Field Report: Vienna Fantasy-Con 2026

Fantasy-Con is the annual convention of Fantasy-Schmiede (Fantasy Forge) another Vienna based hobby organisation - this one with a more general focus that includes a lot of authors and artists as well as LARPs and TTRPGs. The 2026 con was on the last weekend of April and I trotted over to have a look.

Arriving and getting a ticket on the door was easy - I threw in a neat sticker for myself. It was already pretty active when I got there in the morning and got busier as time went on, never getting overcrowded, just nicely busy.

First Impressions

I think the venue is a dedicated exhibition space - there was a main atrium with a bar, a hall with a stage to one side that had all the artists and authors, and two rooms to the other side that had the various games groups - the usual suspects of Paradice and Athenaes Siegel and some others I had not seen before - the striking new one for me was PopCircle Austria - who are running "D & Dinner" evenings at a restaurant.

The poster itself speaks to the priorities - Books & Authors first, Collecting and Culture second and then Boardgames, Roleplaying Games & LARPs - which broadly maps to the space assigned - the big hall for the artists and authors, the entry atrium for the 'people' clubs and the two side rooms for the gaming groups who need space to spread out. Noone was cramped, everyone had plenty of table space. This was not a con with scheduled game sessions - you found those out from the individual booths and groups and pieced together your own schedule.

There were also a good few streamers and podcasters - both talking shops and actual plays - and a schedule of talks and workshops, including a kids corner with magic shows and the like.

For me, after cruising the whole location to see what was going on, I had a good chat with the Paradice gang, poked about the artists alley, noted all the books, bought some stickers. I was a little surprised again at the lack of anyone to sell me some RPG books - plenty of opportunity to commission character art or get various player-side merch but noone (I saw) selling books. A copy of Imperium Maledictum appearing in front of me would have been a very easy sell but never mind.

I ended up spending a good chunk of my time over coffee and cupcakes with another of the DM Supergroup, mostly talking video games in this instance and turn-based ones suitable for frequently interrupted play sessions. Come to think of it the catering was a little microcosm of the whole - one kind of really good cupcake.

Closing Thoughts

What I find interesting about Fantasy-Con is the cross-section of people pulled together by it - what the priorities of the local community are, I guess. I come from a TTRPG convention culture (back in Ireland) built around university games societies with many smaller ones which are focussed on the trinity of CCGs, Wargames and TTRPG/LARP. Those were specialised and the audience was niche. Here in Austria, the organisations that hold cons seem to be a much broader church with TTRPGs appearing at the side of more mainstream events - books and artists having a much greater presence.

Apparently all this was sponsored by Chaosium which was neat but also odd that there did not seem to be stuff on sale.

I was pretty time constrained this year but for next I might try to get more organised and try and get in on some of the games Paradice or others might be running. Certainly the whole place was buzzy, lots of folk, costumes, people in good cheer, things going on. I might not travel to Vienna for it if I was not nearby but I would certainly say it is worth stopping by if you were in town the weekend it is on.

Actual Play: converting work colleagues to the cause

I was geas'ed to run D&D for one of my colleagues. They ambushed me at the office Christmas party and asked could I do it. This was a fair bit into the party so I filed it away as 'reconfirm later' - and when I was heading back to London I did check and lo, they were actually interested. I rounded up a few of the folk I *had* actually previously discussed D&D with, the geas-er roping in one of their pals too for a table of four.

I was honestly shocked at this level of interest among... ordinary folk? I mean, never mind the fact that I cosplay high corporate every day, I am still surprised that people have heard of it and are interested enough to try. These are folk who had not played Baldurs Gate 3, not seen the D&D movie, nor Stranger Things. The closest they had as a reference was some episode of Community (which I had never seen).

So with a certain sense of responsibility, I decided to book the Arcanists Tavern for some initial wow factor. Billed as "London's first immersive tabletop gaming cafe" near Hoxton, I have been in and run games there before but this was the first time I went full hog, booked a booth etc.

Facilities in general were great, booth big enough for the table, benches for the players and a seat for me all closed off with a curtain. We could tell the other tables were there but noise levels were better than a busy night at my usual Friday night venue. The tables were cool with baize pits in the center for all the dice rolling which kept things from getting lost. We got food and drink there, tasty toasties and a few beers - fairly abstemious compared to a typical work night out truth be told, practically a visit to the gym. Cost is value for what you get, I will be using it again.

Setup for the session

I generated a set of character from Fast Character - mostly because it is quick and easy button mashing and gets you most of what you need. Very good for martials or partial casters, not great for casters because it just names the spells, no info or stats, but it was good enough to get started.

