Not hugely bad because both years were excellent in hobby terms but still kinda bad as I had plans for this thing. So how do I summarise the last 2 years in my hobby?
2018 : My now annual visit to UK Games Expo, a return to GenCon, the realisation of a hobby dream in Tabletop Scotland and a return to DMing D&D thanks to my players and Matt Colville.
It was a great year for my hobby, a challenging one but a great one. Whilst swapping a large chunk of my free / game time for convention planning wasn't hard, it wasn't easy either. I did manage to offset that a little by running D&D 5th Edition. 2018 was a year that reminded me why I love this hobby.
2019 : No GenCon 2019 but I did go to Conpulsion in Edinburgh, AireCon in Harrogate and Glasgow Games Festival in erm Glasgow which was nice. Obviously I also went to UK Games Expo which in 2019 was a different experience largely off the back of the relative success of Tabletop Scotland 2018 as I had people thank me and the team for the con and "recognisable name" publishers mention that they'd heard about how good it was. Oh and Tabletop Scotland 2019 happened too, twice the space and at times really tough but hugely worthwhile. In between all of that my D&D group kept going, with an often disrupted schedule but all good, and East Neuk Tabletop turned 5.
So 2019 was another great year for my hobby. In many respects a more challenging year due to trying to exceed the expectations of those who came to Tabletop Scotland 2018. I could write a lot about my Tabletop Scotland 2019 experience but if I was to boil it down to two things it'd be this -
- we hosted over 100 tables of RPGs, avergaging 20 tables per slot. Including games especially for kids.
As a Roleplayer "first" this gives me such joy. - our attendance was up by 54% on 2018 with almost 1,600 individual people being there.
That's a success story and one I'm hugely proud of.
2020? Well now... it's looking busy convention wise -
- AireCon in March
- Conpulsion in April
- UK Games Expo in May
- GenCon in July/August - there for my birthday and I'll have my GenCon brother Greg with me as always.
- Tabletop Scotland in August
- Glasgow Games Festival in November
In between all of that the D&D game and East Neuk Tabletop attendance will continue; plus I'm planning to add another RPG "slot" to my schedule with Night's Black Agents looking like the favourite to start that off. I have some other hobby goals for 2020 that probably bleed into 2021 and beyond but they're not currently for sharing :-P
I intend to post on here about GenCon 2020 (tickets go on sale on the 26th January!) and hope to get the chance to meet many people I only know in an online capacity. So if you're at GenCon and our cyberpaths have crossed somehow let me know as it'd be great to meet you and maybe even play a game.
To wrap this up, I have one thing to ask. If you see me at a convention, in a game store, at a games club or out and about and ANY of the above mean something to you then let me know.
Cheers and here's to a great 2020 in the hobby.
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