Expo (and a shopping list)

This weekend is the UK Games Expo, in what I think is becoming one of the biggest gaming conventions in the UK. This year sees it open up in a new home, abandoning the Clarendon Suites and shift to the Metropole Hilton by the NEC.  Despite the new home it seemed busy, bustling with people and traders. It was, perhaps, a little less crowded than it was before but not so you'd notice really.

This year I had no money, the downside of having overspent earlier in the month (depression's not good for that sort of thing - buying shiny things like Journey into Mystery graphic novels with the wonderful kid Loki). So, aside from a ring and a copy of My Life with Master, bought by my lovely Evie, I came away with nothing more than a shopping list and a burning desire to get rid of more games I won't play so I can get new ones; shifting from RPGs to board games for the most part.

It was good to see Pookie, even though he was rushing off to a meeting (actually I'm really happy to see him getting work in the field he loves). We talked about getting back to the Legend of the Five Rings game we started a while ago, with the PCs as magistrates from minor clans in the City of the Rich Frog. Angus from Chronicle City was running around from meeting to meeting so I didn't get to see him properly, but again I was chuffed to see him doing so well.

Sadly Sarah Newton couldn't make it this year which is a huge shame, and I think my friend Kate didn't come up to work for Esdevium either; both of them were very much missed.

As ever the Expo makes me want to make games and I think I'm going to dig out one of the ideas I have for a board or card game and tinker with it a bit. Who knows, I might even get around to making cards and trying it out.

Elsewhere on the gaming front I've organised some gaming for the summer, when I'm only going to be reading up on my dissertation subject (fear) and trying to get some background reading in for either poetry or screenwriting before term starts up again. I've settled on the Laundry, the game based on Charles Stross' novels which marry spy fiction, the Cthulhu Mythos and weird science in a glorious melange. Must admit I'm really looking forward to running it.