Arlington, VA, February 14-16 1997

This was the first "Con" I have been to, for RPG's anyway. It was held at the Quality Hotel, in its several conference rooms; all named after past presidents of the U.S.A., such as Reagon, Adams & Jefferson. The hotel room I had was comfortable and nice, two bed sets, 21" TV, a table with chairs (big enough to work on characters), two closets, a kitchen area with a nuke oven, plenty of lights and at reasonable price of $165 for two nights.

The gaming and dealer rooms were in a separate building, you either had to enter from outside, or take a covered walkway to the three level building; the walkway took you to the third level, and the main rooms and the TCG dealers were on the bottom floor. I got a lot of exercise using the stairs!

There were RPG's, TCP's, miniatures, board games, a BattleTech Arena of Doom, two live-action events, a game auction, two dealer rooms and The Fifth Annual Return of The Return of The Continuos Internittent Clay-O-Rama Battlepit of Death, whew!

The hotel was situated within easy reach by Metro Train and had enough eating establishments around. The only complaint I heard was the registration was late opening. There were also not enough people for some of the games.

One of the events I was in, "Orc's Galore" only had four people present for it, not the needed six. I had played in a Living City adventure, "Too Many Chefs", and in an RPGA benefit game, "Total Chaos": so I couldn't find another game to get into in the same slot, my money for the ticket was reimbursed.

For my first game convention, it was fun, I would have had more fun if I had been more prepared and signed up for more events. At the RPGA meeting I attended, we were briefed on the restructuring of TSR and the laying off of employees, and that the Polyhedron magazine would no longer be published. Instead, RPGA members would receive Dungeon magazine (with some pages of the PRGA inside) for a $25 membership. I believe the regular membership will be $15.

I didn't stick around for the awards ceremony, which took place at 5:30 PM Sunday. In my opinion, Chesapeake Gaming had everything well organized and kept the pace going. I hope to be back next year!

Rating of Constitution 5: 6 Long Swords and a short sword.

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