Of all the things I do that make me a geek, nothing brings me as much joy, or has eaten up as much of my not-as-disposable-as-it-once-was income as gaming. In fact, in my teens, while a lot of my peers were busy trying to fit in and be cool, I was painting 40K figures, designing Division 20 vehicles for Car Wars, and making back room deals in Diplomacy.

But as I've grown older, and taken on more adult responsibilities, finding time to game with my friends (who have also have mortgages and families of their own) has become really, really hard. Finding time to go to a convention? I may as well find time to build and pilot a rocket ship to the moon.

But this past weekend, when I discovered that the Southern California incarnation of the mother of all gaming conventions, Gen Con, was happening in Anaheim, I came up with a fiendish plan to spend the day there on Saturday: I'd play some games, surround myself with geeks, and write about it for the Geek in Review.

I believe this is called "living the dream" . . .

After I picked up my badge, I wandered around for a few minutes, stunned at the volume of collectible card game players. There were hundreds of them, mostly pre-teens playing Yu-Gi-Oh!, occupying about a third of the entire convention floor. Was this what the whole con was going to be? Had CCGs taken over gaming? Not entirely, I realized, as I passed an area of networked computers, where teens played CounterStrike, and World of WarCraft. Just down the hall from them, other teens played Xbox and PS3 games. I pulled out my notebook and wrote, "Things have changed. The cut-out turning key for Deluxe Car Wars is no longer state-of-the-art. The Wheel of Time keeps turning."

So-Cal Gen Con was in a huge hall at the Anaheim Convention Center. It was harshly-lit, and felt cold and cavernous, more like Comic Con than the more intimate gaming cons I remembered as a teenager. I felt intimidated, and wondered if it had been a mistake to come.

I kept walking, and looked for the exhibitor's area. This was always my favorite part of the con, where I can get demos of new games, maybe pick up a nerdy T-shirt or two, or find an out-of-print sourcebook that the completist in me simply must have. (Because, you know, it really makes sense for me to buy GURPS Humanx. I may need it for that Steampunk/Supers/Horror/Humanx campaign that everyone's been dying to play for the last, well, never.)

I stopped at a T-shirt booth, and laughed really hard at an "Arkham Ambulance and Catering" design. I made my save vs. "I really want it" roll (+5, for Fear of Wife's Wrath) and moved on. Just past the end of the aisle, I happened upon a booth where a vaguely familiar game was about to be demoed. It looked like one I'd played before, but something wasn't right.

"Is that Kill Doctor Lucky?" I said.

"Yes, it is," the guy running the demo said. "Have you played it before?"

"I have," I said, "but seeing it in color, with its own pieces and in a strong large box that could actually withstand some abuse is a little . . . well, actually, it's a lot disturbing."[1]

He laughed. "Would you like to play a demo?"

"Yes. Yes I would." I pulled out a chair, sat down, and the con truly began for me. I was gaming, and nothing else mattered in the world. For the next twenty minutes or so, did my best to kill Doctor Lucky, which I managed to eventually do, cracking jokes and befriending the other players as we played. I was in my element, back among the nerds, and I was as happy as I'd been in weeks.

When I finished, I got a copy of the new version of Kill Doctor Lucky, walked down the aisle, and stopped to admire some impressive (and expensive) armor and weapons. While I looked at a replica sword from Lord of the Rings, a guy tapped me on the shoulder.

"I don't want to make a scene," he said, "but I wanted to tell you how cool I think it is that you're a gamer."

I smiled. "Thank you, man," I said.

"I don't want to bother you, but I just wanted to say hello, and I love your blog. Have a good time." He vanished into the crowd before I could say anything else. Before I could move, another guy walked up to me, and told me how much he and his wife liked Star Trek, and that he didn't understand why people gave me such a hard time about my character. What a change it was from the last time I was at a gaming con eighteen years ago, when I was surrounded by "Kill Wesley" stickers and buttons, and a lot of my fellow gamers thought it was really neat to be so cruel to me, I left games after just a few turns. (Okay, so not all progress is bad.)

For the next two hours, I slowly wandered the exhibitor's area, stopping to check out new games, fondly looking over old ones, and making several "save vs. I want it" rolls. Eventually, I decided to head out of the convention center to a hotel across the parking lot, where a bunch of movies were being screened. I wanted to see a mockumentary about Star Wars nerds called A Great Disturbance.

On my way, I got lost. I found myself upstairs in the convention center, where some brilliant convention center management people had booked a loud, evangelical revival for Spanish teenagers across the hall from the rooms where most of the RPG's were set up. It reminded me of that old Far Side where the day care is built next to the dingo farm, and the caption reads, "Trouble brewing."

I walked back downstairs, and across the parking lot to the hotel, where I got lost again. This time, I found myself in some sort of holiday purse sale on the second floor, then at the Council on Indian Medicine's annual meeting on the third floor. I went back to the lobby, where I found a guy wearing a Gen Con badge.

"Do you know where the movies are?" I said.

Not only did he not know, he only spoke German. At this point, I began to laugh so hard at my predicament, it attracted the attention of a passing group of gamers.

"Hey," I said. "Do you know where the movies are?"

"Yeah," one of them said. "It's across the street."

He pointed out the door, and across the street, where a steady stream of geeks in capes, pirate outfits, trench coats, and various sci-fi costumes moved like a trail of ants from the convention center into a different hotel.