I decided I was going to run a 'Splinters of Hope' session - planar scavenger hunt for wood from a now-dead world to save dying elves - and start in medias-re to really get things going.

I cooked up the session up as a classic 'quest' - sneak into a place, get a thing. Recycled setting by having the objective be set on the edge of my Hexcrawl25 map, so I knew all the factions, background activity and just used that. Decided to drop in 'thinky' challenges more than raw combat crunch. Threw in some good old Goblinpunch non-Euclidean weirdness. Decide it would be full of skeletons on 'automated rotas' so they could potentially sneak through them all if they figured that out.

Talked through all this to a transcription app while doing laundry then grabbed an envelope and blocked out the session linearly which became my session sheet.

Session Report: The Templars Villa

Field Report: Vienna Fantasy Gaming & Roleplay Con 2026

I was recently at the Vienna Fantasy Gaming & Roleplay Con - spritual successor to what used to be known as 'Harry-con'. I did not have vast amounts of time alas so wandered over mostly to check it out and as a flag-flying exercise.

In brief; got my ticket, went in, took a walk around, nearly walked into a mirror, came back out, talked to the Paradice crew, had a chat with some of the DM Supergroup, did a bit more of a circuit, realized there wasn't anything I wanted to buy, propped up the bar for a bit, chatted to the Supergroup folk again, more people collected and then had a good long chat before I took my leave and headed home.

For background, Harry-con was the long-running annual convention pulled together by the now-retired owner of a very popular and lamented games store in Vienna that seemed to be mostly built around 'Harry summons everyone he knows, which is everyone in any way connected to the gaming space locally'. You used to get your ticket by buying one of these dice to show at the door:

This new iteration of the convention is the continuity con, the torch having been passed on amicably and taken up by others of the local gaming community - officially InCharacter Rollenspielverein Österreich and Ariochs Erben - both 'vereins' which are Austrian hobby-societies - and with sponsorship by Thalia (big local book chain) and Siren Games (Friendly Local Game Store).

On theme with the tradition of odd tickets for this event we got the above laser cut balsa tickets which they snapped on the door to put your stub into a draw.

First impressions

It was a pretty well run, well crewed con with the air of a long-running thing that seemed to be operating in a too-small venue. The actual venue was a dance school where the big wall mirror made me think it was twice as big - and it could easily have been so. I remember the last Harry-con being significantly larger with a lot more vendors and stuff and I think they could easily size up again for next year. I saw a lot of crew, on door and marshalling folk through a packed roster of events - it all seemed to be running smoothly so probably the right amount of folk.

There were a ton of things going on - lots of games on the upstairs mezzanine, a bar with snacks, a corner with talks, a display stand on 3D printing from the local technical museum, a stand, mostly boardgames from the big sponsoring bookstore chain and a bunch of stalls covering all sorts of things in the boardgaming, wargaming, LARPing and TTRPGs space - as well as an artists alley type section.

I personally came to eyeball the place and hopefully snaffle some odd old RPG books but those vendors were not here this time; there seemed to be a lot for you if you were into boardgames, some stuff for wargames and LARPs and then the TTRPG presence were stands for local games societies (Paradice, Athenaes Siegel) rather than vendors. I think better for the local community that we were talking connection and how to find games rather than flogging stuff but certainly potential to do both where space allows.

Activities

The con program was absolutely packed - multiple concurrent things which left me with the impression of lots crammed into the space. There were talks running from a beach-blanket sized stage in the corner, continuously through the day on topics from costume making to aging props to storytelling.

There were two rounds of five tables upstairs - three run by the Paradice crew, two by Athenaes Siegel. The slots were 1100-1300 and 1300-1600/1700 - two 5e tables for each slot run by Athenaes Siegel and a mix of things run by Paradice - For the Queen, Lady Blackbird and 5e in the morning, Root RPG, Blades in the Dark and 5.5e in the afternoon. Not huge amounts of capacity but a good variety.

On just being present at conventions

I had a bit of a moment of personal enlightment too - having zipped around on a first pass, and run out of concrete ideas since I did not have time to get stuck into games nor were there mysterious books stacks to browse, I might ordinarily have just kept moving and trotted on out and home again - things to do, right?

Instead I decided to just park myself at the cafe-bar, have a coffee and crowd-watch to see was I missing anything. That proved to be a great idea - rather than me running around trying to find folk, where I stood still I became a marker for others. First one of the Supergroup who was running coffees and refreshments to the DMs upstairs, then others who saw us, then Paradice folk who knew them but not me - it was a good daisy-chain effect that got me talking to a few folk I had not met before. Got a very interesting run down of a long Worlds Without Number campaign which was fascinating as I always like to hear how these systems change under dozens of sessions of play.

