Furnace 21 - Garrison Hotel - Sheffield
10th and 11th October 2026
1. Why I Went
If you read back in this blog you’ll see I went to a convention called Revelations. Another called Northstar. What these two events have in common is they take place at The Garrison Hotel in Sheffield.
Both of these events are off-shoots of Furnace. Furnace has been running at the Garrison for 21 years and it’s been 21 years of constant tinkering and improvement.
About a decade ago I heard some attendees call Furnace the “Olympics” of TTRPG conventions. I thought they were exaggerating at the time. Now I agree with them.
The organisation, the game Referees and the players are all top notch at a good, unique and memorable venue. I don’t rate or rank conventions but I’d put Furnace in my top 5 any day. It’s one of the first events I book up every year.
2. The Shape of the Convention
As I said above, Furnace is based at the Garrison Hotel. The Hotel offers special convention rates. You can find cheaper hotels nearby, which are now easy to get to via Sheffield’s wonderful tram system, but given the travelling time, especially on Saturday night, you really should consider staying at the Garrison if you can.
The convention runs for two days, on the Saturday and the Sunday. Many people choose to travel up Friday night but that is for a social evening. There is no gaming.
There are three slots on Saturday and two on Sunday. Over the years the organisers have adjusted the length of the slots. I suspect they originally tried to fit in three 4-hour slots per day, like a lot of conventions. This, however, creates a highly pressured day time-wise.
They’ve now settled on:
Morning slot: 3 hours, 10:00am to 1pm
Afternoon slot: 3½ hours, 2:30pm to 6pm
Evening slot: 4 hours, 7:30pm to 11:30pm
Which gives 1½ hours for lunch and dinner.
Lunch and dinner can be pre-ordered at the hotel before the event to make things go even more smoothly. (Though there is fast food and a supermarket only 3 minutes’ walk away.)
Months before the event, the organisers ask who wants to referee games. For each game a Referee runs, they get one priority sign-up. Every attendee gets one priority sign-up. This should make sure everyone gets into a game they really want to play. So if you Referee two games you get priority sign-up for each of the three slots.
Without it being openly stated, the clear preference is for Referees to offer to run two games. There are a LOT of quality Referees who want to referee at this convention.
When all the games are submitted they are posted on a publicly shared spreadsheet. The sheet lists every single attendee by name. Every single attendee can make multiple choices in a ranked list in multiple slots, by typing directly into the shared sheet. I didn’t understand all the nuances and submitted a ranked list of five games in all five slots.
(Probably more than I should have.)
The “Games Tsarina” then looks at the completed spreadsheet and allocates players to games as equitably and as fairly as possible. I have no evidence but suspect most people get a couple of their first choices at least. And everyone probably gets into at least one of the games from their ranked list in every slot.
It is a lot of work, but seems to work out really well. And all the Referees at Furnace are great and offer really good games. So no-one should be unhappy.
I probably hadn’t fully understood the sign-up system as I wasn’t allocated to a game Sunday afternoon. This didn’t matter because one of the organisers who knows me spotted it and wrote to offer me a space in his game, which I immediately snapped up.
When you arrive you pick up a badge with your name on, a number for the raffle and a QR code. Scanning the QR code gives you the convention schedule and tells you which table each game is running at.
The convention opens with a short, useful, informational speech. There is a raffle on Sunday. There are two trader tables and a bring and buy table.
The Garrison is a popular wedding venue and conventions usually share the hotel with that sort of event on a given weekend. But Furnace 21 seemed to have the building to itself this year.
100 attendees, 17 tables across three floors, the top floor having the famous “cells” which feel like playing in an actual dungeon room.
Coffee is available on demand and the bar is open whenever you need it.
3. Games Played and Games Run
Slot 1: Saturday 10:00 to 13:00
Way back when Dungeons and Dragons was invented someone looked at it and thought “I can do that better and cheaper”. He published a game called Tunnels and Trolls. Though it never came close to rivalling D&D, it developed a devoted following.
Recently some people have decided to produce an updated version. This was the game I played in the first slot. It was a scenario from an official starter set and meant to demonstrate the rules. I had so much fun role-playing that we side-stepped the demonstration of the combat rules.
There was a rival party. We were supposed to defeat or distract them but I tricked them into going into the dungeon first and fighting the giant rats we were supposed to fight.
Simple old-fashioned dungeoneering fun.
We didn’t complete the scenario but had a good time.
I’m not very familiar with the original game but the central dice mechanic of this new version seemed fine to me and a lot less cumbersome. It seems to be trying to emulate the feel of the older rules, though. The characters we played were an eclectic bunch. A birdkin, a toadkin, a halfkin, a goblinkin and I don’t know what the last was but they definitely weren’t human. Even the barkeep was an owlkin. Apparently you can play whatever you want just like the original game.
