GenCon 2026

Finally getting a chance to catch up and write about GenCon 2026.

GenCon has always been a 'fill my cup' event every year, but this year in particular was incredibly satisfying. While in some cases it seems like a lot of the hobby industry has consolidated and is shrinking, GenCon also showed me how it's expanding and growing in a lot of unique and fun ways.

First of all: there are a ton of household names in Actual Play outside of Critical Role now, all with their own publishing content:

- Avantris Entertainment

- The Glass Cannon Network

- Theater of the Unaligned.

There is also significant exploration both within and beyond licensing. Yes, we have a Dungeon Crawler Carl TTRPG, but there is also a HUGE amount of indie zines and small-run publishing happening at the same time at places like Mythworks, Plus One EXP, and Indie Press Revolution.

As they often say, the only constant is change. I remember a big board game publisher telling me 5-8 years ago, "I'll never get into TTRPGS", but now it feels like that publisher is doing about a 3rd of their business in TTRPGs.

I'm notoriously bad at taking photos. So the only one I really have of me is this horribly blurry photo of my first game of Beyblades, thanks to Genel Jumalon, who continues to make me smile year after year and Anica Cihla, who demolished me during my first game.

Happy to see Darrington Press continue to grow, and get their own room for Hope & Fear. As well as Games Workshop show up with this crazy 'experience GenCon' event that was sure to turn some heads (it did mine) at the show.

Plus. DELIGHTED to see that there was a lot of focus on 'solo games' at the show this year. Europe is already way ahead of us on this style of game, so happy to see people adopting it outside of just Final Girl.

I have A LOT of thoughts of 'where next' in my brain. But i'll share those for another date. In the meantime. I'll just say that my playtest for Technocracy (a 'cache and find' TTRPG), went phenomenally. I'm also excited to share the Analog Mazagine Project i'm working on with Brian Flaherty and a few others. More on that as we go.