Every summer brings a great number of wargaming conventions, and this summer is no exception. Many of you are now deciding which conventions to attend: whether to attend the national convention, Origins IV, or perhaps one of the smaller local conventions. For those of you not sure if you want to attend any conventions. let me point out some of the benefits that the cons have brought to our hobby and can bring to the individual gamer.

To the wargaming hobby, conventions have served as an assembly point for game designers, a place where ideas can be discussed and where new design systems and topics can be observed. Conventions provide the same advantages to gamers in general: the gamers can talk with the designers and look at the new games. Both the game companies and the game players benefit from the discussions across the selling tables - the companies gather valuable feedback from the consumers and the gamers get a chance to point out problems with previous games and suggest topics for new ones.

Game conventions also help to alleviate a very old complaint in this hobby: a lack of opponents. At the game conventions there are thousands of opponents. You can test your skill in the game contests, or simply play informal games in the cafeteria and lounge. This game playing gives everyone a chance to see and play the new games as they come out, since the lounge is always full of people looking at and playing the latest releases. The cons also serve to recruit new wargamers, thus providing even more potential opponents; a substantial number of gamers got their start when they wandered into a convention and got hooked.

Everything, including conventions, has a bad side. In the case of the cons, the bad side is minor, but irritating. The conventions act like an irresistable magnet to the fools and idiots in the area - people who absolutely insist on wearing their authentic SS uniforms or carrying guns (fortunately unloaded) around the convention center. The cons could do without people like these; as far as I am concerned, so could the wargaming hobby. In all fairness, I must point out that problems like these are on the decline; conventions today are more civilized than they were several years ago, and the last Origins convention was (virtually) free of such tomfoolery.

One last note: various members of the Workshop staff will be attending PennCon at Chester, Pennsylvania and GenCon at Lake Geneva this summer. The entire staff (including yours truly) will assemble in Ann Arbor for the Origins convention. Hope to see you there.