Gary Con 2025

Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. A serene midwestern town surrounded by dense forests, hospitable inhabitants and a lake that reflects the beauty of what lies beneath the surface of rural suburbia. On March 20th-23rd 2025, I embarked on a journey to this magical place to attend Gary Con. Gary Con is a Dungeons and Dragons convention located at the Grand Geneva Resort in WI. It is a gathering of tabletop gaming enthusiasts who not only go to play games but to honor the late founder of this beloved game, Gary Gygax. I had heard about how amazing this event was and wanted to experience it for myself.

My journey started flying from Orange County, CA to Chicago O’Hare Airport and then I took a very pricey Uber from the airport to my hotel in Lake Geneva. It was about a 1 hour and 15 minute drive. By the time my driver dropped me off even he was like “Finally” to which I thanked him profusely and tipped him well for the inconvenience of having to travel across state lines and back. My hotel was off-site about a 2 minute drive from the resort that the convention was at. This hotel didn’t have a shuttle so Ubering back and forth was a little bit of a hassle but do-able. The reason I didn’t get a rental car for this trip was because the weather kept saying possible snow and I’ve never driven in snow before and was travelling alone. It didn’t feel safe to test out those skills in a state I’ve never been to before. Thankfully, I spent most of my time at the convention.

Tower of Gygax Game

Thursday night, my plan was to go pick up my badge and scope stuff out. I wanted to learn where everything was located since this property was pretty big. I ended up getting pulled into a game by my Dungeon Master friend, Jay. He was running a Tower of Gygax game with like 8 people and I came over just to say hi and see what was happening until he pulled out a chair, handed me a character sheet and told me to sit down. Caught off guard I sit down and I’m like, “Wait, I don’t have my dice with me. I wasn’t planning on playing anything tonight.” The girl sitting next to me rations her set of pretty floral glass dice and pushes some of them over to me. She says, “You can borrow mine.” This was my very first impression of Gary Con: Kindness and inclusivity. Looking around, this table had men and women of different ages and experience levels. I had never played D&D at a table this large before but I instantly felt accepted. The Tower of Gygax game was basically your fight for survival as Jay throws a bunch of high ranking monsters at you to try and kill you. Everyone except myself and I think 1 other person survived with 1 hit point remaining. It was fun seeing the carnage play out and seeing people try to work together as a team to try not to die. I felt pretty good about surviving though, not gonna lie. I learned a valuable lesson that night which was, even if you don’t plan on playing D&D ALWAYS carry an emergency set of dice with you because you don’t know when a game will break out.

Friday morning, I got to play in an AD&D (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) game DM’d by Jay, which was cool because I got to meet some of the players I had been playing online with, in-person. Playing with us was Pathfinder creator, Erik Mona. We played for nearly 5 hours, so I won’t go into detail about the story. One of the memorable moments for me was when I turned into a giant spider and Erik started to roleplay with me. This was a big deal for me because I’m not the greatest roleplayer and am self conscious about my lack of skill in that area, so for me to let loose and just have fun with it felt very freeing. I was sitting there pretending like I was a spider in front of a table of 10 people watching me. I also have to thank him for saving my character because at one point I had negative hit points and he basically brought me back from the dead. The character I was playing was my very 1st AD&D character who had started to grow on me so I would’ve been so sad if she died. Although, getting killed at Gary Con would’ve been an iconic demise. Jay’s games are brutal and I love how high stakes they are.

Visiting The Weathered Dragon

After the game, I decided to go check out the vendor hall. I will admit, at first when I saw how small it was compared to other conventions I’d been to, I didn’t think there would be much to buy but boy was I wrong. The variety of vendors they had checked off every box in terms of what someone would be looking for. They had dice, journals, maps, rolling trays, game tables, roleplaying games, miniatures, clothing, plushies, dice bags, and so much more. I was in D&D heaven. I stopped by my friend’s booth at The Weathered Dragon to say hi and film some stuff with Mike and his crew working the booth. He sells custom gaming tables that are not only gorgeous statement pieces in a home but are functional. I purchased a wooden dice tray from them which I’m obsessed with. I also bought a Beholder mini plushie keychain from a vendor right after I told them “Don’t let me see the plushies” and then they showed me the keychains. They had bigger plushies, but I knew I wouldn’t have room in my suitcase for one. I barely had room for the wooden dice tray. I stopped by the Gaxx Worx booth because a comic book cover caught my eye only it wasn’t a comic book, it was an RPG. Heidi Gygax (daughter of Gary Gygax) was at the booth with her husband Erik and they were selling a game bundle of an RPG adventure they both created called Shadows Over Lake Geneva with an image of the Beast of Bray Road on the cover. There were 2 RPGs in this bundle, a custom dice set and a map of the town. I spoke to them a little bit while they explained the game to me. They were super nice. The bundle also came with a free tote bag and they loaded me up with a bunch of stickers, a magnet, and a recipe for apple pie. I was like, this is the most midwestern thing I’ve ever seen. I still have the apple pie recipe card. I also stopped by the Gary Con merch booth and bought a beanie with a D20 on it only instead of saying D20 it said “G20”.

