RPX Wrap-Up - Post Gencon 2026 Episode

[00:00:00] All rise. All rise, boys. Grab your handels. Alrighty. Hello, welcome to the Roleplaying Exchange, and today we are going to be doing our Post GenCon 2026 Wrap-Up. And the best way to do it is a month after the fact at 9am on a Saturday. And joining me today are all the wonderful people I got to enjoy this experience with, in Discord order.

[00:00:29] Oh, Lord, that's me for the first time ever. Hi Internet, it's Darcy. Just Darcy, not playing a character. Jeremy, I am probably a character. I don't know if I'm human at this point. It is too early for that. I'm Joe, and I'm definitely not human. If it was up to me, I wouldn't wake up until 11am. I guess that brings us to me. This is David, still alive despite the world's attempts otherwise. Hello adventurers.

[00:00:58] I'm Brownie, or ZBrownie. Darcy got to first-hand experience the betrayal of Adam, who should be at the front of the list, but is it at the end? Sorry about that, guys. Man, it's... I know me and Jeremy have talked about this off and on throughout the course of the year. It just seems like Gen Con's so far away, Gen Con's so far away. Oh my God, it's here. It's just the feelings I generally have when going to the con.

[00:01:26] Been going for several years now since I've made acquaintances with all you lovely people, and it's one of the greatest times of the year I get to go out for, really, let's be honest, three wonderful days of gaming because I've run off on Sundays, typically. And this year, Jeremy was so nice as to host me and review Cultus Crazon, the man of many names, a couple days prior to Gen Con. So, my Gen Con experience really started before I went up to Jeremy's.

[00:01:56] He fed us lavish meals of steak. His backyard is infested with flies. I don't understand how that happens. That's because you brought them with you. Yeah. They weren't there when you came. He started calling me Beelzebub. That is a true story. I was like, damn it, Beelzebub, go back in the house, and then the flies stopped coming in.

[00:02:22] Darcy and her Bo Dalton, who, I give him my official seal of approval now. I'll provide the paperwork next time to see each other, okay? But he's good. But I get to spend a lot of good time with you all. So, yeah. And that was prior to the Wednesday where we went up and got our tickets. How did... I think Darcy and Jeremy, you guys are... I've already kind of name-dropped you. Like, how was your all leading into Gen Con?

[00:02:53] My leading into Gen Con was fine. For the first time of my Gen Con experience, this is my third year going. Woo! I'm slowly getting up there. I always... I drive. I'm not far. It's like maybe two hours if traffic's not bad. Of course, Indy has to do their obligatory road work right as Gen Con occurs. But I actually... I didn't drive in this year because I brought Dalton for the first time. First time that I brought a guest.

[00:03:18] I finally feel experienced enough and that I can navigate well enough downtown Indy and the convention center mazes that they build every year for Gen Con. That I finally brought my partner with me. So, our transit up wasn't bad at all. It was nice to not make the trek alone and be nervous about getting to see all the people I love so much and all the shit that we're going to get up into. I finally got off work.

[00:03:46] I did not show up like I did last year post work. Like running a 24 hours awake challenge at Gen Con that's really fucked up. Don't do that. So, yeah, I arrived well rested. Our... Because we work night shift, I can't ship our badges to our house because you have to sign for them because they're of a certain value. And I... It's like through FedEx and I...

[00:04:14] You can't fucking tell when they're going to get there. They give you a window of like several hours and I can't just stay awake all day like that. I have to go to work at night. So, we did do will call and that was... Oh, that was interesting. It wasn't bad. It wasn't ridiculous on Wednesday or anything. But one side of the hallway was running a very strict program. The other side to the merch line didn't really give a fuck about nothing.

[00:04:41] Dalton and I got told that we cannot stand shoulder to shoulder. We had to be single file. They were running a very strict program. And the other side of the hall was like four shoulders deep. They didn't care at all. Once we got to will call, it was very easy. I don't think that we were in line for very long. I think we were in line for like maybe... Maybe like 40 minutes, maybe like 45 minutes.

[00:05:09] And they had games testers with rolling carts to entertain people in line and to like let them demo games. Which we got kind of suckered into. I tried to brush them off, but they were very insistent. But that's neat for the people that want to participate. I think that's the first year that I've seen them do it. So... Granted, in the past, I don't think I've done will call. So I guess this is my first time actually truly experiencing it. But... Yeah, it wasn't too ridiculous of a wait.

[00:05:37] But also getting there on Wednesday is a whole different ball game than getting there later in the week. I feel bad for the people that get one day tickets and then have to do will call. That is rough. Especially when the halls are slam packed. But... Yeah, my commuted was pretty good. I hit the merch table very early. Got all of my swag before they could sell out of anything. Because I haven't done that in previous years. Got all of my officially licensed merch very, very quickly. Uh, for me, it was... My commuting was very easy. I lived here.

[00:06:08] But it was really cool. Adam and Chris came in on Monday. And I don't get to host a lot. So whenever they were saying that I made a bunch of food, I did. It was fun grilling, taking people around, showing people the area. We found a random Uzabaki coloring book at a little big box store out in kind of the middle of nowhere. Which Chris was like, oh shit, I didn't know this was here. Mm-hmm.

[00:06:36] It was creepy and I may actually still go buy one. But yeah, I mean, it was just fun for me. Everybody coming in, Darcy and Dalton coming in the next day and then picking up where we left on. And as much crap as I gave Dalton the whole time, he is... He's a good dude. And he can live for at least another year. The lease has been extended. That's true. I want to mention real quick with your story that I had to drive like four hours to get there.

[00:07:05] But Chris had to drive 12 hours. Oh my God. My goal was just to be Chris. Yeah. And I barely did that because I had pulled into Jeremy's garage and was just standing there talking to him when Chris pulled in. So... Yeah. It was within a manner of about five minutes. So... And I know you're talking about the first day, but I'm aware that your commute was not in fact nice and smooth. At least on later days. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:07:35] Oh my God. Nope, nope. Yeah. This is Chekhov's bad commute. I had forgotten about that until... Oh my God. Yeah. You just unlocked a sleeper cell in all of us. I think that was an instantaneous reaction. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Indy never changed. There's always lots of construction and insanity going on downtown. Like my commute, I grew... My wife drove me to the airport. I flew to Indy. I took an Uber downtown, but my hotel was behind massive construction.

[00:08:05] And there was a sign that said, if you're going here, go this way. But it looked like you were driving into the mouth of hell. And at no point when I was using rideshare downtown, did anyone feel at all comfortable putting me anywhere near my hotel. Yeah. It was like 50 feet from... You could see where you needed to go, but you couldn't get there. It was like there was a... There was the moon on the other side of where we were at. You could see the Hell's Maw that led you there, but that tunnel's pretty long. Yeah. Sure. I don't know, Jeremy. Excuse me, David.

[00:08:33] How did you and Greg, how was your... Just give Joe. Well, my trip from Springfield was an eight hour drive right after dialysis. And I could not rest on the way up because we were still so hyped for Gen Con. And we got in after dark and right when everything was closing down. So we check into the Airbnb, everything looks nice.

[00:09:03] All of the bedrooms were upstairs. So that was the thing that we found out after we got there and it wasn't as nice as the one we had last year, but it was still a really nice place. And I know that I am spoiled because I would rather stay in an Airbnb or a Verbo every year than try to get a close hotel.

