Obligatory GenCon Post

The last time I went to GenCon was 30 years ago this week. It was at the University of Wisconsin -- Parkside in Kenosha. This was two years before GenCon moved to the MECCA center in Milwaukee. Wikipedia.org thinks the attendance was about 4000.

I think this was the last time I was refereed by Professor Barker. As I recall, my character was Tolekh hiVriddi, the character I played in Craig Smith and Tim Cox's EPT game at The Little Tin Soldier Shop in Minneapolis. He was an unwashed barbarian, who eventually bought (and/or married) his way into the Vriddi clan. Why he ended up in the underworld beneath Jakalla that weekend I don't remember.

The idea of being at GenCon now scares me. I can't imagine trying to get into games when 40,000 other people are trying to do the same thing. When I go to a game convention, I want to play in games I've never played with people I've never played with. At least, I want to play in games.

So I did some math.

40,000 participants. Let's say only half want to play RPGs. 20,000. Let's say each game can take an average of 6 players. 3333 games to accommodate each of the 20,000 playing a single game. But I want to play at least 6 games over the 4 days. 20,000. That's how many games would have to be scheduled to let everyone play 6 scheduled games over GenCon.

So, how do you put that into a program book? Give everyone an app? It better have kickass search capabilities.

I can't find any statistics of how many RPG sessions are scheduled, but I'm willing to bet it's much smaller than 20,000, probably in the 3000 range. So, I'm guessing if I went to GenCon, I wouldn't be able to play my 6 games. Perhaps I'm wrong.