Archon 28 Report

This past weekend I attended Archon 28. Regular blog readers may notice that I attended a number of conventions this year. In fact this is my fourth sci-fi/gaming convention this year. In addition to Archon I attended the following: CloverCon, GenCon (entry) and DieCon (entry).

At this year's Archon someone asked how many years I had attended the convention. So I did some checking. It wasn't difficult since I have all of my convention badges hanging in my cubicle at work. My first Archon was Archon 20 (1996). Ray Bradbury was the featured Guest of Honor that year. Incidentally, this is the first and only convention to which I brought a date. I took two years off and did not attend again until Archon 23 (1999). I have been attending every year since then. As far as I can tell I first played the SLUGS Vampire LARP in 2000. So the short answer is: for eight years I have attended seven Archons and have played the Vampire LARP for five years (including this year).

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There were plastic ducks sitting everywhere. For some reason they had the word "Boot" written on the bottom. I think it had to do with the children's programming. Of course when the ducks turned up in the hospitality room, they became festive decorations for glasses of beer.

Ducks in beer? Boot!

I played the SLUGS LARP again this year. I'll elaborate on my role a little later. Unfortunately, one of the people playing the LARP overdosed on an undisclosed drug. Every year the game judges have to handle drunk players. But this was frightening; the affected player had to be taken away in an ambulance. At this year's recap the judges asked that nobody use drugs and try to play the game.

Hotel staff tends to a drunk guest

This year in the LARP I played Jack Steele, the leader of the Cam. There are two factions in the Vampire game. I was leader of one faction; a lovely woman was the leader of the Sabbat, the other faction. My gang was eager to fight. When a group of Sabbat visited our base of operations and menanced us with threats, I couldn't hold the blood-thirsty bunch back. Most disappeared right away. We managed to assemble again and invaded their HQ. It was exciting; I've never played such a powerful character. I think the judges wanted me to play my character more like the Terminator; I played him more like John Connor.

After the game I stayed up until 7 AM talking to the woman who played the leader of the Sabbat. We shared leadership experiences and exchanged bad jokes. Does it get any better?

Archon is like homecoming for me. I don't see many of the people there except for once a year. It was better this year than last. I had fun in both the organized tabletops games and spontaneous pick-up games.

I was sad to see it end. But I did need to get some sleep. Cheers! See y'all at Archon next year!

UPDATE: Pan sent me a copy of a picture of myself from Archon's Fan Photo page.

Me in a Jean Jacket. Courtesy of Archon's Fan Photo page

Posted at 10:47 PM