The Good, Bad, And Weird Of Gen Con 2026

I'm still recovering from my time at Gen Con. It's nothing bad or illness-related, but "The Best Four Days in Gaming" are also "the most-exhausting four days in gaming" for yours truly. Still, I thought it'd be fun to take a moment to talk about the good, bad, and weird of the show from my perspective, as one of the folks who worked the Steve Jackson Games booth the whole weekend.

The Good: The highlight of the show for me, personally, is getting to say "hi" to all our many, many fans. Everyone was lovely this year, and the chance to chat, trade anecdotes, and share the joy of SJ Games is the kind of heartwarming balm I hadn't realized I needed until I got it. Honestly, the vibes of the convention as a whole – from what I could experience – seemed way nicer and friendlier than I remember from years past. I might be reading too much into it, but I can't help but feel that, after the stresses of the past however-long, people just liked being near one another to share in the love and delightfulness of gaming.

It was also fantastic to get to put copies of Munchkin Second Edition into the hands of so many new fans. We brought a lot of copies, and we barely had enough to make it through Sunday morning. It seemed like it was a constant flow of folks going, "I played a demo, I loved the new edition, and now I want to buy it!" That's what we love to hear.

We also sold out of Munchkin Vox Machina – A Critical Role Game, Munchkin 40,000 and the Grudges and Gore expansion, Purrfect Potions, and others that I'm sure I'm forgetting.

Speaking selfishly, my own personal "good" highlight was the fact that we sold out of the awe-inspiring GURPS Basic Set, Fourth Edition Revised hardcover almost immediately. I didn't come into the booth until noon on the first day (for . . . reasons – see below), and we'd already been sold out for an hour by that point. I'm grateful that we could blaze through two backbreaking cases in the first 60 minutes of the show, but it was also a bit sad to turn so many eager enthusiasts away.

I can't speak for actual traffic numbers (I'm just a guy in the trenches), but I loved the booth layout. We managed to have room to display, sell, demo, showcase, and chat. As the first Gen Con we got to hang out with Possum Creek as one big happy family, it was neat to have brief exchanges and just kind of "be" together.

We used a "sushi menu"-type system where most of the inventory was behind the proverbial (literal) curtain, and would-be buyers marked off their selections on a plastic-covered list using a dry-erase marker. Again, I can't speak for others, but I felt this worked great; most of the time it wasn't even necessary as-is, but it was certainly helpful to have everything we brought to the show on one sheet, complete with prices.

The Munchkin 25th Anniversary Party was a lot of fun, too. Though I was there as a guest (my hat's off to everyone who helped make it happen!), it was still so infectious to see the swath of folks delighted to do a live-action Munchkin event that – if I'm being honest – I was a bit jealous I couldn't participate.

The Bad: My personal "thanks but no thanks" award goes to a shipping company who I won't name, who decided that – rather than delivering our box of snazzy Munchkin 25th-anniversary-celebration shirts – it would be more fun to give our cardboard carton daily drives around the city. Thus, despite the box arriving in Indianapolis on the Monday before the show, we dutifully received notifications that the box had failed to be delivered on Wednesday . . . and Thursday . . . and Friday. It finally arrived Saturday afternoon – much too late to be useful.

I also reiterate that it was a mixed blessing for the items we did sell out on. This marks the second Gen Con in a row where Purrfect Potions flew off the shelf . . . and, of course, I would've loved to bulk up the backpacks of way more GURPS fans than we were able to. Let this be a gentle lesson to folks that buying the things you love early is always a good convention tip – and hopefully folks who walked away disappointed made their way to their favorite friendly local game shop or Warehouse 23 to find what they need.

The Weird: "Bong-BONG-BONG! Ladies and gentlemen: May I have your attention please. We are presently under a Tornado Warning. Please remain calm, but it is necessary for you to proceed to the interior rooms of the building. Security personnel are standing by to assist you. Please move away from any windows, docks, or exterior walls. Thank you."

If I ever wondered what would happen if a tornado got close to a gargantuan convention, I need wonder no more. The previous calm, near-robotic female voice explained the situation so perfectly that I recorded it for posterity. However, since it repeated about once a minute for what felt like half an hour, the odds are non-zero that I could've remembered it. Apparently the entire Convention Center was playing an unwitting game of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Convention Center-Deluge; the weather chose "Deluge" while the Convention Center chose "Convention Center" . . . and lost. The actual damage seemed relatively minimal as best I could tell, especially given how there was apparently a boatload (near-literally) of water in too many places. The whole episode resulted in some quite startling "why is water inside?!" videos and photos on social media. It was certainly memorable. And wet.

Oh, and speaking of "weird" . . . and "photos" . . . do you see the pics attached to this post? No? That's because I failed to take any. Besides somes items at nearby booths that I took shots of so I could help remember them later, literally the only personal accounting I have of the show is a video of the above audio – which has a visual of the blue-black carpet the camera was pointed at.

I'm sure there will be other, better reports out there, but those were the impressions I could offer from my mostly-guarding-a-20-foot-square locale. It was an amazing experience, and I'm looking forward to next year.

-- Steven Marsh