When I went to the very first PAX Unplugged in 2017, I hadn’t been to a tabletop convention before. I had been to PAX East pretty much since 2010 and loved hanging out in the tabletop area off the expo hall floor, but I hadn’t been to one that was dedicated just to sitting down and rolling dice. I started that convention a little unsure: would I enjoy the experience, or after all the sounds and lights of video game conventions, would it be a bit… boring?
Now, it's my favorite gaming convention, having surpassed PAX East. Heck, since COVID and having a kid, I haven’t been back to PAX East, instead saving up my chance for a few days away from home for the very end of the year. Why is that? What is it that this convention holds that makes me save up vacation time and money more than all others?
As always, a chance to play games with the game designer is a draw. I had been meaning to try this game out for my last few conventions, as Jim is a relatively local designer and I only see Mission To Planet Hexx at PAX Events.
Well, hopefully a few of my favorite examples from 2024’s PAX Unplugged will show you.
#1 - The New First Look Room
First off, I want to celebrate an amazing change that PAX Unplugged implemented this year. The “First Look” area of PAX U is an unsung hero of the convention; it is a place where you can go to play games from all over the world, with many not yet able to be purchased, are still in production, or are hard to find. You can see how they are picked and what games were there this year here.
It’s a great initiative, with PAX Enforcers that have learned the basics of many of the games patrolling the tables, giving out help and tips to let people get started. It used to be held right next to the expo hall floor, but this year, the convention opened up a new ballroom on the top floor. It was carpeted, quieter, and opened an hour before the show floor. If you didn’t want to wait in the queue line to get onto the show floor, you could head upstairs, sit down, and immediately start playing a game.
You'd be amazed at how much a separate space and some carpeting made this part of the convention feel luxurious and calming.
It was a great change. It let myself and others go up and have a quieter morning, or have a chance to play something as a break in the middle of the day. Some hit games that were freshly for sale or hard to find like Black Forest by Capstone Games or Unconscious Mind by Lucky Duck Games got demoed up there, letting people have a more informed decision before dropping money.
If you love PAX U but sometimes feel intimidated by the crush of people on the expo hall floor (especially on Saturday around noon!), heading to First Look is a great choice. I hope they keep the area separate next year, as it gave people another place to go and still feel like they were trying new experiences
#2 - Playing Daggerheart, And Gaming Hall Demos Off The Expo Hall Floor
I’m going to preface this with what might be heretical to some - I’ve never watched Critical Role! I say this to explain that when I walked by an area of the gaming hall floor and saw there were open sign ups to try out Daggerheart, the new ttrpg system coming out by Darrington Press, I was going in somewhat blind. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was curious: the marketing promised something atmospheric and encouraging of roleplay, easy to pick up, but still having a ‘crunchy’ system surrounding lots of dice use.
Jumping to the end, I loved it. A few friends joined me in signing up for a 1 hour session, enough time to learn the rules and complete a single short combat in the woods, including build up. It showed off the mechanics just enough so we all could get the basics of the system, and had started to really get into what makes Daggerheart stand out. Anastasia, our game master, did a great job hosting and keeping things moving quick.
I’ll admit, sitting down and seeing my character sheet felt like sitting down to playing Dungeons and Dragons, but like it was written in a new dialect. I enjoy how the abilities you get as a character are printed on cards that are dealt out for easy flipping through, and how those cards are included in the base game purchase. I was playing a humanoid lion ranger, a friend had a noble human fighter (classic), another player had a frog/toad rogue who could use their tongue as an attack… we were guarding a caravan heading through the forest… classic set up.
My hat is off to all the amazing people who volunteered or just worked demoing games all weekend in such a crowded space! Anastasia was a great host, somehow teaching the system and still getting us through an encounter in just an hour.