[00:09:27] But once we got to the, once we got to downtown Indy, we did something smart ahead of time because we got an all weekend parking pass. So we knew where we were going to park. We knew where we were going to stay every single day. So it was easy enough to go to the parking lot and then make our way up except for one of the days, but we'll cover that later.

[00:09:54] And Joe, I know that you arrived on Thursday, didn't you? That's correct. Arrived on Thursday at about noon. I was at the JW Marriott. Fortunately, I have a friend of mine who is a very important gamer. So he's basically guaranteed a spot at a hotel he would like to be at. And that's the one he prefers. I stay with him. A flight in was fine. No problems.

[00:10:23] Driving to the hotel. Also no problems. Probably the smoothest trip I've had despite the construction in the area, because you know, it only takes you like 10 years to get used to there being constant construction in downtown Indianapolis and on every highway. Just like, oh, it's just going to take an hour long. It takes whatever, you know. Yeah.

[00:10:46] I had, I did the badge pickup and all that for kind of the nice people at Gen Con, who do this for me again, by the way, provide me a press pass. And when we went up on Wednesday, all I had to do was, I think everybody was, I think it's when Darcy was doing her shopping and all that. I just waited in the press line with fellow other members of the press.

[00:11:10] And so, you know, I felt, I felt regal and all that, but it was a pretty easy little setup. And, you know, one of the first little compliments I'd like to give Gen Con, I like how paper tickets have for the most part went the way of the Dodo. It's the, the years leading up to it, the digital tickets have just become more and more prominent with all these types of events.

[00:11:36] And I, I don't even know if they offered paper tickets now, like I just, everything was on my phone and it was super handy. So I didn't have to get into a separate line later on just to pick up that kind of stuff. They do. There are some events that are still paper ticketed, but they're few and far between.

[00:11:54] Now we, as far as actually the big main event on Thursday, kind of leading up to this here, it's Jeremy kind of mentioned, we alluded to the shared trauma just erupted there a few minutes ago. I, you know, this is my first year of going to Gen Con where I wasn't within a walking distance of the convention. I'd always kind of lucked out. And this year I was lucky to have Jeremy as a friend.

[00:12:19] And so I was able to stay with him because a lot of, it was not pleasant. And my, my family typically, typically goes with me on these trips, but since we lost the lotto and it's kind of a big ordeal going around dragging kids around and all that. We just, I just went up stag on that. But yeah. Talking about the construction, Joe, I, I just am the maddest I've ever seen Jeremy in my life.

[00:12:44] I don't get irritated very often as far as like traffic goes and stuff. Cause I'm just like, you know what? It happens. We sat for 45 minutes to an hour. Yeah. Over an hour. Over an hour. Okay. Because Dalton and I got out of the car like easily like 35 minutes in and y'all still were not there. Yeah. The GPS sent us down the side street because of lovely Indy construction.

[00:13:13] And I was maybe a half a mile away from where the parking lot is that I normally park at for over an hour. And I could see it basically. It was locked up traffic. There was, I can't even remember what, I think it was Illinois street or something like that. Whatever it is. Don't trust your GPS sometimes. We got the bright idea to turn off onto a side street to come back around to a way that made sense. And this dude decided he was going to be in my lane as I was trying to turn.

[00:13:43] So that was cool. Yeah, that was wrong. Shout out to that guy. That was his name. Yeah. Shout out to that guy. I hope he's still there. Cause he immediately almost head on to me and I was like, well, welcome to welcome to Indy buddy. And didn't hit the curb. So that was cool. Yeah. Indy get better. That one was just silly. I don't know how that happened. That was just dumb.

[00:14:08] And the other night, the other, the other ways, the other days that we went down there perfectly fine, perfectly smooth ride. No problems that day, complete clusterfucking shit show. There was that one bar and I'm not going to dignify them with the name, but they, they had parking space that was right next to the street and their delivery van parked right in the middle of the street because fuck you. That's why.

[00:14:33] And block traffic for several, several time units. I have no idea how long we eventually just went around them. And when we came back later, it was still parked in the middle of the street. And we kept thinking, somebody's got to get here to ticket them eventually, because that's not where they're supposed to park. Like they have a parking spot, literally four feet to the right of where that van is. But no. Yeah.

[00:15:03] I, you know, it'd be in about a month and I'm, yeah, pretty much a month since we actually experienced all this. It's a few things are a little loosey goosey in my mind right now, but, you know, I think the big flavor of Gen Con that we got to experience this year was the social movement that is Dungeon Crawler Carl. Oh my God. And it was, you know, I saw more celebrities this year than I think I ever did.

[00:15:31] I know that Matt Dinnerman, the author of Dungeon Crawler Carl and Jeff Hayes, the guy who does the voice work, phenomenal voice actor. With that, you should, if y'all haven't checked it out, dude, trust me, I hate being that guy saying, you should read his book and everybody's raving about, but you should read his book or more or less listen to the audio book. It's great. But I just turned around and every time I looked, there was Jeff Hayes walking around, saw Matt Dinnerman, saw Felicia Day.

[00:15:58] She was walking with like one of those little sun hats on and all that, but it was Felicia Day there. Of course, they're doing the Guild Kickstarter and all that. That was pretty cool. Renegade Games had a big, beautiful spread of everything for Dungeon Crawler Carl. There was a gigantic figurine that they had set up there. They had a lot of their upcoming models, which I think come out later this year. And Bob Machine was there too. Yeah. Had their card game kind of alluding to.

[00:16:28] They don't have the physical products yet. I don't think those come out until like November, December. So that was one of the big things that was kind of going on at Gen Con. Do you guys remember anything else? Because, I mean, we had at Lorcana one year when everybody stood in line and all that. I know that the Jeff Hayes, Matt Dinnerman panels and meeting groups and stuff like that, I never got to speak to him. Even when I saw him, I didn't want to run any of your wonderful down because that's just not how I roll.

[00:16:58] I do have one thing about Dungeon Crawler Carl. Yeah? I was all ready to hate it because, you know, the fan base is what ruins a lot of fiction for me. And the amount of unselfaware, barefoot boxer wearing just man messes that I saw at Gen Con made me want to hate it.

[00:17:23] But to Adam's urging, I read it and now I'm out until the next one comes out. It is really good, despite the fan base. Yeah. I saw all of the cosplayers and it upset me up until the tornado announcement. And somebody said, oh my God, that's Jeff Hayes. And I said, Jeff who? They said, listen to Dungeon Crawler Carl and you'll get it. And now that I have, I'm several books in myself. Yeah.

[00:17:53] It took me a long time to get rolling and I'm on the second book now. And it is actually really good. The voice acting does make it for me. And the man does pretty much, Jeff Hayes does all the voices and all that. He was impressive. Oh yeah. Male voices, female voices. It's just so cool. So it was neat seeing a lot of the love going on there for that.

[00:18:19] I wanted to dress as Uzi Jesus because I have long hair and a beard and all that. But I didn't think that Gen Con would appreciate me walking around with two fake Uzis. So I just kind of forgot, forwent that one. To be fair. It is been Jesus at that point. Yeah. The fan base was less bonkers than Lorcana, but there was more of them. There wasn't people lining up the day before to get in and do Lorcanna like there was this year. I didn't even know of them.

[00:18:49] There were quite a few of them, but they weren't as bad. Mm-hmm. Like, to be fair, one of the things that I have been tasked to do because I have a friend who does Lorcanna is I get to wait in the line because I don't wait in the line. I am the line. I get to just bypass all of it because that's how I roll. Literally. I didn't even know why people were running around in boxer shorts until like day three, honestly.

