This was probably one of the most interesting and entertaining SaltCONs that I’ve attended. There were some games that I missed, but I still played in many others and the games that I ran were very well attended. I think what helped the most is the friends that I met up with at the convention. As most of my regular readers know, 2025 has been sucky to say the least (at least using words that don’t involve swearing). In fact one of the issues that has been affecting my household came to ahead when one of our furbabies (not the one pictured in the Prepping for the 2025 Character Creation Challenge post) passed beyond the rainbow bridge a few days after the con. That is what delayed this after-action report. We are happy that he is no longer in pain, but it has been one of the things on our minds for the past two months.
Sigh. Back to talking about the con and the fun that I had there. I arrived on Thursday and checked in. I had some time before running my first game and I started wandering around the convention center. I found one set of friends, but they were in the middle of a session. I found a second set of friends, but they were running the Artemis bridge simulator. After wandering through the dealers room and seeing all of the stuff I wasn’t able to buy because of lack of funds, I walked into a hallway and found a friend who was attending the convention for a first time. I sat down next to her and asked for a hug. She instantly grabbed me and said “I’ve known you for 35+ years I can give you a hug.” That was the start of making this conventions one of the best conventions I’ve attended in a while. Not only did she spend a lot of time with me making sure that I was OK, as we were wandering around together for most of the con a lot of other friends ran up to me and asked for hugs. I didn’t know if they had heard about my issues that I’ve blogged about, or they just wanted to see me. The small acts of friendship really helped me out. I tried to make sure all of you heard a “thank you” from me individually, but if I didn’t get to you, please know that you really boosted my spirits. Thank you.
Alright, shaking that off, despite the lack of funds this weekend, I did pick up some loot at the convention. For running a lot of one-shots the gaming coordinator allowed me to pick a book from the box of prizes. I elected to pick up the core rulebook for Tales from the Loop. Primarily so I could use it in the 2026 Character Creation Challenge. Yes, yes… I know, I still have two more characters to pump out to get to my 31 characters. I should be able to get those done very soon. The shirt was also a gift to the GMs from the coordinator and it was specifically for those who had volunteered a certain number of hours at the convention. I was tempted to get the regular convention t-shirt which also looked good, but funds were limited. The convention itself had handed out specialty D6s (this was the 10th anniversary of the convention) that had playing pieces to represent the 6 on the die. I was able to obtain several of these. Another GM had given us a special D6 for his game which advertised his group called RPG Sessions. SaltCON was also having another pin quest and I was gifted a cyberpunk beholder. You probably can’t see it very well in the photo posted above, but he’s all metallic and kewl looking. And finally, a friend saw the “My puns deal 3d8 psychic damage” sticker in the dealers room and had to pick it up for me. Not pictured was a rubber duck dressed up as a witch that someone dropped in front of me. I missed who did this so here is another random “Thank You”.
I’m very happy with the games that I ran for the convention and I had a ton of fun running them. In every single one, someone who hadn’t signed up for a session walked up to the table and asked if they could join. My Star Trek Adventures game was based off of a scenario provided in the Klingon Empire Gamemaster Toolkit and it quickly turned into a “Weekend at Bernie’s” situation. One of the characters had been physically taken over by an entity and didn’t have full control of their body. So the other characters had to drag them around why they flopped their arms in the direction they wanted to go. We were talking about that game over the course of the convention. I was really impressed with the intro adventure for the Doctor Who 2nd Edition RPG that I ran on Friday. Every one got into their characters very well and as I was running it, I thought to myself “I could be talked into running a campaign with this system.” On Saturday morning I ran the intro adventure for the new Planet of the Apes RPG that I had backed on Kickstarter (review coming when I get the physical product). This is the one that is an update to the old D6 system by West End Games that was used for Star Wars and Ghostbusters. This was the first time I had GMed for this system and I could tell it had been a long time since I had actually played. I can’t wait to get the physical book for this game. And finally on Sunday I ran a game that the games coordinator told me was getting lots of talk over the weekend. The Wendy’s Feast of Legends game. We had a full table by the end of the session and honestly, it didn’t run too bad for a joke advertisement game. I had to house-rule a few things just to keep the flow going, but I would have done that with any RPG. I did have to explain some of the in-jokes within the game since the food prices had risen since this game was released. Unfortunately, because of the no-outside food rule at the convention center, no one had any bonuses from bringing in Wendy’s food. The convention organizers had posters made of all the RPG games that were scheduled for the weekend (to try to draw in players from other sections) and here is the one they did for the Feast of Legends.