Connecting Worlds Panel

After checking out the vendor hall, I attended the Connecting World’s panel run by Jay, Ed Greenwood and Anna B. Meyer. They talked about what they specialized in and a lot of topics regarding The Forgotten Realms. They opened the floor up to questions from attendees. It was highly educational for me because I’m still fairly new to this world. After the panel ended, I walked over to them and Jay asked, “Did you learn a lot?” and I looked over at Ed and went, “Oh yeah and I still have so much more to learn” and laughed. For anyone new to learning about D&D, it is a lot. The act of playing the game is easy to learn. It’s the history and the lore that takes time to learn. I was surrounded by so many legends at Gary Con, that I was learning on the spot who they were and why their contributions are important. I couldn’t think of a better place to learn about the game than at Gary Con IN the town D&D was created.

Later that night, I was invited to go to the after party that was happening in the VIP lounge. It was the Jason Charles Miller acoustic set. I had time to kill before then, so I found an open chair in the lobby, took a rest and just people watched. An older gentleman came over and asked to sit next to me. He had a dessert with him he was ready to dig into. We started talking and I told him this was my first Gary Con. I asked where he was from and he said he lived around there but he used to live in Ventura County in Los Angeles. I told him where I was from. He also said he was in the Navy for a while and was stationed down south. He said he comes to Gary Con every year. We spent most of the time talking about his daughter. I guess she also served in the military and she’s a big D&D fan as well. He was so proud of her for being a dungeon master and was telling me funny stories about some of the games she ran. He would start laughing in-between trying to tell me them. We sat there and talked for an hour. I thought I was going to be sitting alone bored out of my mind until he showed up. Time flew by fast. I felt like that experience also captured the magic of Gary Con which was, making connections with people you do not know and having wholesome interactions with them. Another lesson I learned was if there’s an empty seat next to someone, don’t be afraid to take it. The type of people who attend Gary Con are some of the most warm, friendly people you’ll ever meet. Even if you’re socially awkward like I am, don’t turn down the opportunity to talk to someone. At the end of our conversation, I asked if I could interview him that weekend since he shared so much about his life and connection with D&D and he said yes and gave me his number. Unfortunately, our schedules never aligned because we both had games, but I ended up texting him on the last day to thank him for sharing his story with me and that it was a pleasure meeting him.

Jason Charles Miller

That night at the Jason Charles Millar acoustic set, I met up with the same group of people I played with earlier at my 9am game. We hung out a little bit and listened to his set. Some of us got a little more tipsy than others which was hilarious. One of my friends started introducing me to random people in the room who were TTRPG influencers and I was too stone cold sober for that. Forced socialization is different from voluntarily socializing with people, but I appreciated that he went out of his way to help me meet people. The people I was introduced to were so kind and so sweet. I’m sorry we ambushed you. I had met Jason Charles Miller earlier in the year. He was at an LA Wildfire Relief event I was doing photography for and Game Master Jason Carl, creator of Vampire the Masquerade RPG introduced us at that event. I knew he wouldn’t remember me so I had my friend who was on a roll with these introductions bring me over to him. Jason was super nice and I told him I enjoyed his music. We talked about that event we were at in LA. After the party, I Uber’d back to my hotel.

Saturday morning, I set out to go film one of Jay’s games he was DMing with Ed Greenwood and the Two Drink Minimum crew. I didn’t stay for the full game, but I got maybe an hour’s worth of footage. At one point, it was so dark in that room that it was difficult to see the miniatures on the table. I got out my little portable LED light and hooked it up to a portable battery and was like, “You guys can borrow this. It should last at least a few hours plugged into this” and then myself and another player rigged it up to look like a standing light pole. I was like, hmm…maybe I should ask Jay if I can subclass as an artificer after this.

