Fall is coming, and that means the local gaming convention season is upon us once again. While GOBFest is the delightful outlier, running in May, the other gaming cons have clustered in September and October. This means you can pack in a bunch of gaming before the temperatures drop, and enjoy your gaming convention purchases over the long winter months.

I’ll be running games at all three of the events coming up, to a greater or lesser degree. So if you’d like to throw some dice with me (or at me), these are the places to find me.

KefCon (September 1-2, Queen Mary Park Community League)

The first of the fall cons, KefCon, is back for a third time to bring you board gaming goodness. Packed with games new and old, and a slew of local game designers besides, KefCon also features a game auction on the Saturday night. So if you’re looking for a game on the cheap, or want to clear some space on your shelf, this is the time to do it! My exact schedule is a little up-in-the-air for the weekend, though I’m pretty sure I’ll be running a table of Shadows Over Camelot at some point.

Game-a-Lot (September 29-October 1, St. Albert Kinsman Banquet Centre)

Seventeen years and counting since Game-a-Lot first started in a corner of Mission: Fun & Games. Now it’s all grown up and filling up the St. Albert Kinsman Banquet Centre. Not much needs to be said about the event; it’s three days packed to the gills with games! If it isn’t being run, it’s probably not worth running, and if it is, you can likely snag it from the gaming library and find some players. Plus there are door prizes, plus many of the sessions have freebies for the players, and the weekend also helps support a great local charity, the St. Albert Family Resource Centre. Fun for a good cause, hard not to love that.

I’ll be there mostly on the Saturday, running a plethora of games as Edmonton’s one and only Cheapass Games Demo Monkey . And if you miss me on Saturday, Red Deer’s Demo Monkey and good friend, Dave Chapman, will be up Sunday to demo games. It’s going to be a good time regardless, so we’ll see you there!

IntrigueCon (October 13-15, Queen Alexandra Community League Hall)

Edmonton’s only convention dedicated to role-playing games, IntrigueCon is an excellent opportunity for local gamers to try on a new RPG, or roll some dice on an old favourite they haven’t played in a while. Or maybe you’ve wanted to GM that sweet new game you found, but you aren’t ready for a full campaign. GMing a one-off session is a perfect way to take it out for a spin and have fun, without a huge commitment. And it all takes place a few blocks from a 7-11; it doesn’t get much more gamer friendly than that.

I’m currently slated to run two games (which should be on the site soon), both original scenarios of my own devising. The first is for Kobolds Ate My Baby!, and features the kobolds trying their hand at the adventuring life. The second centers around a company retreat in a way that only The Laundry RPG could manage. I may add a third to the schedule, or I might keep the rest of my time for playing, we’ll see.

Hope to see some of you at the upcoming cons!