Tag: Conventions

Comic Books, Conventions, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

60 Years of Star Trek and Fandom Intertwined

Written by TardisCaptain September 8, 2026September 8, 2026

Myself with a 3-foot model of the Enterprise at Starfest in 2006.

Today is the 60th Anniversary of a television show that changed the world. And in turn, it created a group of fans that helped with that change, but changed the show itself. In this blog post I’m going to explore some of those intertwined histories that are out there. Some of them you may know, and some of them may be new to you.

Just recently I was asked, “Are you a trekkie or a trekker?” I responded with “treknologist” which made her blink a few times. There are many names that Star Trek fans have called themselves. While I was thinking about the question asked, I remembered that I was introduced to Star Trek by my father in the 70s. He would come home and watch the syndicated re-runs. My young mind kept asking questions like “If they are in space, how come they are not floating around with no gravity?” or “Where does the power come from to fly that ship?” It then made me wonder if I was a Syndi, a person who was introduced to the show during the syndication years of the 70’s. Then my mind clicked and said, “It doesn’t matter. Only one term should come to mind to describe us. And that is ‘fan’.”

Star Trek is a buffet of choices. Some dishes are directly prepared for us, other dishes are prepared for different tastes. But it’s all Star Trek. As consumers not only do we choose what we want, but we’ve made our own dishes in the form of filk, fan-fiction, fan-films, head-canon theories, human created art, role-playing games, cosplays, community service and more. Some of these have echoed back into the licensed media, the shows themselves and even the world around us.

In the 1960’s while the show was airing, fans consumed the first Gold Key Star Trek comics. Fans talked about this exciting new show with other people that made them fans as well. And fans wrote in support of the show to help secure a third-season at NBC. This was done by a pair of fans named John and Bjo Trimble. I was invited to attend a backyard party where they were the guests of honor. We sat and talked for hours. Bjo wanted to make sure that John got just as much credit as she did for the letter writing campaign. She had tried to point this out to a reporter in the 60’s, but he wanted to focus on her as “local housewife saves Star Trek” sounded like a catchier article than “guy saves Star Trek”. Because of these efforts, Ms. Trimble and other fans got invited to be in the crew briefing scene in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Fans of the show helped write the FASA Star Trek Roleplaying Game. Not only did this open the door for fans to “make” their own Star Trek episodes, but the information provided by this game was used in other Star Trek media. The information about characters, planets, ships and more appeared in the DC Comics run of Star Trek, but also in the IDW Star Trek comics as well. FASA STRPG background information and art appeared in episodes from The Next Generation to Discovery and Prodigy.

The Vulcan name of Ni’Var that was used in Enterprise and Discovery came from a Star Trek fanzine in the 1960’s. In the mid-1970’s many fans wrote into NASA campaigning to name the first Space Shuttle “Enterprise”. Footage of this real-life vessel was later used in the title scenes for Star Trek: Enterprise.

Star Trek fandom has also opened professional doors for some talented individuals. My good friend Larry Nemecek started by running Star Trek conventions in Oklahoma. This led to him writing his own brand of TNG fan encyclopedias. From there he became a historian for the show as Dr. Trek. Writing for various Star Trek magazines, releasing the Star Trek Next Generation Companion, Star Trek Stellar Cartography and even writing a Star Trek Voyager episode. And Larry isn’t the only one. Michael Dismuke started Continuing Missions website dedicated to Star Trek Adventures. This gave him an opportunity to write for the game, a short story, and eventually his brand new book on Star Trek Timelines: A Visual Voyage Through Generations of History. I don’t know about you, but seeing that Larry, Michael and others can expand their fandom into a career, gives me hope that I’ll see my name in credits some day.

I’ve talked a lot about some of the influences this 60-year old show has provided. And I can tell you that this doesn’t even scratch the surface of what it has influenced. Look around you. You’ll see NASA employees in the 70’s wearing Spock ears while conducting a mission. People will drop Star Trek quotes all the time like “He’s dead, Jim” or “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose” or even a simple greeting like “Live Long and Prosper”. Fans will look for hope, entertainment, inspiration and self-reflection. We will realize that we are all together on this blue marble so we better take care of it and each other. Sure, we may wonder if a certain flavor on the buffet is for us, but in the end, we just need to keep enjoying this meal that a lot of people helped put together.

Thank you Star Trek for the last 60 years, I can’t wait to see what comes around for the next 60. Live Long and Prosper.

What are your greatest Star Trek fandom memories? Tell me about it. 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.

Character Creation Challenge, Collecting, Conventions, Dungeons and Dragons, Friends, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek

SaltCON-End of Summer 2026 After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain September 7, 2026September 7, 2026

The last SaltCON for 2026 is now in the books and boy was it a good one. And I’m not just saying that because I know the fine people who run it. I’m saying it because I had fun. I got a few hugs. I was able to catch up with a few friends and make some new ones. So yea, this convention did exactly what I needed it to do.

As you may remember from my SaltCON 2026 Summer After Action Report, attendance had been down for that event due to our bad economy. Well I can tell you that the three-day passes and Saturday passes for the September event did sell out. This may have been a combination of things. The organizers had done some advertising that may have helped. Summer is a very busy time in Utah and also the last con of the year is the smallest. In the past, single-day passes for all three days would have been sold out. So I’m hoping that things are on the rebound, but I know there’s a way to go. I was able to have two of my three games “fire” this time around so I was very grateful for that.