"Ah," I said. "I went to the wrong hotel. Thanks!"

I made my way over to the correct hotel, and finally felt like I was at one of the cons I remember. It was intimate, dimly-lit, and packed with people in costumes, people playing games, people napping on couches, and people doing the things that geeks do. I passed one guy gloating into his cell phone, "So, I guess you're not picking up your phone after that humiliating defeat?" He was cleaning up the aftermath of a Magic: The Gathering duel. A pair of men passed me, heavily engaged in conversation. One of them said to the other, "Not only is it a valid thought, it's a valid line of discussion!" I have no idea what they were talking about, but it certainly seemed, uh, valid to them. Four teenagers (two boys and two girls) walked in front of me as I crossed the lobby, one wearing a Cthulhu backpack. All of them were dressed in black pants, the boys with the obligatory flannel shirts unbuttoned over their T-shirts.

"Wait," one of the boys said to one of the girls. "You got up at seven?"

"Yeah," she said. "I had to, so I could take a shower."

The boys barked out the geek laugh, the one that is sort of like a cough and an airhorn.

"What? Don't you get up to shower in the morning?" She said.

"No way, man!" The boy said. "I just get up and go!"

Walking behind them, I could confirm this fact.

They went left, toward the elevators, and I went right, toward the True Dungeon[2] and the screening rooms, where I discovered that I'd missed the movie. So instead of A Great Disturbance, I ended up watching The Gamers: Dorkness Rising in the room next door. The movie is hilarious, and if you know why it's funny for a Bard to have twenty ranks in seduction, you'll love it. Imagine watching Waiting for Guffman with community theater nerds who all have a sense of humor about themselves, and you'll know what it was like to watch this film, about gamers in a d20 adventure, surrounded by gamers who just came from playing a d20 adventure.

When the movie ended, I walked back to the convention center, but there really wasn't anything left to see. I took a few pictures, bought a couple of new games, and made plans to attend for more than just one day next year, and maybe even do something I've never done, and travel to a convention for fun, instead of work.

Throughout the day a lot of people stopped and talked to me. They all had kind things to say about my blog, my books, even the column I briefly wrote for Dungeon magazine in 2005.[3] I realized that their kindness, their camaraderie, and the feeling of acceptance I got when talking with them is a huge part of why I love gaming, and why I miss gaming with my friends so much now.

Games are more than just rolling polyhedral dice and shouting, "Huzzah!" The games we play are an excuse to get together and escape the mundane reality of our daily lives. When we play RPGs, we make up a story together where we're heroes, our kids don't talk back, and we don't have to sit in traffic. When we play a miniature wargame, we're just recreating the games we played with green plastic army men when we were young, only this time we have bolt guns and blast templates. Whatever we play, it's more than just a game: it's quoting movies and giving each other shit and debating the best Batman actor (Michael Keaton), the worst Batman film (Batman and Robin), the best Lord of the Rings (Two Towers Super Extendo-Director's-Cut version) and the inevitable Star Wars argument. It's talking about our kids and hoping that they grow up at least Neutral Good. It's about making time to do something we love. Some people play softball on the weekends; we play Settlers of Catan. In the end, the result is the same: we all end up drunk and happy, with scrapes on our elbows that we can't explain.

Gen Con's website says, "Thousands of gaming enthusiasts gather together and celebrate 96 hours of what we do best: Play hard. Create worlds. Think brilliantly. Be our heroes. Be ourselves." I love that. If you're a geek, and you've never been to a con, I highly recommend making it a priority to attend one before you're too buried by responsibility to really blow off everything and just play games, watch movies, and wear a Storm Trooper costume without anyone looking at you like you're insane. Gamers should check out Gen Con Indy, Gen Con So-Cal, Kubla Con, or any of the Strategicons. Non-gamers or multi-class gamers who have one or more ranks in Sci-Fi may like Penguicon, Linucon, or LosCon. These are places where it's not just acceptable to embrace your inner geek, it's required.

But take a big Bag of Holding; you're not going to make all those save vs. "I want it" rolls, and you'll need a place to put your loot. Trust me, I'm the voice of experience on this one.

Wil Wheaton has this great Steampunk/Supers/Horror/Humanx campaign ready to go, if anyone is interested. Or we could just play Devil Bunny Wants A Ham.

[1] For the non-gamers or proto-gamers in the audience: Kill Dr. Lucky is published by Cheapass Games, a wonderful little company who made a name for themselves releasing fun games without any pieces. They figured that you already had a lot of pieces from other games, so by just shipping the rules, and simple black-and-white boards and cards, they could sell them for less. Hence the name Cheapass. They have won a pile of awards, and publish some of my favorite games of all-time, including the aforementioned Kill Doctor Lucky, and the cardgame Gimmie The Brain.

[2] True Dungeon is a d20 variant that is like Live Action Role Playing, but totally not lame. I've done it once, where I was killed by a giant spider. I didn't do it this year, because I didn't have any friends with me, and lost my nerve to join an adventuring party by myself.

[3] The column was short-lived because I wrote about more than just D&D (sort of like what I do here,) and a lot of readers decided to hate whatever I wrote, because I played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek nineteen years ago. They wrote lots of letters, sent lots of e-mails, and spent a lot of time and energy freaking out in message forums. Ultimately, it just wasn't worth the headache, and we ended it after less than a year.