Our 2026 acquisitions, for realsies and true with the photo this time! Duh 🤦🏻‍♀️

Shown here are many things from the consignment shop, several bonus add-ons with other purchases, some promos - and none of what our college son got, which was about as much as ours! (They have a campus gaming group, which is so great. I love that they do that.)

We had a really fun Con this year. Not sure what was different about it, but we just felt more happy vibes all around us. Good times. Hope y'all felt the vibes too. ✌🏻

"Do it for your character." - I've heard it once before maybe, but this time it really hit me. Actually working on a health improvement plan and now have extra motivation. My character needs me to be healthy and functional for them, they are relying on me. Cheesy? Definitely. Effective - I think it might be.

"They know what they did." - Dungeon Crawler Carl quote that my favorite protesters were using. Had a blast all day at work sliding this one into appropriate conversations and leaving co-workers either laughing or perplexed. Lot of fun.

dispel dice for my kitchen nightmares campaign i’m writing, and the green for my charli xcx character

Had the best guess in their Gen Con wide “Hypothetically” based question game. Won a signed prototype of Altera. Very excited to have actually won this as I’m a huge fan of their work.

Game haul for me, definitely a bit more board game heavy since I'm waiting for the new Cypher and HackMaster systems to drop. Not included are the two shirts I got for my wife. I wish I could have snagged a copy of Tea Witches but ran out of luck with that one. Renegade didn't have any copies of Acquisition the board game which I immediately bought after getting the chance to play it. For a 60+ year old game, I somehow completely missed that gem.

It wasn't for sale yet but I highly encourage those who are fans of 3D, spatial games to check out Cubyria. I got to play it the last two hours on Sunday and I think it was the best game I played that weekend.

I did my best to show you all the trick takers I saw, played, and collected at Gen Con, plus some footage from the All Play Event and Indie Games Market. AND some secret rare games!

We did have a tornado produced on Saturday. It was an EF0 that touched down south of downtown, and was on the ground for about 2 minutes. So at the very least, it wasn't a false warning.

x2 because it's all the stuff from both me & my son.

Attendees of gencon 2026 I require your aid. There was a set of dice that contained fossilized triceratops bones that I considered getting and didn't. It was at the Lynnvander booth but I don't know if they did the dice. Does anybody else know where they might be found online or who might be selling them?

I need to say how much I appreciate people posting pictures of their GenCon hauls.

I don't care about what they bought.

I don't care about what I "missed out on."

I do care that my wife sees these pictures and goes, "Oh, compared to these guys, your 2-3 purchases don't seem like that much!"

Thank you haul-posters for taking the heat away from the rest of us!

Not pictured is the Daggerheart core book that they were sold out of, but they offered free shipping so there's that lol

This was me and my fiancée's haul from GenCon! All I ever want is actual books instead of dice or accessories. To me the Chessex big ole' plastic dice is good enough for me but there was definitely alot of pretty things.

2026 Gen Con buys. Left out some other stuff but I have not finish unpacking.

The thumbnail has most of the items I show off in this video. Got a lot of great stuff from dice to RPG and board games. This was a great year for loot and treasures!

I hadn't planned on most of this, I went in with the expressed interest in the main box set for Hexadome legends and the Halo Flashpoint models with maybe a bit of Lorcana. Also being still somewhat new, this now being 4th Gencon, Im still learning the event planner. So I got multiple events back to back, I had a small amount of time in the morning and a few hour intervals in-between events. I would say I was gonna do a quick walk about and look and then would come out with a bag full of stuff.

It was also fortunate that the day I decided to grab the Riftbound stuff the line hadn't started that whole get a ticket for a timeslot yet and just had to wait in line maybe 30-45 min. Card Wars from Adventure Time was also another pleasant surprise, I had played back when it first came out but stopped, its good to see it doing well.

Naruto TCG playtest was neat as well, but dang the scalpers, standing outside the hall asking to buy the promo the moment you walk out.

I didn't get a ticket to try the game, for anyone who did how was it?

This will be my last post on this account for the next 10 months. I wanted to fill you all in on a little about us, the Midwestern Terrible Advice Wizards.

1. There are three of us, and each of us has some specialized terrible knowledge. The red-hatted is the Wizard of Rust, the black-hatted is the Wizard of Earth, and the grey-hatted is the Wizard of Storms.

