Amazement in Aurora: GhengisCon 2023

A new year has appeared on our calendars and we are already one quarter of the way done. I hope that you’ve started the year off on a good foot. For me, the new year means new knowledge. Specifically, the times and dates of more conventions which I could visit. And this is one of them.

I learned about GhengisCon through my friends in the Oathen playtest and Cheyenne Gaming Library Discord servers. The hosting organization is Gamer Girl Games, which will be hosting another convention at the same location later this year. I was quite excited about GhengisCon. It’s the farthest I’ve traveled to do such a convention and it would have been the longest duration convention I’ve attended if I’d managed to be there for the whole four days. Oh well, you win some, you lose some, and the rest rained out. Or in my case, snowed out.

Special Mentions

As it has become my objective when pursuing these conventions, I collect as many business cards as I can and ask to do an interview whenever I make a product purchase or demo play a game. Reviewing the cards I collected from Ghengis, I’m ashamed to admit that I let many of my interview opportunities slip away. I need to do better than that. Therefore, this section is dedicated to those who fell through my fingers. I encourage you to go seek them and see if their products interest you.

If my memory serves me correctly, the Archon Games booth was either the third or fourth booth I properly visited. Of course, it was difficult to miss a mock-up tower that nearly reached the convention hall’s ceiling and a theme centered around dark fantasy. The setting isn’t for everyone, but both games on display, “Eschaton” and “Nexus Infernum,” provided a good first impression on me.

I shook hands with Mr. Thomas Eliot of Sixpence Games my full day at GhengisCon. We shared a walk into the convention hall with him while quickly swapping stories about our equipment. He politely bundled a corebook, a Theme Zine, and a game master’s screen for “In Fear of the Unknown,” a system designed to be run with little to no preparation time. I cannot wait to see if that is true.

I am a sucker for trying out new gameplay systems and interesting settings. Among the loot purchased from GhengisCon this year included two corebooks. One from Mobius Worlds Publishing and the other from Athia Roleplaying. Collecting books like these really drive my desire to find groups to play with.

One of my favorite aspects about going to conventions is discovering craftsmen and women with unique wares for sale. Among the artists at convention center were Mr. Matthew Holtmeier of Gathering Splinters and Ms. Samantha Stephens from Lady Maillerie Designs.

Day 1: The first half-day

This year, GengisCon ran from February 23 through 26. But as I alluded to at the ending of my second paragraph, I suffered a chronological setback because of the weather. Thus, my first day of the convention was Friday, February 24. The convention’s location was the Hyatt Regency Aurora-Denver Conference Center. Boots were on site roughly around 1:00 p.m. if I remember correctly.

I collected my weekend pass and strode straight ahead from the check-in desk into the main vendor hall. Once within, I encountered a pair of wonderful and familiar surprises right out of the gate: Joe and Jen from HenkelMade Woodcrafts and Ms. Jessica Lowe and the amazing team of Strange Fate Crafts. Twas wonderful to see such familiar faces in the Hyatt, and very possible that I’ll meet them again at Cheyenne Gaming Convention later in April.

I began a counter-clockwise sweep through the vendor hall, passing by a local game store booth, a jewelry vendor, Gathering Splinters, and Lady Maillerie Designs. Midway along the right walking path, my attention was captured by a well displayed and vibrant booth with two gentlemen sitting behind it. The company’s name was Gooey Cube and this booth would become my first interview for the convention.

I dug into my wallet and purchased a box set for chapter one of their Red Star Rising campaign titled, “The Darkest Dream” and a collection of low-level adventures titled, “Peculiar Brews.” Leaving the Gooey Cube booth a happy fellow, I continued moving along through the back row of vendors. In the back left corner of the vendor hall was the Archron Games booth. I seated myself at one of their tables for a four person game of Eschation which, perhaps comedically, ended in a double tie.

Beside Archon Games, I found another pair of familiar faces in the form of ELC Custom Creations and Iomnisus Limited from Fort Collins ComicCon last year, a convention which I also visited. I visited their section at least thrice during the whole convention. Having now changed to the left hand side of the hall, I stumbled upon a table for Free League Games and beside it was located a booth for a scurry-filled rules-light RPG and my second interview opportunity: Pirate Borg.

Another interview done and another corebook purchased. At this point I realized two important things for perusing future conventions. First, I need to start bringing a bigger backpack to hold all of the merchandise I buy. Two, I need to budget more efficiently for said merchandise. The rest of the day was spent uneventfully and departed the Hyatt no later then 7:00 p.m. It was only my first day of the convention and there wasn’t a desire to stay up too late.