Speaking of the games that I ran, the one that didn’t fire was Basic Fantasy on Friday. But I still had an enjoyable time. One of the things that I like about SaltCON is that they use the Table Top Events convention management website that allows for attendees to purchase their tickets and reserve their seats at different games. You can even download the .ica files and import them into your favorite calendar system which provides me with a 10 minute reminder when I have a game coming up. Because of this I knew that I had one player who had registered for the Basic Fantasy game and I was hoping that more would sign up at the con. Unfortunately it was only this one gentleman. So we had a discussion about the advantages and history of Basic Fantasy. That’s when I discovered that he had driven all the way up from Las Vegas to play this game. He had even purchased a hardbound copy of the book. I mentioned that perhaps the title of the adventure, “Guildmaster Quest Part II” may have led to some confusion. The adventure was a continuation for a Basic Fantasy one-shot that I had run at an earlier SaltCON. But if anyone looked at the schedule of events, they didn’t see a Part I. So it’s possible that participants may think that they may be missing something by not playing the first part. I should have also communicated that playing in the earlier adventure was not required and a “previously on…” recap would have been provided. I even had a Part III and Part IV planned. So I’ll put those on the back burner for now and come up with a brand new adventure for SaltCON-Spring 2027. The gentleman from Las Vegas wondered if my adventure had been published through the very strong Basic Fantasy community and had downloaded all of the free adventures that were available. I do need to get off my duff and get my notes polished up for submission. One last enjoyable note about my conversation with this Las Vegas fan, he had been playing since the 70’s. He loved old-school systems and even played D&D with his wife up at Wizards of the Coast headquarters in Seattle before the company had been purchased by Hasbro. We ended up exchanging contact information to keep in touch and he promised to drive back up for a future Basic Fantasy game. This gave me encouragement to continue this line of games.

The Saturday game that I signed up to run was Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition which I had already run my regular players through as part of a test run. While no one reserved spots prior to the con, I had three in-person-sign ups on Friday and two more added on Saturday. So there was more than enough to run the session that I had planned. I can now publicly state that this adventure was my own STA adaptation of the FASA Star Trek Roleplaying Game module, The Vanished. I had changed the title for the convention and my personal campaign to avoid any spoilers. According to the notes in the FASA book, this adventure was actually used as a RPG convention tournament module at the 1983 “Love of Trek” Star Trek Convention in Omaha, Nebraska. The module even included play reports from that convention. It was very interesting to see how the two groups I ran this through the adventure differed from those fans in the early 80s. The party was able to discover the big secret and recover the missing crew within the four hours allotted for the time (we ended right on the dot). The pre-generated characters came from the Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition Starter Set. I liked how they were presented in the printable format plus some fans had made name tents with a character name on the front and the stats on the back. One player enjoyed this game so much that he sought me out after the adventure to thank me for running this. Yes, I will be polishing up my adaptation notes and presenting them on this blog later.

My Sunday game had all six slots filled online before the convention started. The Geek Wife was also able to join me for this game of Mutant Crawl Classics. Once again, I changed the title of the game to avoid spoilers, but I used The Museum at the End of Time as presented in the DCC Free RPG Day 2016 publication. This is a zero-level funnel and I had dropped a stack of pre-generated characters on the table for players to use. These were teenagers going on their trials to become adults by trying to find technology of the ancients that would benefit the Tribe of the Cog. This was my first time GMing one of the Crawl Classic games and it didn’t go too bad. I wish than I could have done a test run for it prior to the con, but sometimes you’ve just got to jump into the deep end and swim. I really like the Crawl Classics system. I didn’t kill as many zero-level characters that I probably could have, but these players were also very well organized. The party only got about 1/3rd of the way through the museum before they had an opportunity to exit with their newfound technology and they left. I’m not certain if this was because it was one of the last games at the con or if the players thought they had found enough ancient tech to satisfy the tribe leaders. But the players told me they had fun when we wrapped up so I’m a happy GM.

I was able to get to all of my scheduled games that I had signed up for. I really liked Shadowrun Anarchy and how simple the rules were. The GM runs SA 5e for his regular campaign and said it was a little bit more crunchy. But if I was to run a game, I think I’d stick with SA as too much crunch isn’t really my style right now. We had to go rescue a local community doctor who was being hunted by a corporate high-response strike team. Turns out the doc had treated a shadowrunner who had accidentally downloaded an experimental AI from a script-kiddie who somehow got into a corporate mainframe. It was a simple adventure that introduced the world to the players and was very well done. When I was giving con updates on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server, one of the writers for Shadowrun Anarchy responded. I wasn’t aware that this person had worked on this book. I had to run over and grab my dead-tree version to check the credits when he had piped up. So that gave me a thrill.

The SCP playtest was based off of the shared-writing universe called The SCP Foundation. Think X-Files meets Cthulhu meets Warehouse 13 meets Supernatural that’s been running since 2007. My youngest Geekling is a big fan of this universe and has even cosplayed for it at Halloween and conventions. So when I texted my youngest Geekling, they got really excited. When I got home I had to give them a complete run down of the adventure. We were an investigation team that traveled to Denver to check up on a weird warehouse that was gathering a mass audience by some displays in the windows. Long story short, I got to blow up the warehouse before we could contain the “Evil Industrial Cooking Oven” hidden inside. It sounds strange, but it was a lot of fun. I was able to give some feedback on the system used for the game directly to the designer.

On Saturday morning I got to play Dungeon Crawl Classics game titled Emirikol Was Framed. For those of you who don’t know the character, Emirikol was the chaotic wizard whose image was in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide. We got to fight flying monkeys, use mighty deeds and weird spells (each spell in DCC has a chart that you roll against when the spell is cast with varied results) and defeat not one, but two evil wizards plaguing the city. We were playing fourth-level characters and I only wished that the character would have had more equipment on them. Holding only a melee weapon while the flying targets buzzed above you took some creative thinking. But the players at the table had fun.

I was the only player that showed up for the steampunk/western/horror game Through the Breach on Saturday. It was played with a deck of playing cards and had an interesting system. The GM’s brother played at the table as well so that we could have a session. The two brothers reminded me of another pair of geeky brothers that I know. When I was discussing the game with another convention attendee, he told me that Through the Breach had a huge following in Montana for some reason and also had a big miniatures collection line. I don’t know if this is a game that I’d buy at full price, but I did enjoy the opportunity to learn about a new system.

