The Convention Conundrum!

I realise that my blog posts this week, both on this and The Lawdable Blog, relate to conferences and conventions and sound like Big Bang theory episodes but that can't be helped. 

This is a long over due posting! I mean what geek worth their salt hasn't been to a convention...me apparently, well at least till the weekend.  When I popped my convention cherry by attending the XIX Q-con at Queen's University Belfast.  I have promised myself for at least 6 years that I would attend Q-con and this year, all be it rather last minute, I went! 

We debated for the day or so before going if we should attempt Cos-play but since it was rather a slapdash affair we felt it better not to risk it a) anything thrown together last minute would not be good enough and b) as first timers we were not sure how many people would be dressed up and if we would look like numptys if we came dressed.  That being said on the Saturday morning I was dressing I saw my weeping Angel costume in my wardrobe from Halloween and I was sorely tempted!

We arrived shortly after the doors opened on the first full day of the Con.  Registration was quick and painless and we were issued with some passes and let loose on the expansive convention space.  There were traditional table top RPG's running all day over all 3 days on every possible topic you could want from Shadowrun, to traditional DnD and even a Game of Thrones game.  There were warhammer style games in another part of the hall, another space for computer gaming and a floor dedicated to board games, including trials of the Discworld game 'Gaurds Gaurds' and the Munchkin board game. 

As per convention usual there were stalls and sellers, and despite my concern that they would be a rip off because it was an event they actually proved to be at about shop average which did motivate more than one purchase!

We were drawn to a stand selling board games and were rather quickly susumed into a game of Munchkin with some guys from Steve Jackson games, who not only let us try an extended Munchkin deck which I had never experienced before but also a few other word games that proved highly entertaining.  We did spend rather a lot of the con playing with them, but since they should no desire for us to bugger off and bother other people we assumed it was because we had winning personalities. 

 I passed it off as grown up day by attending a Q-ED event, a lecture by a University of Ulster tutor on the benefit of Hack and Jam days for game development, but in reality the day was nothing of the sort - and certainly far from boring.  It was after this that the Steve Jackson game guys invited us to try another game, which quickly turned into 2, then 3, then 4....

Becase it was so last minute we didnt attend the full 3 days of the con and only went to the day events rather than the plethora of night time activities that had been planned for after hours but it still smashing! With £10 for a day and £20 for the weekend I can easily say it was well worth the money and I think next year I shall be making sure I'm pre-registered for the whole weekend!

I did purchase my very first set of dice and a set of Munchkin Zombie, and Munchkin Booty.  So expect a write up on table top rping and board games soon!