Con On The Cob Day 3: Trick-Or-Treaters And An Essential NPC

Howdy-ho folks, and welcome to Day 3 of Sniderman's adventures at Con on the Cob. I'm not really playing or running any games today, as I'm running the Goblinoid Games / Pacesetter booth from opening to closing. But I'll let you know what I've seen and heard from my little corner of the Vendor's Hall. Let's see what going on...

• A familiar-looking fellow came up and slyly mentioned an obscure piece of personal trivia I've not thought about in 20+ years. Turns out it was my old pal Jeff Fournier, who I haven't seen face-to-face since college. I went to college with he and his future-wife Lisa, and gamed with them during the downtimes at school. (There's a lot more history too including double-dates with them and my future wife Chris, but I won't bore you with details.) And later, when some current gaming pals stopped by and saw him, it was all "Hey Jeff." "Hi Jeff." "Oh, hey guys." I lost it. "YOU ALL KNOW EACH OTHER?!?" I said. Turns out after I lost touch with Jeff and Lisa, they found a new group -- one I've been gaming with for the past few months.
• Jeff asked me if I remembered the Paranoia game I ran at a convention 20 years ago. "Yup, that was the one where I sounded an air horn to wake the players," I answered. "Well, the guy running CoC at the table next to yours was super-pissed about it and complained. Did you know you were banned from that con?" Cool, I've never been banned from a location before, let alone a convention I haven't attended in 20 years.
• Conversation snippet I overheard: "It's Sweetest Day today. You should totally buy him that lightsaber."
• A young teen and her friend stopped by the booth. "What are these?" "Ah, these are role-playing games." "Role-playing? Never heard of it." "You know, you and your friends sit around and roll dice and play an adventure, like in Dungeons and Dragons." "Dungeons and Dragons? Is that some kind of game or something?" I decided to just stay quiet as her friend tried to explain RPGs while they wandered slowly away to look at Grumpy Cat merchandise.
• Just got an email from the folks from the Dead Game Society. The podcast interview I did with them on All Things Pacesetter should be up sometime tomorrow. (Will post a note when it goes live.) It's not con-related, but cool nevertheless.
• As I sat here in the booth, meeting people and shaking hands (or meeting hands and shaking people), Will Thrasher of Skirmisher Publishing stopped by to introduce himself. I'm a big fan of Skirmisher's stuff, particularly their Wisdom from the Wastelands supplements for Mutant Future. We jawed a bit about upcoming products including a new Labyrinth Lord-focused supplement similar to WftW. They also just released a new mini-supplement that would be perfect for Cryptworld that I'll discuss when I get home.
• The annual Con on the Cob Witches' Ball is tonight. The parking lot is currently filled with brooms. (I keed! I keed!)
• "So what do you like -- specifically -- about the Pacesetter system?" he asked. After sharing 30 years of expereince and running him through a quick scene, he walked away with Majus and Rotworld. (And he plans to order Cryptworld upon returning home.)
• There was a game of Dread scheduled at 8 p.m. that I was tempted to play in, but I'm so tired and shaky, I'm not sure a Jenga-based RPG would pan out favorably for my character.

The day has ended and I'm finishing up this post while I eat a club sammich. Tomorrow is the final day to this most fun of local cons, so I'll wrap up today's post with a handful of pix from the Vendor Hall:

The Goblinoid Games / Pacesetter booth in all its glory.

A close-up of the shirt I wore today. Pacesetter represents!

Not often you see a minotaur and his handler shopping for chainmail dice bags.

And there were kids trick-or-treating during the evening!

Grabbed a handful of DCC zines I didn't have yet as well as a nifty "Essential NPC" t-shirt