I came out to Dallas - I immediately went to the first Con out here A-Kon, and this was around 1996, and there was no real RPG organization, A-kon back then was TINY, and mostly anime. And I had been running tournaments and doing coordination back in LA, so remember talking to the A-Kon staff and they, at the time, didn't know shit about TTRPG's. They had a "free gaming area" that consisted of a couple of hotel-rooms... It was LAAAAAAME. They offered for me to organize things, but frankly I was too busy with real-life.

Now? With all the woke nonsense you couldn't pay me to go. Though if Vengercon goes another year, I think I may make the journey up there (can't this year), and I'll drink some beer and whiskey with you guys. We'll see if we can bring back some of the ol' time magic.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 07, 2022, 11:09:47 PM
  It makes me feel better I decided to go back in 2016.  I always wondered what Gen Con would be like since reading about it in Dragon Magazine in 1981.  I enjoyed it to a degree, but I do not know that I could enjoy it in the modern iteration of present day problems.    I also think I needed about a quarter or less of a con to go to as my first con.

I went to Gen con every year back in the 90s. The last was in 2001. Not sure what it is like now but back then it was huge. I spent half my time just wandering the dealers area. Tons of stuff to see and do.

Smaller cons are definitely less of a hassle to manage your time. But sometimes there can be less to actually see and do during the con due to whatever factors. But I think that is an issue only for the really small cons of which I've only been to like 2 or 3. 1 being a college run anime con. The other two being these odd little dealer cons that used to pop up in malls. Not sure they count as cons but they had that same sort of feel. Maybe they are expos or something. Still fun and where I got this weird green 8-sided natural crystal.