CanCon Awaits

A hush is in the sodden Canberra air.  Within the flatulently overblown Parliament House the nation's political representatives pause in their exercise of democracy and, very briefly, take their fists out of each other's throats.  Out on the streets the beggars and derelicts that decorate every corner of the capital's road network cease their whining for change and sniff the air with bleary expectancy.  Mothers hustle children off the streets and the rats and magpies cower in fear.  Yes CanCon is with us once again and once again Canberra's streets echo to the slap, slap, slap of thighs rubbing together as people unused to walking (or indeed appearing in daylight) make their way to the Exhibition Park in Canberra for the nation's (or at least Canberra's) largest gaming convention.

And once again a bunch of paunchy, badly dressed, middle aged men are striding with them revelling in the pleasure of for once being the fittest and best dressed people in the room.  But first the rules; alcohol was banned.  You couldn't buy it nor could you bring it.  CanCon would be an alcohol free zone, hastily I checked to make sure my supply of oxycontin was adequate.  Apparently this was to make sure there would be no repeats of the degenerate orgies or drunken knife fights that had marred absolutely none of the previous CanCons.  Another, somewhat more understandable rule was the rather desperate plea of the organisers that those attending wear deodorant.  More concerning than the rule itself was the plaintive and defeated way in which the rule was worded.  It was as if the organisers already knew that this one was beyond their ability to enforce.

Having attended CanCon several times I am fully supportive of this initiative but it do find it a little disturbing that the organisers of a gaming convention have to attempt to instruct their guests on how to behave like (or at least imitate) functional human beings.  After that there were the dress regulations to ensure that men don't wear offensive t-shirts and women don't spill over the top of their clothing.  As in past years spilling over your belt buckle is perfectly acceptable.  At least this is what I assume the rules were for.  They can't possibly have been hoping that everybody would turn up in "smart casual" attire for a gaming convention.  For most of us smart casual means "clean".  And clean means "the stains are more or less the same colour as the fabric".  I wondered why everybody avoided me when I wore a red shirt.

Upstairs and to the left those of us who play ASL and those of us who play Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons were allocated a room to ourselves.  That is people who needed to concentrate on an intensely intellectual game (I'm talking about ASL not Pathfinder) were put in the same room as a bunch of people whose idea of game play consisted of shouting at each other.  Nevertheless all was concluded without too many casualties on either side.  We hauled our gear up the stairs and after a brief pause while we regained our breath and oxygen was supplied to those who needed it we commenced gaming.  The organisers had really done us proud.  We actually had air conditioning, this in addition to an insistence on deodorant and a ban on alcohol and inappropriate clothing!  I can't help thinking that this was all done so that we could present our best face to the attendees of the monster truck rally that was happening next door.