If you've read my "Conventional Thinking" books, you'll know all about StabCon. It's a residential board game convention that's been running for donkey's years in Stockport. Running twice per year and attended mainly by people who have been returning for years - often decades - it's only ever been advertised by word of mouth. Until someone set up a Facebook page last year and the secret got out. It's now running at capacity - which is about 300 people. Most of these come to play boardgames - usually into the wee small hours and often involving alcohol of some kind. However, there's a strong RPG track. Though there's little formal organisation time wise, the RPG referees seem to stick to fairly typical slots and getting into games is via signup sheets.
I've been attending for a couple of years now, and my weekend is bookended by two ongoing campaigns - Friday evening and Sunday morning. In between I offer to run three games on the Saturday.
In the run up there was some activity on Facebook but far less than you'd get for most similar events. People were saying what board games they were bringing and asking what games people wanted to play. People were offering lifts in cars. Casual viewers were asking about the event - what it was, what it cost, how they signed up etc. These last enquiries didn't tend to get much in the way of response. One of the organisers does come onto the Facebook page now, but this mainly to remind people to book up and tell people that the Saturday of the event is fully booked.
I used the Facebook page to blatantly promote the games I was intending to run and received some very positive responses, mainly from people who'd played in some of my previous games at StabCon. (Words like "awesome" were used. I respond very well to flattery.)
StabCon officially starts at 2:00pm on Friday but I'm at work. So take all my gear into work, wear slightly more casual than normal clothes, and set off straight after work. There were people at the hotel playing games in the morning, and posting pictures on Facebook. That's how keen people are.
I bought an advance off peak open return to Stockport. C.£36. This gave a me a choice of trains and, getting out of work on the dot, I was able to catch an earlier train than expected. Though my phone app said it was standing room only, and the train was very busy, I easily found an unreserved seat. The journey was very straightforward and I got into Stockport early evening. I caught a taxi to the hotel - £5 - and checked in.
Once you're signed up for StabCon - which I do at the end of the previous one before I leave (£15 for two days) - the organisers sort everything and book rooms for everyone. So it's just a case of turning up to reception and giving your name. I paid a bit more this time. It used to be less than £80 for the two nights. This time it was just over £100. Part of this is due to the fact that I was braving the hotel breakfast for the first time. The rest was probably due to a slight increase following the hotel's recent improvements (cf. Conventional Thinking Volume 2.) These improvements are why I felt safe risking the hotel breakfast. The hotel is basic but clean, cheap and well run. StabCon remains the cheapest residential convention in the country, for me.
My room was at the back of the hotel and accessed by a lift. There were stairs but the lift was nearer. Wow! What a lift! If you'd told me it was made in the 1930's I wouldn't be surprised. Manual doors, one of them that inner grate thing you see in old films. I can't believe it's still in use. It's a real experience.
I dropped my stuff off in my room and went down to sign in to the convention itself. This is in a large event room at the back of the hotel. When I arrived every table was filled with hoards of smiling board gamers. Signing in is easy. You say your name and get given a pin badge with your name and the word "StabCon" on. They manually make over 300 individualised name badges for each convention. That's real commitment.
The aged but still not too battered StabCon noticeboard was there. It was easier to use this year because a separate noticeboard has been set up for general announcements and almost everyone was using the A5 StabCon sign up sheet format rather than their own flashy A4 ones. There are no rules. There's a section of the board for Friday, one for Saturday and one for Sunday. But there are no official slots, you decide what times you want your games to run. Friday night seemed to be a bit thin on the ground.
I'd always had an issue with Friday night because by the time I arrived everyone else had stuck up their signup sheets and snaffled all the available players. However, there were often no games left for me to sign up to. A couple of years I lucked into a Savage Worlds game run by a guy called Allan and this has morphed into an ongoing campaign set in the world of Gemmel's Drennai novels. And this has sorted my problem. I just turn up and I've got a game to play in ready to go.
I stuck up three sign up sheets for Saturday and one for Sunday. This last was for my ongoing Star Wars campaign and was already fully signed up but I use it to allow the players to tick to show they're there and to allow reserves in case of no shows. A couple of my other games had presigns from interest shown on Facebook. Naughty I know but I respond well to flattery. Then I went to the desk to book which room I was playing in and wrote them on the sheets.
I went to the bar. The bar in the room is small and has one or - at most - two staff. There is a bar in the main hotel but the one in the event room serves the special convention food menu so we all use that. I ordered a pizza, £7ish, upgraded to 12" for £2 more and a lint of lager, well under £3. I took a table number stand and my pint and sat at one of the few spare places in the room to wait for Allan to be free and my food to arrive. When it did, it was tasty and extremely substantial.
I'd had a tiring week so rather than drink throughout the evening, I used the free coffee facilities provided to keep me topped up. I also bought s couple of muffins (2 for £1), one for pudding and one to eat back in my room. I noticed that the amount of alcohol bring consumed was a lot less than previous StabCons. There was lots of water and soft drinks around.
The Savage Worlds game was great. Allan is a good, well prepared and extremely personable referee. This group plays together every Friday night at StabCon and we know each other and our characters very well. We had great fun taking a castle pursuing a high priest and his "joinings" across the country to catch him before he could make a political assassination. Because us overthinking a couple of things, doing loads of Roleplaying and Savage Worlds big battles can go on a bit (you roll to hit and then have to roll to beat toughness, so you can hit but do no damage.....) the game overran and it was 1 am before we all got to bed. What with the excitement of the night's game and my thoughts being full of the games I was going to run on Saturday - which were all already fully booked out before I went to bed - I had difficulty getting to sleep.
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