A system that used a deck or two of 52 playing cards also popped up in the Sunday game I played called Starship Infernum. The second player who registered didn’t show up, so I ended up taking three characters and letting the GM walk me through the system. I was also able to ask many questions as I went through the book. This game could easily be used as a convention one-shot or a pick-me-up game if all of your regular players can’t show up for a game night.

As you can see from the photo above, I came home with some interesting loot from the convention. The t-shirt was gorgeous and I had to give a compliment to one of the con-runners. This year’s theme was pirates, but the shirts for Spring and Summer were really busy. I remember wearing the spring shirt and having someone look at it confused as to what it was because of how busy it was in the graphic. The end-of-summer shirt had a very simple logo and quickly made sense. I can’t wait for the right time to wear it. The free game was something called Battlebones and was the only free game that I hadn’t already picked up from previous SaltCONs. A board game that I did buy in the swap meet was Robo Rally. I remember playing this game about 15 years ago with some friends in the local Star Trek club and it was very enjoyable. But every time we had found a copy, even used, it was outside of our price range. Well this one was at a very decent price so I snapped it up as my first purchase of the con. Also in the game swap was the Cy_Borg core rulebook. This is Mork Borg for cyberpunk. And since I had been wanting to try some of the Borg games (Mork for Fantasy or Pirate Borg) I picked this up. For my Thank You gift I found a sci-fi RPG rulebook for Untamed Worlds from Osprey Games. In this universe Humanity has reached the stars, but the bulk of them stay in the core worlds while they send out genetically modified animals to search the uncharted sections of the galaxy. I’ll use both of these books in the 2027 Character Creation Challenge.

Wow, this after-action report turned out to be a long one. But that’s probably because I had a ton of fun at SaltCON End-of-Summer. If you are looking for a good gaming convention, please check out SaltCON. There are a ton of board games, card games, roleplaying games and more. The next two conventions at the Davis Conference Center in Layton, Utah are March 11-14 and June 11-13.

And before I forget, many thanks to the convention organizers and volunteers for putting this together. You guys are the best.

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.

Conventions, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek

Prepping for SaltCON End-of-Summer 2026

Written by TardisCaptain September 3, 2026September 3, 2026

After a busy busy month with the RPGaDAY entries, it is now time to attend the 2026 SaltCON End-of-Summer at the Davis Convention Center in Layton, Utah. The last I checked, there were still tickets available if you wanted to come roll some dice. I will also be packing my Convention Backpack that I have documented about in a previous blog post.

I’ve volunteered once again to help spread the RPG love. Basic Fantasy, Star Trek Adventures and my odd-ball game for this time around is Mutant Crawl Classics. And since you can reserve your spots in advance, I can say that the MCC game on Sunday is already full. As I mentioned in my USS Magnanimous Episode 2 Play Report, I’ll be running a Star Trek adventure that I used with my local gaming group.

The games that I’ve signed up for include Shadowrun Anarchy. I’ve created a character for this cyberpunk game, but I’ve never played it at the table. I’ll be participating in a play test as well with one of the designers at the con for a game called SCP. I’ll post more about it in the after-action report. I’ve got a slot signed up for a Dungeon Crawl Classics game titled Emirikol Was Framed. The next game is Through the Breach which is some sort of wild-west/magic mix game with cards. It will be interesting to try something new. The last game that I’ve signed up to play is called Starship Infernum. A space-horror-Survival setting. I think that DCC is the only game that I’ve played before and that makes me happy. One of the things I try to do at gaming conventions is to try out a system or two that I’ve never played before.

Considering how bad this year has been, I don’t think I’ll be spending a lot at the convention this weekend. But I am very much looking forward to seeing some old friends and meeting new ones. Once again I’d like to give a tip of the hat to the volunteers and coordinators for SaltCON. I hope you realize how much these events are helping me out this year. I’m looking forward to leaving the real world behind when I enter the convention center doors. I’ll see you there. If you are coming to the convention, please come up and say Hi. I’ve met a few readers of this blog face-to-face at this event.

What should I be on the look out for? Any recommendations for the games I’m going to be playing? 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.

Conventions, Dungeons and Dragons, Pirates, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek

SaltCON-Summer 2026 After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain June 8, 2026June 8, 2026

So just a heads up, while there might be some negative things in this after-action report, none of them are due to the many volunteers at SaltCON. The many volunteers and coordinators at the event were beholden to the same issues that affected the con as a whole, and they did an excellent job under the circumstances.

Bottom line up front (BLUF): Attendance was down at this particular event due to the economy.

When I talked with several coordinators, they mentioned that they had seen the same pattern previously over the past seventeen years. When money gets tight, the attendance drops as people try to trim the budget. How this affected me and some of the other volunteer gamemasters is that some scheduled events didn’t “fire”. This is the metric that the convention uses to state that the game started on time with players. All three of my scheduled games did not “fire” which disappointed me. With the lower attendance, the players flocked to the games that had other attendees signed up so that they could get a full experience (kind of hard to play in a game with only 1-2 players). At first I wondered if I had picked the wrong games or time-slots, but I saw that other GMs had the same issues that I had. So while talking with the RPG coordinators, they encouraged me to continue to volunteer as they appreciated my efforts. So yes, I’ll be signing up to run some games at SaltCON-End of Summer in September. Hopefully the economy will not be as skitterish as it is now (crosses-fingers).

There, now that the elephant in the room is out of the way, I can tell you what I enjoyed this weekend. First, the hugs. Thank you to those who provided or accepted them. I had a chance to see a few friends that I see regularly and a few that I hadn’t seen in a while. A convention is also a chance to network with other geeky people. I had a chance to meet the organizer for ICON, a gaming convention that happens in eastern Idaho three times a year (once in Pocatello and twice in Idaho Falls). I’m giving some thought to possibly volunteering to GM some RPG one-shots at this event in the future. But there is more logistics that will have to be put into place before I can commit to it.

