Post Gencon Wrap

Some thoughts on Gencon 2016
I spent a lot of last week at Gencon and the first part of this week recovering from con crud...the price of too much fun. The convention this year was a combination of surprises and disappointments. The former outnumbered the latter, so it was a good convention. My disappointments are few and will probably amount to nothing in a few weeks. Among my surprises are games that I may enjoy for years to come.
I had hoped The Design Mechanism would be at Gencon with their new Mythras game. If they were I was unable to locate them. I am guessing Mythras, what RuneQuest 6th Edition is becoming, may be released later this year and be available for next Gencon.
I expected to find many new games including the 7th edition of Call of Cthulhu and the reprint of RuneQuest 2nd Edition and Chaosium was there with both. There were also games I discovered which came as an unexpected surprise such as the English translation of the new 5th Edition of the German The Dark Eye (Das Schwarze Auge) by Ulisses Spiele. The presence of James Edward Raggi IV at his Lamentations of the Flame Princess booth was a pleasant surprise and I enjoyed a brief conversation with the master of weird fantasy. Mr. Raggi was selling copies of Zak Sabbath and Patrick Stuart's new Maze of the Blue Medusa, which I considered a must-have given the previous work of Mr. Sabbath (A Red and Pleasant Land, Vornheim) and Mr. Stuart (Deep Carbon Observatory).
I spent my playing time with friends from my local group and divided between Pathfinder, 13th Age and boardgames. There were many sides to Gencon I didn't really expose myself to such as collectable card games, video gaming and LARPs, so I don't feel qualified to comment on them. The traditional tabletop RPGs and boardgames were well represented as usual with many old favorites and several new titles being played. Several old favorites were enjoying new editions and there were some new additions as well. Old school games continue to make a strong showing as evidenced by Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Goodman Games and Tunnels & Trolls. Innovation was also evident in several fresh ideas I heard talking to vendors, Of Dreams and Magic being one fresh game I decided to buy into and bring home for more study. I am recently finding several settings written for the Savage Worlds system to be of interest and Ultima Forsan, Kata Kumbas, Lankhmar and HellFrost all made my short list of purchases.
I first attended Gencon in 1978 and 38 years later I still enjoyed this convention as much as I recall enjoying that first one at the university at Parkside near Kenosha, WS. I still consider myself fortunate to live near the convention site (I lived in Kenosha in '78), but would travel cross the continent if necessary. There is nothing quite like meeting game designers and discussing new ideas, gaming with strangers and seeing how others play the games we all love.