Two Drink Minimum Game with Ed Greenwood

Meeting Anjali Bhimani

After getting the footage I needed, I went back into the vendor hall. I had an autograph session with Anjali Bhimani. I brought my D&D journal that I was having people sign in. I wanted my 1st experience at Gary Con to be remembered by having both the people I played with sign in it but also everyone else who was in attendance that I met sign in it. Anjali was super nice. We took some fun photos. I was showing her my journal and showed her Seth Green’s elaborate drawing of his D&D character and she was like “Oh no, I’m not doing that” and I laughed. The way she said it was so funny. I was like girl, I didn't expect anybody to live up to that. I did not ask him to do that. She wrote a quote with her character name and signature. She was lovely.

Going back out into the lobby, I decided to grab a coffee from their Starbucks. While I was in line, I happened to glance over at a tall gentleman waiting off to the side for his beverage. I did a double-take because I was like, “Is that Vince Vaughn?” I looked at his face, then down at his badge where it stated his full name and then back up at him which is when he clocked me looking at him and took a few steps back. That’s cool he attends Gary Con not as a special guest but just as himself. It’s nice to see him living his best D&D life without people bugging him. Only weirdos like me staring at him. I just had to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. 

I found a place to sit out in the lobby and watched the cosplay contest. I liked that they had prizes for different experience levels. The attention to detail and the fact that a lot of these people had to fly on a plane with not just their regular wardrobe but cosplay outfit was impressive. Especially the person on stilts. I ended up turning in early from the convention. I had a horror RPG I was signed up to play on Sunday, but I was so socially exhausted that I wasn’t really in the mood to sit through a 4 hour game so I reached out to the organizer and told them to remove me so someone on the wait list could take my spot. I went back to my hotel and just relaxed. I read through my Shadows Over Lake Geneva RPG manuals and ordered food to the hotel.

The next morning, I decided to go explore the town a little more since all I had seen was the resort. I took an Uber to the Geneva Lake Museum which was a really cool place if you’ve never been. It was nice too because I was the only person in the museum which made it kind of spooky. The owners there were super nice. They let me take photos and wander around. From there, I walked down toward the lake. A storm was blowing in so there was a chill in the air and I knew my time outside would be limited before myself and my camera got rained on. I still had plenty of time to take some photos by the lake and pop into a few stores in the town. I realized after this trip that I enjoy doing things alone. You’re on nobody else’s schedule but your own and can have those moments of solace and meditation when you’re standing by a lake taking in its beauty just listening to the wind and waves lap against the shoreline. It’s very peaceful. 

Later that night,  I was invited to dinner with the group I had played D&D with on Friday and went to the acoustic set with. We ate at a Mexican restaurant in town. That was kind of our farewell dinner before we all went our separate ways back home.

Now, you would think that would be the end of my journey but not quite yet. The next day, I ordered an Uber very early in the morning to take me back to O’Hare Airport. A black Cadillac picked me up with a driver whose name was Darnell. I got in the car and he had on soul music. We mainly listened to what I’d describe as soul jazz because he would toggle back and forth between the two. He and I talked the entire ride to the airport about life, travel, places we wished we could go. He told me he was from Chicago and that his mom still lives in the city. I told him I was from California and he started asking me questions about mountains. It was the funniest thing to me but also made me realize how much I take for granted our scenery. He said he’s never seen mountains before. He was like, “How do cars drive through them? Do they go around them?” I was so excited to talk to someone about the landscape of my state. He also said he really wants to go to Disneyland because that’s where I said I lived. I told him I really wanted to visit downtown Chicago since I had been to the suburbs twice now but have never taken the train into the city. He immediately was like, if you go there make sure you avoid streets x, y, and z. They’re not safe. I told him that I enjoyed coming back to this state because of the people. I liked the vibe. The sunsets are also pretty. They’re not blocked by mountains. We eventually made it to the airport and he got out and helped me with my luggage. That ride felt like I was being taken to the airport by a family member. He was so warm and kind. I don’t know if you can request drivers, but if I’m ever in the area again and I need somebody to take me to downtown Chicago, I’m calling Darnell. I also hope he makes it to CA one day so he can experience the mountains and beaches.