Hey all, Sam and David here today.
We figured it would be a good idea to use our time with Tabletop Tuesday this week to talk about our upcoming convention experience and plans. We’ve been attending Gen Con together our whole relationship, although we only did one day back in 2017 (because we didn’t know any better at the time). We definitely do the full four days now.
Anyway, Gen Con is August 3-6 this year and we’re very excited about it. There are so many people and so many games and so many events, and it’s wonderful. We look forward to it every year and plan out what we’re doing and where we’re going.
Outside of the convention itself we have a few places we like to go in Indy, like the comic store closest to the convention center, and there’s a couple restaurants that are must-stops for us. But during the convention itself….we actually split up for a good chunk of it because we like different things, which is totally fine.
So today we thought we’d talk over what we’re looking forward to at Gen Con and what we’re planning to do over the four days of gaming.
It’s still fitting for a Tabletop Tuesday post, because Gen Con is all about tabletop. There are so many board games, card games, dice games, TTRPGs, and of course gaming accessories to be found there.
So….let’s talk about plans.
Sam
Most of my scheduled time for Gen Con is always dedicated to the Writer’s Symposium. If it hasn’t been obvious by the Weekend Writer series, I do like to focus on learning more about the craft of writing. And I usually find a pretty good amount of panels that I think could be informative and useful.
Plus, the Writer’s Symposium also gives away goodie bags, which usually has a book or two plus bookmarks and download codes and other cool bookish announcement cards and such. You can get one freebie bag each day, so that definitely helps my book haul for the convention.
Here’s my Panel schedule for the four days….all of my panels are hour long events, and when I don’t have something scheduled, I’ll either be grabbing a quick bite to eat or I’ll be across the street at the exhibitor’s hall, wandering around.
Thursday, Noon: Book Signing with R.R. Virdi and Erin M. Evans
Thursday, 1pm: Revising for Ableism (this one will depend on if I’m able to make it through the will call line Thursday morning to pick up the ticket. I added it to my schedule after the cut-off date for ticket mailing)
Thursday, 2pm: Timing the Perfect Heroic Fight
Thursday, 3 pm: How to Get Into TTRPG Writing
Friday, 10am: Plan for Inspiration (CANCELLED) — I’m actually very sad about this one, because it was the panel I was most looking forward to, but there was a health emergency concerning family and I completely understand the author no longer attending Gen Con for this year. Hopefully this event will be held next year, because I’d still love to attend.
Friday, Noon: A Writing Community Discussion About Us
Friday, 3pm: Narrative Nightmares and Lessons Learned
Friday, 5pm: Comprehensive Intimate Scenes
Saturday, 10am: Queernormative Language
Saturday, 11am: Making Stories More Immersive Through Descriptive Writing and Subtext
Saturday, Noon: First Chapter Milestones
Saturday, 2pm: Speculative Poetry in Roleplaying Games
Sunday, 10am: Landing Your Character Arcs
I’m actually pretty excited about these panels. I always look forward to the Writer’s Symposium because it’s a chance to hang out with other writers and creative folks and get to converse about craft and inspiration and technique and all of that.
Other than those, I’ll be wandering around the exhibitor’s hall, checking out games and game accessories.
Exhibitors I plan on visiting: 1985 Games, BackerKit, Chessex, Darrington Press, Die Hard Dice, Doomlings, Dryad Tea, Dwarven Forge, Elderwood Academy, FanRoll by Metallic Dice Games, Foam Brain Games, Gale Force Nine, Gaming Paper LLC, Geek Orthodox, Ghostfire Gaming, Ginny Di, Green Ronin Publishing, Hit Point Press Inc, Inkwell Ideas, Japanime Games, Kobold Press, Margaret Weis, Misty Mountain Gaming, Paizo, R. Talsorian Games Inc, Steamforged Games, Syrinscape, TeeTurtle, Zombie Orpheus Entertainment
I’m sure I’ve missed some exhibitors on this list because I just did a quick rundown of the vendor list, but that’s okay. And there’s also some artists and authors I’m excited to see in the artists alley section of the exhibitor’s hall.
David and I will probably be posting to our social media accounts (@freestateofgeek for him and @SamRushingBooks for me), so you can keep up with all of our excitement as it happens there….but we’ll also do a Gen Con Wrap Up post once it’s over.
David
So most of my focus is and has been on trying out the games and tabletop accessories that are available to the geek community. This year I have a huge list of everything I want to check out. Obviously their are also some artists I want to look at, but I always take a stroll through “Artist Alley” at GenCon.
When it comes to the games I like to play, the ones where you get to play with a group of like 4-6 players are usually my favorite. There are few I like to play that are just 2 players games. I don’t plan to buy a bunch of dice this year (I guarantee nothing because we are dice goblins in this house and we love the click clack math rocks) and plan to focus a bit more on games that I and my friends group would like to play as well.
I am especially excited to maybe grab some more TTRPG books and some accessories that will make us doing a podcast with friends a bit more viable as well. The process will be hard but I think me and Sam with help from the friends we have made since the move last year we can open ourselves an honest to goodness haven for all geeks. Also I missed out a couple good deals for some games I liked and I am hoping they have similar deals this year too.
Anywho here are the vendors I plan to check out while we are there. I know we do not have a big social media presence yet, but I am hoping to spread the good will and idea of FreeStateofGeek to everyone and have a grand and fun time just playing games.
| Exhibitor |
| 1985 Games |
| 9th level Games |
| AAW Games |
| Academy Games |
| Gooey Cube |
| Darrington Press |
| Acheron Games |
| Adam’s Apple Games |
| Alchemy RPG |
| Cosplay Deviants |
| Alderac Entertainment Gams |
| AlleyCatGames |
| APE Games |
| Archon Studio |
| Arcknight |
| ArkenForge Tabletop |
| Asmodee Games |
| Atomic Mass Games |
| Awaken Realms |
| Badali Jewelry |
| BCW Supplies |
| Beadle and Grimms |
| Catan Studio |
| Chaosium |
| Chessex Mfg |
| Die Hard Dice |
| Dispel Dice |
| Flying Frog Productions |
| Eldritch Foundry |
| Elderwood Academy |
| DwarvenForge |
| DragonShield |
| Zombie Orpheous Productions |
| Wiz Kids |
| Warhammer |
| Ultra Pro |
| Upper Deck |
| Teeturtle/Unstable Games |
| Syrinscape |
| STL Ocarina |
| Steve Jackson Games |
| SlugfestGames |
| Shibe Ink |
| Ravensburger |
| R. Talsorian Games |
| Q Workshop |
| Paizo |
| Oathsworn |
| Norse Foundry |
| Japanime Games |
| Hit Point Press |
| Got Kilt |
| Gaming Paper LLC |
| GhostfireGaming |
| Exploding Kittens |
| FoamBrainGames |
| Crystal Caste |
| Forged Foam |
| Gemhammer and Sons Gaming |
Well, that is all from us for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and we’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
Free State of Geek 
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