Gen Con 2012: Big Wins, But a Wasted Opportunity
This year I attended Gen Con and I am the honored recipient of not one but two Gold ENnies that I share with the Gnome Stew and Engine Publishing crews. To be fair I should say that Gnome Stew and Engine Publishing are the honored recipients of these Gold ENnies and that I am a part of those crews, but Martin Ralya (the owner of both organizations) has always made it clear that we as individuals are what make the blog and the books so successful. It is great to be part of a team where the “management” puts the “employees” first. I am very grateful for this.
But I feel like I wasted my Gen Con experience this year. I originally was not going to attend Gen Con at all this year, but then the ENnies nominees were announced and 7 of the 10 contributing authors for both Gnome Stew and Engine Publishing announced that they were going to attend. I recently started a new job, and with only two months under my belt I was not thrilled with taking vacation time off until a co-worker said “You work hard. It shows. Take the time off, because you have already earned it.”
With that I made a last minute trip to Indianapolis and drove five hours to arrive on Thursday and to meet with friends. I met with more friends for lunch the next day and attended the ENnies on Friday night. Saturday morning I was part of a seminar, and that night I hung out with Sean Patrick Fannon and fellow Gnome Kurt “Telas” Schneider as we played in Sean’s Savage Saturday Night game. Sunday I did a bit more shopping and then headed back home.
Most of the time though I was just running around chatting with folks and roaming the dealer hall. Sleep was acquired in small chunks as needed.
I had no real plans for this Gen Con. I feel that I kind of wasted the trip because of that.
Do not think that I regret what I did while attending Gen Con this year. I had a great time, but I wish that I had just made even more of the opportunity that Gen Con provides me with; I wish that I had met and talked to more gamers of all types and backgrounds. The people who attend Gen Con are a plethora of dynamic and amazing personalities. Every year it seems to me that Gen Con is drawing in from a more and more diverse pool of people.
Tabletop RPGs have the ability to bring people together who may not normally associate with each other. Gen Con amplifies that potential.
So I have already committed to making my next Gen Con all about making new friends. I will of course set aside time for my existing friends, but this hobby of ours does enable us to approach the rest of humanity in a unique way to make new connections through the use of a planned façade. We can sit down with people completely different from ourselves and enjoy each others company via that façade of role playing, but we might end up making some great connections with the real person underneath. Things like race, religion, gender, sexuality, class, and beliefs are not of immediate concern, because it is the façade that we will be focused on.
And after four hors of gaming with someone you may have an assumption completely blown away because that façade allowed both of you to get comfortable with each other’s presence. You can be open to others and free of your own biases. You may have an epiphany along the lines of “Wow, this person is X! I never would have suspected that!”
I want my next Gen Con to be full of those types of moments. I want to have my mind blown by having the false assumptions that I did not know existed exposed and at the same time obliterated. My reason for this a purely selfish one: I believe that exposing yourself to the realities of others will increase the likelihood of you realizing your own full potential.
The only exception to this is people who call for violence and/or deem humanity to be compartmentalized cliques of exclusion. Those thoughts prevent the openness that I need to establish new connections with. Do not avoid those people who have such thoughts. Expose them to the fallacy of their perceptions. Such ideas cheapen the world that we live in.
Funny how a small idea that you thought would be a few paragraphs can turn into much longer piece as you explore the inner dwellings of your crammed gray matter bundle of thoughts and feelings.
