Gen Con 2018

Greetings Warriors and Scholars!

I just got back from Gen Con a few days ago. What did I see? I saw a lot, and that is putting it mildly. Over the four days of the con I played 13 games I had not played before. I also was privileged to be on the Christianity and Gaming Panel and still had some time to help author Nathan Marchand with his table in Author's Avenue.

Photo courtesy of A'Campbell Consultants

The panel was a great opportunity to join others in a discussion on how gaming interacts with the Christian life. This is held by the Christian Gamers Guild each year and I have been to the panel before but this was my first time on the panel. People asked questions about going deeper to share Christ with other gamers, about worldview issues and concerns over fictional deities in some games. Also on the panel was a cosplayer and literature expert named John Stanifer as well as Abigail A'Kessler and Katelyn Campbell from A'Campbell Consultants, a couple of ladies that love to help people, churches and other organizations use games for building community. You can see their website: https://www.acampbellconsultants.com/

Now to some games! I won't go over all of the games I played, but here are a few I wanted to tell you about.

Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks.

I did not even get a full demo of this coop, but I was still so intrigued and excited for a Doctor Who game that I bought it. Definitely excited to get it to the table! You must get all of the Tardis pieces to Galifrey before the Dalek ship gets there. Along the way you will fight various monsters from the show and gather companions from throughout the history of the show.

5 Minute Marvel

This was a very fun, cooperative game. If you have played 5 Minute Dungeon you know the basic idea of this game as it is a re-theme. That being said, I really enjoyed myself playing this at their demo booth. It was a very fun experience and I plan on purchasing it at some point.

Ghost Fighting Treasure Hunters

I loved the giant, light up board they had for demoing this game!

This was a neat surprise and also cooperative. The game itself has been out for a couple years but they showed a new expansion with this demo. I had not expected Mattel to put out a game I would enjoy so much or that could be so fun for gamers. The game is about kids fighting ghosts and collecting treasure but the new expansion adds a basement and some story for what is causing the ghosts to haunt the place.

The Kings Guild

This is a fun game still taking pre-orders. I like worker placement games but I don't own very many and this was a very fun time. You are building a guild by collecting resources, adding rooms to your guilds hall, and providing items and weapons for heroes in their quests all to get the attention of a council so your guild can the official guild of the kingdom. You win by having the most points.

Agents of Mayhem

Based on the video game of the same name, this is a light miniature based game that does feel like a lot to learn your first time playing. There are quite a few symbols to learn but it is doable and you get to make significant tactical decisions. I did lose, but my team did destroy a building and I kind of destroyed my own Golem trying to destroy another one. In my defense that building only had one hit point left. I think after another time or two playing I could get used to the symbols and enjoy it quite a bit.




Azul

I played this with some guys at the Love Thy Nerd meetup. It is a tile laying game based on laying decorative tiles for a building. You take turns pulling tiles from a supply and putting them on your board. At the end of each round if you have a full row of the same color you then place one of those tiles on your board, gaining points for that tile and tiles in the same row and/or column. Fun puzzle game and worth noting that it won the Spiel Des Jarhes this year. If you have not hung out with Love Thy Nerd yet, check them out.


Star Trek Fluxx

This one I played at another gathering; this time for the Tavern, the FB group for Innroads Ministries. I am in the group but had not met very many members face to face yet. So this was a great opportunity to connect. There were at least 3 tables with games going but I found myself playing a lot of Fluxx, most of it being Star Trek. There are actually 2 different Star Trek Fluxx games: one for the original series and one for TNG. There is also an expansion that lets you put the two together. We played one round with the original series and one round with both decks put together. I had a lot of fun with it, even as the rules changed continuously as we played different rules cards. If you are not familiar with them, visit the Innroads website here or the FB group here.

GenCon 50

Greetings Warriors and Scribes.

I just got back from the best 4 days of gaming on a significant year. GenCon 50 was amazing. As seen above, the gamers took over Colts stadium for the week. This was in addition to the entire Indiana Convention Center and rooms at adjoining hotels.  I did spend some time helping Nathan Marchand with his table but I also played games and cosplayed. I had many great experiences but here are some of the cream of the crop for you.

