Genghis Con/Weird Realms Game Room: Comics, Art, And "New Mutants"

Yesterday was the last day of a long Thanksgiving weekend, and what better way to round it out than by squeezing in one last con-run RPG session before the year ends? Yesterady I attended Genghis Con in Cleveland. The event is a small press/independent comic publishers convention, and one I've been wanting to attend for years. For the second year, Weird Realms game store hosted a game room where folks could try out indy RPGs and self-published materials. So I signed on to run a playtest game of my next MCC RPG adventure, "The Desk in Room 8-10".

Although this was just a one-day afternoon affair, I'd be remiss if I didn't post my usual travelogue so folks can attend vicariously and, perhaps, make plans to attend next year. As usual with these little travelogues, I'll share what I've seen and done to give you a feel for what happened. Here we go:

• The event was in the Tenk Building in Cleveland, which was in a old warehouse/manufacturing district that is being repurposed for event hosting. From the outside, the building was a non-descript warehouse, but the inside was quite nice with an industrial flair.
• One entire area was filled with artists and vendors hawking their wares. The indy comic scene alone was mind-boggling and I truly wish I had set aside more time to browse and shop. I love indy publishers and saw a lot of stuff that caught my eye.
• I did manage to find several things in the Weird Realms booth. A current obsession is horror comics and horror video mags, and I picked up some issues of Creepy, Fangoria, and Psychotronic Video magazine amongst other treasures. (Love my new "Weird Tales" button now on my convention ID badge wallet.) Beckett and I traded for some stuff, so I got a new horror book and he now has 5 new copies of "Dead In The Water" stocked on his store's shelves. Go pick one up today!
• The game room  had 5 tables set up and, at its busiest, each table was filled with players. Board games, RPGs, and other fun stuff was ongoing.
• Met and spoke at length with Jim Pozenel who recent ended a successful Kickstarter for his adventure "The House of the Red Doors" for DCC RPG. The adventure is a 0 level funnel for one player. That's right, just you and the judge going mano-a-mano. Jim had a table set up where he was running all-comers through a 15-minute death-dash through the adventure. He showed me a proof of the end product (which I backed) and I can't wait to see the finished product. We also talked about editing and future RPG projects we're each working on. Nice to talk with you Jim!
• I only had time to run one game, and I had Kurt and Sam show up for a crack at my next MCC project. Interestingly, they had never played DCC/MCC before! (Kurt had the rules, but it was an Xmas gift he's forbidden to crack open until then.) They had also never played in a post-apocalyptic game, so this was all new. Within 20 minutes, they were blasting stuff with lasers and battling mutants warped by radiation like old pros! After 3 hours, they had made short work of the dangers within my adventure, and I think they really enjoyed the system and the adventure!

And here are some photos from today's event (all environmental because I forgot to take pictures of, you know, people playing and stuff...):

Banner outside of the Tenk Building IDing the location for the fun!

This is just half of the vendors and artists showing off their stuff. Due to poor planning on my part, I didn't have enough time to see it all and I certainly didn't have enough cash to buy it all!

But I did pick up a few horrific tomes for future Cryptworld inspiration!

The Weird Realms archway ushered folks into the game room beyond!