The small-con curse has struck

As predicted, I didn't get enough players to make my game. I needed three. I had my wife and one sign-up. By the time game-time rolled around, I'd recruited one more player… but the sign-up didn't show. Turns out he had to leave the con for some reason. It'd have been nice if he'd crossed his name off my list, at least.

I had a few people who expressed interest, but were tied up with something else one way or another. For just a minute, I thought I was going to fill all five seats, and then it all fell apart.

I was balanced between expecting a bust and being hopeful. But I'm still disappointed. I wasn't entirely done prepping the adventure, so I took my printer and laptop and spent part of the con in my hotel room finishing up. Between playing a game that ran until 12:30 AM and not wanting to get around in time for a 9:30 AM slot on Saturday, then not wanting to play the slot before mine on Saturday night, I managed to miss the other games I could have played. (Sunday was a bust for non-Living Greyhawk roleplaying, except for one GURPS game that I didn't realize was on the schedule until I'd already missed it. Another 9:30 game, when I was out at a cozy little cafe having brunch.)

That's probably the highlight of the trip… we ate at local places the whole time, and had a lot of fun soaking in the local dining atmosphere.

Gaming-wise, I about broke even for the amount of gaming last year, which wasn't much. I was hoping to do more this year, but I didn't pursue it hard enough. If you're not in to miniatures, CCGs or Living Greyhawk, pickings are slim.

Could be worse… one guy from Wichita drove down Saturday morning to run a single game on Saturday afternoon and only got one signup. He then had to leave Saturday night, too early to play in my eight-to-midnight game. Sucks driving 2.5 hours one-way to not fill enough seats to play.

What's annoying, is that there was this guy and a GURPS GM that had this same problem… and my wife and I would have played in those games (even if one was 1st edition AD&D) if we'd bothered to get up early enough or weren't avoiding the Saturday afternoon slot. So it's partially my own fault I didn't get to play as much as I wanted, and I feel bad about being the missing player that other GMs needed to make their games.