The magic started to happen as we discovered you rolled 2d12 instead of a d20 for your basic roles, with one characterized as your ‘fear’, and the other as your ‘hope’. You added these together, but which ever was higher either gave the player hope to power their abilities and fear gave the DM chances to empower foes. The real special thing about this system was how during just one combat session, we were roleplaying more in the actions. My ranger would get a hit, but because it was with ‘fear’ being high, I explained how they were snarling and firing rapidly out of desperation. My friend with the human fighter failed with a hope roll, and described them valiantly challenging our foe to a duel… only to trip on the charge.
I love getting a chance to try out ttrpgs, but committing 3-4 hours to a one-shot session at a convention is a big ask, especially if it's a new system. I signed up for this demo because they were doing one hour sessions, starting on the hour, until 9 pm. It was a perfect chance to try something new, get a feel for it, and then keep going. In fact, the whole area around these demos were filled with these sort of experiences: Wehrlegig Games had several tables being able to try long form demos of Molly House, Rock Manor Games had game designers for games going to Kickstarter soon like Stardriven: Gateway, and more.
I stopped by the Darrington Press booth later, and found out that when you buy Daggerheart, you also get 270+ cards included to help keep track of all your abilities? It's shaping up to be a great package that's generous to the players.
Again, PAX U planning added more space to the expo hall by taking some area used for demos and moved them elsewhere. It was a great choice overall, and I heartily recommend to people who go to PAX U in the future to look for the games you can find just outside the expo hall, because there are a lot of hidden gems with less waiting to play. And of course, I recommend giving Daggerheart a look if you loved some classic ttrpgs and want to try one that feels familiar but also fresh. I didn’t have interest in it before, but thanks to the hope/fear die mechanic, I do now.
#3 - Quick Board Game Booth Demos (3 in One!)
I had a lot of fun visiting a lot of board game booths, but for some reason this year I found myself drawn to lighter and more casual games rather than big chunky ones. I think it was just wanting to try lots of new things and not over-stuff my car ride for the way home, but I really appreciate how in the last few years board game booths have really made an effort to let you try a game in just 5-10 minutes and then move on, feeling like you understood the game enough to make a choice.
Two quick shout outs to Smirk and Dagger games with This Game Is Killer, which was a party board game that literally takes just 5-10 minutes to play. Easy set up, easy way to describe it (“It’s Alien the board game, but you’re trying to screw your friends over too!”). Similarly, Vesuvius Media had a winner with Catapult Feud: it's a dexterity game of firing catapults at tiny forts to knock people over, just let people play it! Easy purchase for my 4 year old to be his first ‘board game’.
Sometimes, a game's concept just sells itself!
The company that has it down to a science however is Allplay. A company that started making board game tables and bags and slowly helped to start publishing their own line of games. Whether you like the game or not, the production value is always polished, and their booth really shows this off. A large tower of board games like its a library, with over a dozen of small standing board game tables to try something out at. It lets their booth always be crowded with plenty of people wanting to try new things and sample their selection. I know at least two friends who picked up a copy of River City Glassworks after demoing it, and every year I get at least one new game from them because it's just easy to sample what they have.
#4 - The Megagame “Den Of Wolves”
I’m going to keep this one short because if I start describing this event in detail, I’ll be here for days. For those of you who don’t know what a megagame is, it’s part ttrpg, part board game, part LARP event on a grand scale. Our game scenario was Den of Wolves, which essentially is attempting to play through events inspired by Battlestar Galactica.
A selfie I took when most of the ship captains were trapped in a meeting during a ship raid on the fleet. Fun fact: two of the three hidden traitors were in this picture! Jerks.
There were 43 players for this game, with me and my best friend filling the roles of captain and chief surgeon of the hospital ship for the entire fleet. Rounds (Days of survival) lasted about 30 minutes, with random fleet attacks from the ‘wolves’ as we were chased, causing damage, making resources scarce, and slowly getting worse. The admiral’s ship tried to coordinate ship warp jumps to escape, but for some reason some ships kept getting lost. It might have been because there were three traitors among the players, sabotaging the fleet…
It’s a great time. If you get involved and caught up in the story, whether its managing resources for the whole fleet, trading water and materials, playing as an inquisitor looking for the hidden traitors, or hell, being the media team who got to make a report on the state of affairs every round with hilarious news bulletins broadcast on the screen, this is an experience that’s rare and can be very special.