The game swap room was moved to a larger location which was very nice. Usually it’s stuck in a narrow room where the attendees are shoulder-to-shoulder as they try to look over the selections. I liked the additional room much more and I hope that we can keep this at the new location. I’d like to thank those who brought in roleplaying books. I was able to pick up the Creature Codex and the Tome of Beasts at a decent price. From the photo above you can also see that the free boardgame was something called Tiffin (which I honestly picked up because it was the smallest game to grab). As my thank you gift for GMing at the con, I picked up a $20 gift certificate to The Queen’s Realm. The convention t-shirt is blue with a pirate crab and a pirate parrot playing cards with the caption “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.” My geek wife liked mine so much that she asked me to pick her up one as well.

An interesting twist this year is that a collectable card event was happening in the same convention center on Saturday. I walked through it since it was free. But I didn’t pick up anything since it was mostly Pokemon and sports cards. A nice thing about having that part of the convention center open was the better food options were available within. I wonder if this event will happen again at the same time next summer?

Mini-posters the convention used to advertise my games.

As for the games that I played, Everyday Heroes was a time-travel adventure where we had to prevent Professor Moriarty from messing with time by preventing the Titanic from not being sunk. We were only able to get through one scenario since we had to create characters from scratch. But I was a pirate from the 1800’s which helped with the naval theme. Since one of my games didn’t ‘fire’, I ended up jumping into my first ever HeroQuest game, which was interesting. It was a cross between an RPG and a board game. The Savage Worlds one-shot was also fun. Apparently it was for a sci-fi setting that had just been released called the Han Cluster. It was ‘technology is magic’ based and was an interesting challenge. I had forgotten that I had already played Savage Worlds previously (and it was from the same GM). But it was good to be reminded about the system. Lorecraft 5e was very different. It was a homebrewed game that took Fifth Edition and added some additional items to it. Which explains why I wasn’t able to find anything for it online. But the GM/designer put a lot of work into it. The character sheet alone was a laminated folder with character and equipment card slots. You would write on any side with a dry-erase marker and included a booklet for additional abilities and equipment slots (see photos below since he let all players keep their characters for possible future gaming sessions). He had an interesting lazy-susan grid-playing field where he could put on our figures and terrain (all held with magnets). He could spin the playing field around to move characters or point things out. What I really appreciated with this GM was the way he handled two young RPGers (possibly 14 years old) at the table who attended all seven of his events that were all linked together. They were really getting into the system and their characters. When he cornered me after the session I played in he really wanted to ask me some feedback questions about his works. I let him know the encouraging things that I saw in the game. I didn’t really see any improvements he needed to make, but perhaps I could have noticed something if I had played in other sessions.

The back of the Lorecraft 5e character folder.

The front facing the other players and GM.

Again, if you are looking for a good gaming convention, please check out SaltCON. There are a ton of board games, card games, roleplaying games and more. The next two conventions at the Davis Conference Center in Layton, Utah are September 4-6 and March 11-14. I thinking of making a homebrew game for the Spring 2027 event.

Collecting, Comic Books, Conventions, Doctor Who, Star Trek

Ogden-Con 2026 After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain April 7, 2026

The USS Ticonderoga had a booth this year at Ogden-Con.

April 4th was the date for the 2026 Ogden-Con. I’ve blogged about this naturally growing convention for the past two years (here are my reports from 2024 and 2025). This year the convention was moved to the Ogden Union Station downtown. It was right next to the UTA Frontrunner stop and was a great place for a small convention. I hope that it can stay here for a few years as it continues to naturally grow. It also has several museums in it for trains, cars and guns (admission was extra for these items).

As you can see from the photo above, the USS Ticonderoga had a booth this year. On display was our Borg Alcove and TOS Transporter Console. This is the first time these items have been out in quite some time. It was good to see them back in action. Several attendees had their photos taken with them. The local Warhammer group was also in attendance as well as several local authors. Two of them that I knew personally.

A peak into the car museum at the Union Station.

The convention organizer was really pleased with the move. They had over 400 adults in attendance. They didn’t have a count on the kids as those 10 and under were free. They had also sold out all of the vendor tables. I know when I was talking with one friend at the con, she had found some toys that she hadn’t seen since she was very young. And they were still in the packages. We also had a chance to sample the food trucks that were in the parking lot. There were some growing pains with the new location, but I can see where this convention can only get better. It was more relaxed and more focused on comics.

My only purchases at Ogden-Con this year.

Because I was running a booth, I didn’t get a chance to go through too many $1 comic boxes. But I did find two Doctor Who comics. Just before I sat down to type up this report, I read both of these issues and enjoyed them.

So, many thanks to Rudy Entertainment and the volunteers at the event. I can only see better things for this convention in the future. It was also nice not to be packed into a mega-event when trying to geek out. I had a chance to talk with several possible Ticonderoga recruits including one who’s father grew up with Ray Bradbury. There were some interesting stories there. See you guys next year.

Have you recently attended a smaller convention? What is the best way to let you know of local events. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.

Conventions, Dungeons and Dragons, Horror, Pirates, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars

SaltCON-Spring 2026 After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain March 18, 2026

August sez “Who said you could be gone fur-ever?”

And another wonderful SaltCON is in the bag. Let me take this opportunity to thank the gaming coordinators, the volunteers and the people I met for helping to make this an enjoyable weekend. I had some disappointments, but they were far and few between. I also had a roleplayer come up to me to say “Hey you want to see my convention backpack?” after he had read about the backpack that I use at conventions. It was interesting to compare the two of them. Last year, I really needed the emotional support after some real-life events. This year I was providing the emotional support to others (and I was glad to give out the hugs when needed). It reminded me of the quote from Saru on Star Trek: Discovery.

“Before we can care for others, we must care for ourselves.” Saru- New Eden, Stardate: 1027.32

I was able to pick up a lot this year. The convention theme for 2026 is pirates (last year was a cyberpunk theme) and there were several articles of clothing that combined gaming and pirates together. My zip-up Star Trek hoodie (that looked like a uniform) was starting to get a little threadbare, so I decided to replace it with a black SaltCON pirate hoodie that says “Dead men play no games.” I also picked up the regular con shirt for spring which was a pirate riding a fish guiding it with a D20. The SaltCON GameMaster’s Guild shirt that I got for free said “Release the Kraken” And speaking of free shirts, Evil Genius Games provided me with an Evil Gamemaster shirt for running one of their games. On the sleeve is a bonus rule that allows the GM to make a player re-roll a D20 two times during a game. I didn’t use this at the con, but a friend who also got the same shirt did.

