GameHole Con 2025 report
The Notes
Overall a fun little convention. Good road trip worthy. The socials I went to were nice, and had a decent time overall. It's small enough where I bumped into the guests a couple of times and just wnet "huh, that's cool." The dealer hall was tiny. Sounded like some financial issues were pretty bad overall, which I would associate more with the United States economy more than anything. I've seen similar issues on the craft fairs I've attended as well. Anyway games.
The Games
Since this was more TTRPG focus, at least on my end, I ended up doing about 4 games, which also allowed me to rest for fair bits of time.
Dragonbane
This was more of a covert mission to get our kid to play more not-DnD games. The base game, it is good, it is fun and simple. The feats might get crazy over time, but this is a perfectly good Fantasy Not Dungeons and Dragons. The kid did enjoy it. We are in the middle of a SWADE Pathfinder campaign, also testing more Fantasy Not D&D stuff. Overall recommend
Secret MCDM playtest
Take Draw Steel and hack it until it's OSR style. This was the first playtest so I'm certain a lot will change. I played Draw steel during a beta or two, so take nothing here with any value. It was good, but not remarkable. I'm going to keep an eye out for it, some other legacy style features are much more interesting.
Panic at the Dojo
Take 4e's tactical focus, and make it a 70's-80's style kung fu movie. The first round of the first fight took about 30 minutes for all of us to grasp. There is a lot. Theoretically I would love the way you pick a stance, roll some die, and choose some actions based on thos results, but it was a lot to learn. It felt like a lot, and honestly I think having a set initiative worked against it. like I think I got coffee before it was my round. I'm still thinking about the con shot of Sentinels of the Multiverse I did at Gencon, if I'm being honest. That's a great tactical game where I felt engaged the entire combat.
Haunted West
The version we played was similar to Call of Cthulhu with a fair bit of modifications. There are more types of play in Haunted West. I do admire the amount of work and research done into the setting, the history, and the respect in the struggles and racism of the time. A lot of the NPCs were fleshed out. I was a little upset about the character I had. I was basically a gun. It was useful at the end, but the end was pretty simple. That was on me, I rolled a d4 for character. I have the book, and every so often I look at it and go "I am not ready". Theoretically recommend for history buffs
Deadlands
This may be from playing Haunted West the day after, but it's mostly from the scenario presented. I've played Deadlands a fair bit, and I do genuinely enjoy Savage Worlds. Shane Hensley seems to be at best a dipshit. So this scenario started off neat, then the likely resolution, along with the GM's expected resolution was annoying. I am genuinely still upset about how the resolution occurred, and I say that as the one who did the big explosive kill shot. The fact I exploded a d6 about 4 times, stopped the big bad that was going to zombify us in the Haitian style, and still am angry because I've traumatized two kids that was papered over by "They learned grandma was bad and will be ok cause they have stolen money" is annoying. Savage Worlds is still fun, if you like tactical stuff, try it out.
RPEX
I forgot about this! Imagine True Dungeon without the shitty underground market. It was fun. It's still a lot of money, but felt closer to a traditional fantasy d20 like played out in life. Mainly in rolling a die and being stuck on a square. It's fun. a little treat. I have a pin from it, don't know how often I'd do it, but a treat.
Overall enjoyed going to GameholeCon. It's maybe in the middle ground, bigger than local con, blessedly not Gencon's madness.