Gen Con 2023

At Gen Con Indy again this year. Buck, Dave, James, Karen, Lou, Nick, Rob, and I were back, and Dave's friend Brandon joined us. We also linked up again with our favorite gamemaster, Zac, who ran a special Call of Cthulu game for us.

At the Fountain Room for Wednesday night dinner.

We played our normal official D&D - Dragonlance this year. We also got to play the second game in the Call of Cthulu side game that Lou ran for us last year, and Zac's game. The pics are Call of Cthulu with Zac and Dragonlance with our DM Dave.

Thunder Road: Vendetta is one of the big new games this year; playing it here with Lou, Buck, and Rob. Think Mad Max: Fury Road.

The exhibit hall.

A few goodies from the exhibit hall. The most interesting is the ginormous Judges Guild retrospective book, which presents some of their typewritten adventures and newsletters from the day in grand fashion.

ATW Con

In February some of our Gen Con crowd went to the Outer Banks for a long weekend of gaming at Buck's place, "OBX Con." I moved home to Wisconsin this year, so we also decided to do an "ATW Con" at the new Chateau Strelow in Appleton. James, Karen, Nick, and Rob came.

Here are Nick, Rob, and James playing D&D.

For board games, Return to Dark Tower and Dune Imperium were the main events, but to wind down in the evenings we also played a lot of Star Realms, Jabba's Palace, Bang! The Dice Game, and Liar's Dice.

We also played a lot of D&D. Nick ran 1.5 days of his Roman-inspired homebrew campaign in the Scélan empire. Here's his nice map of the party's home base town, Mare Nostrum.

I also ran a D&D one-shot, Gregor the Naturalist's Marvelous Wunderfauna Arkiv, in my homebrew world, Hollin.

Our meetings always include some wining and dining, and we learned the hard way that Appleton restaurants close pretty early after covid. We did several Appleton standbys like Good Company and Mary's Diner, but our big discovery was Mai's Deli and their stuffed grilled chicken wings. Here's our lunch at Thai Ginger Bistro.

Salman Rushdie

Sending out best wishes to Salman Rushdie, reading the Satanic Verses.

Gen Con 2022

Went to Gen Con 2022, this year with the whole crew - Buck, Dave, James, Karen, Lou, Nick, and Rob. Our old college buddy Terry was there and we also got to meet up with Zac, our favorite DM from previous years.

We came into Indianapolis one day early and Lou ran a Call of Cthulu side game for us. He suprised us with characters that were 1920's investigator versions of ourselves.

We got in a lot of D&D - too much. My long-time character Aleister reached the max level (20), although as my friends will attest, it wasn't all smooth sailing.

The exhibit hall and a play hall. I was able to pick up the new big game this year, Ark Nova, and a big pile of vintage I.C.E. books.

Costumes.

Outside the convention center.

The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument a few blocks from the convention center.

EAA AirVenture 2022

Vintage.

WWII warbirds.

Modern military planes.

San Jose, CA to Appleton, WI

Yellowstone.

Little Bighorn Battlefield.

Devil's Tower.

Mount Rushmore.