The Dragon’s Breath #5

5 March 2003

How to Survive Winter

By Mike Johnstone

Into about our eighth week of a wicked winter deep freeze, I watch yet more snow falling, rushed by a bitter wind that slaps at one’s face. The snow covers everything thinly and cruelly, not playful but cutting and severe. A friend of mine once wrote a poem describing his displeasure with the season: "Winter kicked my door in," the poem opened, I believe, and lately I sympathise with the sentiment. Days like today, one means of surviving is to think of warmth, sun, brightness, green grass, blue skies, shorts, sandals. Of course, I could also muse upon why I love gaming . . . .

Fade out. Screen wipe: roiling fiery dragon’s breath. Fade in.

The airport shuttle pulls up before the convention centre, downtown Milwaukee in sunny August. A few guys get out of the van, grab their bags from the back, and take their first steps toward the "best four days in gaming," or so the slogan proclaims. Me, I am eager to get my badge, find the Fiery Dragon booth, and experience a weekend that as a kid playing D&D I never thought to see. (Was that a stormtrooper . . . ?)

Cut. New Location: entrance to dealers’ hall.

The assault of colour, noise, energy, and people fills me with a sort of giddiness. Walking through the aisles toward FDP HQ, I see more dice in one place than I ever thought possible, old Tunnels & Trolls books, miniatures, cards, t-shirts, more dice (was that a woman in a chainmail bikini . . . ?), more RPG books, purple carpets, kids and teenagers and adults holding bags crammed with stuff. This place is the shrine, the Mecca, the Elysian Fields, of gaming. Wow.

Over the next few days, I discover more of GenCon 2002, though certainly not anywhere near the entirety of the event. Sunday afternoon and the plane trip back to Toronto come far too soon, but in the time before leaving, I hit upon a couple of revelations that also feel oddly familiar, so I will call them confirmations.

First of all, gaming is good for you. Obvious, I know, but to move through immense rooms full of tables packed with people playing card games, role-playing games, miniatures games, board games, and who-knows-what-else games; to watch people each day sitting on the hallway floors to play games; to peek in on countless board rooms of people gathered at large round tables to play D&D, Call of Cthulu, Star Wars, Adventure!, and likely every other RPG ever published: I could not imagine someone remaining immune to the infectious atmosphere of fun permeating the convention centre. Many segments of society enjoy peering down over stuck up noses at gaming, giving it a snort of contempt and summarily dismissing it as frivolous child’s play (or worse). Ah, give them just one hour in the convention centre, and I bet their contempt would melt quicker than the Wicked Witch of the West. Fun is healthy. Gaming is fun. Therefore, gaming is good for you.

My second confirmation: gamers are wonderful people. Again, perhaps obvious, but no place or event settled this matter for me more than GenCon 2002. Every group or (sub)culture includes its fair share of troublemakers and unsavory types; however, the people I met and observed and the general climate I felt convinced me that, overall, gamers make up a congenial and intriguing bunch. I think that what many of us know about gamers relates primarily to those with whom we game on a regular basis, plus maybe other gamers in the neighbourhood, at school, or at the FLGS. Folks will develop reputations: so-and-so is a "power gamer" or a "role-player"; so-and-so will run only certain systems; so-and-so has a kick-butt finished basement with a huge table, a bar fridge, a stereo, and complete privacy from parents and meddling siblings, and so forth. Yet put a few thousand gamers from all over the world in one place, and what does one person’s reputation mean? At GenCon, everything becomes bigger than the individual — sort of epic or archetypal. Yes, that seems right: fun on the grandest scale, with everybody doing something that is good for them, should bring out all the best qualities of gamers, like a mosaic that reveals a broad impression as opposed to the beauty or ugliness of its individual pieces. Frequent comments regarding the (lack of) bathing habits of some gamers aside, if one leaves GenCon unconvinced that gamers are wonderful people, I can only surmise that one’s dice were unusually heartless during the weekend. (Was that Blade . . . ?)

Fade out. Screen wipe: roiling fiery dragon’s breath. Fade in.

Looking away from the monitor, I still see severe whiteness and greyness. The cold remains, an unpleasant relative overstaying his welcome. A rollicking, high-level hack’em-and-slash’em bout of D&D with the lads in boisterous spirits would be perfect right about now — the table covered with dice and character sheets and pencils and counters, all of us gorging on the gamer’s staple foods (pizza! chips! pop!), the talk about 60% reminiscing and 40% gaming . . . .

New winter survival technique: look forward to the next GenCon.

Next Week: In The Dragon’s Breath #6, Claudio Pozas, FDP’s counter illustrator extraordinaire, delves into how comics can provide inspiration for giving your party and campaign a different sort of make-up. What do the Teen Titans and gaming have in common, you wonder? Find out in "Four Colour Fantasy"!

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