What we are doing

I was the first one our group to who started going to gaming conventions in 2017 (late to the party for sure) and found despite my initial self-doubt that there were many awesome players out in the world.  There is a lot of love at our home table and the folks that we game with are a great crew.   What I learned was that were lots of ways to play and lots of different games out there and many of them were awesome.  What typically made a game great or not was the DM and the players who I played with.  We have all sat in a few stinkers, but by in large the people I met were awesome.  With a little encouragement our folks started going to conventions and as a team we have been to GenCon, GaryCon, GameholeCon, ReaperCon, DaveCon, ArneCon and Adepticon with many out there we have yet to check out.

After attending my first few conventions I started seeing some of the same people at the next conventions and was always glad to see them and tried to get into games with them when I could.  During the pandemic we were able to connect with a few of them online and keep the connection despite distance and lock downs.  When the world opened back up, I remember the feeling of elation we felt with  being back at the table with friends at the next GaryCon.  A few of these folks even came together and took first place at Paul Stormberg’s Legends of Roleplaying tournament. 

These connections were solid and a few of us gamed with a number of these players often.  We tried whenever possible to coordinate games at conventions with our home table and these other gamers. Sometimes it worked, but mostly it was tough.  Not wanting to let the challenges of logistics get in our way and wanting to share the game room that has been a labor of love by many of us we had the idea to run something between our home table and a gaming convention.  On D&D day January of 2024 we ran our first invitational and had a blast.  You can see pictures of that one here.

With the passing of our dear friend Charles Edge we postponed spring one in the spring and instead ran a small mini convention at PSU MacAdmins, a conference for system admins where Charles often did the Keynote.  Most of the Keyholders flew out to PA to run games for the evening at something we called CharlesCon.  You can see some photos of that here.

Lots of ideas were born on that trip, but we were for sure recommitted to doing our invitational in earnest and wanted to increase the number of folks that we invited to play with us and maintain a high degree of quality in the games and in the players.  We also looked at many parts of gaming conventions and we are trying some experiments at how to improve the experience.  Those efforts all culminated into our second invitational that we ran in October this year. And then we did another in January 2025 and we had so much fun we did another in July of 2025.   We had blast doing it, everyone seemed to really enjoy the day and the company.  Pictures are here and the surveys from the last one here.   

This leads us to where we are now as we look to the future.  

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