A Gaming Con for Tucson: RinCon ‘08
Winter 2009 Issue
Features
- From the Editors
- Craft Check: Bead Sprite Magnets
Interviews
- Industry Interview: Karen Clark, Project Manager at Bioware
- Industry Interview: Britney Brimhall, Himalaya Studios
Articles
- A Gaming Con for Tucson
Author: Robyn Fleming
- This Is Our World Too: Preventing Real Victims of Virtual Rape
Author: Casey Fiesler
- G.I.R.L. Power?
Author: Amy M Hopper
- Killing Grannies, Slaughtering Monsters and Leveling the F*** Up
Author: Oliver Saenz
- I Am a Gamer
Author: Kialio
Robyn reports on Tucson's first ever gaming convention, RinCon '08.
Casey reports on the ways in which virtual sexual assault can impact on gamers.
Amy investigates Sony Entertainment Online's new "G.I.R.L." scholarship program.
Oliver examines the ways in which games apply different moral and ethical philosophies.
Kialio discusses why the behavior of self-identified "gamers" had made her reluctant to embrace the label.
Gamer Stories
Reviews
Odds 'n Ends
On the weekend of October 31st, 2008, my hometown, Tucson, Arizona, had its very first gaming convention: RinCon ‘08, organized by the Southern Arizona Gamers Association. Taking place at the Tucson Convention Center, RinCon ‘08 featured three days of gaming, both scheduled and spur-of-the-moment, an exhibitor hall and other cool activities and events. It was the most fun I’ve had on a Halloween weekend since I got too old for trick-or-treating and all-night candy binges!
Friday
On Friday afternoon, I picked up my media pass and took a preliminary look around the con. The exhibitor hall, the first of several interconnected rooms set aside for the con, featured booths with representatives from local game stores as well as game company demo teams. I chatted for a while with the representative for Asmodée Editions, Chantal, who was suffering from some severe jetlag, but was still well able to joke with me a little bit about the experience of being a real, live, actual female geek who likes Star Trek and everything.
Later on, I checked out some of the other exhibitors, and sat down to play the demo of Ship of Fools Games’s Treasure Fleet, a fun, fast-paced card game with a pirate theme. John Morgan and Jonathan Bodey were a fun presence at the con, rigged out in pirate gear and passing out free buttons to everyone who played their demo.
After I had made a few tours of the exhibitor room, I checked out the gaming that was going on. There were several games scheduled to run at any given time, with a sign-up system allowing interested players to reserve seats. I looked over shoulders on Friday and chatted with gamers, but somehow never got around to actually playing – and then it was time to put on my Halloween costume (my husband and I went as Simon and Kaylee from Firefly) and grab some dinner with my friends and fellow con attendees Brandy and Jake before coming back to the con for the Zombie Homecoming Dance, held in the nearby Hotel Arizona.
I had high hopes for the Zombie Homecoming, but for the time I was there, it seemed that everyone in the room had typical gamer shyness. Small groups clustered around the edges of the dance floor, but no one was quite brave enough to actually move around on it, and with loud music and dim lighting, it wasn’t a good environment for hanging out and chatting.
The gaming hall was much more lively, with a particularly boisterous game of Shadows Over Camelot going on until late, accompanied by happy shouts of, “huzzah! We’re all loyal!” I chatted a little bit with SAGA Marshall Boyan Radakovich, who told me that he had been hoping that the effects of RinCon and Halloween would “stack,” but that he might have over-anticipated gamer interest in a Halloween dance. Maybe so, but the con-goers clustered around the gaming tables still seemed to be having a great time.
Saturday
On Saturday, I tried out several games I hadn’t played before. I loved the look and detail of Arkham Horror, but the gameplay itself was too dragging for my taste, and the conclusion of the game felt anticlimactic. That might only have been because my character had been taken out of the action just before the final fight, though, and I watched it all from the sidelines.
While I was battling scary things with tentacles in Arkham, my husband was taking advantage of another activity on offer at RinCon: miniature painting tutorials courtesy of Hat’s Games. He painted quite a spiffy miniature, and has been using it in his weekly D&D game every since.
Another game I played on Saturday was the awesome Cornerstone, from Good Company Games (see my full review in this issue), which occupied Brandy and me for quite some time. I had a great time talking to co-founders Mike Thompson and Matt Mette about their company, board games in general, and what we do at Cerise, later on.
Sunday
I started gaming early in the morning on Sunday with a True 20 campaign run by Jason D. Corley, focusing on a summer camp for North American witches and wizards, in the style of Harry Potter. The “Camp Chargoggabojee Days” campaign was hilarious and engrossing, and Corley showed off some serious game-mastering mojo when he managed to convince the other player and me to stand up and sing the Camp Chargoggabojee song out loud in front of the other gamers in the roleplaying and miniatures room.
After a break for lunch, I struck up a few more conversations with local gamers and SAGA representatives. Everyone I spoke to was more than happy to chat with a stranger, and the overall mood at RinCon ‘08 was friendly and open. The Ides of Gaming, a smaller monthly event that SAGA has been running for over a year at a local coffee shop, has a similar feel, very welcoming to all gamers, regardless of gender, experience level, or anything else. At RinCon, this attitude was encouraged by a code of conduct printed in the program guide, which reminded attendees to practice good sportsmanship as well as respect for one another.
I took a few more tours around the exhibitor hall and gave in to the urge to buy dice I didn’t need (I never need them), and checked out just a few more games. Finally, it was time to say goodbye to RinCon ‘08 – and start looking forward to ‘09.
