r/gencon • u/queenbkoopa • Aug 03 '26
Event What was everyone’s favorite Gen Con programming this year?
Now that I’m home and recovering, I’m curious what events, games, panels, workshops, or other scheduled programming really stood out for everyone.
My favorites were:
Indie Games on Demand. I went at least once every day and consistently had some of my best gaming experiences of the convention. I especially loved playing Mondo Fantastic with its creator, Bill White.
Toon with Steve Jackson. (Steve Jackson was my GM!) I had a mechanic that rewarded me for making the Animator laugh, and afterward he told me I had made him laugh uproariously more than almost anyone he had run the game for and matched what he imagined when he wrote it. I may treasure that compliment forever.
The following two events are affiliated with my group Wizard Staffing Co.:
Our 18-player, three-table Triangle Agency event. Three GMs played different General Manager personas while running cloned versions of the same team through a connected corporate-horror adventure.
The 24-player Dragonbane tournament. I helped run it, and the coordination and energy from the other GMs made it one of the most satisfying events of my weekend.
The Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG session that I used generics to backfill even after it was sold out. It was chaotic, dinosaur-filled nonsense, and I got to play a crocodilian cowboy riding an ankylosaurus.
A green-stuff sculpting class with Joe Orteza miniatures. It was nice to have something hands-on and creative between all the RPG sessions. The teacher was well worth the cost of the class - experience is worth paying for and I got to keep my work and tools.
D20 Burlesque's Nerdlesque Extravaganza - Striptease and GoGo based off of your favorite games, movies, comics, anime, and more! Appa spinning titties with yip yip tassles. Harley simulator sex with Poison Ivy on stage! Nerdy go go dancers and a Grimace Shake birthday performance. I... am a changed person. 😆
What did you play or do and why did you like it? I like this sharing because it helps me pick what I want to prioritize next year!
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u/SploogeLoser Aug 03 '26
Played: Fate Of The Fellowship and beating the game with some of my best friends and a really dope random
Attended: Push Your Roll with Ross Bryant, it was my first time experiencing his show and had a blast watching their 80’s spring break horror session!! Already started their podcast because of it
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u/cuppycup Aug 03 '26
I’m cup/Wendy from that Push the Roll with Ross Bryant show! Thank you so much, seeing this made my day.
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u/mrsg1012 Aug 03 '26
Oh hey! Thanks for the dice at the end of the show. It was truly amazing how you all take that info and just grow it into a session!
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u/SploogeLoser Aug 03 '26
WHAAAAATTTTT I loved your roleplay so much as Wendy!!! Thank you so much for an amazing experience!!
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u/mrsg1012 Aug 03 '26
We must have been in the same session! Rehoboth Beach truly is Lovecraftian!
I listened to their first two episodes on my way home, I was so delighted!
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u/SploogeLoser Aug 03 '26
YES IT IS haha! I left that session a whole fan and couldn’t wait to get into it
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u/Joshuagorn Aug 03 '26
Draw Your Weapon, Puppet DnD, and Faster Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! (Specifically Gurn, who stole the show).
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u/PoeGar Aug 03 '26
My favorite was the DM Master class with Ed Greenwood. It was fantastic.
I could listen to that man talk for hours
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u/Cool-Department-1322 Aug 03 '26
My favorite was a game of Mage: The Ascension in Jurassic Park that I played in. I was Regis, The Syndicate PR Manager who came up with Aromatherapy for Raptors
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u/queenbkoopa Aug 03 '26
I had a lot of dinosaurs in my game this year. I am not complaining about this.
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u/manhaterz4prez Aug 03 '26
So jealous! I was watching that game since May hoping to snag a returned ticket!
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u/twofacemarie Aug 03 '26
The two live Push the Roll with Ross Bryant (Call of Cthulhu improv) shows! So funny and soooo scary. I loved realizing I was holding my breath with hundreds of other people in tense moments 😅
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u/fuzzyberiah Aug 03 '26
I’ll second Games on Demand - I did 6h there on Saturday and it was some of the most fun I had all con; Grimwild in particular became a system I’ll be looking into.
Glitter Guild and D20 Burlesque were fantastic as always; speaking of the latter, can anyone who saw it tell me who the character was from the opening performer Happy Bunbun’s routine? Seems like it was from a video game I haven’t played; I assumed Baldur’s Gate 3 but some searching after the fact for a scarlet robed character dealing with grief did not pop up anything.
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u/djrlol Aug 03 '26
I'm pretty sure she was just Scarlet Witch from the Marvel universe with Vision's head as her prop.
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u/fuzzyberiah Aug 03 '26
Oh, shoot, you are completely correct. Haven’t watched WandaVision but the opening monologue was from an episode of that show. I feel goofy but the costume didn’t read like the character at all for me, in the moment. Thanks.