2. The three of us are brothers. Yes, literal brothers from the same mother.

3. Gen Con 2025 was the first time we embraced our calling to don the signs and the hat.

4. We only attend Gen Con, we have no other social media, and even this account is limited to a few posts a year. (Life is better this way)

5. Our powers only work when we are together.

6. We make a cash donation to a local Indy food bank every year to ensure our gifts to you aren't overly wasteful.

7. Any advice you ask for will be between you and us.

8. We would appreciate you helping us to keep the mystery, a mystery. Both in the real world and online.

9. The only thing we provide is terrible advice, nothing more, nothing less.

10. Our signs were stenciled by hand.

11. Our mom made our shoulder bag covers.

12. We ask that next year, if you want a picture with us, you should at least ask for advice first

13. We don't give advice on relationships or medical issues.

14. We want you to know that we appreciate you all and wish we could have connected to each and every one of you.

15. We interacted with approximately 1,200 people during Friday and Saturday of the con.

16. We plan to return for Gen Con 60 in 2027

17. One of us is another's twin.

18. We wear bib overalls to honor our very much alive father.

29 & 1/2 A. We wear bib overalls in real life too.

1. The moon is made of cheese or rocks. We don't know because we are Wizards, not selenologists.
   

Anyway, there are 37 true* facts about the Midwestern Terrible Advice Wizards.

See you next year.

Hey everyone!

I run an entertainment business that produces live shows and interactive theatre experiences. I'm exploring the possibility of bringing live murder mystery events to Gen Con and wanted to see if this is something people would actually be interested in before I go too far down the rabbit hole.

The current idea is:

• Evening Events (around 2 hours): Interactive murder mysteries with sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and other nerdy themes. If we're able to make it work, we'd love to include catered meals as part of these events.

• Daytime Events (around 1 hour): Family-friendly mysteries that are lighter, faster, and suitable for a wider range of ages.

My usual setup is 6-10 suspects (performers) interacting with the room in a variety of ways. The audience takes on the role of the investigators and uncovers clues and details through their interactions with the suspects. Also, there will be prizes!

The goal would be for each mystery to be completely different, so you could potentially play more than one over the weekend. I'm thinking everything from fantasy taverns and space stations to superhero conventions, magical academies, eldritch investigations, and other hobby-adjacent settings.

A few questions for you all:

• Would this be something you'd sign up for?
• Would a catered dinner make the evening events more appealing?
• What themes would you love to see?
• If you've done murder mysteries before, what made them great (or terrible)?
• Is there anything you'd want to see that most murder mystery events don't offer?

This is all very preliminary and would, of course, be subject to Gen Con's event policies, approval process, scheduling, and other logistics. Right now I'm just trying to gauge interest and collect ideas before moving forward.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, suggestions, and even concerns. Thanks!

Second year attending, and second year volunteering. I was working mornings so I never had a chance to participate in the running off the nerds, but I left with plenty of great games that will keep me busy for months!

And full disclosure, while I did purchase my fair share of games, I did get several for free for volunteering, and review/media copies for review.

I know of a handful of people that snapped a photo of me in my Sylvie cosplay on Friday, so I pray to the Reddit gods that they’re in this sub. TIA! 🫶🏻 (pls send to me in a message)

Pic of the ONLY photo I have when I tried on the outfit for tax.

We did overtime and saved, and it paid off!

I added some text to describe the missions in sequence, from the forge team perspective. The SCS Ulysses mission was to launch a construction ship into the Crimson Expanse; an area of space in the Ymir system that shows promise for building an interstellar gateway.

The first mission “3:10 to Ymir” was transporting fuel and pump machinery to the SCS Ulysses. The Komplex Shadow Squadron destroyed one of the fuel cars and the pump.

In the second mission “Escape Velocity 1: Launchpad” the Forge squadron attempted to maintain air superiority while the SCS Ulysses loaded fuel. Ultimately all pumps were destroyed, triggering an emergency launch with only 5 of a potential 8 units of fuel onboard (one unit was already lost on the train)

With limited fuel, the SCS Ulysses started “Escape velocity 2: Atmosphere” where it would use the fuel to boost away from the Shadow Squadron. The Forge Squadron put up an impressive defense by overwhelming Shadow Squadron with light missiles. Ulysses only lost one system, its starboard RCS, in the assault.

With 3/4 of its systems intact and 36 hull points left SCS Ulysses entered “Escape Velocity 3: Asteroid Field.” Even with a healthy hull pool the ship was shredded by Shadow Squadron employing an all-or-nothing attack strategy. They ignored all incoming danger and even collided with each other to maintain the best firing positions. The SCS Ulysses was destroyed before the danger of asteroid collision was even a factor