by waxbottle

And what better way to make memories than to buy a game from waxbottle!

Sunday Special: First person to BIN one of my remaining items today gets a free copy of Tacta.

by iamrubocop

An item RPG Item: Player's Handbook (2024) has been added to the geeklist iamrubocop's PBF Characters

by Mundane

Related Item: Too Many Games!!!

I was lucky and got events I really wanted including your Fed Commander game. I decided to skip the Thursday morning madness of the exhibit hall. Playing two games of Star Trek Ascendancy. Trying out Kinfire Chronicles too.

by Sean Johnson

Today was the day of Gen Con event registration. My initial placement in the line was in the 14,000's so not great. However, with a couple of notable exceptions I got my first choice for most of the event time slots I was going for so I am not going to complain. My approach to Gen Con is built around events, so I have a decent idea what Gen Con will be like for me come the end of July. Of course, there are almost always a change of plans or two so it is possible that this is not what actually happens. For now though, here are the plans I have a lot of excitement for.

Wednesday
There are always a small number of events on Wednesday, and they are always free so they go quickly. I added several hoping for the best, and I was pleasantly surprised that I got a couple of them. In the late afternoon I will get to learn how to playDice Throne which is great because I have been curious about this game for a while. Then in the evening I will get to play Dawn Patrol: Role Playing Game of WW I Air Combat . This hex and counter dogfighting game is the only game that has been played at every single Gen Con. This will actually be my third time to play the game, every time it has been on the Wednesday of Gen Con. The game is fun enough, but I like participating in something that has been happening since the beginning.

Thursday
It is my tradition to start Thursday morning of Gen Con by running a game of Federation Commander, and I will be doing that again this year. One of the things that is neat is that I recognize some of the names of the people who got tickets, so I know they have played with me in previous years. This year I will be in charge of a Romulan star base while all of the players will be Gorn commanders who have been tasked with capturing the base or destroying it.

After Federation Commander there will be time for me to look at new releases in the main exhibition hall, but then in the afternoon I have a ticket to play Molly House. . Just a few days ago I wrote a blog post of the games from 2025 that I have not played but most want to play and Molly House was at the top of the list. I am looking forward to experiencing it and checking it off the list.

On Thursday evening my event has quite the long title. It is: Tower of Gygarn - Battle Royale Highlander (D&D Fortnite). It is an attempt to use D&D mechanisms to deliver a Fortnite style, battle royale experience. It sounds crazy, and I have no idea how it is going to work but this is the kind of thing that can only be experienced at someplace like Gen Con.

Friday
I did not get my first choice for events on Friday morning, but that is OK because I got my second choice: Star wars Podracing. This event is being run every day, but each day has a different track. On Friday the track is Malastere, and as Qui-Gon Jinn told Anakin in Episode I the podracing on Malastere is "very fast, very dangerous."

After podracing I will have a little bit more time to wander the hall, before a Friday afternoon event of Battlestations: Second Edition. I love this game, but I only get to experience it with a full complement of players at Gen Con so I try to play in a Battlestations event most years. This year I skipped the spectacle of the Giant Battlestations for one with a smaller group on the regular boards.

Friday evening my plan is to run Starship Adventures. In the Fall of last year I played a one-shot for a game that used the Mork-borg system and I enjoyed it. I like the Star Trek adjacent theme of this game so I got it with the intended purpose of playing it at Gen Con this year. Because all tickets for the event were purchased at the same time, it means they were likely bought by a group that knows each other. This could make for an extra fun game as the players will already have familiarity with each other. However, there is a risk because if they decide to skip that means no one is showing up.

Saturday
A lot of people must be planning on playing in events on Saturday morning, because I had five different events for that time on my wishlist, and I did not get any of them. I had to go back through what was left and find something. Fortunately, there were thousands of events so it was not like I was lacking choices. I landed on Port Royal: An Adventure Skirmish Miniatures Game set in the Searover's Caribbean. This means that Saturday morning is my miniatures day because I will go straight from that game into a scenario that is powered by Techno-Fantasy Adventure: 2nd Edition. This scenario is set on a hijacked mag-train. It sounds exciting and I am really looking forward to the set piece terrain that will be used for this.

