Rock-Con does not feature “THE ROCK”

So this year I attended Rock-CON for the very first time. For those who do not know what this is, Rock CON takes place in Rockford Illinois and gathers Miniature and Board gamers from all over the state to play games.

This year it was held inside a large indoor recreation center with about 50 tables setup with games. At first the show seemed very slow with folks first arriving and setting up the various games, but by around noon it was packed with all sorts of games including one that took up over 10 tables with large (About the size of a breadbox) pirate ships.

The day is spilt into 3 sessions (or games). The first session I played Coliseum with a few folks and had a very good time. It was the first time I played and I did fairly well. The next session I actually ran and hosted a game called Age of Empires III. This is a pretty easy game to understand so I figured I would open it up to entry level players (Having only played once before myself)

This was a mistake…

It seems entry level players was read as entry to the world of games in general. Here I am walking toward my table and see a group of total misfits. I was thinking, “at least they are not my group.” Then I looked at the table number and realized. “YUP, they are MINE!”
I am a very patient person but this group really stretched that out for me.

You had Preston the Ninja – literally dressed up like a Ninja. (BTW, this is a convention to play games and shop a bit, not a Star Trek Convention. He was the only person in costume. It did not help that his cloak did not help to “Cloak;’ the smell of being in that outfit all day. YIKES!
You had Gwen, a sweet lady in her 20’s or 30’s who just DID NOT GET IT. She tried but this was a game well beyond her skill set. Besides asking to re-do her move every 3 minutes and starting strange conversations like (Your Shirt reminds me of Star Wars, which was said to Mike whose shirt simply said… STAR WARS!) she was all right.

We end with Nick, a teenage boy who had never played a game in his life. ANY game really. He must have grown up in a pod, and his social skills reflected that. His dad was there (who did not play) who informed me by whisper that his son was a bit shy. No shit bro, the kid did not speak for the first 3 hours we played. In the end he came out of his shell a bit (funny it was when Dad was not around) and did fairly well.

I did terrible mostly since I was tutoring everyone else the entire game long. A game that averages 2-3 hours pushed into the 4+ hour mark and by the time it was done, I was spent. No third game for me, I am taking my toys and going home!