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Rick Baptist
United States
Redlands
California
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Gaming heaven, at least to me, comes three times a year at our local Los Angeles convention, Strategicon. Three times a year! I could just kiss whoever came up with that idea.
Strategicon started out as a wargaming convention, from what I can tell, and slowly morphed into this growing, living con that houses board games, miniatures, larping, and everything else. Along with that, there's dealer booths, tournaments for "dealer dollars", open gaming, a great growing library, and special guests. Each con goes from Friday to Monday, so I count 12 days out of the year that I can devote FULLY to gaming. Fabulous! I've met a lot of good people at the event, too -- guys that have become gaming buddies (and beyond that, friends) for life. This is going to be my sixth Strategicon, and honestly I wish it was my 26th, but hey.
I know that there's a lot of you that have local cons or perhaps have access to the big ones (Gencon, Origins, etc.) I wish I could do a compare and contrast right now, but I can't. The only gaming con I've been to is Strategicon. This is a sad fact in my life, and one I intend on fixing one day. I can see Single Rick jumping into a rental car with some buddies and driving to Texas for BGG.con, but Married Rick With Lots Of Responsibilities At Home is going to have to settle for the three Strategicons every year, and I count my blessings for that. But Strategicon is definitely different from what I can understand. For one, we have a very strict schedule of events. There are individual volunteer GMs assigned for each event (of which I am one of many) and we set up the game, teach it if necessary, and make sure folks have a good time. For instance, if you want to play Vikings, just write your name down in the logbook under 'Vikings, Friday at Midnight', look for the table that has a flag with a picture of the Vikings box front on it, and that's where I'll be. Having these schedules is both a good and a bad thing -- it really exposes you to a lot of different games, and there's a way to plan what you want to hit. Truly awesome. The bad part is that there's always stuff that I want to hit that I can't, because I'm trying to hit something else. Sounds like college. Sorry, I had to. There's some other differences -- it doesn't get booths from big companies (yet), it's smaller in size (I think there was about 3,000 folks at the last one?) -- but that's the main one.
I mentioned special guests. Hey, that's my wifey and I with Matt Leacock! I have to say that for a smaller con, I'm very impressed with the guests they bring in every time. Since I've been going I've met Jason Matthews, Thomas Lehmann, Michael Schacht, and Leacock. Unfortunately, I didn't start attending in time to meet Reiner Knizia. Insert 'cry' emoticon. Anyway, the great thing about board game 'rock stars' is that they act like you and me. I've never had a conversation with a designer and felt out of place, and asking for pictures and autographs is pie. Mr. Leacock, now that is a good guy. He was there playtesting some Pandemic stuff, playing in the Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age tournament, and showing off Forbidden Island. I had him sign my copies of Pandemic and RttA, and take the above picture. I consider Matt one of the best designers in gaming today, and he was just the nicest dude. I love our hobby. Oh, I forgot to mention this time around we'll be gaming with Bruno Faidutti, and Justin Gary will be there with one of my favorite games, Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer.
I'd invite you out to sunny southern California to join us, but it's going to be raining this weekend, so it's not sunny. Also, the NBA is having the All-Star game a few clicks down the road so the hotel is now completely sold out. Or maybe they're all here for Strategicon. Either way, last year I did geeklists that listed the games and experiences I had in 2010, and I'm going to do that again this year. It's a lot of fun to look back and see just how many games got played! Last con we played 29 games between us! No wonder I call it gaming heaven.
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Our first Strategicon since moving back to CA from the south. 
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