On Saturday afternoon I am running my last event which is Zombie World. My brother kindly gave me this Zombie RPG last year, and I am looking forward to finally getting to run it. I leave roleplaying to go back to miniatures games and I will play Halo: Flashpoint. This is a survival event, where each person controls one Spartan instead of a team. I have enjoyed playing Halo: Flashpoint, and I am looking forward to playing it with more people. I am going to end Saturday night by playing Cult of the Deep. This is a social deduction game that uses a dice rolling mechanism. I really do not know much about it, but I am always willing to try a new social deduction game.

Sunday
Given how far back we were in the line at first, I was most worried about events for Sunday. On Sunday my family will be joining me so we needed four tickets for everything. Luckily, we got everything we really wanted to do. We are going to start off fairly active in the morning, jumping from one even to another. Fortunately, I was smart enough to check their locations before adding them to the wishlist and they are all fairly close together.

We are going to start off by playing Thunder Road: Ignition. We played Thunder Road Vendetta last November and we had a blast, but my daughter did think it was a little long. I think this version will be more her speed. After that we are gong to try Earth Express. Earth is one of my wife's favorite games so we are playing this so she can experience the game's new, quicker playing version. Then our final event is playing Finspan with the new expansion. Finspan is our favorite of the spans, so it will be fun to try it with new cards. From there we will play Slam Throne as a bowling variant. My understanding of the event is that this is basically pogs with bowling scoring. This sounds like something my kids especially will have a lot of fun with.

My kids really like to be in the main exhibition hall when they make the closing announcement at 4:00 PM on Sunday so we will spend the last few hours of Gen Con in the main hall.

So those are my Gen Con plans. Did you register for events today? Did you get what you wanted? What are you most hyped for?

by l_c_jackson

For my second scenario I pitted well trained Wolf-wizards (Traveller Varg) against 20th century firearms. It was a bloodbath, as the wizards were mown down before they could get close enough to cast spells.

by GrimoireOfJank

Healer.

by Rediquette

A note about something nice that happened this week:

A friend had wanted a game that someone posted somewhere that "mysteriously disappeared" which legit sucked. However, this time not only was the friend able to spot it, but we got to play it this week. It brought our gaming group of friends joy.

While everything is not expected to be perfect here, I hope that folks will be mindful of how this might not be a big deal to some, but it's a place where many of us are seeking to find those types of soft pieces of joy with friends who are excited about playing these games with us. Because yes, they are games & this is meant to be a good place where we can ideally help to get there a little bit cheaper, but regardless, many of us are wanting to have those good memories & experiences with our friends- new & already connected- to share. In this timeline especially, I hope that folks will remember that.

But like yeah, thanks to the folks like the one my friend was able to get the game from pre-VFM & to the ones I have bought from & am going to be buying from who are contributing to the good memories. You're appreciated.

by Brass Jester

Related Item: Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022

I think ity played through ok and has added to the story.
The +2 on Success doesn't quite avoid the chance of death but does reduce it, No matter, it worked out okay.
Actually, the original PLAN had two Consequence tables; one for Success, one for Failure. I have been toying with going back to this approach.

by wildthayne

Related Item: Alice is Missing

That sounds like something that would take you sixteen minutes to whip out.

by troacctid

An item GeekList: 2026 Challenge: 26 un(der)played in 26 has been added to the geeklist 2026 Challenge: 26 un(der)played in 26

by edbolme

Related Item: Alice is Missing

Silhouette of Alice at the far left, mostly pale pink background blending toward red at the LRH corner.

by crazybirdman

If it's a one shot, or a larger group of PCs, I'll gladly make a glass cannon, or all charisma face.