StabCon1 - 2026 - 2nd to 4th January

1. Why I Went

I do my best to attend StabCon in both the summer and winter each year. It is a friendly convention which feels a bit like a home from home.

I attend to offer and, hopefully, referee multiple Table-Top Role-Playing Games (TTRPGs). If insufficient people sign up for my games there are usually some TTRPGs I can sign up to play in. Because of its flexible structure, I can use it to try out new games and scenarios.

I have a regular on-going campaign I play in - refereed by a friend - on a Friday night to make my arrival at the event relaxed.

2. The Shape of the Convention

StabCon takes place in Stockport. It’s based at the Masonic Guild Hall, less than 10 minutes walk from the station.

It is not a residential event but there are many good accommodation options nearby.

(I stayed at the Premier Inn - 10 minutes walk down the road - this year. But I didn’t walk. The combination of my newly acquired Senior Bus Pass and an excellent bus service door to door made my life really easy.)

The venue is historic, well maintained, with lots of rooms perfect for gaming. The food and drink - including the bar - are on a par with what I imagine Masons would expect. There is a Co-op right next door with cheaper food and drink options. You’re not supposed to bring food into the event but most people are reasonable and a lot of blind eyes seem to be turned.

The event runs from Midday on Friday to Evening on Sunday, but the TTRPGs don’t seem to start until about 7pm Friday night.

StabCon is unique in my experience. Even though it is supremely well organised - it has been running for decades and every attendee gets an individually produced name badge - the convention itself has very little internal structure.

It is primarily a board game convention. People bring their own games to play grab one of the many, many tables in the many rooms, find friends and play. The attendance maximum limit is 300 people but it wasn’t reached so I’d estimate there were about 250 people present. Most of these are dedicated board gamers. Of the rest there seem to be few pure TTRPG players, like me. Many people play some TTRPGs and some board games.

Attendees tend to be delightful people “of a certain age” but there is now a growing contingent of younger - and equally delightful - gamers.

Allegedly some of the Masons looked askance at the StabCon attendees when the convention first moved there but someone explained how many of them were Doctors, University Academics and so on. Just dressed for their leisure time.

The venue opens at 9am each day and closes its doors at midnight.

Prospective TTRPG Referees can book a space in one of the upstairs rooms in the venue. Then there is a slightly under-sized noticeboard where we can pin up our sign-up sheets for our games.

There are no fixed slots but most of us stick to the usual Morning, Afternoon and Evening slots used at other conventions. You can offer whatever you want though. I have seen people offering 6 hour games in the past, though.

So I planned for 6 game slots of 3-4 hours each.

The larger rooms downstairs are voluminous. I barely went in. There are traders in one of those halls but I didn’t look at them. They seem to be perfect for running board games. 

The smaller rooms upstairs can each accommodate from one to three TTRPGs. The ones with three tables have screens between them to minimise the noise and distraction. This should work well but I only witnessed multiple TTRPGs in a single room once across the weekend. 

3. Games Played and Games Run

Friday Night 

Long ago I was lucky enough to join a table of regular attendees on a Friday night at StabCon. I was still working back then and it was great to rush up after work and know I had a game waiting for me.

One of our earlier campaigns has been published as a sourcebook for the Savage Worlds game.

 https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/330218/the-secret-files-of-section-d-taster-edition

Currently the game we’re playing is the Fallout TTRPG set in post-apocalyptic America. We were able to fight our way past the - incredibly tough - mutants just in time to stop the reactor overloading. This would have had state-wide consequences.

Saturday Morning

At Summer Stabcon 2025 I’d used my newfound post-retirement freedom to arrive at lunchtime only to find very little happening outside the board games and socialising. I’m not very good at either of these. So I’d arranged to arrive later this time. By the time I got there the board was full of sign up sheets offering Saturday morning games. I’d put up mine but, as expected, didn’t get enough players, so I had to cancel the game. Me and my player both found other games to play in.

I played in a superb Dr Who game run by a veteran, well known and highly regarded referee. I played Dr Malcolm Tucker - Lee Evans’ character from “The Planet of the Dead” - and had an absolute blast!

Saturday Afternoon

I had offered a superhero game set in a future undersea city in this slot. But I really wanted to test the Star Trek scenario I’d offered in the morning slot which had been cancelled. As I suspected, none of the players who’d signed up had chosen the game for the Superheroes and the setting. Some of them didn’t even know what they’d signed up for. The ones I knew from previous StabCons and other conventions just wanted to play a game Refereed by me.

I think some people have “we must play a game run by Simon” on their wish list for conventions. Highly flattering.

