One interesting thing that's come out of the Stabcon discussion (besides the liquor-law stuff) is the reasons people go to cons. I see that for instance Roger goes for gaming, where when we went our one and only time to Gencon we signed up for a bunch of games, had a rather mixed bag experience-wise, and if we went again would be going for other reasons. Carl wants to go to panels, where I... I'm not sure why I'd go, other than to meet folks (I joked that as far as I was concerned we could go to Indy, not bother to register for the con, and spend our entire time meeting Phoenyx folks in restaurants *outside* the convention). I had a lot of fun at the dealer's room in '94, but things have changed... nowadays, there's no real chance of running across surprising new games that haven't made it to one's local store (curse you, Internet!), for one thing. I think for me, Renaissance festivals have replaced the dealer's-room function. You got your fantasy art, you got your dice bags, you got your swords, you got your chainmail bikinis... pretty much all the fun ancillary stuff that's the "anything gamers might like." Everything but the games, in other words. And yeah, I think I just said I like to go to conventions to (mostly window-)shop... -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net
