Tag: Gaming Convention

My entire Rose City Comic Con 2024 experience

Joy

I went to Rose City Comic Con Saturday. My co-worker and team lead, J., very graciously gave me 3 day badges they and their spouse couldn’t use. They’ve been sick with Covid-19 all week, maybe longer, and they were not feeling up to the convention. So their loss is my gain! I do love going to the convention.

I wanted to do a cosplay but I wanted to do a subtle one. I didn’t want to go all out. So I put on hole-y jeans, a ratty t-shirt, my well-worn Dodgers cap, and beat up Chucks, and strapped my Pip-Boy on my arm. I was a random wastelander! Just the thought of it made me smile.

If I was really doing it right, I’d have dirt on my face and clothes, and a pack full of odds and ends, like a caps stash, a stimpack, some Rad-X and Radaway, stuff like that. Maybe next year! I could make a backpack with those items hanging off them. It’s too bad Andy & Bax closed; military surplus gear is perfect for stuff like that.

Also need protection. After all, the wasteland is a dangerous place. Something small, like the Delivererer or That Gun or a 10mm pistol. Could I 3D print one of those? I still have to make use of my co-worker’s 3D printer at some point.

I wish I could have gotten a picture of my dad’s face when I walked down the stairs and posed, arms akimbo, and announced I was doing a subtle cosplay! His flash of confusion, spotting the Pip-Boy, and his snort of laughter was just perfection. He’s never played the Fallout games but he did watch the TV show and liked it well enough; he recognized the thing on my arm.

I spent probably a good 20-30 minutes trying to find legal parking near the convention center. I ended up parking at Lloyd Center and walking. Technically illegal but I wasn’t the only convention-goer parking there. They can’t tow us all! OK they could probably tow us all but the likelihood of that is low.

Several people complimented me on my Pip-Boy and I told every single one of them “Oh, this thing? I found it on a dead jerk in a blue jumpsuit.” I wasn’t just proud of this cosplay, I had a ready-and-waiting joke to open a conversation with.

And then… the convention itself. Inside was fucking jam fucking packed. There were so many people, and it was so warm in there. I was drenched in sweat, and I was just wearing a t-shirt and jeans. I couldn’t imagine the people in full costumes with masks and cloaks and all that. My wrist under the Pip-Boy was soaked; sweat dripped down onto my hand. Hated it.

So many people. I was never comfortable in crowds, being a neurodivergent introvert, but today was more people than I’ve seen in a very long time. The pandemic really has cooked my brain. I masked up inside, and wandered around the show floor, and looked at the cool costumes, and then after maybe a half-hour or 45 minutes, had to go outside, drink some water, take my mask off, and sit in the shade under a tree.

I did that cycle one more time, and then just could not bring myself to go back inside. I left; walked back to my car, and drove to Kay’s Bar for a beer and a giant jalepeño burger, before heading home for a nap. How exciting. I can’t be in a crowd anymore. Great.

Biscuit Con 2024 Closing Thoughts

DnD

My current D&D game started two years ago. We had our Session 0 on 18 August 2022. I had notes for a small city, some NPCs, and vague ideas of three different plots the players could involve themselves in: joining up with an army preparing for war, finding out why river pirates had turned to kidnapping, and chasing down some cultists looking for a ceremonial sword.

That first session was spent on the players choosing among several characters they had made, then a simple scenario of busting out of a brig on a pirate ship and figuring out what to do next. They decided to lay low, ran into a bear being harassed by ravens over the dead body of an elven woman, and the campaign was off to a rousing start.

Only two of those players, Vic and Shawn, stuck with the game the whole time; we’ve added three other players, Scott, Adam, and Zach; the current group has been stable for at least a year, I think. Through the entire run of the game, we have been playing online, through Discord, with the use of the Avrae bot and the help of D&D Beyond. Until now.

This Friday, we all met in person for the first time as a group. I’ve known two of my players in real life for a while; the others I have only known online. But a couple of months ago, Shawn, who lives in Arizona, mentioned he had to come to Portland for a work trip and we planned some in-person gaming.

Since Shawn, and Scott, both had to come to Portland from out of town, we decided to use one of their hotel rooms for the game. Since we had a weekend for gaming, both myself and the other DM, Vic, talked about running sessions for each of our games. We joked about sheduling, and somehow that gave it a feeling of a mini-convention, just for the six of us.

Someone said we should name it, the warlock’s imp familiar lent his name, and suddenly we had gone from arranging a game weekend to running and attending Biscuit Con 2024. We dreamt up logos with the help of AI, someone asked Google Gemini to design a badge. Biscuit, a little imp with the manic energy of a pyromaniac six year old, was an excellent mascot, along with actual biscuits (the English kind, not the American kind, because the AI did not understand we wanted fluffy dinner rolls and not hard cookies.)

The next step was putting up a domain. The site is empty, under construction, but the joke will keep going.

I have actual reservations about running an actual D&D oriented gaming convention; as an organizer I’d be managing things and not, y’know, playing D&D. But it is a fun idea to loop more people into a chaotic scheme, and if it meant I get to hang out with this loony group would be more than worth it.

Biscuit Con 2024 was a rousing success. Sorry you missed it. Stay tuned for registration information for next year. I proposed we have the goal of doubling attendance. I think we can do it.