[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n Friday, October 24 I stepped with some trepidation into the nearly empty Ballsbridge Hotel ballroom on the first evening of Gaelcon 2014. As I was later informed, the convention was expected to pick up properly on the following day, when from 11am to 2am the gathered gamers would be trading cards, rolling dice, and donning costumes in preparation for the festivities to come. At this moment, however, there were just a couple of stalls, a handful of people playing board games, and the general bustle of volunteers rushing about in preparation for the proper kick off on Saturday morning. More than 500 people were expected to arrive for a long weekend of traditional gaming.

“Traditional games” are defined as RPGs, LARPs, board games and card games. Role Playing Games, or RPGs, focus less on intricate rules and objectives and more on the inhabiting of a character. Players sit around a table and are guided through a story by a Gamemaster. Live Action Role Playing games, or LARPs, follow the same idea but take it one step further: players move around and interact with each other to complete objectives as though they are their assigned characters. What all of these games hold in common is an emphasis on direct interaction between players, zero use of computers or other electronics, and, usually, quite a large number of dice. Inside the Gaelcon walls, epic fantasies, ferocious battles, and unique stories were to play out using simple tools: plastic pieces, collectible cards, and pen and paper. It all initially appeared quite underwhelming; I couldn’t see the appeal that was to drive half a thousand people from across the country to this hotel. It required a level of commitment to the fantasy that I didn’t have, or at least had never experienced. I signed up to a series of games over the course of the next three days; if I had the capacity to understand, experience, and enjoy what all these people had come here to celebrate, I would do my utmost to find it.

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Saturday began with my first ever LARP. Costumes were not mandatory, but encouraged. As things got started, I was handed an extensive background sheet on my character and the history and lore of the world. I was also given a stat sheet, a list of objectives, and a handful of multi-coloured gems which I was told would be vital later on. I was immediately and undeniably out of my depth. Wandering around the LARP area, I tried my best to get into character, talk to other characters, and complete some of my objectives. It was a bizarre social situation; any basic fear I had of making a fool of myself became somewhat irrelevant — we had all passed a point of no return in that regard — but I was still worried that I’d embarrass myself as a total n00b. I had no idea what a faux pas was in this situation, when it was and wasn’t cool to break character, and I still didn’t really get what the gems were about. Around me, grand battles took place, two characters were controversially killed off, and another was resurrected from a previous LARP, all of which seemed very important based on the reactions of those around me. This particular LARP, in its 13th episode, mightn’t have been the best choice. I couldn’t be expected to care or enjoy myself as much as the people who had spent two years following its development, but I was still disheartened by how impenetrable the whole thing seemed. Whatever the great attraction to these games was, I hadn’t caught the bug.

The convention had filled up since the “setting up” day. People were mingling, checking out the stalls, and, most of all, gaming. “Games conventions are by their very nature about participation in the activity,” said Oisin, Gaelcon’s convention director. “Games only work when you’re playing them, and that pretty much demands having a bunch of people sitting around a table with you, some of whom you might know well and some of whom you might not. It is a highly sociable activity. It’s not like computer gaming, where the multiplayer is distant, separated. In this case you have to be interacting with people, back and forth.” It was encouraging to see so many people, many of whom were complete strangers, interacting, playing, and inventing stories with one another. I wondered how often people with this niche interest were able to share experiences like this. “A big part about the gaming community is that there is a community,” Oisin told me. “A lot of the same people are involved in multiple conventions. Most are run by a college society, but there are a couple of independent ones, Gaelcon being the biggest. We occasionally have good-humoured arguments with the guys from UCC over which is bigger, Gaelcon or Warpcon. Gaelcon tends to be more about gaming, whereas Warpcon is more of a social occasion for people; every con has its specialty.” I was surprised by the large range in ages, from small children to middle aged adults. “I’ve only been here since 2003 and it’s been going since 1989, but even in the 12 Gaelcons I’ve been to it’s evolved over time,” said Oisin. “When I started it was almost exclusively college students, but now there are a lot more families with their kids, as people have grown up.”

I was heavily advised to attend the following day’s charity auction. “The Gaelcon Charity Auction has something of an international reputation as a madhouse,” Oisin explained. “It’s raised, over the last 20 years or so, somewhere in the region of €300,000. It’s an institution; it’s a big part of the gaming calendar.” There was an unmistakable buzz in the air. Things started slow, with a couple of bids in the 100-300 category, but over the course of the auction’s four plus hours things steadily escalated. People started battling in huge amounts over the smallest items. Several bids broke the four-figure mark, including one bid over what style two of the volunteers would shave their beards in. All the while, as these ludicrously rising figures were being thrown around, people were laughing hysterically. “The bids that are thrown around are people essentially making donations to charity,” Oisin explained. “They tend to be quite high because spirits tend to get a little excited over the cons and people get really into it.” It was strange witnessing it all unfold as an outsider. This was just one part of an event that some attendees had been waiting all year for, that they were donating massive amounts of money because of.

I spent my final day just gaming. As the wargame room was getting cleared out, and the merchandise stalls were shutting up, I tried one last time to embrace the convention atmosphere that all these attendees were so enamoured with. Sitting down in a room of complete strangers, I took on a new name, read up on my backstory, picked up my dice, and rolled.

Illustration by Clara Murray.