[00:19:18] What the fuck is this? Whatever it is, I don't want to be a part of it. I will say, adding to the fake Uzis of it all, and correct me if I'm wrong, I am so unexperienced in this field. Definitely caught me off guard seeing everybody in boxers. I assume that there's something to do with animal rights as a part of the plot, correct? One of the main characters is an animal.

[00:19:43] The reason I bring it up is some people got kicked out of Lucas Oil Stadium for what I believe is a dungeon crawler Carl reference. They, like, protesting, like, a dog or something for being evil. Oh, yes. Oh, Congress failed. Well, one of the main characters is a cat, and so, yes, protesting dogs does make sense. Yeah, and they fully got kicked out of Lucas Oil because the event organizers did not understand what the fuck was going on.

[00:20:10] Seems like maybe a little bit of an oversight for something that was one of the major franchises of this year, and easily saw hundreds of hundreds of fucking people interacting with this franchise. I feel really bad for those people. Yeah. They didn't have fake weapons. They had handmade protest signs with a dog's face on it that were not very racy or anything like that, but that's about my only interaction with that fandom this year.

[00:20:39] I felt genuinely very bad for those guys. I didn't know what the hell you were talking about when you talked about that the first time, and now it finally clicks. Yeah. That's insane. They got removed from Lucas Oil, which is crazy. I didn't kind of go on with this general overall feel of Gen Con. Joe, was there anything that stood out for your products or anything that you saw that was being previewed there or that you were looking for or whatnot that you kind of got to interact with?

[00:21:09] No, I went in, pardon me, pretty light. I have not bowed to the Dungeon Crawler Carl community and read those books. I'm not really into lit RPG, despite the amount of RPGs I play or perhaps because of. It was my first one that I experienced. I tried the genre a couple of years back and I was like, it's not for me. Hmm.

[00:21:40] So now going in this year, I didn't really have too much I wanted to purchase. I was also thrown by the shorts, the heart boxer shorts everybody was wearing. I was like, what the hell is going on here? I mean, it's clearly, it's something, but what is it? Until I got one of the, I saw one of the bags with him on it and I was like, oh, all right. It's this book series that is apparently enormously popular. Okay. Note to self.

[00:22:11] So no, I was, this year I didn't have a lot of expectations. I was mostly coming for friends, not for games to acquire. Oh, glad we got to see you. Oh, let us all you too. Trying to think, what are you guys? This is off mic here. I'll edit this out. So how y'all feeling so far? Is there anything else we're kind of missing here on this or?

[00:22:35] Well, one brief mention that I wanted to throw out is that even though I didn't experience the traffic as much, I can tell you that there are most of the sidewalks downtown apparently are made out of rumble strips. Yeah. Well, you also definitely yeehawed off a couple of jumps. I watched you. It was an extreme sports edition is what it was. Yeah. Unintentionally so.

[00:23:03] There were a couple of them I didn't see coming and then woo. Yeah. Trust. I was ready to cut my fucking legs off. Mm-hmm. There was, there's also that lovely parking lot that I ended up leaving sideways. The one that I popped the tire off of the scooter in and ended up with three cracked ribs. Yeah. You crash. Now, remember this is all off recording.

[00:23:33] So if we want to talk about this, we should make sure we also talk about it. Mm-hmm. Or I can actually just go jump in where he goes. One thing I'd like to add. As far as I'll probably pick that up and cut this out so you're good. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Like it, this was definitely a Gen Con that I left with some war wounds. But still, you know, good Gen Con. Can you, can you please explain to me? Because it seems like the assistance that you received in the city of Indianapolis after that accident with the scooter was phenomenal.

[00:24:03] So as we're kind of alluding to, I think it was, was it on Friday or was it Saturday? That was Saturday. Saturday. And to be fair, the city of Indianapolis, not so much. The friends that I am lucky enough to surround myself with were phenomenal. Let's, let's be fair here. It was less Indy and more community because I got to the first aid station. They took a look at me. They looked at the scratches.

[00:24:32] They looked at the abrasions. They gave me the iodine spray. They put some band-aids on me and they gave me some Tylenol and said, you should be okay. They offered to let me go to the hospital. And I said, no, specifically because I know that as a dialysis patient, if I go to the hospital, I am going to be there for a minimum of two days. Because they're going to take a look at me. They're going to say, you know, this is what's wrong.

[00:25:01] This is what was wrong to start. And we need to keep you for at least a day for observation just to make sure that nothing bad has happened. And I did not want to be trapped in Indianapolis because I knew that if they kept me for two days, that meant I would be going home Monday, which was a day after Greg, who was my ride. So I thought, you know what? If there is something wrong, I will find out when I get home. Well, didn't you give me a hug and found out your back was hurt? You did. And so did Maddie.

[00:25:30] And that's how I found out that, you know, it's not just bruises on the left side because Maddie gave me a big hug and they're always a big hugger. And they hug me tight. Yeah. Maddie definitely gives hugs that find wounds for sure. And to be fair, I didn't realize that I had cracked three ribs until I got home. And it was a case of, huh, these bruises are taking a little bit too long to heal.

[00:25:57] They gave me an x-ray because they heard that my lung was full of fluid. And I thought, well, it's happened before. Sure, I've got a little bit of fluid on that side. It happens. I just couldn't clear it. And when they gave me a listen, they said, well, your lung isn't inflating the way that it's supposed to. We're going to give you an x-ray. And when they did, they're like, are, were you aware that you cracked three ribs? I'm like, oh, thank fucking Christ. It's broken ribs. Cause that justifies the pain.

[00:26:28] But yeah, I, I fell off my scooter. I cracked three ribs and I got to sit for a while because apparently every scooter in downtown Indy was rented. Or spoken for. And all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put that tire back on again. And so big shout out to Sean and Dr.

[00:26:53] Ferris for reaching out to a scooter repair guy outside of city limits who couldn't fix that particular brand of scooter reliably, but rented them a scooter for a day. So I had a better, bigger scooter for all of Saturday.

[00:27:13] And it's, yeah, I was able to get around the rest of the time, but the entire time that I was sitting there next to the scooter rental place, I was not alone. I had a, a running relay of RPPR and RPX fans that just tagged in to sit with David for a little while. And that's the thing that I love about Gen Con more than anything else is the community.

[00:27:42] The fact that here I am wounded, but never alone. And I got to share in stories and hear about wonderful games that took place over the course of the year during the entire time that I'm sitting there with the broken wing. It's just kind of absorbing the people. And honestly, there were games that I was looking forward to trying out.

[00:28:10] There were different products that I wanted to see as many games rolled out, Mr. Curling Club. And I'm a big fan. I had a slot to try it out that I missed, but it's okay because I have the game and I can play it whenever I want. But I cannot see all of my friends from around the world anywhere else except for Gen Con. I got to sit and talk with this lovely young man from Madagascar.

[00:28:39] And how many people can say that? I, I have friends even in this chat from Pittsburgh, Kentucky, other side of Missouri, Minnesota, that I don't get to see face to face except for Gen Con. And I will go through every sidewalk made out of rumble strips. I will go through every eight hour drive with fresh needle holes in my arm for that.

[00:29:08] Even with everything that went on, even with all of the annoyances of the Gen Con, we, we rolled in that first day and it's like, it feels like we barely left. And when we finally left on Sunday, it was, I'm ready for it all over again. Aren't you? Is that yes? I didn't really have, I didn't luck out on any of the drawings for the games that I was wanting to participate in. As far as things that I got to partake of, it was put on by Gen Con there.