As for the games that I was able to participate in, this is how it went.
Basic Roleplaying, Cypher System, Curseborn: Ashcan Edition and Pendragon. If you were running these games at the con, I apologize for missing them. Due to some real life issues (one mentioned above) and pure exhaustion I had to miss your games. I really wanted to try them out and I tried to see if I could sign up for another open table spot, but the schedules just didn’t pan out. If they are run at future SaltCONs, I’ll try to see if I can sign up for a seat then. One of my goals is to at least try one or two new games each convention. I like checking out the variety of games that are out there just to see how I like them.
The Starfinder game was listed as a play test of the 2nd edition. But I don’t believe it was an official play test with the publisher. I had asked if there was a way to provide feedback and the GM was running something that they had gotten off of Facebook (if I understood him correctly). I’ve played in a short 1st edition campaign back in 2020, but I don’t recall much of it. I hadn’t been too impressed with it then but part of the issue may have been running on the sucky Fantasy Grounds VTT. The 2nd edition played at the table seemed OK, but there wasn’t anything to write home about. I played a Vesk tank with several big guns and lots of armor and it just seemed like we were in a dungeon, in space. I don’t know, I’m not getting the appeal of Starfinder.
TRON: Vasser’s Game. This was a homebrew of the Genesys system to run a TRON RPG. The GM had things laid out pretty well. Turns out this was the same gentleman that ran the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG at the 2024 SaltCON-Spring. The same tablets were used that had the character sheets but we got to roll the weird dice on the table this time. This allowed me to try to understand the system a little bit better, which I don’t think I did very well. This wasn’t the fault of the system or the GM, I just kept feeling like I was slowing down the pace of the game not understanding the symbols of the special dice. After the game I was thinking about this and if I had prepped myself with a dice cheat sheet I don’t think I would have felt guilty slowing things down. Both myself and the other players were very interested in a TRON based RPG as we kept making references to the movies. I also referenced the TRON 2.0 video game that I’ve enjoyed many times over.
A GM that I knew was running the Star Trek Adventures 1st Edition because he hadn’t picked up the 2nd edition book again. Which was actually good for me because he ran a comedy based adventure called “Blueberry Trill” which was weird. It was one of the mission briefings that he had found online that allowed him to improvise parts of the adventure. One of the things he did was run us through an extended task in the one-shot. This was something that I really hadn’t experienced in the times that I had played 1st edition. I think I’m glad that this part of the game was changed for the 2nd edition of the game. Oh, and if someone offers you a genetically modified blueberry designed to grow on the planet Trill, don’t take them up on it. Trust me.
Titans of Atlantis was not only the last game for me, but the last RPG to be run in the RPG room for the convention. It was a weird D12 system where you got to roll more D12s if the character was more skilled in certain areas. But there was still a low target number to try to roll under. I had a basic fighter that was only armed with a spear and a shield (all with fancy greek/roman inspired names). With how “skilled” he was at fighting, he sure didn’t connect on a lot of strikes. I ended up helping to push one of the big monsters into a magical portal with the other characters instead of trying to slay it since that seemed to be more effective. The game itself was pretty funny, but that was because the players were probably exhausted from the weekend and the constant low success rolls. This resulted in throwing caution to the wind on a lot of antics that were performed in the game. Was this done on purpose to prevent murder hoboing in the game? I’m not certain. While I was grateful to try out a new system, I don’t see this being a repeat system for me to try.
One last nugget to drop before I wrap this up. I had a game designer ask me if I’d be willing to review his RPG that he had just released. He agreed that I was free to write what I wanted in my review. A few days after the con I had a message from DriveThruRPG with a free copy of the game. I hope to get this review posted in a month after I’ve taken care of a few other blog obligations that I need to catch up on.
If you are looking for a good gaming convention, I’d recommend SaltCON. There are quite a few out-of-town people who show up for the spring event. But the Summer event on June 6-8 and the End-of-Summer on August 29-31 are also enjoyable as well. I’d love to see other publishers and blog readers there. I’m already trying to decide what games I’ll run in June as the call has gone out for submissions.
Do you have any questions about the convention weekend? This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
