I've attended Neovention for the last couple of years alternately with Jeff Young and Cliff Sockman, occasionally seeing and gaming with Keith Mercer as well. The convention this year had approximately 1,000 attendees with a fairly good variety of role- playing and tactical simulation games to choose from. Held at the University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, the convention ran for three days from March 26 to 28.

Cliff Sockman and I scheduled an AD&D event, "The Goblin Raiders," which I intend to run this year at GEN CON '93, and thus wished to play-test it to fine tune the scenario before running there. The event was well received with some comments for modification offered and gratefully acknowledged.

Cliff and I participated as players as well, playing in an AD&D game on Friday, in which we re-took an ancient dwarven mine (ala J. R. R. Tolkein's Mines of Moria), and on Saturday I played in a Rolemaster tournament and was introduced to the Rifts gaming system.

I had great fun in the Rolemaster game, which was GM'd by the convention's organizer and club president, but the best surprise was the Rifts game. I had never played this futuristic, post-holocaust game that mixes the worlds of technology, medieval might and magic, and fantasy creatures, but was assured by my friends that it would be easy since I'd played in so many other role-playing game systems and the mechanics of the game were similar to Rifts.

They were right! I truly enjoyed myself and, with a little help from my friends and fellow players in the game (who I didn't know but opened up easily with me like we'd know each other since childhood, and who helped me make the correct roles and reference the correct statistics for my weapons) I had no major problems. Our group, consisting of a couple of dog troopers, some grunts, my corporal, and Cliff's PC, a heavily armored and armed borg (with a rail gun and particle beam weapon, geez!), we of the R. C. C. forces managed to overcome the evil beasties under Chi-Town and close an unauthorized rift being created by a techno-wizard.

There were about a half-dozen vendors at the convention, but their selection of wares was only moderately diverse. The university's cafeteria was closed, but its "Chuckery" was open (a student lounge and eating area), featuring a short-order fast food counter at which soda, sandwiches, and pizza could be had. They had an in-house McDonalds, but the hours this operated were hilarious: they were open only a couple of hours each day, not much use to the gamers who started at 9AM and gamed until midnight.

The convention offers pre-registration by mail. The pre-reg booklet was somewhat sparse this year in comparison to the last few years, but their were enough on- site games added between the pre-reg booklet and the day of the convention to satisfy the needs of the gamers. As with most conventions, Neovention had a number of RPGA tournaments available. As far as Cliff and I were concerned, these weren't even worth considering-too often we've played RPGA games and been greatly disappointed by the lack of creativity, clear goals set for the players and their PCs, and the fact that, even though the 2ndedition has been out for a couple of years, the RPGA still uses 1st-edition (and a poor interpretation of it at that) for many of its games.

The convention does not offer any housing arrangements at the university, but does provide a list of nearby area hotels and motels. No special room rates are arranged by Neovention. Open gaming is available at all times, SCA demonstrations are given, and the location is clean and spacious. Sometimes noise is a problem, since many games are held at round tables in an open room, but generally it is not a problem. Smoking is permitted only in certain areas. The convention had an auction and a miniatures painting contest. Prizes were given for some non-RPGA games. The convention didn't distribute free packets of stuff included with the registration materials as many conventions do, but a free Rifts calendar was available to all who wanted one, and there was space provided for distribution of free literature.

Overall, the convention is worth attending. There is enough variety to make any attendee happy.

NEOVENTION '92 REPORT CARD

COST FOR GAMING VS. ENJOYMENT B
ROOMS C
TOURNAMENT QUALITY & VARIETY B
MERCHANT BARGAINS & VARIETY C
LOCATION/ EASE OF ACCESS B
ORGANIZATION OF THE CON B
OVERALL RATING B