Let's be honest, Historicon is the pinnacle of conventions for me.
But by golly, a well-run Mepacon is a close second.
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| Even mid-afternoon on a Friday, the place is jumping! |
As faithful readers of the blog have seen repeatedly, this past weekend for Mepacon (Originally the Mid-Eastern Pennsylvania Convention). This year the convention remains outside of Allentown, PA off the PA Route 100 exit, a fine facility that can barely hold the majesty of the local convention.
In addition to the four different events I was running, I had the pleasure of bringing my daughter, Maja, with me. She drives now, so she drove down from Albany after work, with a surprise guest: her younger sister, Millie. Millie games as well, but her plan was to spend a weekend of AAU basketball as a spectator, watching her best friend play two levels up at 17U during a college coaches showcase.
Friday
I took all of Friday off, and it was a good idea, as I was still formatting and printing off handouts for my games up until noon. We finally ventured down the PA Turnpike, with no issues and arrived at the The Delta by Marriott Hotel with plenty of time to unload my stuff, let Maja figure out the compact arrangement of the convention, and for me to set up my afternoon Burning Plastic game.
Burning Plastic, a game where green army guys represent robots on a futuristic landscape where 100% casualty rates aren't just acceptable... they're expected. We started playing this at cons in the mid-90's, sold a few books along the way, and for the 50th (and nostalgia-fueled) Mepacon, it was a no brainer.
I was placed within the "hallway" area, mixed within the solid Battletech contingent, although my request for a square/rectangular table was seized by the B'Tech boys for a layout that I never saw an actual game at.
Note to self: Specifically request Table #52 for Mepacon 51... all slots.
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| The infamous table 52.... |
I had the best of both world in my first game. Two brand new players who slowly learned the twisted insanity of Burning Plastic... and two old buddies, Cyrus and George, who played the game back in the 90s.
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| I have finally joined the internet trend of taking a picture with my players, post-game (and post-clean up!) |
No matter your experience, when robots start self-destructing, and air strikes (chucked dice) make the men line up like it's a penalty kick, you can throw that right out the window.
Friday night was supposed to be my Talislanta "The Crystle Dungeon" game. This was my first ever convention game I GM'ed back at Lehicon IV in March of 1991. The plot was the same, with lots of wiggle room, the characters still pulled off of the 1988 2nd edition rules (the classic heavily tattooed Thrall on the cover). I was prepped for a classic, successful convention game, updated to more modern accoutrements and set-up.
Despite the "Looking for Players" placard, I had none, and after 45 minutes or so, I packed that up and wandered the con.
The silver lining? The entire game is finally in a file folder, and two separate files digitally.
Maja participated in an Improv seminar and played in a playtest promo of a fun game called Community Cats, which, when it becomes available, will end up at her house, to be gleefully played by her sister and mother.
The one thing that always impresses me about the Mepacon is its history giving burgeoning game designers and companies a platform to show off their games, and playtest their new ideas. There was quite literally a corner of the main ballroom labelled "Break My Game" were designers gleefully recruited players of all sorts to try out their concepts, some with simple mock-ups, others with more elaborate set-ups and specific artwork. It's always full of players, but always looking for more.
I spent a good portion of the night waiting for Maja to finish the nightly LARP. I can probably blame Carcosa Creations with Maja quitting basketball and focusing on drama and music more. It's not a complete coincidence that the timelines converged after her first LARP experience at an earlier Mepacon back at the Bar with No Name at the (former) Holiday Inn off PA 512 in Bethlehem. The only thing she asked about going to Mepacon was if there was a LARP. She was in her glory when she found out there was one each night!
After midnight, we got in the car and drove over to my Mom's in Easton to crash for a few hours.
Saturday
Pure nostalgia for me, as we left my Mom's early and drove 2 1/2 blocks to the Palmer Diner for breakfast. It's always been a little hole in the wall diner, with fond memories of the 80's, my sub-zero weekend deliveries of the newspapers, always had my Dad sitting in the truck, keeping the cab toasty, just in case I need a moment or two to get warm, then, as I finished the last paper on the top of Greenwood Ave and John St, we'd turn around and grab breakfast at the diner. There's nothing particularly special about those memories, or perhaps that's what makes them special.
After a solid breakfast, we made record time back to Fogelsville and I set-up for round two of Burning Plastic. This time I was away from the Battletech crew, and sort of shoved in corner. But if the corner involves the "cupcake ladies" aka Quigley's Cakes. There have been professional geek-themed cupcakes at Mepacon for the better part of ten years, maybe more, and even if money is tight that weekend, there's a two cupcake minimum.
At better yet, for my own health's sake, no random Burning Plastic airstrikes made their way over to take out the cupcake displays.
