ConFABulous Con Report

 
Image: me (left) and Eleanor Arnason (right) at ConFABulous this weekend. Photo by tallgeese 

This last weekend was ConFABulous a small, local con that caters (mostly) to GLBTQIA+ fans of SF/F and games of all sorts. I was in attendance all three days, though I only showed up on Sunday to do some TTRPGing. 

Friday night around 6 pm, I picked up Eleanor at her place and we drove together to the con. The con hotel was a Crowne Plaza Aire, but local people will know it as "the good MarsCon hotel." (MarsCon has been at the Airport Hilton for the past decade, but some of the earlier iterations of that con were held at this hotel and I have very fond memories of those weekends.) Eleanor and I were on a panel called "Two Former Guests of Honor Talk about Whatever the [Bleep] They Want." The title is a bit of a misnomer, since we were both former GoHs of Gaylaxicon since ConFABulous doesn't really have GoHs, but since ConFABulous started as the local alternative to when Gaylaxicon was being held elsewhere, we figured close enough. 

The conversation really was broad in scope. We talked about dinosaurs, yaoi, why people write SF and play RPGs in tough times, Spenser's Fairy Queen and six dozen other topics. It made sense at the time... mostly.

Eleanor was done after that, so we headed to the bar so she could decompress, have a beer and something to eat before heading home. We ran into our friend Anton and one of his partners and so we hung out and chatted for awhile before heading home. 

Saturday, I had a panel on Japanese and Chinese graphic media, basically, which I shared with a fellow named David. I... found this panel somewhat difficult to be on. David, as it happens, is very new to the manga/manhwa fandom and I think to conventions, as well, at least at a guess? I mean, typically, where there are two people on a panel the first person introduces themselves says a little something about what they want to talk about, and then the other person gets a chance to introduce themselves? Well, David just started and didn't stop. If I am feeling generous, it was probably nerves? Regardless, I spent much of that panel fighting for air and a chance to direct the conversation even a little.



Image: Me, looking at David's copy of MDZS and wondering if I will ever get a word in edgewise. Photo credit same as above.

However, talking to people over food later, it's unclear that the panel felt as bad from the outside as it did from the in. I did note that it might have been nice, since the con is so small, to have checked with the level of understanding of the audience because the few people who broke in with questions and comments, seemed pretty well versed in the basics, one woman even lived in Korea for years. So, I feel like it was FINE, but there were missed opportunities.

I went home for lunch on Saturday because I knew it would be my longer day. When I came back, I played the Thieves' World roleplaying game. When I was a teenager, I loved the Thieves' World anthologies. It was one of the earliest shared world anthologies (at least that *I* knew about) and the stories tended to follow the lower classes, which, to me in 1978, was a shiny new idea. You mean you can write about the underclass and not just princes and elves??  These books probably sparked my life long interest in reading about class dynamics in SF/F. So, I ate these up. I have not tried to re-read them, though tallgeese (the GM) did and said that he was surprised by what felt like a bit ahead of the times inclusion of gender-bending/gender-queer folks and Furries. The game itself was quite fun. In what is apparently a trend, I played a witch-barbarian, who I decided was non-binary. There was only one other player and that worked out really well, honestly? We had a good rapport.  I am not one to comment on game mechanics (because I don't care if the dice ever go clickety-clack, I'm there for the playing pretend parts) But for those who might be interested, our GM used Swords of the Serpentine.

On Sunday, I came back early in the morning to play Hearts of Wulin which is a Powered by the Apocalypse game. David, of the disastrous panel joined in, and I was initially very worried how the table dynamics would shake out, but he was a very considerate and fun player, as it happened. I don't think this table's players clicked quite as well as when it was just me and one other person, but there is, as I have been thinking about ever since, a lot of pressure on the players of PbtA games to provide story elements and, what is sometimes called in D&D, "flair." So, the quality of the role-playing part of the game really depends on how into your character you are. I think this is actually why David was a good player? He basically revamped a favorite wuxia character of his and amused me (and I *think* the rest of the table, though maybe just me) by showing us the costume changes that his character was going through. For me, I felt a bit a loss because so much of why I am not a huge wuxia or xianxia fan in general--much of Chinese culture and history is opaque and unknown to me. 

But, this is not to say I didn't have fun in this game. I just found role-playing in it a bit more challenging. Unlike one of our other players, I actually adore games like this that focus on relationships, but those are also more difficult to fully explore in a one-shot... though I felt very satisfied by how it all went down. I think I'd really love to try to play a Hearts of Wulin campaign at some point, but I would have to find other people into it and given that only two other players showed up to this game besides myself, I have no idea if I'd be able to drum up interest in anything more than a one-shot. 

Anyway.

I would say the con was a success all around. How was your weekend?