The media team who flashed news bulletins on the projector and came up with news reports every half hour looked like they were having some of the most fun trying to keep up! Its great to see how much has evolved since my last megagame in 2017.
I’m hoping to do a full write up of my experience, as this was my second ever megagame, but I please implore you: If you like ttrpgs at all, do yourself a favor and try a megagame when you can.
#5 - Collecting Indie TTRPGs Like A Goblin (4 in one!)
The rest of this list is going to lean heavily into ttrpg space, mainly because this convention was a big return to the hobby for me. Since 2020 and becoming a dad, time has been pretty scarce. I was able to really return to board games in the last year and begin reviewing them again, but ttrpgs take a little more time, planning, commitment, and brainpower to get into, so they got left by the wayside for a while.
Last year, I finally cracked the seal and got some of my first indie ttrpg games as a promise to myself to start covering them. It was a great decision, as I loved Hunt by Gila games. $25 dollars for a small book which let me run tragic one shots of knights cursed with great power. One of my first stops was back to their booth this year to pick up another game at face value, Slayers about protecting a city from monsters, and an expansion for Hunt called Pox, which adds a little bubonic plague mood to the mix. I really enjoy Spencer Campbell’s very different take on ttrpgs from what I was used to, and was a great way to dip my toes into the indie tabletop scene.
I'm a fan of the big classic ttrpgs, but I love these projects that love to go all in on a theme or mood. Wet Ink Games can give you depressing horror/survival in World War 1... or happy dogs! Everyone wins.
Wet Ink Games had a great booth of ttrpgs, and I made a bee line for Never Going Home. They were sold out last year of this small book ttrpg where you play World War I soldiers suddenly finding out the quote ‘war is hell’ is in fact quite literal, and I was determined to get it. I ended up getting a bundle of some of their adventures after talking with one of the writers, Stephen Wu, for quite some time about why he liked the world so much. As someone who feels like current ttrpgs shy away from survival mechanics and having to deal with the trauma of conflict or war, this is going to be fun to explore.
I also had a fantastic time talking with Nick Francia of Gehenna Gaming about their newest venture, Eldritch Automata. You can boil the game down to having a chance to play through Neon Genesis Evangelion, but it's more than that too. Talking with the game dev about their choices to center the trauma of conflict and collateral damage and how you lose willpower to your machine to pilot it is an inspired way to generate roleplay and interesting choices rather than just being a power fantasy. This one isn’t out yet (middle of 2025 release!), but they had a printed quickstart book that sold out before the convention was over… and you can actually get a free PDF of it here.
Finally, it was guilty pleasure time for me. I had missed out on The Wildsea kickstarter because it arrived as I first started paying for diapers, and I didn’t want to pass up another year. Again, part of the selling point was speaking with some of the writers and community managers about their experiences writing for the book and interacting with the community that pushed me over the line. I mean, it's a post-apocalyptic world where you ride chainsaw ships over and through a world-spanning forest, enjoying the journey as much as the destination. Your friends can play a sentient mushroom that loves to cook and a crazed old man who gets mind powers from doing copious amounts of drugs or brewing tea.
These experiences specifically highlight one of the things I love about conventions - a chance to interact directly with the writers, designers, and authors. Each of these booths were filled with people who had big feelings about their work and wanted to share them with the world, and it sold. In fact, all the games I listed above I bought outright just because of the passion that was on display.
#6 - The Celebrating 20 Years of Eberron Panel
Speaking of guilty pleasures, I only made it to one full panel, and it was about the Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting nearest and dearest to my heart, Eberron. I started with third edition in high school and vividly remember the design contest that led to its creation. From the moment I read that first book, I was hooked: magic used to build cities, political events defined by a continent sized war of destruction, the pulpy noir feel that gave games a sense of intrigue.