Some of the gaming loot that I picked up at the con.

As is usually the case with SaltCON, they give you free games when you pick up your registration badge. The free games this year included an interesting card game called Tacta and a humorous looking game called Riot at the Round Table. I’ll have to subject the family to these and see how they play. At the Saturday morning swap meet someone brought in the Star Trek Super-Skill Pinball that was still sealed and was a low price. So I snagged it. I really wish that more people brought their RPG books to this Saturday morning event. At the regular game swap (which is 99% board games) I did find an unusual looking RPG called Arzium which appears to be a fantasy game. And one of my thank you gifts for running quite a few RPG sessions was the Werewolf The Apocalypse Core Rulebook. Both of these I’ll be using in the 2027 Character Creation Challenge.

There were a couple more giveaways that I had received at the convention. The first was the SaltCON RPG pin which showed a kraken wrapping itself around a pirate ship. There was also a pin I got for running the Evil Genius game for Nacho Haus that came from the Origins Game Fair. I don’t know what that represents. I reached out to my contacts at EGG and I’ll report back what I find out. Another free gift was a small 3D printed dice tower that fit nicely inside my leather dice tray. Usually dice towers are too unwieldy or big, but this one worked just right. This was given to a GMs at the con and was provided by Scorehaven which appears to be some sort of gaming meet up group. A local young artists had a booth at the con and from her I purchased a set of dice that glow under a ultraviolet light (I’ll blog more about that later) and a special coffin box for the Geek Wife who loved it. Plus we wanted to support those who created with their hands and not tried to use AI.

For the four games that I ran at SaltCON Spring 2026 I think I must have picked a bad time-slot for Basic Fantasy. Only one person had preregistered for the game and they backed out the morning of the con. But this only gives me a chance to polish up this self-written adventure for a future event. The next day I ran Everyday Heroes: Escape from New York (for the prizes seen above). This game had a full complement (five pre-gen characters) and we had fun. However I may have disappointed a player who was playing an RPG for the first time. She chose a character that was a manipulator instead of a fighter. However the first part of the game (that was all we could do in the four hour slot) didn’t get to the point where she could use her talents. I let them name their own characters at the table, so Lady Lockbreaker, if you are reading this, I should have let you manipulate the guards you were trying to approach. I had thought about it later and I realized then what you were trying to do. I hope your future RPG sessions go a little better. For any GMs running some of the Cinematic Adventures from Evil Genius Games, be prepared to shorten the material to get it into a convention gaming slot. Friday I ran Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition with the Thursday’s Child game written by Roger Taylor. This ran very well and challenged the characters in a Star Trek way. There were lots of compliments at the end of the session (that ran longer than we were expecting, but it was the last game at that table for the day). On Sunday I ran the Star Wars D6 RPG from West End Games. While there were a couple of first time players who wanted to see what the fuss was all about, there were also several players who loved the original game. They loved the theater of the mind and how I used an opening script to get them all into character. Thank you to my players who showed up and had fun.

I was really looking forward to the two Cowboy Bebop games, but they didn’t happen. One was with Lasers and Feelings and the other was the official RPG that I had backed on Kickstarter. The GM fell ill and wasn’t able to return for the two games. I know another player who had signed up for both who was disappointed as well. Another player volunteered to run Lasers and Feelings for us and we pushed our way through it as an improv game. Thanks to that player for stepping up and showing how the community supports each other. To the GM that was running the early Sunday morning Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition game, I apologize for pulling out the night before. With how late my STA game ran, I didn’t think I was going to get there on time for the early morning session. I hope you found a replacement player and I thank you for bringing one of the classics to the con. I have a bit of a conundrum on the Tunnels and Trolls game. It wasn’t actually Tunnels and Trolls, it was a retro-clone called the Leopard Empress or something. Another player who also wanted to really try T&T had even brought his books from home. I think we got an idea how the system works with the clone, but I was also wondering if I would have signed up had it been advertised under the actual game name. I don’t know, am I thinking about this too hard? If I had advertised my Basic Fantasy game as BECMI and someone showed up expecting to play that, would they be giving me the side eye? The other game that I was able to play is called DC20, which turned out to be a beta version of the game that was backed by Kickstarter years ago. It made sense, but I could see where some of the betaness of the game came into play as the players had a few questions about things. We had fun. But the IT side of my brain kept saying “Beta version, wait for full release.” The most fun I had was with the Paranoia game. Because there was a long line to get into the con (and I had to stop to help a friend at the ER beforehand) I was a little late getting there. The GM was actually having the players create their own characters. Since I had missed the first of this process, I asked if I could just use the character I had recently created in the Character Creation Challenge, and the GM agreed. So bonus points for me to use a character that I had created manually. I want to say that the Paranoia game lives up to its reputation if you have a GM and players with the right mindset (and warped sense of humor). Good job. Overall I had fun in the games that I actually played and thanks again to the GMs for their efforts.

Again, if you are looking for a good gaming convention, I can’t recommend SaltCON enough. There are a ton of board games, card games, roleplaying games and the Artemis Bridge Simulator ran by Starship Frontier was always full. The next two conventions at the Davis Conference Center in Layton, Utah are June 5-7 and September 4-6. I already have an idea for my next Star Trek Adventures game that I want to try out.

So was I putting to much thought into the Tunnels and Trolls concern? Did I do the new player in Escape from New York wrong by not letting her play to her character strengths? 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.

Collecting, Community Service, Conventions, Fan Club, Star Trek

FanX 2025 After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain September 28, 2025September 28, 2025

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So the latest FanX: The Salt Lake Comic Convention is in the books and it was a good one. It continues to be one of the largest attended comic conventions in North America. I know that I was meeting people from Chicago, Oregon, St. Louis, Texas and beyond.

