On the last day of GenCon, my friend asked me how I’d rate my first-ever gaming con experience from one to ten, and I mentally scored each event I attended before giving an average score overall. I ended up somewhere between three and four overall, which kind of felt like a huge waste of money. There are a lot of missteps I took like taking risks on events based on their descriptions which ended up not being accurate (ex: a “LARP-lite” experience ended up just being a series of childish carnival games). I also just straight up did not enjoy the vibe of other events. For example, comedians playing the new Dungeon Crawler Carl TTRPG weren’t interested in engaging with rules or mechanics nearly at all, which I was hoping to preview in advance of its release. Suffice it to say, there is a lot I would do differently if I were to ever attend again, so here’s a list of what I’d change: Only join TTRPGs through Indie Games on Demand - I didn’t know about this amazing opportunity to be matched with and play a GM’s favorite indie TTRPG until after the con. While I did sign up to play one TTRPG, the GM was lackluster, and I committed four hours to the experience (three hours were just excruciatingly slow combat rounds). I would have much preferred trying two different indie TTRPGs in the same amount of time. Ask friends who are GenCon veterans for their event recommendations before building my schedule - If I didn’t have any friends who went, maybe consulting reddit threads like this one albeit with a grain of salt because not everyone has the same taste. Book more hands-on or interactive activities than seminars, actual plays, podcast recordings, etc. - I was really looking forward to seeing Matt Dinniman and Jeff Hays play the upcoming DCC TTRPG before it was released, but Travis McElroy absolutely ruined the experience by constantly talking over other players and interjecting pointless, unfunny remarks. Other performances also fell flat for me except for the Chill Touch improv show where I was most wowed by Sara Caplan’s performance. Overlap my schedule more with friends - Even if events suck in some or all the ways, there’s something about having a friend there that makes it all bearable and funny. If nothing else, you can all walk away with a shared con nightmare to tell others. Also, if you play a complex MegaGame (50-person boardgame), it’s good to have a friend who can lock in and take notes about the rules, so you don’t have to. Book the Westin if possible - I wasn’t even in a far away hotel, but the extra steps crossing the convention floor to get back there multiple times in a day really added up. On the first day of the con, I walked 16.4k steps and my feet were in a ton of pain. The Westin seemed the most conveniently connected to cross the convention center and get to the stadium behind it. Book earlier events or buy generic tickets to go to Indie Games on Demand Walk-Up - Even though I normally wake up at 11am ET, I was so amped for the con each day that I was waking up before 8am ET. Therefore, I would have loved to have pushed myself to schedule things for an 8 or 9am start. Waiting around for 11am events meant that my days that should be exciting got off to a very slow and boring start. Buy and break in new shoes before the event - I’ve needed new sneakers for a while, and I really should have grabbed a new pair of Hoka’s before this event. Book an earlier return flight - I’m not one to hunt for last day discounts in the expo hall, so there’s no point in trying to linger. I’m really glad I went to the airport four hours early and managed to fly standby back home on an earlier flight. Leaving on a flight at ~1:30pm was just right. Pack more food, not just snacks - For a plant-based person like me, the options at the food trucks were incredibly limited and expensive. Panera took at least 30-40 minutes to make food. PF Chang’s and the Yard House downtown don’t have the healthiest vegan options nor short waits during peak hours, so having some veg-forward, nutritious homemade food to store in the hotel fridge would have been nice. It wasn’t all bad though. I got extremely lucky in securing a coveted spot in the JW Marriot hotel connected to the convention center and had four good friends join me at the con. I also attended a few good events like Chill Touch that I mentioned earlier. One of my unexpected highlights was The D8ing Game, an improvised “dating show” event where TTRPG authors and writers pretended to embody different TTRPG systems as dating contestant, and an audience member volunteered to ask them a series of questions. The audience member then picked one of the contestants based on their answers and won a free copy of the TTRPG that the contestant was roleplaying as. I was the first to volunteer from the audience and won a copy of Ritual Deck, a Yu-Gi-Oh-inspired, Carved From Brindlewood TTRPG. The audience volunteers were incredibly creative at asking funny questions to the improvising contestants, and the host was incredibly generous with providing free copies of tons of cool and unique games like Wildsea and Good Society. Overall, I’m glad I went and got to experience it myself even if it didn’t quite meet my expectations. I know many of my friends had an excellent time, but I think this one is just not for me.