Return from Gen Con 2019

We braved the muggy summer air, ventured through the bustling crowds, went to Gen Con and made it back alive!

This year was Magpie Games’ best Gen Con yet. Over the course of 4 days, we ran 200 games in our game room featuring over 40 GMs and more than 800 players, a feat we never could have accomplished without the amazing Kate Bullock. She deserves her own Masks playbook because she’s a superhero!

We also want to say a big thank you to all of our GMs who signed up to run games for us. You all bring our games to life in unique and fantastical ways and you are such a vital part of our little community. We got a chance to meet our GMs before the convention and we were so happy to see all of you come together and be excited about the games that we’ve worked so hard to create. The GM meeting was buzzing with good questions and lots of enthusiasm!

While new worlds and stories were being created in the game room upstairs, we were busy running the Magpie Games booth in the Exhibit Hall. We sold out of Pasión de las Pasiones, Crossroads Carnival, and Masks: Unbound! Our only disappointment was that we didn’t get more time to chat with all the people who stopped by. “Conventions are such a unique opportunity for us,” says Sam Saltiel, Director of Marketing and Sales, “most of the time, if we get interact with the people who play our games, it’s through a keyboard and a computer screen. It’s really amazing to have the chance to interact in person, even if it’s just for two minutes at the booth.”

We also had the chance to introduce our newest games to everyone at Gen Con: Zombie World, Passing, and Rapscallion. If you didn’t get the chance to pick up your copy at the convention, no fear! All of them are now available on our webstore.

This year we also got the chance to do something we had never done before: host our own panels. The Powered by the Apocalypse: System and Mastery panel gave us the chance to talk to people who are excited about the system that we all love and adore and discuss it more in depth. “We always like panels that have a back-and-forth quality, and the audience at the PbtA panel had some excellent questions for us! It was both fantastic to have such an engaged and interested audience, and it was awesome to be pushed to think about complex, intriguing questions!” says co-owner and designer, Brendan Conway.

At our Sneak Peek panel, we revealed the roster of games coming up in the next few years: Cartel, Root, Airlock, Urban Shadows: Second Edition, and Armored Society. In case you missed it, we posted a recap with the information about all of those projects.

It was a blast seeing all the new and exciting things that everyone is making. We got the chance to walk the halls, go to some awards shows, chat with other designers, and, yes, even play a few games! Thank you to everyone we talked to for making the convention such a worthwhile experience-- we can’t wait to see you all again at PAX Unplugged!