Fan Expo – Whew!

Fan Expo this past weekend was a blast even though I didn’t get to do much gaming. I got to chat with Jonathan Lavallee, Peiter van Hiel, Jess Hartley, Adam Jury and former RPG guy turned Ganz developer Jesse Scoble, all thanks to the tireless efforts of Justin “The Bitter Guy” Mohareb.Oh — and Chris Huth, and Leo Lingas . . . and other people I’m probably forgetting about.

I did panels on freelancing and White Wolf; sadly, I couldn’t make the publishing panel due to confusion over the schedule. It was great to talk with gamers throughout, especially since the convention had a stronger RPG presence than ever before thanks to the Canadian Camarilla, Toronto Area Gamers and other folks — it was definitely an example of area gamers joining forces to get things done.

The only thing lacking was game companies. The Cam ran a White Wolf booth, Steve Jackson Games had a demo team and Fiery Dragon had a booth too (though they never left it to socialize, it seemed) but given that this year Fan Expo seems to be approaching major media con status by continental standards (people were turned away because the con’s MTCC section was over fire code capacity). The convention is hardly perfect (Hobbystar’s . . . not great) but there’s plenty of room for the gaming segment to grow in gamers and company exhibitors.

As I said, aside from playing a great Euro board game with Jonathan I mostly stuck to conversation, and co-sponsored a meet and greet at a local bar to get away from the hierarchical panel structure. I really wanted to play an indie game called Psi-Run, but panel confusion prevented that. It made me think of my own local con, Phantasm. There, you’ve got a big room full of roleplayers, and more wandering around and casual conversation.  I’d love to see a bigger room for RPGs – a space where play and discussion happen side by side, just as it does there.

I would also like to be able to drink booze while I game, like I did in Ottawa.

I wanted to do and see more, but I ate a very nice piece of cake, and as I hardly ever eat sugar these days I rapidly fell asleep for most of Saturday. That occupied some time. Sorry!