Summer StabCon Friday 4th - Sunday 6th July 2025

Sunday 6th July

Morning

Got up. Hotel breakfast. (Didn’t have black pudding this time.) Packed my bag. Because I had to fit in all my clothes and everything this time, it was the heaviest it had been since setting out from home on Friday. Made sure to keep the folder for my morning game on top.

Checked out. 15 minutes walk up to convention for the last time. But this time with a heavy backpack.

Stopped in at the co-op to grab a couple of bags of sweets to put out on my table halfway through my morning game.

Upon arrival I checked the sign-up sheet for my morning game. My Steampunk Game “The Warlords of the Aether”.  Only three players signed up, but I’m generally happy with three. (I prefer four.)

I like to think of myself as a bit of a maverick when it comes to convention Refereeing. The conventional (sic) wisdom is to provide pregenerated characters. I usually have character generation at the table because my character generation systems are FAST and because it lets me - and the whole table - benefit from the imaginations of the players.

(I would never have created the characters in my Saturday afternoon game as pre-generated characters!)

For this game, I’d decided to go a bit further.

I’ve recently been championing the idea of “Prologue” scenarios for campaigns. Most Role-playing campaigns start with a Session Zero where players discuss the campaign, lay down agreed guidelines and make their characters. I don’t think players know enough at that stage to make informed decisions. So my advice is that they play a one-shot using pregenerated characters first. Most games come with a quikstart. Use that. This introduces the players to the game rules and game world before they have to make the crucial decisions in Session Zero.

I had this bright idea that I could do that in a convention slot. Give players pregenerated characters first - I had several ready from a quikstart I’d just published for the game. Run through a quick prologue - I have literally dozens on one hour intro scenarios for my Steampunk game. THEN do character generation and play out a full scenario.

In hindsight, I made two mistakes. Firstly, I ran the game in a morning slot. Even though there are no set slots at StabCon, afternoon slots can easily be 4 hours whereas to make morning slot 4 hours you have to start at 9am, which most people don’t want to do on a Sunday. So I’d put a 3 hour timing (10am to 1pm) on the game. Far too ambitious for a Prologue - Character Generation - Full scenario idea.

Secondly, I based the tertiary part of the session - the “Full Scenario” - on an expansion (“novelisation”) of another of my one hour demonstration games. I didn’t think enough about making it a full scenario in its own right. I didn’t think enough about the climax and - again - my role-playing of the non-player characters was a bit limp.

But the session was saved by the three brilliant characters the players made. A fisherman, an  anaesthetist, and a children’s nanny with a flying umbrella. Any pre-generated characters I made would have paled by comparison.

As I was clearing up I met a wonderful couple. They run a friendly local games store and it was their first StabCon. We had a chat about upcoming conventions they could attend.

Afternoon

I’d timed my game to finish at 1pm. My fellow Referee had timed the Trumpton game to start at 1pm. So I rushed to find the room to apologise. I was the only player to get there even close to the starting time. So I had enough time to order lunch - Samosas again.

For those that don’t know, Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley were much loved stop-frame animated children’s TV series on the BBC decades ago. This Referee has specialised in running satirical games set in the Trumpton world for many years. 

I’ll be honest, the system he uses isn’t optimised for the series. It has a hit location system, for example, and espionage is listed a a skill on the character sheets. But it works well for the satire. Think the final scene of “Hot Fuzz” where the quaint villagers all pull out machines guns and blast away in the village square.

I played Chippy Minton - the town carpenter. He is a canon character.

The session was absolute hoot right from the off with hi-vis-wearing workmen setting up portacabins and bringing bulldozers into town. It turned out a giant American (chocolate?) egg had done a dodgy deal to buy up all of Trumptonshire. He was desperate to get all the building improvements done before anyone stopped him.

Humpty J. Dumpy. Wearing a MEGA hat. (Make Eggs Great Again!). He wanted to build a wall around Trumptonshire, displace the population and build a golf course around the landmarks. Eg. Windy Miller’s windmill on hole 9.

The satire wasn’t subtle.

I’ve been aware that role-playing games that allow players to “punch a Nazi in the face” have been part of the zeitgeist recently. For the most part, they’ve passed me by. But as soon as Humpty J Dumpty turned up, I could see players getting really worked up. Annoyed by recent news stories coming out of America, this was their time to vent their frustrations.

There’s a supplier in the game called Mr Wantage. (I don’t know if he’s canon in the Trumpton world. I doubt it.) He supplied the player characters with various forms of weaponry (including a dismantled Trebuchet). Battle commenced.

One memory I have is of Mrs Cobbett, the flower seller (Canon Character), taking out Dumpty’s Deputy - “DJ Vinney” - with a sniper rifle and continuing to pump bullets into the fallen body. The idea of a BBC animator, animating the twitching form as bullet after bullet thumped into it, tickled me.

Of course I rebuilt the Trebuchet and the climax involved Humpty J Dumpty -  very cracked by this time - being loaded into it and fired over the horizon.

Pure unadulterated fun.

Departure

Before departing the convention I went to front desk to ask about the dates of Winter StabCon. Friday 2nd January to Sunday 4th January 2026. I filled in a form to sign up for it and pay. £25 for the weekend but £17.50 because of the early bird rate.

There is a risk the date will bump into my New Year activities but even if I can’t make it, I’ll happily pay £17.50 to support this wonderful event. Anyway, StabCon carry over some of your money to the next event if you can’t come.

I hefted my heavy backpack and walked back to the station to the station to catch my bus back to Birmingham a happy man.

Final thoughts

Cost of Entry: £17.50

Cost of Hotel: £145.80

Train ticket (including Senior Citzen’s Travel Card): £34.99

Total Cost (excluding food and drink): £198.29

Total hours of gaming: c.22.

Cost per hour: £9.

Cost of a pint of Lager: £4.80.

What’s changed: It’s no longer a residential convention. The new venue is really good and a step up. If you eat in you’re required to eat good food and drink good beer. You can buy cheaper food nearby but just can’t bring it in to the venue. 

Anyone wondering about how the Freemasons Lodge relates to Role-playing just has to look at the banner I spotted in outside one of the rooms:

Try telling me that’s NOT an advert for a Role-playing game!

There are a LOT of younger people attending now and - even - running the convention, which is a good sign for the future.

What’s the same: Most of the same old faces. The same smooth organisation. The same “we’ve provided the venue - sort out your own games” attitude. The same old role-playing game noticeboard.

Final thoughts: StabCon is an odd one. It’s a lovely convention but you need to get to know it and it needs to get to know you. It’s mainly a big board game convention but it has quite a strong Role-playing game track. You need to get to a StabCon, feel confused, work out what’s going on, get to know people and then you’ll be set up for life.