Slot 2: Saturday 14:30 to 18:00
The Hellboy TTRPG. Another game that was unfamiliar to me. This was like the Referee had watched the first scene of the first movie and decided to replicate that mood.
We were dropped off in a rainy 1960s Ireland to investigate reports of sightings of Nazi soldiers. The adventure was everything you’d expect and more. Were the soldiers time-slipping from the 1940s to our time or were we slipping back to theirs?
The level of preparation and handouts was extraordinary. Our orders, the maps of the area, historical documents, wax-rubbings, papers rifled from an SS officer’s desk, etc., all presented in appropriate envelopes, etc., bearing the correct markings. It was jaw-droppingly good stuff.
I played a soldier. During a break I went to get a coffee. I came upon two players from the game - neither of whom I know - and one was saying to the other:
“I like the way Simon’s playing his character.”
No word of a lie! It made my weekend.
The system was a super-simple version of the current D&D rules, retooled to represent the genre well.
Slot 3: Saturday 19:30 to 23:30
I was due to play a game of Dragon Age, coincidentally with the same Referee as the Hellboy game, but was feeling tired and had to withdraw. I apologised to the Referee but he still had four players even after I’d left.
This is the slot where people traditionally play Horror games. Apparently there was a game of “Ten Candles” in one of the cells. That sounds amazing!
Slot 4: Sunday 10:00 to 13:00
This was a Science Fiction game about the scrappy crew of a ship trying to get it fixed. I’d picked it because it has the most minimal of descriptions. I didn’t know the system, Offworlders, and didn’t know the Referee, or so I thought. I just liked the confidence shown by the minimal description.
It turned out not only had I played with this Referee before, this adventure was a sequel to one he’d run at TravCon earlier in the year which I’d played in.
That game had used the Traveller Game system. In this game the player characters had slightly fewer skills but they were more effective. The dice mechanic, rather than using the binary Fail/Succeed mechanic from Traveller, used Fail/Succeed but…/Succeed instead.
I played the crew’s sneaky thief who I played with total arrogance:
“Just get me in and leave me there. I’ll do the rest.”
They did. I did. Sorted.
Sometimes you role-play so well that events don’t spiral down into chaos and your group pulls off all the difficult stuff without dire consequences. This was one of those games.
Slot 5: Sunday 14:30 to 18:00
This was the game where the Referee had proactively contacted me to offer me a place. This was the Invincible TTRPG based on the brutal animated series and comic of the same name. The Referee knew I had a history with Superhero TTRPGs and thought I might be interested. I was.
The preparation for this game was incredible. The Referee had transplanted the game to a medieval fantasy game setting but still with Superheroes. I thought the material we were using must have come out of a boxed set. The full colour card character sheets were so professional I couldn’t bring myself to write on them. And the bespoke printed playmats were amazing.
It was a good and well thought out game. Alas, my tastes have moved on from traditional Superhero TTRPGs, moving from slugfest to slugfest. The animated series is famous for its long drawn-out battles and this game emulates them well.
A well thought out, immaculately presented game, refereed with skill. Again we were unable to finish the story within the given time slot.
4. Play Reflections
Furnace remains supremely well-organised. If I was going to recommend a one-day event to someone new to conventions, I’d recommend Concrete Cow. For a two-day event, I’d recommend Furnace. (Though there’s nothing to stop you coming to Furnace for just one day.)
It’s as close to perfect as you’ll ever come at a TTRPG convention.
I noticed that not all of the badges were claimed so it seems some people were unable to make the event. Coupled with people dropping out of games on the Sunday it seems like attendance wasn’t 100%. Even I missed the Saturday evening slot.
Two full days of intense high-quality role-playing can be quite tiring I suppose and we all have real-life issues to deal with.
Every game I played was good with superb handouts and other game materials. The Referees were good. The other players were excellent. I had a great time. I played four games that were all new to me.
5. Cost, Time, and Value
Headline figures
Convention cost (ticket): £30
Travel cost (train ticket): £35.79
Accommodation cost*: £60
Total convention-specific cost: £125.79
Total hours of gaming (played and run)**: 17
* I chose to stay at a cheap hotel in the city centre for Saturday and Sunday nights. It was my decision to stay the extra night so I haven’t included it in the costings.
** I chose not to stay for the Saturday night game. That was my choice, so I’ve kept those game hours in the total.
Approximate cost per hour of gaming: £7.40
Cost of a pint of lager: £n/a
I didn’t buy a pint whilst there, sorry!
6. What I Took Away
Furnace remains the gold standard to which other conventions dedicated to PLAYING TTRPGs should aspire. Over the years, organisers have refined every part of it to near perfection.
It would be hard for anyone to argue there is a better convention of this type anywhere in the UK.
Highly recommended.
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