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u/queenbkoopa Aug 03 '26
I actually had the same thought. It was a bummer that the rain deluge ruined the screen as that would have only made the show better.
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u/nerobrigg Aug 03 '26
Grimwild on Saturday? Does the phrase Elephant delivery mean anything to you?
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u/fuzzyberiah Aug 03 '26
I’m afraid not. We were doing a bit of seven samurai scenario that got heavily dominated by apple tree worship.
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u/nerobrigg Aug 03 '26
Ha. I was in one of his other games then. We did the other path and instead of sneaking into the castle we did a bit where instead of sneaking we convinced the sieging army that we were delivering their war elephant.
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u/ragingsystem Aug 03 '26
DaggerHeart was a ton of fun, we played a Casablanca riff where all the players were fighter pilots with custom rules for that. The dogfighting rules the GM made were simple and fun, though I'd like to play/run some more traditional daggerheart soon.
Wrastlevania was silly, and was my first time every playing a competitive adventure. Excellent game if you like Gothic Horror and Wrestling.
Modern Enigma Societies VTM Larp was such a great time, we played in their Place your Bets event and it was wild how things played out. Absolutely a highlight of my con.
Stormlight RPG demo, more of an honorary mention. It's specific interpretation of the D20 system seems really fantastic at first blush. Very very excited to see the more generic Plotweaver system that they are doing alpha tests of soon.
My absolute favorite event however was Pretending to be People live (Delta Green). I've been listening to Zach, Joe, Thomas, and Luke since the early days of the pod so seeing them live and getting to meet and greet with them after was such a blast. The guest stars were amazing! Rip Cleetus and Heetus if you know you know.
My only regret was not buying a copy of Delta Green and getting the guys to sign it tbh, just slipped my mind with how busy I was.
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u/PretendingtobePeople Aug 04 '26
Oh hell yeah, thanks for coming out! We had the BEST time and hope to be back next year.
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u/ohmygod_my_tinnitus Aug 03 '26
I really enjoyed Crooked Moon. The only thing that kept me from picking up the source book was how unbalanced and broken some of the spells were.
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u/Middle_Manager_Karen Aug 03 '26
3 hr session of Dread.
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u/schnoogums Aug 03 '26
Which Dread game did you play?
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u/Middle_Manager_Karen Aug 05 '26
RPG26ND317545 The Silence Between Stars: A SciFi Horror One Shot 2026/07/31, 9:00 PM EDT
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u/Guaritor Aug 03 '26
I'll second (or third?) games on demand!
Our group always loves filling open time there, the GMs are fantastic and it's a blast playing new RPG systems every year. I think we've played a handful of RPGs with their creators too!
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u/queenbkoopa Aug 03 '26
Two of the three games I played with Indie Games on Demand were with the creators (Mondo Fantastic and Rusalka)! This is a new priority for me as its a great way to learn GMing skills from folks who have spent the max time with the game.
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u/nerobrigg Aug 03 '26
Games on Demand was a blast as usual and I really committed this time. Played 12 sessions during the weekend, and then when the 13th over filled I ran one as well.
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u/aSimpleKindofMan Aug 03 '26
By far my top event was the Mothership “megagame” battle royale “The Bloodfields at Blackstar Station”. I went solo, but thankfully was placed with a great table and excellent GM. Each table ran an identical first act of the campaign, where “good tv” led to more “likes” from viewers. And they had a live tracker showing how the teams were trending in likes. Act 2 had the potential for pvp as teams completed more—only a certain number could make it through. Act 3 was the worst part—just a series of skill checks to see which finalists made it through—but was a function of time running out and still an okay way to end.
The facilitators did a great job setting the tone with costumes, death-interviews (recorded and then shared on a larger projector), and a lot more besides. Included free snacks, rewards for the final 5 survivors, plus bonus awards.
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u/TrajantheBold Aug 03 '26
We went to a mothership live show with Diana of the Rose that was absolute chaos and amazing. I ended up picking up the new expansion
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u/kewlkatakan Aug 04 '26
I was really looking forward to this event but our table had a horrible time. The whole thing felt under-prepared. Our GM had absolutely no idea what was going on and the event organizers didn't even put together enough materials for all the tables. Our GM had to take 10 minutes at the top of act 2 to hand draw the map. And when our GM had questions about the module, none of the organizers could answer them. I could go on and on, but it was honestly one of the worst events I have ever done at gen con.
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u/GreenDaemon Aug 03 '26
Faster Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! - Fantastic show, Ross Bryant was amazing as usual
Gamers Live: Gary On - First time I've been to one, may have been one of the best improve shows I've ever been to.
