This years Vindiecon was just had last weekend - this year I was purely a punter - got in played a game, chatted with pals, shopped the vendors, bailed. A very early start to the day by eldest had made it long already by the time I got in the door and I turned into a pumpkin and rolled home just as the second slot was starting up.
First impressions
This year felt like a solid evolution on last year - perhaps not "better" since the first one last year had a wonderful boutique vibe but bigger without losing the charm. There was a big vendors hall in the centre and a half dozen game rooms. The location was decent for public transport and opened right onto a little mall cluster with a supermarket which was very handy for snacks.
It was busy without being overcrowded, the vendors seemed to be doing a brisk trade but one could thread your way through the hall without pushing. There were always free chairs in the 'cafe' area whenever I looked so not overly packed.
Activities
I got there a touch early, got parked in the cafe along with the rest of the punters and saw a fair few known folk drift in - mostly other RPGVienna regulars - then we got pointed to our tables for the morning slot. I played
Potvory, which went well and I will right that up in more detail again. This was a game written by two of the folk helping run the con so we did not get them running it but it went well. Most of the folk sitting to the table had backed the kickstarter and come along to give it a live-fire try. Session went pretty well all told.
A pal ran a table of Spire - rerunning a session that had been part of a campaign a year or two back to great results. Another ran Out-gunned that was well received - all the feedback I heard from folk running and playing was positive. There were a ton of games available -
12 different games/systems in the morning, 10 in the afternoon - and a huge variety of stuff which was a great opportunity to try out that indie darling one may have heard about but had dithered on deciding to get or had trouble wrangling a table together for.
I took a poke around the vendors after -
Gazer Press and
Causa Creations got me to crack my walled for The Hidden Isle and Der Gazer Vol 1. I picked up some stickers from the artists too - successfully resisted the many other bits of RPG merch.
I was gratified to see some folk actually selling RPG books - we often get active games societies at conventions but nobody selling anything beyond a zine or two. The lamented loss of Planet Harry has left a gap not yet filled - neither of the two other shops that sell RPGs showed, one never does and the other typically only turns up at cons with boardgames. I recall Irish conventions of the 90s - or even the last Harry Con - where there would be general games stops with boxes of weird old books to browse through, but for some reason the thing I see these days are fancy dice, accessories, character art - so it was great to *also* see Gazer Press and Causa Creations, both locals, both bringing interesting stuff.
VindieCon 2027
I am looking forward to it already - if my sleep schedule has recovered sufficiently, I will be trying to run something next year, not sure what or what system yet, but something.
I like how Vindiecon is a focussed one - TTRPG forward and so concentrates most of my pals and contacts. There are lots of other big conventions across the year - Spielefest, Fantasy-Con, Fantasy-RPG-Con, ComicCon - many of whom will have some corner dedicated to TTRPGs or a stall with the energetic local games clubs - Paradice is almost certainly going to be wherever there are dice rolled in earnest - but the vibe at Vindiecon is the most reminiscent to me of the 90s-00s UK and Irish cons like the ones I used to run, and I like that 'here to game' vibe.
One other remarkable thing - it was free on the door which is fantastically generous. I think they could easily ask for a couple of euros in - the price of a take-out coffee at least - and most folk would not blink.