[00:29:38] I got to do the RPPR panel and the Delta Green panel and the Red Markets panel. So all the RPPR stuff. And that was pretty much it. And then just, you know, shopping and loafing and stuff like that. Jeremy, Darcy, I know you guys did butterfly painting class. Yeah. Yeah. We, what was Saturday? Yeah. Saturday.

[00:30:06] It is the only fucking Friday. Friday. It's Friday. Saturday. Yeah. It's the only fucking thing that we got tickets for. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, I'm a staunch. Well, I wouldn't say staunch. I would say I'm, I'm a strict gamer and I, I'll hit on something that I didn't do very briefly that I wish I had did or had done.

[00:30:29] I didn't realize that they were hosting like a Wizards of the Coast D&D, like carnival over in the, in the historic theater space. I should have gone and did that. We, I should have dedicated some more time to that. I made some poor footwear decisions and I took myself out of the running for, for walking to do most things this year. I did not pin quest very much. Definitely should have did that.

[00:30:57] I tried to get us into some Delta Green and Dread games, both of which are fantastic series. And my top two games that I love to play, aside from Monster of the Week, my beloved. And we couldn't get in a single game. Yeah. So the only thing that we ended up getting able to, to participate in was our butterfly pinning, which has definitely opened my eyes a little bit for the, the workshops side of Gen Con.

[00:31:26] I'm normally such a, such a panelist. It was, it was, it was interesting to have a, a hands-on interaction and like put my mind to doing something aside from like networking or hanging out with friends or eating or buying. I feel like I do more buying at Gen Con than I do anything else. It was a nice, a nice break. I think that I'll definitely try to participate in more classes next year.

[00:31:53] Probably some of the cosplay classes because there were a lot that I hadn't really paid any mind to. I think for the first time this year, since I brought a guest, I like actually studied the event catalog. I really dedicated some time to it. And while my lottery, my lottery odds weren't the, the most fantastic, it was a, it was definitely a cool experience.

[00:32:16] I also got, and looping back to digital tickets versus paper tickets, I got to demo a game that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to get into because we have digital tickets now, which I greatly appreciated. I got to go onto the test floor and make sure that I'm saying it right. Cause I was, I was missing that for all of Gen Con.

[00:32:44] I believe it's, it's Hellbreak, which is game series that I'm not. It's, it's, it is indeed Hellbreak. It is a card game, kind of similar to like Magic the Gathering. And it's so unbelievably outside of my realm. I actually dragged Fish into it and he did the demo with us. That's really fun. It is classical horror. Am I saying that type of game, right? That it's a card game? Is there another term for that?

[00:33:14] No, it's a. TCG, TCG. Okay. Yeah. Creatable card game, collectible card game. Creatable card game, trading card game. We did a little quest and got a pretty sick holographic. Bright of Frankenstein. Yeah. The, the people that ran the booth were fucking awesome. A lot of people that are not American. The game doesn't drop officially until I believe January.

[00:33:42] And you can't pre-order it because it is, it's a very legit, officially licensed game. They are partnered with like a bunch of different companies. The primary company being Universal. They're not kickstarting it. It is rolling out. So I was really nervous that we weren't going to be able to get into a game because they were sold out the entire week from Thursday to Sunday. But Saturday, I think? Sunday. Sunday. Okay. Yeah.

[00:34:11] Really last minute. The, the wonderful people at the booth told us to go, go stand in line at the, at the playtest area on the backside of the, the vendor hall. And we did, we waited for like maybe 40 minutes because they started games on the hour. And I'm not going to lie. I still have no fucking clue what was going on. Same. But the cards are gorgeous. And I really liked the community.

[00:34:38] I, I joined their discord and they helped us find some of the, the hidden, the hidden symbols around Gen Con to be able to get that exclusive holographic collectible card. The moderators are super lovely. So yeah, I recommend to, to get into some classes and try to play test if you possibly can. Cause I really didn't think I was going to be able to do either this year and I did both and I had a great time.

[00:35:03] And I really expanded my Gen Con horizons past just spending hundreds of dollars. Yeah. I was in the same boat. Like I, I've never really looked at a lot of the classes for many, many years. And then Darcy mentioned the pot, the butterfly pinning and ended up getting into that. And it was really fun. Really kind of gave me that itch to get back into some classes, especially like you said, the, the cosplay classes. Cause I've always wanted to learn a lot, a little bit of the things.

[00:35:31] And it makes me want to look more into them next year and try and jump into some of those. And also Hellbreak. Yeah. It was cool. The cool thing about it is if you did the demo, they gave you the two. Yeah. The two decks that you, that you played with. And since me, Darcy and Dalton did all the same, all the same decks, we had six copies of the same deck and a couple lovely people come walking by and they asked us if, you know, they were like, are you three together? And we're like, yeah.

[00:36:00] And they said, well, we're together as well. And we're looking for the decks that you have. Do you want the decks that we have? So we ended up with the jaws, the Dracula headless horseman. And what was the fourth one? It's, it's the bride, isn't it? Isn't it her deck? I think so. So we ended up with all four demo decks. Yeah. And the exclusive card release, which is cool. And the exclusive card. So they are getting ready to bring out a lot of them, which was sick because the artwork's sick.

[00:36:29] They're looking for classic movie monsters to actually add to the decks deck lists. I think the ones that they had up on the booth were Jason Voorhees already. They were doing a quiet place. Yeah. Which is sick. The art is phenomenal. They were asking people interacting with the booth, like what horror monsters they wanted to see. And like they're partnered with everybody. They're partnered with Blumhouse, with Universal. They're partnered with Shudder. So like more indie horror.

[00:36:59] I, I really, it's not at all my cup of tea. I realistically, I don't think I'm going to play at all, but I love horror. Horror is my go-to category. Such lovely people. That was super cool. What I'm hearing is you're probably not going to play, but you will definitely collect. I think so. I think that's about the realm that I fall in. I, I love classic horror. I love modern horror. I love indie horror. I love the, we met one of the artists. Very passionate.

[00:37:29] I like that they give a fuck about the community and I won't go into it too much. But my other, one of my other nerddomes that I, I participated in is I love Halloween horror nights. And I was talking to the people at the booth about like, you guys gotta, if you're partnered with Universal, you gotta do something with Halloween horror nights next year. You gotta have your, your cards there because that, that is a great way to bring two separate

[00:37:59] subcultures together and build a really strong fan base. Because the people that go to Halloween horror nights are that diversified crowd of, they love classic horror or they love whatever modern horror like houses. Like this year they have, they have obsession characters walking around the Halloween horror nights, which is like a, like two months of them doing haunted houses at Universal in Florida.

[00:38:24] And I believe in California, like post park closing when they would normally be closed, they're running haunted houses. And because it's Universal, they have the money to like do these really intricate haunted houses. And the, the workshop folks were talking to us about like, yeah, we're absolutely trying to do that, which I think is always such a, a good, I love diversifying the community.

[00:38:49] And we definitely have a lot of indie horror at Gen Con every year, but it's cool to see major horror coming into this space. I am very excited about it. Mm-hmm. And speaking of cosplay, jumping back a little bit, you did have a rather interesting outfit. Oh my God. I did. Which I've got to point out for those who have never seen or met Darcy in person, they are

[00:39:16] one of the most amazing folks that you will meet at Gen Con. Oh, shucks. So let's start with your hair because the very first time I met you, your hair was half electric green and half black. And this year you were half blonde, half black. Yep. Oh, sorry. Yeah. First year, half green, half black. Second year, half black, half white. This year I have unfortunately fallen to my corporate role and it is just platinum blonde. Yeah.