Sagrada:

This game is lots of fun. I played 2 rounds of it. Rolling and assigning dice to build stained glass windows with limited options that must be chosen carefully to manipulate the dice. This was a lot of fun and it is not a long game.

Warehouse 13:

This was the biggest excitement for me in terms of gaming this weekend. I loved the SYFY show and this game is a faithful exploration of the world. It has a traitor element that is engineered with a similar feel to Battlestar Galactica, which is very fitting to the show. Sitting and talking with the designers was very fun and they are definitely fans of the show. One guy playing with us has not seen the show but he loved the game. This was a major high point of the convention.

This is a semi cooperative game. Each play through is a season and each round is an episode. Through the game you will find clues to figure out what item is causing issues and work to gather the needed tech, intuition,  etc. to stop the situation. However, someone else is also seeking the items to use against your team and one member is secretly working for them. There is a cooperative version for 2 players.

Watch for this to hit Kickstarter!

Buy the Rights:

This is a fun party game where the players are all pitching the movie ideas for the money to make them. Each round a different person will be the "producer" with 20 million dollars to shell out to the other players. Winner is the person with the most money at the end. You will lay out four cards: Genre, Hero, Descriptor of the hero, and the plot. You can elaborate as much as you want to get the attention of the producer and have some fun.

Christian Gamers Guild Events:

The Christianity and Gaming Panel went well. This was a question driven panel that discussed things like planning game nights for churches, how to handle magic and other "dark" things found in gaming, etc.

The Church Service was great. Tom Vasel preached about slowing down for resting and for time with God. We had a full worship band with drums, electric and acoustic guitar and some a great list of songs. This is always a highlight of GenCon for me and this year did not disappoint.

Cosplay

I cosplayed as a Blue Lantern on Friday and Martian Manhunter for half of Saturday (before I went to a Heroscape tournament). Unfortunately the only Lantern related cosplayers I saw were on different days than when I was a blue lantern.

Gen Con 2015

Greetings Scholars and Warriors.

Gen Con 2015 was an amazing experience, as always. Over 61,000 people packed out downtown Indianapolis for the best 4 days of gaming. I played some games, did some cosplaying, and spent time at 2 booths. At the Christian Gamers Guild booth, a lot of people came and said "Woah, we hadn't heard about this before!" We had a great time letting gamers know that not all Christians are against their hobbies. At one point someone came to the booth shocked as she never expected "to find these two things together".

Aaron came back the day after buying 42 excited for the journey.

I spent some time at Nathan Marchand's book table, which is where one important conversation took place, but it wasn't even me in the conversation. This was one of those times when I had to take a back step as Nathan talked with a guy who is developing a world for his writing to take place in. He had not had any of the other authors listen to him the way Nathan was and I simply watched the book table while he and Nathan talked. This guy had been through depression and was having a hard time and Nathan's listening and discussion for what I think was at least 45 minutes very helpful to him.

I also helped with the Sunday morning worship service. I was involved with Communion by setting up, giving some instructions and praying over it in the service. The Geek Preacher discussed fighting battles and how the best way to fight the dragon is to put down our weapons and not let it control our interactions with people.

42:Discovering Faith through Fandom flew off the tables. The CGG ran out of copies of it on the second day and at the end of the con we only had 1 copy left! 1 person who had talked with me about the book felt like responses from both Christians and Gamers/Nerds might respond harshly to this idea. He came back later feeling like he had offended me and but I was able to say that I was not offended at all.

Unfortunately I did not get to demo very many games. I did play Cinque Terre and Lost Cities the Board Game for the first time. Cinque Terre was fun and very similar to Ticket to Ride. I would play it again. Would I buy it again? I don't really know. I guess it would depend on if someone I game with regularly would also play it but they might feel it is to similar to Ticket to Ride. I also got to demo Sentinel Tactics which I thought was quite interesting. I like pre-built miniatures games and that is how the game play is designed so I might invest in that someday. Lost Cities was interesting and I would consider getting it as it easy to learn with reasonable game play. It does not have a lot of player interaction, though.