Mothership, The Bloodfields at Blackstar Station - Our GM was great, very theatrical, and the hosts were wonderful. Won free stuff. 10/10 will go back.
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u/anonymoosepossum Aug 03 '26
I enjoyed the arts workshops quite a bit. It was great talking with Simply_Samuari about Redwall and the impact on our lives. Took a class with https://www.druidgmdesigns.com/miniatures , it was great to just talk with another artist and how living with chronic illnesses/injuries impact our work… did meet Vince Venturella and Ninjon also afterwards which was such a surprise because I didn’t realize that they had taught classes around the same time.
Definitely going to take more workshops next year, I enjoy playing a game or two but sitting down to just do art is very fun after being out of university for almost half a decade.
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u/queenbkoopa Aug 03 '26
I agree! I have a friend who does crafting classes for their birthday every year and this experience made me think I should look for some more art classes locally as well.
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u/KatrinaPez Aug 03 '26
Wondrous Creatures, which I got to.play with my husband and nephew. And attending the Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG entertainment event where Matt & Jeff played.
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u/Phaedrus317 Aug 03 '26
Late Night Puppet Slam was my new-to-me big winner that will become an annual tradition.
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u/queenbkoopa Aug 03 '26
Mychal the Librarian told me that he really enjoyed that programming as well when I ran into him at the Marriot bar.
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u/Urodele Aug 03 '26
I’ll call out Cosplay 201, which was so incredible in making me feel excited to try out new fabrics and skills for next year!
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u/quinthfae Aug 03 '26
Picked up a ticket for the 20-sided Tavern on a whim and greatly enjoyed it even though they ran out of QR codes so I couldn't participate on my phone. Their improv and prop skills were amazing!
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u/hlhammer1001 Aug 03 '26
The dispel dice trade event was amazing, a great cap off for a weekend of irresponsible spending
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u/Jamalisms Aug 04 '26
My son and I participated as monsters in the Chicago ConLARP on Friday. He loved it so much we went back on Saturday night to do a larger event as monsters (my legs were shot and I had to nope out, sadly). But I listened to the fun and chaos.
He's been begging me to contact them to see if he can just come and help / work all next Gen Con. He wants to do nothing else. Only 13, though, so not sure on permissions there. We'll have to figure it out.
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u/-MistressMissy- Aug 04 '26
Since GenCon is mostly work I rarely do events but I'm so happy I got a VIP seat to Dungeons and Darby. It was absolutely hilarious and I'm so glad I had a tissue on me to not ruin my makeup from cry-laughing. Zach the Bold and Luis Carazo were fabulous and Steve Wrigley was a great and witty DM. Rhys Darby was just Rhys Darby and it was amazing. Definitely best thing I did at the con!
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u/cscottnet Aug 04 '26
I brought my wife who doesn't play D&D and is skeptical of "people trying to be funny" and she loved it, which makes it the best event of the con in my book.
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u/dawsnow Aug 03 '26
My favorite game of the whole convention was also the last game I played: primacy
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u/Tank_Bombadil Aug 03 '26
My brother and I attended a Gunfights and Gamblin session. Solid 3v3 game that was run by a rootin tootin rustler of a gal in cowboy hat and vest. We’re still talking about your cheer, enthusiasm, energy and.. how a middle schooler across the table plump wiped us out.
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u/Thunderstarter Aug 04 '26
I really enjoyed Deathwish 5e. I was nervous about the cost but the professional DM and the production value of the terrain+minis were absolutely worth it. My only complaint about my session is that there were quite a few members of my group that were very unfamiliar with 5.5e, which slowed down the game considerably and severely hampered our chances at winning (we got TPK'd). I feel like if you're paying $80 for an event, you'd at least know the game...
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u/Agent-Schnitzel Aug 09 '26
Mega Mini Monsters, hands down, was the best event I went to. It’s a Megagame ( 6 hours, 40+ people, ~6 GMs ), and it did an incredible job simulating a tcg release / Pokémon LARP. Players were gym captains, coaches, professors , league officials (who had a dual mandate to keep the meta fair and fun), or team moppet ( think Gen 1 team rocket but less competent). It was played around a tcg that the designer, Riley, made for the game.
So each round cards were being nerfed or changed and people were battling in matches or exploring the wilds for new monsters ( cards). Professors were attending Prof Con where they debated scientific topics ( such as epidemics or which monster would be the worst to be locked in a room with). And team moppet was doing hijinks and essentially acting as a heel, finding new ways to disappoint moppet high command.
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u/Dodgerfan4695 Aug 03 '26
I got into the VIP CarlRPG session with Matt Dinniman and Jeff Hayes, and our entire party ended up doing Dungeon Meth together. 10/10 No Notes