Helga's Heroes: a History, Part II

Picking up right where I left off:

October 20, 2006 – Adam’s 30th birthday party, or as I like to call it, Helgacon 0.  In celebration of Adam’s 30th, Brenda invites all his friends up to a vacation house in Maine for the weekend to play RPGs, board games, etc.  While it’s very casual and we make some scheduling mistakes (I remember GMing the first game and discovering that I had all the other GMs in the game, leaving a few people high and dry), we all still have a great time.

August 20, 2007 – Returning from our fourth annual GenCon trip, I feel disappointed in the poor attendance Helga’s has had of late.  I realize that most folks in the group are more interested in RPGs than board games, but unfortunately our time format favors the latter.  I figure, how about having a big weekend event focused on RPGs instead.  Interest is actually pretty strong, even drawing Delta back from his exile in NY (as I like to think of it).

April 5, 2008 – HelgaCon I.  We all hang out for the weekend in RI playing games.  We have a great time, though we’re still working out the kinks in scheduling.  We spend all of Friday night just figuring out what to play.  This will be remedied in future by advance scheduling the games.  Delta runs Tomb of Horrors as a tribute to the recent passing of Gary Gygax (March 4, 2008).  This is likely the catalyst for the interest in Old School gaming that will sweep our little group.

May 8, 2010 – Our most recent Helga’s gathering at BJ’s, one month after HelgaCon III.  HelgaCon continues to grow, I think we were at 14 or 15 people this year.  The club has benefited from an influx of members from new job, which is also growing.  I think we had around 8-10 people show up to the last Helga’s, and I’m already letting myself fantasize about a return to the hey-day of 12-15.  We shall see.  In the meantime, GenCon is on the horizon, and there’s always HelgaCon IV.

Our little club has officially existed for almost 5 years now, though the core members have been playing games together for over 10.  I think it’s safe to say that while we may not become the next RPGA, we can at least expect many more years of gaming together, which sounds pretty good to me.