Today I sent in my registration for DunDraCon 24, a local RPG convention that is held in mid-February each year in San Ramon, California. This will be like my sixth DunDraCon and my kid brother's third. DunDraCon has remained relatively unchanged for years, whereas some other local conventions have died out or radically changed.

I don't go to the convention to roleplay with a bunch of strangers. Although after a few years you tend to see the same people year after year. Still, I do enough roleplaying with my regular group. So I go to watch the miniature games and wargames -- not many since this isn't a wargaming convention.

Still, there's usually one or two historical miniature games. Large games where a dozen people can play, each person controlling a small part of the battlefield. There also several Warhammer-type games, both Fantasy and 40K. Rounding it out are a few experimental miniature games (space and sea combat) as well as quite a few wargames in the open gaming rooms.

I'm not much into participation. Usually I wander around and watch the various games. I've only played in a few games throughout the years. A BattleTech game of Inner Sphere vs Clan where all the players were Inner Sphere. The GM had some of his gaming group playing the Clan, who beat the crap out of us. I had the impression that this was just another gaming night because the other side were playing their regular characters. I died quick and didn't mind.

Another game I played was a Star Wars miniature wargame. Rebels vs Empire, with 3-4 players on each side. I had a squad of Stormtroopers, the Empire being sent to investigate Rebel sightings in a cavern system. The Rebels were looking for a droid (among many in the caverns) with some sort of secret plans. It took the Empire players a while to find out what the Rebels were after and it was a close game. I think we won by a few points.

Yet another game was a Living Steel miniature wargame. This is a game of robots versus humans. Indoor setting. The three robot players (including me) had a squad of robots. My squad was normal, we had another normal squad and a heavy weapons squad. The humans were similarly equipped. Unlike in Star Wars, where the squad has to stay within a few inches of each other, here you can move each of your men anywhere.

The robots came in on three sides. My group went in slowly, which was unfortunate because my teammates rushed in and got themselves shot up. The humans still had their heavy while ours had been killed, and my turn came up. Having watched the battle so far, I skillfully smoked and sent in decoys to draw enemy fire. Then I sent in my one semi-heavy guy, who ran up to the human heavy and killed him. That evened the odds and demoralized the humans, who retreated and eventually lost.

I've also played in a couple of RPG games, which I'll have to go to in a future journal. The miniature games are fun and memorable. But I always get nervous, it's like there's this pressure for me to win and I'm afraid to lose. So sometimes I don't have fun playing, unless I'm playing the bad guys, and then I don't care if I lose.