Over the last few years, I've managed to keep my crazy Fall workload to a manageable level to pull off conventions visits to Fall-In! in Lancaster and Mepacon in Scranton. The fact that they've been on back-to-back weeks the last couple of years has been a boon and a bane at the same time, but at a level I can work through.
This year, I knew Mepacon wouldn't be my normal schedule for non-work reasons: my wife had already gotten hockey tickets for a family night. So, I rearranged my schedule to accommodate the normal blocks of game I run and acknowledged I would miss the raffle, auction, and the other cool stuff around 6pm Saturday night.
Then the kid's basketball schedules came out, and with the early Thanksgiving this year, the opening game on their schedules were now Saturday afternoon.
No problem, I could still go to Scranton Friday night, come back Saturday morning, run two session of My Little Ponies, and get back home just after tip off.
That was the revision of the revision of my plan. And to quote Leonard Snart:
With the details of a major project at work swinging in the breeze, my 2pm departure for the con turned to 2:20, 2:30, and at 2:45, things were completed, only to have my boss pull me into the office for a final recap on the financial impact at 3pm.
At 4:02, I snuck out of his office when an even bigger Friday afternoon blow-up occurred (completely out of my scope). By 4:38, I was on site, badge in hand, struck with the painful discovery that my only full session of My Little Pony was 4pm Friday.... and they spotted me 20 minutes at the table before bailing.
This was disheartening, but I proceeded to carry out my plan for the evening.
The usual 6pm pasta dinner, welcome reception to benefit the con's coffer, during which I would continue my prep for my Octonauts -Scavengers game. Except, while perusing some signage, the 6pm welcome reception was now FREE and in the lobby?
My desire to carbo-load for the long weekend ahead was crushed by a very nice spread of appetizers for us attendees.
Mini-potato pancakes and quiche, although very well prepared, was not going to power this motor, so I moseyed over to Subway for something heartier.
As the evening session arrived I knew normal fear of an odd game not attracting players came true (the table for the new Star Trek RPG took the evening share of non-D&D games) so I did something I don't remember doing for years.
I actually played in a Friday evening slot... as a player!
My friend George was running T1: Village of Hommlet, using Castles & Crusades.
I may have found my spirit player-character:
Einhard and eight other characters at the table (plus a fox) ran through a version of moathouse twenty years after the last group of heroes "succeeded" in clearing it out.
George runs a good game, just enough role-playing and game mat time intermixed... and I think everyone love the giant mutated three-eyed squirrels to warm the group up to combat.
The moathouse, in its classic form, is gone...
Already after midnight, I packed up, hit Chick's Diner, my usual post-con stop for bite, and headed home.
Saturday morning, I discovered both children wanted to stay home in anticipation for basketball, so I gassed up the car and headed back to Scranton, just in time for the first morning session.
Then, I traffic appeared out of nowhere.
At first I was confused by all this gridlock oozing back onto the expressway, but after seeing a pick-up towing a trailer holding Snoopy's doghouse (and the Red Baron), I was horrified to realize that the tents I saw along local businesses while I took my dinner run weren't for a sidewalk sale.
They were for the @#$^!@#$ "Santa Parade."
Thousands had converged into downtown Scranton for the annual holiday parade. The regular flow of traffic was all re-routed, so by the time I got to the traffic light to make my turn, I realized that numerous streets in that direction were outright closed. I tried to go take a more outside approach, avoiding the traffic at a dead-stop, but the three alternate routes I took were also closed. By then, the second session was nearing, and with all the family functions in the afternoon, I found a release valve out of the city to the north, got back on the highway, and headed home.
**FULL DISCLOSURE** I saw the convention provided the correct alternate route to reach the hotel (before the parade started at least), posted to Facebook just minutes prior to me arriving back home. If I had sat in the gridlock longer, I may have notice a through street**
I do remember needing to last-minute cancel a weekend over the last almost twenty years of Mepacons, but never have I double-bailed on events at the con. It was a perfect storm (and parade) that I had no time, patience, or tolerance too. The worst part for me was that my full Friday afternoon table were all my favorite regulars from previous cons, who had brought their Pony character sheets back to play them again.
So, with my limited time there:
Events: As usual plenty of events, a little light on attendance. It was also Friday, and a day after Mother Nature dropped 6-10" of snow and ice on everyone. Still saw a number of the regular faces, if I only talked to about half of them (I had a whole morning slotted for that on Saturday... or so I thought.) The recent remodel of "side rooms" was a great place to store all of the Organized Play RPG players, although the ballroom seemed very empty, even for the evening slot.
Vendors: The expanded vendor area brought in the usual crew, one blossoming game creator, some sort of a vlog, and an expanded list of "side-geek/geek chic" vendor selling Harry Potter, Star Wars, and other paraphernalia, and the newest trend in geeks: laser-cut wood projects (mdf too). Alas, I didn't spend a dime on any non-cupcake.... I had a minor shopping list for Saturday, but it was nothing I couldn't drive to the vendor's physical location on Saturday and pick-up if it was still there.
I did get one small gift from the con's founder and recently retired director, Ed:
Don't know when I'll be running gnomes again at a local con, but it's nice to be known for something other than the cranky old Grognard who was at all the predecessor conventions to Mepacon.
Auction: I don't think moving away from the "everything starts at a buck" auction bothers me as much anymore. Things still start a buck, but items with a pre-auction buyout price start at half that value. I did catch the Facebook Live stream of the auction this morning, and I'm still amazed what people think a reasonable buy-out bid. The fact that people expect someone to buy a used, punched, contents unknown board game for about retail boggles my mind. And even the half of retail auction starting bid causes most bidders some great pause. It's never going to the GenCon or Origins level auctions. It's a great place to get rid of your excess stuff without worrying about eBay.