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| A low-key casual ViscountEric, sporting a Next Gen jersey. |
The game was another rousing success, with my players pushing the limits of the ruleset (adding buildings to the table brings up new questions that a traditional empty expanse of microchip and hydraulic fluid death do not.
Saturday afternoon was thwarted by the most adorable six-year old girl.
Going for nostalgia, I went with running the older River Horse Press version of the My Little Pony RPG. I ran plenty of two-hour sessions of it back in the day, and I thought I had the perfect set-up.
A mom, a dad, and their simple brilliant and delightful six-year girl... and my 17 years old Maja, feeling nostalgic for the game. We had made Ponies, we were two seconds from rolling some Rory's Story Cubes to set up the plot for the adventure, and the youngest lady had a "Code Brown (Upper)" that made quite a mess.
Obviously, the game was scrapped, the parents could attend to her. The con staff (as always) was super responsive and within twenty minutes the hotel staff had the area cleaned, sanitized, and a new tablecloth on the table.
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| No pictures of the catastrophe, but here's an explosion on a SILENT DEATH (!) table. |
6pm-8pm Auction Time: For the times before Mepacon there has always been a two hour mandatory break, with no games. Some grab food, some take a nap, but most show up in the ballroom for the raffle, the winners of the dice guess, and the costume and coloring contests, and the auction.
I've ranted about the auction in my Mepacon 49 review. It's a different time, a different economy, and with that, there was a lot of mid-range stuff that simply did not garner bids because the opening bids were too high. Not the fault of the auction rules, just a newer group of folks trying to use the auction to make money.
The most heartfelt part of the two hours and Katie Brad, the convention director, holding back just the right amount of tears to thank everyone who had helped the con achieve it's success over the last twenty-five years. The same extended group of friends volunteer and operate the con in some capacity since 2001. In fact, when Katie did ask for a number of showing of hands for the classic "Raise your hand if it's your first Mepacon... Raise your hand if you've only been at Mepacon at the Delta... or if you were at White Haven... Scranton, Clarks, Summit.. or even the lone con in Jersey."
When she got to Mepacon 1, she brought those folks up... Of that small contingent of less than a dozen, only my friend Scott and I were not wearing current con staff (Ed Leheman, who retired from con, is con director emeritus by default).
And then I remember I was auction director for that first con.. so Scott was just a normal paying attendee...
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| The back of this year's con t-shirt. It's been a most unusual ride.... |
And since we're old enough to remember "the good old days," we realized afterwards that for genealogical sake, there are only a half-dozen of us who can trace our con lineage to Lehicon 2 or 3 in the early 90s.
God I'm old.
I ended Saturday night with another much-demanded event: TOON - Cthulhu Comes to Springfield. What was once multiple one-hour "episodes" has been shrunk down to a two-hour "very special episode" of "Krusty the Kultist."
The first hour, the Springfield kids worked hard to make their secret prize to Krusty's sleep-away camp a nuisance for the adults to find them. In the end it was the heroic group of Marge Simpson, Grandpa Simpson, Principal Skinner, Groundskeeper Willie, and Duff-Man who may have saved most of the wee children. There were heroic but gruesome deaths for Grandpa and Nelson... but the most sanity shredding was the complete murder of Maggie.
I'm proud to say that there were a circle of at least four more old players of the scenario, playing at the adjacent tables.
Maja's day was lounging about in the morning, hanging out between the Burning Plastic and the cupcake ladies, played a game of Rock-n-Roll Brouhaha, took a nap in the car before dinner with me, snagged a game of Penny Black from the board game library, and made me stay till midnight with the LARP. After a Wawa stop, we were home by 1am.
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| Nothing like waiting for the LARP wrap-up (This was Friday). |
SUNDAY
Unlike Mepacon 49, I did not go Sunday, preferring to clean out the car, and coordinate the return of the youngest child, Millie, from her friend's basketball tournament in Lancaster. As it was my birthday, we had some ice cream cake, the girls got me some extremely practical minis from the local game store, and I got to hang out with them before they headed back to upstate New York.
SWAG: I honestly tried to peruse the multiple vendors, but, in the end, I grabbed some Car Wars stuff from the Auction buyout.
Maja, I realized, is the bloody demographic they're looking for with the vendors I would call "peripheral" She bought crafts and book pouches, and even some stuff for her sister, coming back to dear old dad to fill up her coffers again.
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| Let's not take my downplaying of the vendors fool you, there were some heavy hitters showing up for a 500 person con. |
Mepacon 51 will be back at the Delta, November 13-15, 2026 | Lehigh Valley, PA. The theme will be sci-fi, so I'm thinking about claiming Table 52 early and running on-going Fistful of Lead, although I still have a contingent that wants to me to run more and more Burning Plastic. I guess it will be time to set up another poll!
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