This year my Star Trek fan club, Starfleet Command’s Seventh Fleet, continued our community service focus by supporting an anti-bullying organization called R.E.A.C.H. (Raising Education Through Arts Characters and Heroes). I was really impressed with the level of work they had done. Our booth wasn’t on the vendor floor. Instead we were in the main hallway just outside of the Starship Frontier Artemis Bridge Simulator room. We were combined to help save space on the vendor floor as changes are being made to the Salt Palace (more on that later). I also got to dress up as a Borg intruder and assimilate the Captain of the crew before they could stop me. I don’t have any pictures of that but I may be getting a video soon.

We had a chance to meet a lot of people. I’m hopeful that some will join us as members of our Star Trek family. I also had a chance to network with a couple of club leaders for future endeavors.

As for loot, well I didn’t pick up a lot this year. A friend printed up a photo of actor Jerry O’Connell with his Commander Ransom character from Star Trek: Lower Decks. It was my intention to pick up his autograph at FanX, but his flight was delayed and I wasn’t able to make it over to his booth afterwards.

I was able to meet up with actor Doug Jones who played Saru on Star Trek: Discovery and obtain his autograph. Talk about someone who made you feel special. Everyone who he met at his booth got as much time as they needed with him. So we didn’t mind taking longer in the line because we all knew we were going to get the same amount of attention. If you got a selfie with him, he did three poses with you. And when he was done he gave you a big hug. I told him about my encounter getting Jason Isaacs’ autograph on the same photo. And when I gave Doug my favorite quote that Saru had given, he finished it just as I started it. It amazed me that he recalled it after all these years.

“Before we can care for others, we must care for ourselves.” Saru- New Eden, Stardate: 1027.32

I was gifted a convention t-shirt from a friend who discovered that I never had a FanX shirt before. However, just after taking this photo, I offered it to my geek wife who quickly snatched it up since it had her two favorite colors on it.

I did bump into a gentleman advertising his game galled Delve in Your Pocket by Otherwise, Games. It was a solo RPG that you could keep in your pocket and pull out when needed. It had a dice system that was contained within the text. I’ll have to see if I can complete it. There were a lot of RPG shirts and fans there. I did talk with a few GM groups about coming up to SaltCON. Hopefully we will see some of them there.

I really tried to find other things to buy at the con. At past FanX events, I had found several RPG items to pick up. But for some reason this year was lacking. I will say that the staff was wonderful as well as the added security the event had. I took the time to shake the hand of one Salt Lake police officer who was patrolling the building and thanked him for being there. There were also a lot of police dogs as well.

I am sad about one thing, I had a great time staying at the Plaza Hotel that was right across the street. The convention rate was amazing compared to the other hotels. However this is the last year the hotel will be in operations as it is getting torn down to make way for a parking garage. There is a lot of construction going on downtown for the new entertainment district and the upcoming winter olympics in 2034. This also led to a lot of people wondering about the future of FanX since the Salt Palace will be going under some massive changes over the next few years. At the end of the con, the organizers did announce that the 2026 dates will be September 24-26. So we know there will be a FanX next year. So next year the Seventh Fleet will be returning (and I think we will be back on the vendor floor) with another charity booth. Many thanks to Dan Farr, the staff and the army of volunteers who helped out with this convention.

Did you go to FanX or another nearby convention? Tell me about it. 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.

Conventions, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek

Prepping for SaltCON End-of-Summer 2025

Written by TardisCaptain August 28, 2025August 28, 2025

I might need to use this book this weekend.

The end of August is almost upon us and that means that SaltCON End-of-Summer is just around the corner running during from August 29-31st at the Davis Conference Center in Layton. There are still tickets available if you want to stop check it out. Use the code SUMMEREND for a discount price (not valid after August 28th)

I volunteered to run three different games this year. I’m also signed up to play in three games that I’ve never played before and I’ll be re-visiting a game that I’d love to play in a campaign. I will also be packing my Convention Backpack that I have documented about in a previous blog post.

Games that I’ve volunteered for include Basic Fantasy 4th Edition (The Guildmaster’s Quest) and Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition (a new Klingon scenario, which was wildly popular last time I ran one of this style). The new game that I’m going to be running at this con is the new Space: 1999 roleplaying game by Modiphius. The amazing thing that shocked me is, the Space: 1999 session is already sold out and it’s my Sunday game. Usually that is the one that doesn’t sell out. At the time I was typing this blog post up, my other two games only had two seats left each.

For the games that I’ve signed up for, my only repeat system is Dungeon Crawl Classics that I will be playing on Friday. I like that this is a D20 clone (with some twists) and has a zero-level funnel. This DCC one-shot will be level three characters.

Of the three other games that I’ve signed up for, they are all new to me. I made sure to give myself breaks between games so that I can get a lunch (I did that wrong one year, wow won’t make that mistake again). The first of the new games is MechWarrior: Destiny. This is in the BattleTech universe. While I was aware of it in the 90’s because it was also published by FASA, I steered clear of it as I could have seen myself making a collection of different Mech stats in a three-ringed binder like I did with the FASA Star Trek starships.

If you’ve been watching a lot of the RPG video podcasts you’ve probably been hearing about a new game called Daggerheart from Critical Role Productions. Well I signed up for a demo to check this out and see what the hype is about.

And finally I backed the Kickstarter for the Monty Python Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme. Well now I’m going to have a chance to play it at the table. When I wrote my review linked above, I on-purpose did not read any of the scenarios within the book just in case one of them was used at the con. I can’t wait to see this game in action and to use the special coconut dice-rollers that came with my reward.

I’m looking forward to geeking out and forgetting about how bad this year has been so far. If you are going, feel free to come up and say Hi. Seeing friends is exactly what I need right now. And a way to help myself is to help others. So let me know if you need a hug as well.