The next Mepacon will be April 12-14, 2019 at the Hilton in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The theme will be Cybernetic Futures.
Cyber-Ponies? Savage Rifts? The mind can begin to wander.
This year, I knew Mepacon wouldn't be my normal schedule for non-work reasons: my wife had already gotten hockey tickets for a family night. So, I rearranged my schedule to accommodate the normal blocks of game I run and acknowledged I would miss the raffle, auction, and the other cool stuff around 6pm Saturday night.
Then the kid's basketball schedules came out, and with the early Thanksgiving this year, the opening game on their schedules were now Saturday afternoon.
No problem, I could still go to Scranton Friday night, come back Saturday morning, run two session of My Little Ponies, and get back home just after tip off.
That was the revision of the revision of my plan. And to quote Leonard Snart:
"Make the plan.
Execute the plan.
Expect the plan to go off the rails.
Throw away the plan."
With the details of a major project at work swinging in the breeze, my 2pm departure for the con turned to 2:20, 2:30, and at 2:45, things were completed, only to have my boss pull me into the office for a final recap on the financial impact at 3pm.
At 4:02, I snuck out of his office when an even bigger Friday afternoon blow-up occurred (completely out of my scope). By 4:38, I was on site, badge in hand, struck with the painful discovery that my only full session of My Little Pony was 4pm Friday.... and they spotted me 20 minutes at the table before bailing.
This was disheartening, but I proceeded to carry out my plan for the evening.
The usual 6pm pasta dinner, welcome reception to benefit the con's coffer, during which I would continue my prep for my Octonauts -Scavengers game. Except, while perusing some signage, the 6pm welcome reception was now FREE and in the lobby?
My desire to carbo-load for the long weekend ahead was crushed by a very nice spread of appetizers for us attendees.
Mini-potato pancakes and quiche, although very well prepared, was not going to power this motor, so I moseyed over to Subway for something heartier.
As the evening session arrived I knew normal fear of an odd game not attracting players came true (the table for the new Star Trek RPG took the evening share of non-D&D games) so I did something I don't remember doing for years.
I actually played in a Friday evening slot... as a player!
My friend George was running T1: Village of Hommlet, using Castles & Crusades.
I may have found my spirit player-character:
George runs a good game, just enough role-playing and game mat time intermixed... and I think everyone love the giant mutated three-eyed squirrels to warm the group up to combat.
The moathouse, in its classic form, is gone...
Already after midnight, I packed up, hit Chick's Diner, my usual post-con stop for bite, and headed home.
Saturday morning, I discovered both children wanted to stay home in anticipation for basketball, so I gassed up the car and headed back to Scranton, just in time for the first morning session.
Then, I traffic appeared out of nowhere.
At first I was confused by all this gridlock oozing back onto the expressway, but after seeing a pick-up towing a trailer holding Snoopy's doghouse (and the Red Baron), I was horrified to realize that the tents I saw along local businesses while I took my dinner run weren't for a sidewalk sale.
They were for the @#$^!@#$ "Santa Parade."
Thousands had converged into downtown Scranton for the annual holiday parade. The regular flow of traffic was all re-routed, so by the time I got to the traffic light to make my turn, I realized that numerous streets in that direction were outright closed. I tried to go take a more outside approach, avoiding the traffic at a dead-stop, but the three alternate routes I took were also closed. By then, the second session was nearing, and with all the family functions in the afternoon, I found a release valve out of the city to the north, got back on the highway, and headed home.
**FULL DISCLOSURE** I saw the convention provided the correct alternate route to reach the hotel (before the parade started at least), posted to Facebook just minutes prior to me arriving back home. If I had sat in the gridlock longer, I may have notice a through street**
I do remember needing to last-minute cancel a weekend over the last almost twenty years of Mepacons, but never have I double-bailed on events at the con. It was a perfect storm (and parade) that I had no time, patience, or tolerance too. The worst part for me was that my full Friday afternoon table were all my favorite regulars from previous cons, who had brought their Pony character sheets back to play them again.
So, with my limited time there:
Events: As usual plenty of events, a little light on attendance. It was also Friday, and a day after Mother Nature dropped 6-10" of snow and ice on everyone. Still saw a number of the regular faces, if I only talked to about half of them (I had a whole morning slotted for that on Saturday... or so I thought.) The recent remodel of "side rooms" was a great place to store all of the Organized Play RPG players, although the ballroom seemed very empty, even for the evening slot.
Vendors: The expanded vendor area brought in the usual crew, one blossoming game creator, some sort of a vlog, and an expanded list of "side-geek/geek chic" vendor selling Harry Potter, Star Wars, and other paraphernalia, and the newest trend in geeks: laser-cut wood projects (mdf too). Alas, I didn't spend a dime on any non-cupcake.... I had a minor shopping list for Saturday, but it was nothing I couldn't drive to the vendor's physical location on Saturday and pick-up if it was still there.
I did get one small gift from the con's founder and recently retired director, Ed:
Auction: I don't think moving away from the "everything starts at a buck" auction bothers me as much anymore. Things still start a buck, but items with a pre-auction buyout price start at half that value. I did catch the Facebook Live stream of the auction this morning, and I'm still amazed what people think a reasonable buy-out bid. The fact that people expect someone to buy a used, punched, contents unknown board game for about retail boggles my mind. And even the half of retail auction starting bid causes most bidders some great pause. It's never going to the GenCon or Origins level auctions. It's a great place to get rid of your excess stuff without worrying about eBay.
The next Mepacon will be April 12-14, 2019 at the Hilton in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The theme will be Cybernetic Futures.
Cyber-Ponies? Savage Rifts? The mind can begin to wander.
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