[00:39:46] Yeah. I, so I had this idea last year. I, I talked about it on our last year's recap. I probably talked about it on the first year too. I, while I love pins, my special interest for Gen Con. Your magpie moment? Yeah. Yeah. I, I fucking love badge rubens. I love them. I don't know what itches my little squirrel brain about them, but I love them.

[00:40:15] And I, I collected a lot over the last two years. Not nearly enough. Oh my God. Not nearly enough. And I had the idea of making a piece of clothing out of, out of badge ribbons, or at least building onto a piece of clothing out of badge ribbons. And so I did like a 1960s style mini dress and covered the whole thing in ribbons with the absolutely needed assistance of Brownie.

[00:40:44] And over the course of like month and a half, I inhaled so many fumes of, of glue piecing together ribbons and attaching them to a dress, which I finished probably maybe two and a half weeks before Gen Con. Incredibly stressful because I was doing it on my weekends because I work full time. At one point I fucking glued the dress.

[00:41:10] I glued the ribbons too tight and I didn't like calculate the shrinkage that was going to come from gluing so many things onto this at one point stretchy piece of fabric. And I, I basically made myself a corset dress. And when I tried it on to test fit it for the first time, I almost couldn't get into it, which was a horrifying moment of, Oh my God, I have invested like a full 40 hours into this over the course of, of over a month.

[00:41:37] And I, I might've fucked myself, but it pulled through. I got into it. The, the ribbons were really cool. I, I made a custom vest. I put all of our podcast logos on the back. I custom ordered vinyl transfers of the OG Gen Con carpet and put them on the collar and pockets of my vest. And I transfer paper printed that same carpet pattern and made my own custom.

[00:42:07] Cause I felt like I should participate in the culture that I, I want to grow so badly. And so I, I thought I made a lot. I did not make a lot. By the time I got to Sunday, I didn't have any. And I was, I was so sad to be like, yes, I'm, I'm the carpet ribbon person. I don't have any, but it was awesome. I, this was my first time like actively dressing up.

[00:42:34] I used to cosplay a lot when I was younger and I'm a special effects makeup artist that is like putting yourself out there, but I've never done it for Gen Con before. And I initially was very overwhelmed. It was like, my brain just broke talking to so many people, but as we were, we're always at Gen Con for like 10 hours minimum.

[00:43:01] I think like around like hour two, maybe two and a half, I got a little less overwhelmed with like people approaching me or like me passing people and then being like, oh my God, look. And I, there's a growing community of trinket traders for Gen Con, which I also love. And I think I'm going to participate in more next year. Cause I think that's a great community. And I had trinket traders come up to me to talk to me about my outfit. And I had people come up to me to, to take photos with me.

[00:43:29] And I, I got ribbon sacrifices, which was so fucking cool. I, I, I so geeked out over that and, and in exchange for nothing, just people being like, can I please add to your ribbons? And I was like, absolutely. So I, I actually at Gen Con this year in our, in our post RPPR hangout, I workshopped next

[00:43:52] year's ribbon greatness, which is going, I cannot do it two months before Gen Con this year. I've got to really invest time, but I learned lessons. I'm going to invest in a sewing machine and I'm not going to glue my fucking fingers together for next year. But I hope that in doing this the same way that there's like a niche little sub community of people that really love the carpet pattern.

[00:44:19] There's also a small growing community of people that really love ribbon collecting. And there are some vendors that are great about it. And they just give out free ribbons because they're also like, there are other cons like dragon con where it's like competitive. It's really a part of the culture. I mean, they go to multiple conventions and it's like slowly creeping into Gen Con. And I hope that by continuing to do these ribbon outfits that I will continue to meet people that are also passionate about badge ribbons.

[00:44:48] And maybe the culture will keep growing from there. And I'm definitely going to bring more badge ribbons next year. I started a note in my phone of like inside jokes within our recording communities. And I think one of them is it's all Ross Payton's fault. So it really is. Yeah, it's all Ross Payton's fault.

[00:45:12] I'm slowly but surely collecting little sayings to put on ribbons next year and to fold more people into our community by handing out little pieces of cloth joy. And again, I can't shout out Brownie enough. You helped me tremendously, not only by supplying me with ribbons, but by motivating me to like really dealt to ass, get it done.

[00:45:39] Because I talked about it a lot, but dedicating the time to it, I kind of struggled with with work. But you wanting to see it and you helping me, that really helped me a lot. And I was so excited to surprise everybody with my best. I wish that I could just beam a photo into listeners' heads of what I'm talking about, because describing it audibly is so much different than seeing it. But yeah, thank you, Brownie. Sincerely, thank you.

[00:46:07] Speaking of ribbons, I got another stack for you. I just went to a work conference. Yeah. Also, speaking of competitive and growing and meeting people, what about that one ribbon mean girl? No! Yes, I will. Okay, I'll double. So I only wore the ribbon dress for one day. And we were in the vendor hall. And I was in the bathroom. And a really nice Gen Con staff member came into the bathroom and I was washing my hands.

[00:46:37] And she stopped and talked to me. And she was like, I've heard about you. Like, your dress is so cool. It's cool to see you in person. This is awesome. Like, I hope you have a good con. And I was like, I hope you have a great con. And I came out of the bathroom and I'm not two steps out of the fucking bathroom. And, again, we're in the vendor hall. If you've been to Gen Con and you have been to the vendor hall bathrooms, you know that those are some of the worst bathrooms at Gen Con. They get hit the fucking hardest.

[00:47:04] So I'm not two steps outside of this hallway into this bathroom. And a girl looks at me and she goes, you. And there's no joy in her. And, again, I just got approached like this in the bathroom. I've heard of you, right? And she, you. I've heard about you. I don't know her. Maybe this is her personality. Maybe this is just her tone. And I go, oh, yeah?

[00:47:34] She was like, yeah. She looks me up and down. She goes, how many ribbons do you have there? And I said, well, I ordered 200. And I made quite a few. And I got gifted quite a few. So somewhere over 200. I'm being very laissez-faire about it. I'm happy to answer questions. And she points down around her stomach. And she's got what could only be described as like a toilet paper roll hanging from around her neck.

[00:48:02] And she goes, yeah. Well, I've got over 300 right here. And they're all rolled up. Face. Facing. Like the face of the badge is facing inwards. And I was like, oh, that's awesome. I'm so glad to see other people really serious about collecting. I really hope that the culture keeps growing. I love badge ribbons. And she goes, yeah. Mm-hmm.

[00:48:31] And I was like, okay, well, have a good sitcom. I went and found Dalton. I was like, baby, I just had the weirdest fucking interaction. I just walked into a Pokemon tall grass encounter. I was like, I didn't realize that badge ribbon collecting was competitive here. But holy shit. And he was like, I saw her talking to you. I thought she was just talking to you about ribbons in general. And I was like, no, she was kind of squared off with me.

[00:48:57] And I'll say the one and only experience I've ever had of somebody being kind of snippy or competitive about badge ribbons. Last year, one of the huge inspirations for me doing this is Fish and I ran into a guy that also had a huge rolled up ribbon reel. And he was so sweet about it. He had been collecting them and he had sewn them together. Because, again, sew them. Don't glue them.

