Create Your Own Dungeons And Dragons Convention

September 9, 2008 · Filed Under Conventions, Dungeons and Dragons, Me and My Gang 

In 2007, we skipped Gen Con.

You see, my Dungeons and Dragons gaming group is an interesting mix of folks. We’ve got small business owners, health care professionals, a college professor, IT professionals, fast food workers, an electrician, housewives, and even someone in the printing business.

Oh, and then there’s me, but you all know what I do. I’m a writer.

We have single guys, engaged guys, married folks with kids, and married folks without kids.

At any rate, the stars were aligned in 2007 such that most of us either couldn’t afford Gen Con or couldn’t attend because of work or family commitments.

We realized, by July of 2007, that we were really going to miss Gen Con. So, we came up with a stopgap measure: Cabin Con.

What is Cabin Con? Well, we decided that one of the best parts about Gen Con was the gaming. Specifically, gaming with our friends. So, we rented two small cabins at nearby county park for two nights in late August last year. We spent the better part of three days gaming. We played Dungeons and Dragons, Three Dragon Ante, and even some board games.

We cooked our food over a campfire, and made jokes at night about who was sharing a sleeping bag with whom.

We did all of this on the cheap; with food and everything, I think we all got away for about $75 a person.

Cabin Con was such a damned good idea that we’re doing it again this October. This time, we’re renting a vacation home for 4 days to the tune of $600. Split between a dozen or so of us, we’ll still be under $100 apiece including food. Gen Con or not, I think Cabin Con is going to become a tradition.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because it would never have occurred to us to do something like this if we hadn’t missed Gen Con in 2007. Maybe it’s something your group could do, too.

So, if you want to organize your own convention, here’s what you need to do:

  • Figure out how many people you have going. Get as firm a commitment as possible.
  • Find a good location. Depending on your budget, you could have your Cabin Con in tents in the woods, or you could have it at the Hilton. For me, I think the vacation home or hunting lodge type rental is the best way to go.
  • Divide your weekend up into time slots for games. These can be 4-hour slots, or they can be shorter or longer depending on your group’s preferences.
  • Get your friends to commit to running games. If you’re like me and usually are the DM, GM, or StoryTeller, a Cabin Con can be a nice opportunity to play on the other side of the screen.
  • Send out the list of games, and have everyone sign up for the games they want to play.
  • Plan a menu and buy the food. You can live on sandwiches and cereal all weekend, or you can cook full-blown meals. Here again, it just depends on your group’s preferences.
  • Set up a KP duty chart. Give everyone a chance to help out with the cooking, cleaning, and whatnot.

I’d love to hear from others. If you’ve done your own gaming weekend, what advice can you offer?

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Comments

4 Responses to “Create Your Own Dungeons And Dragons Convention”

  1. Patriarch917 on September 11th, 2008 12:20 pm

    Sounds like a really great idea. I’m currently in a gaming group of 8, and all of us love GMing. A cabin con like this, even if it’s just at someone’s house for a day, might be really popular. I’ll suggest it to my group, and let you know how it goes.

    Patriarch917s last blog post..4e Alignment: Lawful Good is the Best

  2. shekaka67 on September 12th, 2008 5:41 pm

    as one of the primary GMs in our group, I have to concur with the writer here…CAbin Con 07′ was fabulous..it involved the best part of convention gaming for me…hanging out with the dudes…your homeys…it was awesome…we are really pumped about 08′ and think it will be even better…with electricity we will have a console gaming area and chance at rock-n-roll stardom ( Yeah, rockband/guitar hero!)…Cabin Con 08′ is going to ROCK!!..no pun intended…err..umm..yeah it was…REPRESENT!!

  3. Bog97th on September 14th, 2008 9:40 am

    This is a n awesome idea. I would be great is RPG publishers would help financially back small scale cons all over the states.
    I would attempt it but the cash is the biggest problem.

  4. John Reyst on October 12th, 2008 8:55 pm

    We have a yearly get-together we call “John-Con” since its at my house (I’m John) and it was started as a tradition after we added up how much a trip to GenCon was going to cost us. We start gaming Thursday night after everyone gets off of work, everyone takes Friday off, then we play till Sunday afternoon. We stay up as late each night and begin each day as early as possible. Everyone brings their own sleeping gear and crashes either on my kids beds (kids go out of town with mom that weekend) or on the couch or floor. Everyone brings bags and bags of chips and boxes of cereal and other random food including coolers filled with pop and lunchmeat etc. So far we’ve done it twice, each time where one DM ran one long marathon game, but since I did it last I will be lobbying for multiple shorter games. Either way its an extremely fun event and strains everyones stamina. It gives everyone one more thing to geek-brag about, ie, “We played for 20 hours straight, got up after 4 hours, and played another 20 hours straight… yes, I’m a geek “

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