So I was able to Referee the Star Trek game and the players were brilliant!

Saturday Evening

It used to be tradition that I’d run a horror game Saturday evening at Stabcon, even though it’s genre that isn’t my speciality. I’m currently writing and testing a set of Horror TTRPG rules.

But I refereed the scenario from those rules at Summer StabCon 2025. So for this event, I downloaded an official scenario for the most popular Cthulhu game and converted that. Again the players - three of whom claimed to be quite new to TTRPG (you’d never have guessed) - brought their A-game. They created a brilliant set of characters and we had a great game.

Sunday Morning

I’ve been wanting to try to run the new Discworld game’s starter set for a while. I’d noticed on social media lots of people expressing an interest so I offered it for Sunday morning. By 11pm on Saturday it only had one player signed up so, with his full knowledge, I cancelled it and switched to the only other sign up sheets with spaces. A game I’d never heard of.

I’d never heard of it because it was a BOARD game. I didn’t realise people were using the noticeboard to post for players for board games.

This was an impressive, sprawling, space game with lots of components. It had been funded by Kickstarter. I don’t think a traditional game company business model would have produced it.

It wouldn’t have been my first choice but the other players were friendly and enthusiastic. It wasn’t a bad way to spend a few hours.

Sunday Afternoon

There is a wonderful Referee who often offers to run the Trumpton TTRPG on Sunday afternoons. At Summer Stabcon he’d run a game where Donald J. Dumpty had bought up Trumptonshire in a shady deal in order to bulldoze it and build a golf course!

I’d kept Sunday afternoon free in hopes that he’d do it again but, alas, “Straight out of Trumpton” was ready. So I signed up to play in a game of “Blood on the Clock Tower”. Alas this failed to garner enough players and didn’t run. I was unable to find an alternative TTRPG to join in so spent the rest of the day noodling on my social media. 

4. Refereeing and Play Reflections

Having a regular game booked for Friday evening works incredibly well and always gives me an easy, stress-free start to the event. Maybe one day I’ll cycle round to running a small campaign in this slot but I won’t press for it. I’m happy to just turn up and play.

I’m used to running games for a mixture of new players and ones I’ve played with before. It’s extremely gratifying to see so many familiar faces looking me up even though I’ve been away from the convention for a couple of years.

The newer players to me - even the ones who claim to be new to role-playing - always seem to be as excellent, committed and inventive as the “old guard”. I am experienced in explaining the rules of my games and expectations at the table and have never had any issues at this convention.

I really enjoy what the players at StabCon bring to the table. 

In my Star Trek game this time I ran a small “prologue” adventure using some Original Series Star Trek characters (Spock, McCoy, Sulu and Chekhov as it happened) to introduce the players to the rules before they made their own characters. I’ve always tried to have character creation at the table but running a short introduction to the rules really helps. I may do this more in the future.

I think, next time, I won’t offer a game Saturday morning. However I will try to offer appealing games of my own design both Sunday morning and afternoon. (Unless Trumpton is available at any point.)

5. Cost, Time, and Value

How I calculate this

This section looks at what the convention cost me, as a participant, and what that worked out as per hour of actual gaming. It is intended as an illustrative case study rather than a universal guide.

I include only costs that are directly caused by attending the convention:

Convention ticket or badge

Travel to and from the event

Accommodation, where staying overnight was necessary

I do not include routine food costs, as I would incur these whether or not I attended. For this convention I bought lunch and dinner at the venue for every meal at a cost of about £10 a time. I didn’t nip next door for a Co-op Meal Deal which would have saved a couple of pounds. 

I do report on the cost of a pint of lager as this is an important metric for some of my readers. It was £4.80

My travel costs reflect my own circumstances (travelling from Birmingham and making use of available rail discounts), so readers should treat the numbers as indicative rather than directly transferable.

Headline figures

Convention cost (ticket): £17.50

Travel cost: £26.40

Accommodation cost: £126.98

Total convention-specific cost: £170.88

Total hours of gaming (played and run): 19 (inc. 3 hour board game)

Approximate cost per hour of gaming: £9

6. What I Took Away

I will continue to attend StabCon twice a year if possible. It’s well organised, relatively inexpensive for a convention requiring accommodation and I know a lot of people there.

I’ll continue to offer to referee games there though I’ll consider carefully what to offer and when. It’s a great convention for trying out new scenarios and systems.

It has a lack of internal structure which - whilst part of its charm - could be a bit intimidating to newcomers. I’d still recommend giving it a go. The organisers are friendly and very helpful. If you do decide to come, just look me up and I’ll happily show you the ropes.