[00:49:25] It's just more structurally sound. And he was unrolling them to take pictures with people. And we, like, stretched it out and it went across, like, all of the fucking doorways into the vendor hall. And I was holding it on one end. And Fish, were you holding it on the other end? Or was it a complete stranger? I think so. Like, we interacted with so many people just based off that guy. Like, we got our photo. And then he wrapped his ribbons around another person who wanted a photo.

[00:49:55] And it was like a mummy wrapping. And he was in such a great mood. So I'm, like, really used to people being very positive about badge ribbons. But, yeah, I had a fucking Pokemon tall grass encounter that I didn't expect. And I will say definitely contributed to me wanting to go balls to the wall for next year. Fuck you. I'm building a princess gown. How many ribbons do you think is on this now? Let's come through the shoot. Weird time. Weird time.

[00:50:25] Joe, you didn't have a weird time, did you? I had a pretty normal time. Hung out, played some games. Yeah. Demoed some stuff in the dealer hall. Demoed some stuff in the stadium. Ate some food that was mostly okay. Didn't take any pictures this year because I was lazy. Yeah, the most exciting time I had was during the tornado. Where I was taking a nap because, you know, Gen Con, you get run down. I'm 44.

[00:50:56] Taking a nap at about, I don't know, four or five o'clock. Everybody's phone goes off at once. Wakes me up out of a dead sleep. Hurricane morning. If this was in my native territory, I'd be like, eh, not hurricane. I'm sorry, tornado. If this was in my native territory, I would have blown it off. Pun intended. But, you know, Indiana's pretty flat. Tornadoes are a real thing here. So I was like, oh, Jesus Christ.

[00:51:26] I get up out of bed, get dressed. Then I go hide in the fucking emergency stairwell for like 30 minutes until I get the all clear. And then I go out and it was pretty easy to tell who was from the Midwest and who wasn't after that. Because the people who were from the Midwest were just like, well, we just went about our business. Didn't even get out of line. Yeah. Just like, meh. Everybody else was like, Jesus Christ.

[00:51:55] I made the mistake of answering Crazon honestly, because we were on our way from Hyatt to the Indy Convention Center. And while we're traveling through the skywalk, he says, will a tornado actually hit like in the city center? And I said, if it wants to, it will. He's like, wait, what? I mean, technically, yes. If it's a big one, it's just going to go wherever the fuck it wants. Because that's what tornado does.

[00:52:25] But if you look at the sky, this sky up here is white. So we're fine. If it were black or green, we should be running. If it was red, we're already fucking dead. But yeah, just look at the sky. If it's white, we're good. And as we rolled into the main part of, you know, second floor of the ICC, there was a guy who called out to us and said, hey, you can shelter in here. We're getting ready to close the door. I'm like, don't worry. It's fine.

[00:52:55] He goes, all right, good luck. David didn't even stop. That's what I want to point out to you guys. He just rose on by like, no, we're good. You know, I was coming back from the high at the same time. I don't think I was with you guys, but I ran into that same guy. I was going into the HR hallway and just kind of moseying, you know, and he had a door open. He was hanging out the door. He was trying to get me to come in. I said, no, the HR hallway's interior. It's fine. I'll be over there. He said, good luck.

[00:53:24] Shout out to that legend. My poor boy was so worried. He was trying. Hey, he was not going to be a bystander, right? Mm-hmm. He was not going to do it. Yeah, I'm not scared of a tornado. All right? I'm not. I moved to Kentucky and it was not Tornado Alley.

[00:53:50] And it became Tornado Alley a few years after I started living here, especially the region of Western Kentucky where my family lives. And for some ungodly fucking reason, the airport that I work at is like a beacon for tornadoes. I have been at work multiple times for nocturnal tornadoes and gone underground. I'm used to it. You know, I have the Midwestern dad. I'm going to go stand outside and stare at the clouds and determine if I think it's bad

[00:54:19] or not. So I wasn't really, I wasn't worried. I wasn't, I didn't have any anxiety about him. Good Lord. Talking about Indy not necessarily being adaptable to traffic during Gen Con. Indy's not adapted to rain, which I didn't expect at all. But the, the ICC flooded. It flooded out the, the food trucks. It flooded the fucking streets.

[00:54:47] It flooded multiple hotels. It shut down elevators because they were flooding. I think that the, the rainfall was truly the worst part of our, of our weather phenomenon. I did not, like, I live 150 miles south of there and we also get smacked with rain constantly. I mean, like, similar ages of cities. So I expected, I expected to be similar to Louisville, but it absolutely was not. Everything was leaking.

[00:55:16] It was raining like piss out of the boot though. So. I feel like that's average for us though. I don't. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I drove to work in it yesterday. It's like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. I, yeah. It really shocked me that like we were sitting downstairs. What, what is the Starbucks one? Is that the Marriott? The Hyatt. The Hyatt. We were sitting in the Hyatt and Starbucks flooded and they were like trying to be kind of discreet about it.

[00:55:45] But we were seeing on, on the fans of Gen Con Facebook that the ICC demo hall was flooding, that it was coming straight down from the ceiling. And then everyone started talking about the, the food vendors aren't going to be able to operate for the rest of the day. And most of them packed up really rough. I did not anticipate that the rain was going to be the thing took out a lot of stuff that day. Yeah. We, I don't even think that we really sheltered in place for the tornado. I don't think the call went out. I think it was a tornado warning, right?

[00:56:15] Yeah. It was wild though. Walking through midday through Gen Con and we were going from the skywalk. And I mean, usually there's always people busting around and just like, just, we were posted up at the Hyatt when all that was going on and just walking through there and it just being so quiet and there's not a soul. It took me a moment. It's like, what's wrong here? Oh yeah. Everybody's gone. The, um, I gotta share a tiny story on the rain coming through.

[00:56:45] Cause I've got a friend who is so Midwest who is working in one of the demo halls and the leak started at the table next to his and he had this, oh, there's rain coming down. Must carry on with demo. And so he started to carry on with his demo. Cause he's like, yeah, don't worry. They're going to take care of it. They're going to put a bucket underneath. Things are going to be fine. And then the rain hit directly onto his head. Like there was a leak directly overhead.

[00:57:13] He feels two drops, looks up and then gets a face full of water from the ceiling. He goes, and now we're done. No, I think that kept Indy wet. I feel like it was wet for the rest of the, of Gen Con. I would point out that the merch for Indy is also a lot faster than I expected or the merch for Gen Con. Oh my God.

[00:57:38] Jeff Hayes recorded message as the AI talking about shelter in place and you know what we're supposed to do. And there are ribbons and t-shirts. Yeah. Of that warning word for word. And one of the ribbons I'm making next year is I survived the 2026 Gen Con tornado. I, I, I'm either, it's going to be that or it's going to be the weather alert to shelter in place or it's going to be both. Cause I think it's fun.

[00:58:07] I love it. Jumping in here real quick here. We're pretty much kind of approaching the end of it here. I, you know, David, do you want to kind of throw in the pen quest and then we can briefly mention the, uh, what we purchased, you know, I'm just, just kind of looking at the clock right now. We've been doing this for an hour and 10 minutes roughly. So, you know, we'll jump off here and then we can do the cookout thing for Ronnie, the row up. Oh, that's good now.

[00:58:39] So first off, I kind of fell into it because of the Gen Con carpet, but pin quest has become one of the reasons why I go to Gen Con every year now. And not only do I get to participate in pin quest, but the very first day of the con, I am given two bags of pins for the year because of this podcast, because of these people who

[00:59:08] I am so, so blessed to call my friends. And this year I had a new moth hand pin with the D20 showing a 26 because one, it's the year. And two is Brownie puts it. I am the only person alive who could roll a 26 on a D20 and a Meliandre, the Melonodius to gift out to everybody.

