CleriCon Musings

This past weekend was CleriCon, a small game convention held in Glen Williams, Ontario, which is a little over 50 km outside Toronto. This is the third CleriCon organized by The Dungeon Minister, but the first one I've attended. The con takes place over three days – Friday night, all day Saturday, and part of Sunday. I was only there Saturday, but, after having gone, I wish I'd been there for its entirety. I have no idea how many people actually attended; I'd guess about 60 or 70 people. Even so, it had a terrific vibe, with everyone obviously enjoying themselves.

For the morning session, I ran a Dolmenwood adventure, The Ruined Abbey of St Clewyd, for four players. From what I can tell, everyone had a good time. My only real regret is that the scenario, while excellent, is probably a little too involved to be completed in a typical convention time slot. I should have prepared a shorter scenario and will remember that for the future. Still, the session was fun and the players really got into their characters. I was especially impressed by the player of Brother Aubrey, a friar, who was responsible for some of the most memorable moments in the session.

In the afternoon, I played Forbidden Psalm, a skirmish-level miniatures game based on Mörk Borg. As I've written here on numerous occasions, I've never been much of a miniatures player, though not for lack of interest. Mostly, my lack of skill in painting has kept me from looking too deeply into this part of the hobby. Regardless, I really I enjoyed playing this game, once I got the hang of its rules, which were simple and straightforward – just the way I like them. Though my faction, The Horrific Morbidities, did not emerge victorious, I have no regrets. The referee and the other players were great and I will happily play this again in the future.

One of the best things about CleriCon – and Gamehole Con too, about which I still have to write more – was meeting my fellow gamers and hanging out with them. For the Dolmenwood game, it turns out that I already knew or had interacted with three of the four players previously, though I didn't realize it. Two were people who knew me through this blog and one was someone I'd met in real life several years ago but did not remember until he jogged my memory. With my birthday in a couple of days, I guess I really am getting old!

I regularly remind myself that "the Internet is not real" in the sense that, when I go to conventions, no one there cares about the latest outrages and controversies. Even if they read blogs or social media, they're at the con to roll dice and have fun, not to rehash whatever silliness we get up to here. That's wonderfully refreshing and I think I need regular infusions of that kind of energy to buoy my spirits. That's probably why, whenever I come back from one of these gatherings, I feel a renewed sense of purpose.

I should add that I attended the con with an old and dear friend of mine, who's a stalwart of my online games. We didn't play any games together at CleriCon but we both left the event with the same sense that we should make a greater effort to arrange face-to-face gaming with our mutual friends. We might not be able to get together weekly the way we do with our online games, but we could perhaps aim for monthly or something similar. The busy-ness of many people's lives makes it so that we're unlikely to ever be able to meet in-person as regularly as we did in our youth, but there are nevertheless unique pleasures to sitting around a table together and rolling real rather than virtual dice. We need to get back to that.

In any case, I would say that CleriCon was, for me, a huge success. My only regret, as I said at the beginning of this post, is that I didn't spend more time there this weekend, as I am certain I'd have enjoyed myself as thoroughly as I did on Saturday. That's what next year is for, I suppose!

Blurry Photographic Proof of My Playing Forbidden Psalm