Anime, Character Creation Challenge, Collecting, Conventions, Pirates, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek

SaltCON-Summer 2025 After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain June 10, 2025June 9, 2025

I’m writing this the day after SaltCON-Summer 2025. Let’s just say I’m really happy that I was smart enough to take the Monday after the convention off. It gave me a chance to not only unwind from the very busy weekend, but get somethings done that I usually do on Saturday or Sunday to prep for my next week. I’m also very happy for the time I spent at the convention. Thank you to those who gave me hugs. I hope you realize how much this is helping me keep my spirits up. I also had one of my readers come up and tell me that he enjoyed my blog posts. Thank you. I know that recent posts have been rare, but I’m going to keep going. I do have plans to participate in the upcoming RPGaDAY 2025 activity this August. I also still owe you guys different reviews and first-looks at some of the KickStarter rewards that I’ve received.

As you can see from the loot photo above, I was able to pick up a few items. SaltCON has always had a good t-shirt design for each event. This year seems to be following the cyberpunk genre. I had some money to pick up both the current con shirt, but the spring shirt as well that I missed out on a few months ago. One of the nice things that SaltCON does is sell the older con shirts at a discount. When I picked up my badge, I was notified that I was one of the random winners of the game giveaway. Out of the two possible options, Chicken Time Warp sounded like fun. And since it was the size of a deck of cards, it wouldn’t take up too much room in my convention backpack. There was a dealer that had a sale on geeky pins, I picked up some that said “Dungeon Master”, “I’m not procrastinating, I’m doing side quests”, “Sarcasm +5” and “I don’t have any ducks in a row. I have squirrels and they are at a rave.” I also received a couple of thank you prizes for running games that included the RPG Attack from Space (medieval knights vs. invading aliens from outer space) and a mug that says “DnD Diplomacy, ~~Persuasion~~, ~~Deception~~, ~~Intimidation~~, FIREBALL.” I’ll be using the mug for my end-of-day sleepytime tea and I’ll be using Attack from Space as one of my entries in the 2026 Character Creation Challenge.

Posters made by the con to advertise my games.

I was scheduled to run three games at SaltCON-Summer 2025. I’m not sure if it was karma for dropping out of some games at the spring event, or if I simply waited too long to submit my events and got stuck with bad time slots—but unfortunately, no one showed up for my Basic Fantasy and Teenagers from Outerspace sessions. I did get a chance to run the TfOS game at The Queen’s Realm a few weeks ago (in preparation for the con) but I also put a lot of effort into the home-brewed Basic Fantasy adventure. So I may make another attempt with one or both games at a future convention.

The Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition game. Let’s just say that the players and I were laughing and having a very good time with the scenario. Probably one of the best one-shots that I’ve ran in quite some time. We even ended up with a “There I was…” type of story out of it. Long story short, the players were disguised on a planet with a pre-warp civilization. The Prime Directive was in full effect, but the players had found themselves in a dangerous situation where the villagers were chasing some of them. One player hid in a merchant’s shop and wanted to use his back door. The merchant, wanting to make a sale, said that he was willing to allow paying customers slip out the back door. The character had not thought to bring any of the local currency with them when they went into the village, so he accepted the offer to trade his hat, for one of the agrarian level hand tools. The moment he had made the exchange, I spent a level of threat and reminded him that the hat had been replicated with his advanced technology. While it was an imitation of the local headgear the natives wore, it wasn’t the same material. There was another PC in the store with him so he couldn’t just say he had lost it. This put the player in a panic and we ended up spending an extra amount of time over this one plot point and the hand-wringing it brought about. Was this a violation of the Prime Directive like Dr. McCoy leaving his communicator behind on Sigma Iotia II? When they rejoined the Commander leading the expedition, I did give him a chance to notice the missing headgear, which he did which lead to further awkward. When the game was over and I asked for feedback from the players, one of the first-time players said he was glad that I had used the threat in-game currency (which I had on several different times) to spice up the scenario. Some of these I only came up with on the fly during the course of play. Another first-time player stated he now needed to go out and pick up the core rulebook because of how much fun he had. Had there been a merchant at the con selling books for the games being run, they would have made a sale. Jim J, if you or any of your team are reading this, just know that the first time players picked up the system very easily and had a great time around the table playing your game.

Some of the characters I played this weekend.

For the first time ever, all of the games that I participated in as a player was completely new to me. Usually I just try to get one or two in so I can try out different systems. Two of the games were played with the actual designers who had attended to show off their works.

Shadowdark: This was an interesting game since we were playing zero-level characters in a funnel similar to the kind I experienced in Dungeon Crawl Classics. Every single one of my randomly pulled characters only had one hit point, so I went through a stack of them trying to get out. What made this D20 clone interesting is that none of the PC races had any type of infravision or dark vision. So if our light source went out, we were at a disadvantage. The timer would run in real time and to demonstrate this, an hourglass was placed on the table that would match one hour. This made for a very interesting scenario that I’m glad that I tried out. I wouldn’t turn down a Shadowdark session if an invite was extended and I’m interested in seeing the character creation rules.

Pirate Borg: Another game that I’ve been hearing a lot about and that I’m hoping I can pick up for a future Character Creation Challenge. Ran by the same GM who ran the Shadowdark game earlier. The character was higher than level 0, and thus a little bit more hardier. All of the players got into the pirate theme of the game (one even kept talking with a Jersey accent the entire time) which added to the enjoyment. One of the players ended up getting killed at the very last second of the game which showed me how weird this game could be. Again, I wouldn’t turn down a chance to play it again.

Untold: This is a fantasy game that uses D12s. A LOT of D12s. It kind of reminded me of the 2d20 system where you have target numbers based off of skills and attributes, but you had to roll over the target number. Which wasn’t easy to do sometimes. I played a barbarian so I didn’t get a chance to try the unusual magic system, but it wasn’t Vancian. It was interesting to try the game and a lot of players got into their characters. This was one of the creator run sessions.