In short, in the absence of a better idea, lurk visibly, see who comes to you. Let yourself be the person other people find.

Looking forward to 2027

I had a brief chat with some of the sponsors much later and they did acknowledge that the venue was smaller than they had ideally wanted. I think a great problem to have - the handover has been successful, the continuity concept proven and they can confidently expand next year.

I feel they could easily fit in more vendors, a chunk more artists alley and throw in some more tables for people to play the games they buy. There were not even any card games or wargames presence either. I would be interested to know if the big technical museum showcase earned its place - it was pretty nifty but ate a lot of scarce floorspace.

For those of you outside of Vienna, there are a couple of other chunky cons that happen every year which have some TTRPG presence, the most relevent of which is 'Spielefest' which is a colossus mostly built around boardgames that typically has ~ two dozen rpg tables running in a niche at one side. We know the demand is present in the city.

All told, I'm glad I went and that it is looking lively. I am glad Harry seems to have passed off the torch and I hope it all prospers. Looking forward to 2027.

Field Report: Serious Business

I dropped into Serious Business in Sligo over the holidays. I try to stop in each time I pass - support your local business, etc. It is becoming a tradition now that every time I hit town someone tells me about how they found this really great place - Serious Business - and they think I would like it.

First the place - it does board games, card games, war games, has playspace for rent upstairs and downstairs has a big TV and slew of video consoles you can rent by the hour. There is a branch of the Pathfinder Society, apparently one of the writers for Pathfinder is local. They do paid DM-ing with a bunch of campaigns ongoing. It seems to be a classic 'bit of everything' Friendly Local Games Store in the finest tradition.

So far, all to the good - I usually find something interesting in there when I stop by. This time around was funny because a cousin mentioned that their husband had gotten back into Warhammer and was finding great stuff there.

Field Report: The Arcanists Tavern

Stopped into the Arcanist's Tavern in near Hoxton in London. Billed as "London's first immersive tabletop gaming cafe" I found out about it through Wyrd Science #6 and since I was in London for work I thought to check it out. I caught up with an old gamer pal for a couple of drinks - both of us, ridiculously travel shocked so we weren't exactly up for taking full advantage of the facilities, but it was more of a recon for like, what is this place? The premise sounds awesome but how is it actually?

The place has an upstairs bar/cafe/board-gaming space, the downstairs is the wargaming/TTRPG space. On this occassion we mostly sat upstairs, admiring the giant wall of games and acknowledging that if we were less shattered there were many things we would have gone for. I also had a pint of the tastiest stour I have had in ages, really nice. Overall the place was busy while we were there on a random Wednesday, there seemed to be two shifts of folk in, an early evening bunch and a later bunch and when we packed it in at ten there were still folk chucking dice about in full flow. Vibe was very chill and relaxed, lots of folk running games, including what looked like another TTRPG session running in the upstairs space. A strong 'dark wood walls with weird things mounted on it' vibe wich is just what you want. Lots of nooks about the place for quieter games if you wanted too.

They have a fairly large table space in the upstairs that you take games out of the giant board games library. There's a bar with a couple of available drinks, a selection of pizza's, toasties and nibbles to eat - good to get you through your session. The board games library was a giant wall of games with a great selection of stuff in it. There were some properly chunky ones in there - bless the optimism of someone who's going to pull Twilight Imperium down off of board games library and get stuck in - that game is a full working day worth of play! Plenty of other good ones there too.

Off on the other side you could buy TTRPG stuff - I was very amused to see that there was a copy of Where the Wheat Grows Tall on their little sort of side shelf of indie games. That was cool.

The downstairs has a ton of space for playing war games. Lots of big tables, good space around them in there. There were also six kind of booths for RPGs that each had a private dining niche sized space - imagine that double depth, double width of a family dining table. Not a huge amount of space around the sides, enough to get in and out, but maximised for table-top space. Heavy theatre-curtains close off the front and that would be your space.

There are some fairly significant add ons and widgets like screen-in-table that intrigue me - I would be interested to try out this hardware-heavy mode of play with digital maps and all the good elements of digital gaming there on the table. My standard playing away from home model is pretty light, meeples-and-scribbled maps, it would be fun to test out.

Not super cheap but looked like decent value for the effort gone into it. I think next time I'm back I'll be trying to pull together a table and try it out for real.

I like that this space exists, in fairness in the big bad city of London you can find anything, but I like that this particular little niche is well served, long may it last.