Last weekend was GaryCon, in beautiful Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where it all began. If you’ve never been to this con, I cannot recommend it highly enough. There are thousands of gamers, artists, and vendors, all there to pay homage to Gary Gygax, the co-inventor of Dungeons & Dragons. Also in attendance are dozens of luminaries from the early days of the hobby and TSR, most of whom are happy to chat, sign autographs, and receive free drinks at the bar in the evening.

I arrived Wednesday evening after a 13 hour drive from New Jersey, all done in a single shot. Since I brought both the regular batch of BRW Games books and a large selection of non-BRW products, including wargame titles from Decision Games and board games from Steve Jackson Games, I opted for a different setup for the booth:

The wargames turned out to be a huge success. By 11:00 on Thursday, they were almost all gone, and by 2:00 the last two were sold. Bringing them was an experiment; I wasn’t sure if they would sell at all. Experiment successful! I’ll be bringing a lot more of them next year, and to other cons as well. Overall, things went exceedingly well. A lot of people heard the Good Word of Adventures Dark and Deep, and I actually ran out of Castle of the Mad Archmage, and had to take orders (all of which have been submitted, by the way). The emails with the links for PDF versions of the books that people bought went out this morning.

There are actually four dealers’ rooms; the main one (where I was), an annex (which was under-advertised at first, but more signage was added and things apparently turned up), a room exclusively for Hackmaster, and an artists’ alley. Whew!

On the whole, this was a spectacular con, and I’m happy to be coming back next year. And now, more photos of the dealers and a few bits of gaming:

BRW Games had a booth at this past weekend’s Totalcon convention for the first time. We came prepared with the old standards – Adventures Dark and Deep and Castle of the Mad Archmage – and plenty of the latest books, but also had a large supply of old-school Steve Jackson Games board game titles like Ogre, Ogre Miniatures, and Car Wars.

I’m happy to report that the con was a success on all fronts. The convention itself is an amazing experience, with tons of board and RPG games happening, a vibrant dealer’s room and exhibitors hall, and a terrific staff that were more than happy and able to smooth over any rough patches and answer any questions. It’s billed as New England’s largest gaming convention, and I certainly believe it, with more than a thousand passes sold. Our own offerings were very well-received, and I’m pleased to say that many friends were made both in and out of the vendor room.

It was also good to see old friends like the Frog Gods, Jeffrey Talanian, Erik Tenkar, and many, many others. Although I need to rethink my “close the bar the first night you get there” strategy. Ahem. Although I did find a new brand of mead (Groennfell Meadery) that produces several flavors of excellent mead in cans!

I cannot recommend this convention highly enough. If you’re anywhere in range of Massachusetts, do yourself the favor and try to make it.