Eberron is a setting that I feel really speaks to the strength of D&D and what you can do with it. It contributed the Artificer class to D&D 20 years ago, for starters, helped start the push canonically towards the alignment system changes we see today, and more. It was wonderful getting a behind the scenes look at how it all started with Bill Slavicsek and Keith Baker talking about that original contest, the original designs of the setting. It was also great hearing Jeremy Crawford, the current D&D game director talk about how much he loves the setting personally and how more might arrive next year (with no spoilers given).
All the panelists from Imogen to Keith were phenomenal. Also, before this convention I didn’t know about the Sivis Echoers podcast, which is a very fun take on the lore of Eberron. Their passion for the setting was obvious, and I’ll definitely be starting to listen to the podcast as I get back into ttrpgs again.
#7 - The Session Zero Booth By Mythic Grove Games
Finally, the capstone to my convention was a personal one. Since I’ve been playing ttrpgs off and on for 20+ years, the concept of a session zero felt both incredibly alien and familiar at the same time, if I’m being honest. I liked the ideas, just never fully implemented them. With that in mind, the fact that someone made a whole book-and-cards system for hosting a session zero had me curious. Their booth looked great last year but I didn’t have a chance to dive in as they were always swarmed.
So this time, on Sunday afternoon right before it was time to start making the trip home, I had a chance to sit down and try it. The booth is set up to feel like the basements I grew up with, complete with wood paneling and stuffed shelves and beanbag chairs. Dedicated storytellers ran you through the system where you draw three cards to generate stories for new characters in just a few minutes.
It was a great time. Our session was run by the talented Dillin, who is involved in actual plays, podcasts and writing his own ttrpgs. It was a great run through the system, and I was pleasantly surprised at how involved my friends and I got in the character generation so quickly with just a few cards and a guide. It was a great sell of the system, and even though no dice were rolled, it was immersive.
Which leads me to getting a little sappy for a minute. Being in the booth with my friend Antonella who I played games of D&D with back in high school, their wife, and my friend who I went to college with was really touching. Sitting in that little den of nostalgia, surrounded by friends who I’ve played games with for years and years… it was special to me, and why it's probably a favorite little memory I’m going to keep for a while.
The cards we pulled to make our characters during the session - our origin, an NPC we know, and our motivation. It probably doesn't need to be said, but the artwork is fantastic.
It’s a little hard to buy the system outside of conventions, but I found some copies on Atlas Games if you are curious for yourself. Regardless, I had a great time thanks to Dillin’s hosting and also getting a chance to talk about the inspiration of the system with Elise Rezendes, its creator. It’s an interesting concept that I see ttrpg groups both veteran and new finding uses for.
Make Conventions About Enjoying Games And Community
I had such a good time this year at PAX Unplugged, too much to fit into just this article. To be fair, I’ve loved every year, but this time I took care to find friends to team up with at events and booths. Megagames are all about teamwork, and it can be so much fun suddenly finding new friends from the experience. Trying out a brand new game with someone you only get to see once or twice a year is special. Heck, one of my favorite experiences is meeting up with friends the night before the convention, as we all travel in from different cities, possibly seeing each other for the first time that year.
For me, PAX Unplugged is about passion. When we play games at home, whether video games, board games, or ttrpgs, its easy to feel a little isolated. I know tabletop games require friends already, but seeing three or four friends once every few weeks to play something is very different from seeing nearly thirty thousand people all in one place, excited just to play. Seeing cosplayers showing off their handiwork, game designers proud of their new products, storytellers happy to sit down for hours to explore a world of imagination; it honestly warms my heart.
One last shot from the Session Zero Booth. I love that they encouraged graffiti on their walls to sign the booth itself! Having just left the Eberron event, I kept it on theme.
If you made it to this PAX Unplugged, I hope you had a phenomenal time. Feel free to share some of your favorite experiences! If you weren’t able to make it, I hope you can next time, and join in the revelry of games that goes on for three days straight. There’s a reason why I loved the PAX slogan “Welcome Home”, and I can’t wait to walk back through the doors again in 2025.