EverReach: This is a science fiction/cyberpunkish game with the designer of the game. The system was pretty easy to follow along as it only used D6s with the ability to swap out one of the D6s rolled (by the player or GM). We played an independent crew that was hired by a corporation to perform a smash and grab. As the players, we spent the bulk of the session planning out the heist and bouncing ideas off of each other. How were we going to get past the defenses and neutralize the third-party gang hired to protect the server we were after? How were we going to extract ourselves? Because we did a bunch of planning (something I had experienced in a past Spycraft game) there wasn’t a lot of rolling until the very end. So I got a little taste of it. But I’m going to be doing a deeper dig on this game as a review in a future blog post.

The Expanse: So I had only seen the pilot episode of this hard sci-fi TV series, but it turns out the game is based off of the books (it’s a rights thing). So there was still a lot of explaining to the newbies at the table like myself. There were different factions controlling different parts of the Sol System and there was no FTL in this universe. The main reason I wanted to play this game is to try the Age System that comes up in Fantasy Age and Modern Age. The dice roll mechanics was easy to get down, but there were pages and pages of stunts that each character could pull from when they ended up with special Stunt Points. So we were continuously looking through these pages to see what fit the situation we currently found ourselves in. In the end, we completed the mission in style due to these stunt points, but I’m going to have to go back and take a deeper dive into the Age books that I own to see if I’d want to do anything further with this system. Something I don’t know if I would have noticed without getting my hands dirty with it.

So in conclusion, I had a ton of fun (again) at SaltCON. Yes, the summer event is smaller than the spring one. But there were a couple of temping RPG pickups at the swap meet and game exchange. If there is a regular RPG book seller who’s looking for a market, this convention could easily make you a lot of sales especially if you had the books for the games being run at the con. As I was writing this blog post, one of the con-organizers posted on FaceBook that this had been the highest attended SaltCON-Summer ever. Once again, a big shout-out should go to the other attendees, volunteers and organizers for putting this together. As someone who has retired from the con-chair business, I know how much effort is put into these events. It was noticed and appreciated.

SaltCON-End of Summer is coming up on August 28-31 at the Davis Convention Center in Layton, Utah. Currently I’m planning to attend and run some RPG one-shots. Let me know if you plan to go so I can meet up with you.

Collecting, Comic Books, Conventions, Doctor Who, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

Ogden-Con Spring 2025 After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain May 11, 2025May 12, 2025

Some cheap loot I picked up at Ogden-Con 2025

So last year I talked about attending my first Ogden-Con, a local small event convention. If I understand this correctly, this is the third year for this event. There was a Christmas version of Ogden-Con last December, which was a ‘mini’ version of the event. But, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it to see how it compared.

Like last year’s event, this was put together by Rudy Entertainment. There was no charge to get into the event this year. And there were several other changes as well which showed small steps needed to grow the event. I think this is a good way to do this so that you don’t get project creep pushing the event beyond the capabilities of the organizers and volunteers. I’ve seen smaller events with some good ideas get too overloaded which either burned out the people or ran out of funding.

It was still at the Comfort Inn Ogden Conference Center (located in West Haven, not Ogden) and one of the changes was the addition of food trucks outside the event. I had forgotten that this was planned as I had grabbed some food on the way in. I wish I had remembered since one of the food trucks had chili dogs. Another change was the opening of an additional conference room that contained some gaming elements (see photos below). This was primarily Warhammer tactical gaming with a lot of miniatures. There was also a cosplay contest that was held in a very interesting manner. The participants signed up and when it came time for the judging, the coordinator went to the different vendors and asked them what costume they thought was best. So if you visited the different tables and booths, you were seen more. While the wrestling group had returned, there was no wrestling ring set up this year. Probably because there were more vendors this time around. I actually ran into a former manager of a gaming/comic store that I had a hold with back in the mid to late 2000’s. He had recognized me while I was talking with the convention chair. We were able to reminisce about some old times.

As you can see from the photo above, I came away with some good treasures. Like last year, the bulk of vendors were selling comics. Some had some graded comics protected in collector boxes, but there was a lot of $1.00 comic boxes. It was these that I went through and I found some older items that I was looking for as well as some surprising new titles. I also found some good deals on collector cards that were very low priced. These included cards from Doctor Who and a Star Trek behind the scenes card set. I did see a vendor with some older Dungeons and Dragons modules from the 80’s, but they were graded and in protection boxes (and a little higher than what I was willing to pay). There were also several local artists who were drawing and displaying their latest works. A few toy vendors, a company that could 3D print you as a figure and other collectables. A raffle was also being held with some very good prizes, but again I had limited funds at the time.

It was a relaxing small event. I’m discovering that I enjoy these more as I get to talk with more people than I do at a large mass gathering. I’m also not so overwhelmed that I want to escape as soon as I can. I’ve noticed that I’ve been buying more from these smaller events as well. Speaking of buying, make sure you bring some cash with you when you attend a smaller con like this. Some of the vendors are just people selling their private collections and don’t even have venmo, paypal or a credit card reader.

So moving forward, the con chair/owner did talk with me about having the USS Ticonderoga run a charity booth at a future event. They are planning for an October event (no date yet) probably at the same location. I let him know that this would be a charity booth just like we do at other conventions. With the extra room, I could see some RPG sessions or other tactical games being set up. From what I’ve seen, the two conference rooms are the only ones at this facility so there really isn’t room for a panel track. But a track set up with local volunteers or businesses would be a possible idea. Yea, I don’t want to see too much project creep, but I’m certain that one of these could be a future baby-step for the convention.

I would strongly suggest setting up a website for the event, nothing too flashy, just the basic information needed for attendees to find out more. The Facebook posts are kind of hard to find since they are under the Rudy Entertainment account. Not everyone is on Facebook. I’ve also seen flyers at some of the local comic stores. I know that after the event I swung by a few other geek stores and one owner asked if the event was still going on Sunday as he wanted to come check it out. Unfortunately it was only a one-day event (again baby steps, I think one day is the best for this event).

Here are some other photos I took at Ogden-Con.