Sorry Folks – I’m Not Running Fudge At Gen Con This Year

For the last few years I have been running game sessions at Gen Con using the Fudge RPG. I started this because I could never find Fudge games in the catalog. I would run four sessions, and this added up to 16 hours of my time while at the convention. Add in another 10 to 12 hours for the seminars that I usually give at Gen Con and soon I was spending about a third of my time at Gen Con entertaining and informing others. I easily spent another 30 hours eating and sleeping. Now add in the networking that I do while at Gen Con and this left me with hardly any time to actually play in a game myself.

Of course I enjoy running games and giving seminars, but I think I have been pushing it a bit. Gen Con event registration and preparation has started to feel like work for me. I need to step back and re-evaluate why I attend Gen Con to begin with.

Don’t get me wrong. The people who attend my games and my seminars are always awesome. The events always get my energy pumping too. It is all of the work before and after that burns me out. Plus you never know where you will actually be running games at Gen Con. Some years I’m running from one location to the next to be on time for one of my own events. If you are the speaker or the GM for an event you have no excuse for being late – ever!

So this year I am going to take a break, and the only event that I am participating in is a Gnome Stew/Engine Publishing seminar. That’s it. Just one two hour seminar for me this year, and I’m presenting this one with three other Gnome Stew/Engine Publishing authors. That makes it even easier!

Then I got an email on Sunday that read:

My wife and I greatly enjoyed your FUDGE game last year at Gen Con and were hoping you were running something this year?

Wow! What a compliment! This is not the first time that a person has contacted me asking if I would be running another event at a convention, but it floors me each time. The fact that people remember my games eight months later and that they want to play in another game of mine is always humbling. Just the fact that this person took the time to track down my email address makes me feel a bit special. I had a positive impact on a fellow gamer!

Every year I have repeat players that I only meet with once a year (I think I will call this my “extended” gaming group). Maybe it is because they look for Fudge in the catalog and my games are the only ones that pop up, but I must doing something right for people to want to play again in one of my games. This gives me great personal satisfaction, and I am always grateful to have had an opportunity to GM for these folks. It is as much fun for me as it is for them (maybe even more fun for me).

I contacted this person privately and explained the situation, but I do feel like I might be letting some folks down this year. If you are one of those gamers who looks for my Fudge games at Gen Con I apologize. Believe it or not they take a lot out of me physically, and I have no idea why. Maybe I’m just too highly animated in how I GM? I don’t know the reason, but I do hope that I am not letting anyone down this year by taking a Gen Con off to actually, umm, play games!

And what games will I be playing? Well a friend of mine has an idea that is just pure brilliance – the Con-in-a-Con! He’s going to organize different GMs to run different games in open areas while we are at Gen Con, and he is going to tweet about these games and their locations shortly before they begin. I don’t want to give away all of the details yet, but basically it will be “first come first served” for any players who respond to the tweets.

Originally I was only going to attend Gen Con for one day to give the seminar, but this Con-in-a-Con idea has convinced me to attend for the full four days now. I’ll get to play some great RPGs, but I’ll also be part of a cool social experiment! I can’t wait!

I promise though, that for Gen Con 2012 I will run some official events with Fudge. I just need a break every four to five years is all.

So that is my plan for Gen Con this year! What are yours? Leave a comment below and share what you will be doing at Indy this summer (or any game convention that you attend).