Day 2: The Full Day

My second of the three days at GhengisCon started off on the right foot. Managed to get some breakfast at my hotel and arrived at the Hyatt just before the vendor hall opened at 10:00 in the morning. My destination was the large booth in the back right corner of the hall: Jayzeta Family Games.

My first encounter with Jayzeta occurred Friday before when I visited a small table belonging to them in front of the vendor and played my first game of Blue J’s. I would play another, longer game later in the afternoon with Jonathan Iverson, the Creator of Creativity. He invited me back for a go at Mission Quest: Proving Grounds. It was planned to have a full group, but nobody else showed up so it was just Jonathan and myself. After about two hours of play, he was kind enough to give me my best interview from the convention.

I returned later in the day to buy a base set of Blue J’s, four booster packs, and two packets of card sleeves. Following this wonderful encounter, I continued wandering through the vendor hall for a little bit. I returned again to Archon Games and learned to play Nexus Infernum which I unknowingly won in two or three turns. Lol. After that short playtest, I visited Strange Fate and created a custom order which I will hopefully collect in late April. Then I began to wander through the Artist Alley.

The vendor hall was not the only room of the Hyatt convention center. Two other open rooms were dedicated to the play of board games as were a handful of conference rooms whose games required registration. Artist Alley was the hallway which connected all of them together. It was here where I encountered Mobius Worldbuilding, Six Pence Games, Athia Worldbuilding, and Living Alloy Games, the last of whom showed me their steampunk card game.

Ashley and Chris were kind enough to play one game each against me. I lost both of them, but the concept interested me greatly. I look forward to trying another demo or perhaps purchasing the full product once it’s released. The rest of the day meandered on uneventfully. I would visit the booths of Athia and Mobius Worlds and glean information about possible play session for each system. With that information stored away in the noggin, my last act of the day was to participate

Day 3: The second day

The last day of the convention was Sunday, February 26. In some ways, it was the longest day and the shortest day of the convention. I only participated in two things that day and both were the games I learned about the day before.

The first game was a playtest of the Athia system I learned about the day before. It was a full table of six or seven players including myself. The story revolved around our characters being the survivors of a bandit raid, then going on to discover a great cache of weapons and supplies from an ancient war. One of the other players did very well in using the system’s magic capabilities. Overall, a good game and no complaints.

My second game was a light-hearted one-shot using the Prowlers & Paragons system. The setting was two-fold. On one hand, there was the kayfabe world of film we were mighty luchador wrestlers fighting alien invaders for the honor of lucha libre! On the other, there was the real world in which where we were actors in lucha libre film. Whenever we had a slip-up, our characters would break the fourth wall revealing the studio workings. At one point I was laughing so hard I leaned backwards and fell out out my chair. A great time!

Unfortunately, my time at the convention ended just the Prowlers & Paragons game did. Everyone was beginning to pack up their booths and station to leave the hotel. I decided that my time was up too, so I made my final purchases and wandered back to my hotel to decompress. The next day, I would be on the road back home to Wyoming.

Conclusion

Looking back at my participation at GhenigsCon, I was badly off the ball when trying to get interviews. I let at least four easy ones just slip through my fingers because I wasn’t paying attention: Archon Games, Sixpence Games, Mobius Worlds Publishing, and Athia Fantasy Roleplaying.

I had done some surface research about this year’s GhenisCon VIPs. It listed about a dozen total, including Luke Gygax, the son of Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax. For relevant historical and cultural context, this convention was only one month after Wizards of the Coast tried and failed to rewrite the open game license for Dungeons and Dragons. After massive fan outcry, Wizards surrendered and reversed their position on the subject.

This was a golden opportunity for me, an aspirating creative, to get a big scoop with one of tabletop’s biggest names. His booth was just inside the vendor hall, diagonal from the Strange Fate Crafts booth. I saw him there the first day. I had him in my sights, I recognized him! Yet I did nothing and I don’t know why. I don’t remember seeing him ever again throughout the convention.

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On the other hand, I’m slowly starting to understand the scale of convention. In short and simple terms, cons tend to have a lot of events to do and not enough time to do everything. What do you pursue when attending these things? How do you organize your schedule? Do you sign up for panels hosted by VIPs? Do you wander the vendor floor seeking interesting products? Do you hawk the side rooms looking for tournaments and organized play? Or do you just completely improvise and try to do a little bit of everything?

The next convention I’ll likely attend is CGC 2023. Home field familiarity and a rough one-year anniversary of doing conventions. I’m considering getting some new equipment and being more engaging with all those who are there. Thankfully, I have time to do research and plot out a more active schedule. Rock and roll.