Summer StabCon: Fri 4th - Sun 6th July 2025

Friday 4th July

Arrival and checking in

I didn’t sleep well the night before the Convention. I’m older and supposedly wiser, but I still got excited like a big kid.

The Guild Hall hosting the event is a manageable walk from Stockport railway station, so my plan had been to arrive at Stockport as near as possible to 1:30pm, walk to the event, play a game in the afternoon, walk or catch a bus down to my hotel, sign in, and travel back in time for the pre-organised evening game.

But I’d been put into a Facebook “group” for the evening game where everyone was discussing which character they were going to play, allocating points to round out their part-generated characters, etc. This was all a bit too much for me, and I determined to sort it all out at the event.

However, as part of that, I was invited to their pre-convention meet-up for a pie and a pint at a local pub. So, I got to Stockport at 12:30 to be greeted by an old friend and whisked off to a pub - passing the Guild Hall and my hotel on the way, so I was able to get my bearings. (Everything was all on one main road. Easy!)

I had a happy hour with a group of blokey middle-aged role-playing friends drinking beer and enjoying an award-winning Chicken & Ham pie before being driven back to the Guild Hall. We arrived slightly after 2pm, and there was already a queue at the reception desk.

But things were superbly organised as ever. You gave your name, they ticked you off the list, gave you your pre-made badge, and if you were “new” to StabCon (I counted), an advice sheet.

I didn’t recognise the people on the reception desk. All new faces to me. And so, so young! But I recognised the badge machine and all the other kit. New venue but the same old organisation.

I spotted one of the previous (still executive?) organisers sitting on a comfy chair behind and slightly back from reception. (To advise/supervise?) I asked her about booking a room for my games. She booked me into the “Small Lodge”. She advised me to pop upstairs to check out the rooms, but I didn’t want one with only one table and didn’t want one with loads of tables. I’d heard the Small Lodge mentioned on Facebook, and it had 3 tables, so I took that for all my games.

Downstairs were at least 2 massive rooms plus a third big room which was the bar area. At the end of one room was a display from a local games shop. (I assumed. It could have been a board game library, but it looked like a shop layout.) At the end of the other large room was a table to place food orders. All rooms were airy and light with loads of tables covered in crisp white tablecloths and people already beginning to play board games.

I then went to the noticeboard. It was the same old - slightly too small for the job - noticeboard that had predated my attendance at the convention. Another old friend. There were virtually no sign-up sheets at this time and certainly none for Friday afternoon. I’d decided to offer one game Saturday afternoon, one game Saturday evening, and my third on Sunday morning.

There was already a sign-up sheet there for a Saturday morning game offered by a Referee I’ve known for decades, so I signed up without even looking what the game was. I was the first name on the sheet.

In the pub discussion at lunchtime, it was felt that the chances of getting a roleplaying game session in on the Friday afternoon were minimal unless I’d arranged something in advance. So, I decided to go to my hotel to check in.

There are buses every 5 minutes going up and down the main road at all hours of day and night, so I could easily have caught one to my hotel. However - despite carrying quite a heavy backpack packed with everything I needed for the weekend - since I wasn’t pushed for time, I decided to see how long it took to walk. I needed the exercise anyway.

It took 15 minutes. I’d stayed at this budget hotel before. Clearly well maintained - though not refurbished - since c. the 1960s - it’s clean, popular, and benefits from very friendly staff.

I unpacked, had a bit of a nap, grabbed all I needed for the evening (pen, paper, dice), and walked the 15 minutes back to the Guild Hall.

The Evening game

I noted that there were more sign-up sheets on the noticeboard now, and my games all had a couple of people’s names written on them. 

I ordered a chicken wrap and chips at the food counter. You could wait in the room or leave your phone number for them to call when your order was ready. They have a pretty set range of choices, but all of high quality. No sandwiches, nothing “cheap and cheerful”.

There’s a Co-op next door to the hall and myriad eating options on the main road, but you can’t bring food and drink from outside into the venue.

The chicken wrap was excellent. I grabbed a pint of lager from the bar (£4.80) and went upstairs for my game - arriving early.

Coincidentally, this was in the room I’d booked for my games, the Small Lodge. It was an impressive room. Vaulted, historical (but not, I think, as old as they’d tried to make it look). (Semi) historical furniture had been moved to fill a stage at one end to make room for four large square tables (2 x 6 by 3 put together?) covered with white tablecloths with 8 chairs apiece.

What did impress me, though, were the movable noticeboard/panels. Two of each had been placed in between each table. Clearly, they wouldn’t baffle much noise, but they created a clear division between the tables. They will reduce the distractions so common in conventions with multiple tables sharing a single room.

Apparently, this innovation was suggested by the StabCon organisers to the venue organisers as part of feedback following earlier events. “They’re getting used to us now.”

Venues are often initially sceptical about hosting gaming conventions but come to like them once they realise the demographic they’re working with.

People drifted in at different times, as their various board games came to an end, but no one was excessively late. Most people who role-play at StabCon also play board games and enjoy a mixed convention. Dedicated role-players like me are vastly in the minority. There are about 300 attendees, but I think there were only a handful of RPG tables running that Friday night. I couldn’t get an exact number because some (like the game I was in) are pre-arranged and don’t put up sign-up sheets. I’d estimate fewer than 10% of the attendees would be roleplaying at any given time.

As I’ve already said, this game was like old home week. People I’d first gamed with on a StabCon Friday night almost a decade ago.

The game was Fallout - based on a post-apocalyptic video game that had also spawned a TV series. I played the Doctor and “face” of a good-guy mercenary group. (The leader was clever and highly moral but lacked the charisma to bark orders to be immediately followed. My job was to repeat what she said so that everyone would do it.)

We found the President’s hidden nuclear bunker with robots still serving wonderful meals every night to an empty room. Maintenance robots for the bunker had broken down, and the Maitre’d had sent a waiter out to find us. We fixed the bunker, made friends with another mercenary group trying to find it. (I told you she was moral and clever.) And saw off an assault by raiders. The Referee had planned an epic final battle, but we piled loads of resource points into our guy with the mini-gun to give him loads of dice to roll. He rolled an unconscionable number of criticals, and the enemy disappeared into a pink mist.

We discovered a level hidden by a rockfall. That level contained the reactor. Fine for hundreds of years, but if the maintenance robots down there were also out of commission, we could be looking at an imminent nuclear blast. (Spoilers: They are. We are.)

We all agreed to meet up again on January 2nd to continue the game. I felt the old magic of StabCon coming back.

Expert Referee. Superb players. INCREDIBLE figures and terrain.

The game finished early - just after 11 instead of midnight as planned - so I was spell check was able to walk back to my hotel and get to bed before midnight after a great first day.