[00:59:32] And I got to seek some of the more beautiful pins because this year they figured out how to make them a little bit lighter. But worked out a way to make them both glittery and glow in the dark a little bit more efficiently. And so there were some gorgeous, gorgeous pins to be had. I think my favorite ones though, are all of the ones that are a split pins.

[00:59:58] So for instance, there was an author in author's row who had two crows on halves of a book. One that said never. And one that said more never was the origins pins and more was Gen Con. And so you could get both of them for $25. And I did. There was another one where we had a steampunk plague doctor and one where we had a cyber punk plague doctor.

[01:00:27] Two halves of the whole. And when you put them together, it was just one plague doctor just split down the middle. And I just, I collected pins this year. The year's specialty pin, like the ultra rare, wasn't the one that I sought after the most. The one that I went after the most was one of the rares, which was to commemorate Cardholla. That one's so good. It's so good. And this year's Cardholla was the biggest I've seen.

[01:00:54] Like one of the things that I got to point out when we were crossing the skywalk on our way back from the tornado, we got to go over top of Cardholla. And instead of it being just a tiny little speck against the wall, it filled that entryway. It was, it was big. It was full. There were tons and tons of cards used to make it. It went outside the border they set up for it. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:01:23] Like the fact that Cardholla has expanded that far and the fact that all of the proceeds go to Indiana charity. I think that they're feeding starving kids. It's, it's a glorious thing and it deserved to be commemorated. And so they did. The rarest card or the rarest pin this year was a Genevieve playing with a string of Christmas lights looking D or D and D dice. And while it was nice, it wasn't as nice as the Cardholla pin.

[01:01:53] And the one that I was not expecting from T and absent the folks who made the most definitely not poison pin from last year. They made a mimic surrounded by rubber ducks on a square of the old Gen Con carpet. And I didn't realize that the Gen Con carpet was there until I looked at it after I got it. And I'm like, if I had known, I would have got three of that one so that I could give more of them to Ross Payton.

[01:02:21] I had to sacrifice my, my Darcy ribbon this year to Ross. Because he went up to Darcy after she had run out and it's like, oh, she didn't have any. I'm like, well, here, take mine. I gave it to him. He's like, you're going to give this up? I said, I know the person who made it, Ross. I feel like if I ask Darcy really nicely, I can get another one. That's a whole big deal.

[01:02:49] And he gave me this look at the time of the, I know the person who made it. And he's like, well, of course you do. And completely missed the fact that he was literally just talking to Darcy. But yeah, so many beautiful pins. But the thing that I love the most about the pin questing is the trading.

[01:03:15] And when we went downstairs to another tea place, I think it was Druid's Tea. We had the funniest moment and it was me and Fish. And we were trying to get the dragon sipping coffee. This is fine. Pin. Well, tea, but you know, it, it references the Casey Green meme. Of the dog surrounded by the fire going, this is fine.

[01:03:41] You know, but the lady who we were getting the pins from saw my mauve hand on my badge and said, where did you get the purple hand? I've been looking for that one. I've seen that one on a bunch of badges and I wondered where I could, you could get that one from. And Fish said, oh, that's him. He is the mauve hand. That that's. And I went, well, that's my pin. She says, can I trade you for one of those?

[01:04:09] And as we're on our way up the elevator, you know, rejoining the herd, he pointed out that last year there were a hundred of them made. And this year there were a hundred of them made. So the fact that there's only 200 mauve hand pins total, and they have not all been given out says that they are circulating enough. Had she noticed it? Mm hmm.

[01:04:38] Which it, it, it warms my heart that people are, people see the pins and people notice them and just attach to them. I feel like I need to put the mauve hand onto my hat where it's more visible for next year so that people see it. I didn't expect that. I didn't expect that I would have a sought after souvenir Darcy's ribbon. I figured was going to be the one that everybody wanted this year. And I was right.

[01:05:07] Oh, the ribbon was dope. Oh yeah. So I feel like next year we get to compete to see which souvenir we can make that people want the most. It's, that's part of the joy of Gen Con is can we make the thing that people want? Well man, it's, it's, you know, you, you're part of our memories, man. We have, we have a great time hanging out with you and I'm glad to get an opportunity to share David with the greater world there.

[01:05:35] I, I just love the fact that the, the mauve hand pin is, is being sought after now. It's, it's great. And I, I can't believe that that's a thing. Pretty cool. Uh, okay. Y'all not to, after that, I feel like a dick. I'll jump in. Oh my God, moving along. Well, go ahead and get the swag real quick and cover an episode. Sure.

[01:05:59] I, uh, I don't have any other merch mentions aside from fucking, I finally got a copy of Motorhome from Hell. Speaking of, uh, I know the person that made it. Oh God, we need to watch that sometime.

[01:06:13] I got, uh, also an exclusive Ross Payton tabletop trophies, which is kind of hard for me to interact with given that we play digitally, but also probably going to be some of the ribbons that I make next year. And shout out to Sean. I got to test play his game. And it was also Dalton's first game that he ever has played. So shout out to Sean for that cool ass memory.

[01:06:41] I can't wait for him to release it to the public because it was a fucking blast. Terrifying just sit across from him and play it, but I had such a lovely fucking time. And last shout out on my end, we met some really lovely people and my favorite pin of the year, the Storyteller Squad. They're also a monster of the week. Well, they, they're an actual play podcast and most recently have played a monster of the week campaign. Dolls, absolute dolls.

[01:07:09] We met them on our pin quest for tabletop gamers, actually, and made pretty quick friends with them. And they had a campaign going across the U.S. and interacting with some pretty famous cryptids that most people know, like the Jackalope. And instead of Mothman, they have, I think they call her Mothgirl. We nicknamed her Mothmommy.

[01:07:38] I got Crazon. Yeah, got Mothmommy. I got Crazon a Mothmommy pin and I bought a bunch of their prints. And they were just super lovely. And that was the highlight of my merch this year. I finally, I got a Motorhome from Hell shirt before I got access to Motorhome from Hell. But shout out Ross, Peyton, Sean, and the Storyteller Squad. Yeah, I'm glad that came.

[01:08:04] All of us are whatever, but I think what Crazon was most said about missing last year was Mothmommy. And when we rocked up on that booth, I could see him getting a little hot under the collar. It was like one of those cartoons where they pull the collar out and steam rolls out. Oh, woo-ga! Right. And we ran into him the year before last. We're always a pleasure to speak with there. They're really sweet people. Yeah. I definitely, if for some reason they're listening to this, definitely reach out.

[01:08:33] We'll happily reach out if you want to do some collabs. It was really fun. They're absolutely lovely people. We also know an awesome artist that specializes encrypted. Yeah. And I do love the fact that they have an Oops All Bards D&D campaign that they're looking to do at some point, which that has always been one of my dreams too. So I really want to hear that one. I really, I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a, it's going to be great. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, for me, I didn't really pick anything up.

[01:09:03] I got the demo decks for Hellbreak. But the, the point for me for going to Gen Con is just interacting with everybody. And it's really fun. If y'all, I've said before, if y'all stopped coming, I would probably stop buying tickets and go. And I'd just go hang out downtown all week. So you guys made it for me. You guys are the swag that I made along the way. That's, that's it for me. So, yeah, I'm sorry.