Just part of the board/miniatures gaming hall!

Many cosplays were out and about, especially on Saturday.

Nathan Marchand and I got to meet Summer Glau!

How "42:Discovering Faith Through Fandom" Came into Being

Greetings Scholars and Warriors.

Thanks to Ruth Pike for her hard work on cover art!

If you have paid any attention to the Nerd Chapel FB page, then you know that Nathan Marchand and I have completed a new collaborative work. 42:Discovering Faith Through Fandom is the result of a vision I had probably around 2 years ago or more. I realized you find many daily devotionals for hunters, sports fans as well as gender and age specific ones; but none specifically focused on Nerd/Geek culture. When I started working on it, I felt God nudging me to bring Nathan on and I think that was a great idea. Nathan is a published science fiction author who has published both as a "self publisher" and through a publishing company. He was able to bring a lot to the project with his knowledge of editing, formatting, and pursuing publishing possibilities. He also found our cover artist, Ruth Pike, at a dance group he attends.

We chose to go the route of self publishing because very few publishers fit the niche of "Christian and Geek". Most Christian publishing companies don't understand Nerd culture in any way and most fantasy or science fiction publishers would never consider publishing a devotional. We did talk with one company but they are so far behind they would not have been able to even look at it for a year, let alone make a decision or get things going.

Here are a few of the daily titles in our book:

The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything
The Resurrection of Spock
Spiderman and the Pong of Vengeance
Beware the Dark Side

Nathan will have copies at his table in author's row at Gen Con 2015. We also are donating some to the Christian Gamers Guild booth at Gen Con this year. I will have copies at the Nerd Chapel table at Grand Con 2015. Copies are also available online:

 http://www.amazon.com/42-Discovering-Faith-Through-Fandom

If you would like to check out Nathan's other works, go to:

www.nathanjsmarchand.com 

Gen Con 2014

Hey guys.

Just one of several huge gaming halls at Gen Con.

Gen Con was amazing. TI spent two hours a day hanging out at the Christian booth, with Fans for Christ, Christian Gamers Guild, and Innroads Ministries. We met a lot of people. Some were pastors/youth pastors who were surprised to find something like our organizations. Some were gamers who were unsure or frustrated with the church. On Sunday we joined together for a worship service in the Crowne Plaza...some 200, I think, in attendance. Derek White (the Geek Preacher) gave a great message on how the Church is Bigger on the Inside (you must be a whovian if you have a huge smile on your face right now). I am sure that the video of the sermon will get on You Tube at some point so I'll share it to the Facebook page when it does.

The Worship Service at Gen Con.

So many gamers were glad to find Christians who don't think them evil for playing D&D. We had a great response from both the convention and the gamers. I remember some buying shirts who just wanted to support us (even a couple who don't attend church regularly).

I pose with a couple other Star Wars fans in the Family Fun Pavilion near the CGG/FFC booth.

The most significant conversation I had was with a guy I'll call Moe. Moe came by and we started talking. I shared that we were gamers, nerds and geeks who were also Christians. We realized that the church doesn't understand gamers and that gamers have had some hard times with Churches. He was hesitant about things but glad to see someone trying to deal with this issue. He admitted that the churches lack of respect and relations with gamers was one of the reasons he doesn't attend church. Moe was hesitant to share much...but I could see wheels turning in his head.

Jesus came for those who are "sick" or those who have been hurt and are weary and caught in sin. Please pray for those who interacted with us this weekend. Some have relatives/friends who are really sick. Some have been hurt by experiences with churches.


If you are experiencing the Nerd Chapel now after find out about us at Gen Con, welcome! I am really glad to have you on board. Nerd Chapel is happy to join with these organizations in working to build bridges between the Church and the Nerd/Geek/Gamer community. There is a lot of work to do but God has given us His presence. As Romans 8 says, "If God is for us, who can be against us?"