[01:09:30] The only reason I go to Gen Con is to meet you guys. Everything else is, you know, the internet's pretty good these days. I could buy whatever online. I wouldn't have to get in any lines or smell any stinky nerds or take a, you know, fiberglass tube through the sky for 500 miles. I could get trapped in hotels when the airline cancels on me and they get food poisoning. Yeah. You can get food poisoning at home. Why would you have to leave?

[01:10:00] I get food poisoning at home, right. And then I have my own bed to sleep in when it happens. It means a lot to having this group of people to go up. And I appreciate having Gen Con to be our rendezvous point for us all to go hang out. I picked up, I usually spend a lot of money, like pretty much, I don't think a lot of people say that, obviously. But I didn't come home with as many books as usual.

[01:10:27] I picked up, there's a Mass Effect spiritual successor coming out next year, supposedly, called Exodus. And they also made a tabletop RPG. Crazon and I went over to the Renegade booth, picked it up in the Monster Guide. It was beautiful. I like it. I look forward to doing a row up of it. I never did back it, but I picked it up in person.

[01:10:51] I picked up Invincible from Free League Publishing, which is, you know, the Robert Kirkman property superhero thing. Interested to see how the powers work out in that one. Then, they also offered a little 30-page booklet of an alien scenario that I don't see on their website. So, that was kind of cool. I picked it up.

[01:11:15] And then, finally, I picked up a copy of Fabula Ultima and ran into, I think they're a French publisher or maybe Italian. I can't remember. I think the French. But ran into those guys. They were super cool. That was right after the tornado. Picked up a sealed copy of this decor book. And I was very surprised to see that whenever I opened it up, when I got home, they came with a drive-thru RPG coupon to get the PDF.

[01:11:45] And they also provided a, to get the core book on Nexus. They provided a code for that VTT as well. Used to that stuff being extra. So, big shout-out to them. I enjoyed hanging out with you all. Jeremy, thanks again for hosting. I had as much fun waiting for Gen Con as going to Gen Con. I've enjoyed running into all the RPPR crew. It was, you know, it's great to be able to sit down with, and talk to Ross and Caleb and Sarah and Maddie.

[01:12:15] I've 3D printed Jimothy the raccoon. I gave that to Maddie. They seem quite pleased with that. And I'm trying to think of anyone. It is now on Ross and Maddie's mantle. Like, it is placed very prominently to where you see it when you walk into the house. Praise Jimothy. That warms my heart. You know, big shout-out to get to hang out with Art, or Arthur, excuse me.

[01:12:42] And got to speak with Jeff Barber, which was always great. Who does Blue Planet? And, God, what was Upwind? Upwind. And, yeah, it was just, honestly, even the friends that aren't on this podcast that don't regular game with us, sometimes that's the only time I get to see, like, St. Fuzzy Dan. And, you know, it's just, it's like going out, it's like a family reunion to me. And I was glad to participate. Anybody else? No, just I love you guys. This is making me very sentimental.

[01:13:13] Oh, sorry. I don't get sentimental about much, but this stuff really hits the old feels. Thank God we're not doing this immediately post-GenCon. It would make the post-GenCon depression a lot worse. We've got to be waited a month. Only 11 more months before the next GenCon. Yeah. Makes me miss it. Oh, shit, I've got to get started on planning. Yeah. I may actually get the hospital finished.

[01:13:39] One last highlight I want to mention, because it made such an impression on me here, is, you know, as we reminisce, think about the Wednesday when we all get to meet up, picking up badges and whatnot. I just remember, I think I was talking to you, David. I was over to the side watching, but I'm watching Sean speak with Darcy and Dalton, and Jeremy was there. And I could just watch Sean just like happy, happy, happy, happy.

[01:14:07] And then, like, we stepped out of the car, kind of passed his face real quick, and I saw him warning Dalton to be good to our girl. And that tickled me to death. Just watching this, it's just the, you know, like he waved a hand in front of his face, and it's like straight to business. That was fun. Yep. And then it went back to normal. I feel like everybody threatened Dalton a little bit. My poor boy.

[01:14:35] I hyped him up so much. I explained who everybody was, and I'm so sweet, and they're so lovely. Thursday night, he was like, am I supposed to be here? Am I in a room? And I was like, baby, you're fine. I was like, it is my league of extraordinary uncles and adoptive dad. I was like, you just, you gotta keep getting through it. And I think by Sunday, he hit you. He really did. And if we didn't threaten him, we wouldn't like him.

[01:15:05] Yeah. And I feel like everybody's threat hit in a different way. He just got it from every angle. I lucked out that I got to kind of go last, because by the time that he gets to me, he's like, are you going to threaten me? I'm like, no, no, Dalton. I have people for that. And his face just went from smiling to, oh shit, he's serious. No, I don't think I threatened Dalton once, but I don't think I had to either. Yeah.

[01:15:36] I don't. I think you could do that with a... You led with T showing him a video of a flamethrower. Yeah, I think you were a flamethrower on all things. That means that I claim you. The flamethrower video means I claim you. You're my friend now, okay? That's not a threat. See, I don't think... I think our Canadian counterpart did not threaten you. Or I wasn't present for it.

[01:16:01] Well, no, he won't threaten you, but then the next pin that he throws over the wall will be a grenade. That's fine. He even let Dalton try some Canadian staples. He didn't get a loonie, though. I got a loonie. Dalton did not get a loonie. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Grey's on tan and out money. Yeah. Yeah, I did indeed get a loonie. I also... He brought me down special maple tea candy. Not merch that I got, but merch I guilt-shirt Grey's on four.

[01:16:30] And it was fantastic. Oh, it was delicious. Yeah. Dalton got half of one because I decided to be generous. Don't worry about some table scraps. Yeah. Yeah. Only I am worthy of the Canadian goodness. I am almost through my initial bottle that I got. And I will say that Dalton has had like a very little tasting of it, but it's my fucking bottle. I'm very clear about it. Yeah.

[01:16:56] I know where I rate on Crazon's list considering the promises and the delivery. Yeah. The can of maple syrup. The can of maple syrup, the promise of an entire bottle this year, and none. I know where I rate. Well, gotta say. Thank you all for the memories. And thank you all for tuning in to the RolePoint Exchange. You can find us on crittonight.com or rolepointexchange.com.

[01:17:23] And we're on that bird platform that I actually don't even log into. But you can look at the old posts on Twitter. We're around. No, no. Twitter has been allowed to lapse and someone else has bought it. It no longer even belongs to that company anymore. Oh, okay. So X. That's cool. Unfortunately, it's an AI dystopia now, but it doesn't belong to X anymore.

[01:17:52] That's good. So if you guys like what you're hearing and want to hear more, go check us out on those websites I mentioned. And if you would like to get episodes early and help support us, you can go visit us on patreon.com slash rolepointexchange. Again, we're part of the Crit The Night Network. Our good buddy with Crazon, we were speaking about beforehand, has two other podcasts on our network. One Less Die, which started out as a Shadowrun actual play podcast. Why did I say compound?

[01:18:20] And moved over to other games as well. And then there's A Dente Vigamortis, a creepypasta review podcast. So, yeah. Thank you all so much. I look forward to next year. Me too. Indeed. Me too. And to all you all out there, goodbye. Goodnight, internet. Goodbye. Bye.

[01:18:47] I was 30 minutes over, which is really good for me, to be honest with you. And I didn't automatically close out of this. We could have just wandered for three hours. Yeah.