PicniCon is Dan & Viv’s annual gathering, a weekend of good games, good friends, and good food!
We are in Somerville, the Gaming Nexus, a short walk from the Magoun T Station on the Green line, 5 Glenwood Road, near many bus lines from Sullivan Station and Davis Square, and near the Community Path. As usual, we will be getting a weekend-long party permit from the city for those who are vehicular, though it might be a longer walk given the number of on-street cars usually out.
Doors open Friday, July 3rd, noon and run through Sunday, July 5th, 6pm.
People who have received an invite. If, for some reason, the internet brought you to this place, feel free to email me, but invites are explicit.
We really would like RSVPs. You don’t need to say when you’re showing up, but we want to know everyone who is planning on coming.
We love getting new folks, but want to know who they are beforehand! So, if you want to bring folks who have not received this, please ask us directly at anu3bis@gmail.com.
Every attendee must be fully immunized for COVID.
If you're notably sick or have been exposed, please stay home and rest up, even if it's not Covid.
Please take a rapid test day-of before attending. If this is financially inconvenient, let us know and we can reimburse you.
All attendees will be required to sign-in. If, heaven forfend, there’s a problem, we want to be able to provide contact tracing.
Please wash your hands with the sanitizer by the door.
Masks are not required, but if someone is wearing a mask, don’t give them any grief over it. Weather permitting, we can also have outdoor space.
Food! PicniCon as Pot Luck is one of the best parts of the event, so make, bring, or help out on grocery runs, and we’ll be well-supplied for the weekend. I (Daniel) will provide many, many buffalo wings Friday evening, as is traditional, and Viv makes a plethora of wonderful vegan & gluten-free options. A note on alcohol: you are welcome to bring it. but we reserve the right to collect keys and/or cut folks off if necessary. And we’ll provide cards for labeling food for allergies.
Everyone should come prepared to play and/or run a game, bring board games, or do something to make it fun for everyone - unlike many gaming conventions, this is a group-participation event, so don't hesitate to join in and plan some events! They'll be lots of willing people to help.
Discord! For organizing things! https://discord.gg/q35yhSm85w
This is a group-participation event, so come prepared to play and/or run a game or do something to make it fun for everyone, and folks are more than willing to help. If you want to get something on the schedule, please use the discord.
Allergies: There are two cats, Minerva and Neville, who will grace us with their presence as they choose.
Kids of All Ages: Welcome! Many of our games suit different ages, and feel free to bring ones your kids like.
Games: Bring some games, but not all your games. Check here first to see if we’ve got it.
Just drop me an email and any difficulties can be overcome.
BostonGamers, was, at its peak, an 800+ person Yahoo Group designed to help gamemasters find players and players find games. Now this whole wide acceptance of the internet thing has made it largely obsolete, but we retain the event, the name, and the history.
PicniCon I: at John & Johanna Hubal's house in 1999, featuring Viv's Blue Planet game, my It Came From the Late Late Late Show, Ars Magica, D&D, Boot Hill, Jason's In Nomine game, and our first run of Encore.
PicniCon II:
PicniCon III:
PicniCon IV: The Journey to Andover [moved to Greg Johnson's house]
PicniCon V: [moved to Mystery House in Malden]
PicniCon VI: The Rediscovered Country (well, suburbs. Andover, really) [back to Greg Johnson's house]
PicniCon VII: The Journey Home - (Ok, strictly speaking, it should have been "Generations" or "Gyrations" or something like that, but it's the first one we held at our house, so dammit, we whipped around the sun, and it's "The Journey Home". Moved to the Lions' Den, where is has been ever since.)
PicniCon VIII: No Battle Plan Survives "First Contact"
PicniCon IX: Definitive Directions
PicniCon X: Xylophone!
PicniCon XI: Reboot!
PicniCon XII: Monkeys!
PicniCon XIII: Bar-Mitzvah of Fire!
PicniCon XIV: We ran out of movies, so we kinda need a whole new naming structure. Fourteen. Yep. Let's go with that.
PicniCon XV: Into Dorkness
PicniCon XVI: OMG Our Con Can Drive!
PIcniCon XVII: Our Event Can Now See R-rated Movies
PicniCon XVIII: Our Little Con Is An Adult...
PicniCon XIX: Go!
PicniCon d20
PicniCon XXI: The World
PicniCon XXII: Virtuous Reality
All online, due to the Pandemic.
PicniCon XXIII: 20 Minutes into the future
PicniCon XXIV: Tesseract
PicniCon XXIV.28219 Temporal Anomaly - As you may recall, Tyler & Karyn were unable to attend this year’s PicniCon due to COVID. For his birthday, the Powers That Be have combined a Cosmic Encounter Timegash, a Talisman Temporal Warp, and whatever day that is between Tuesday and Wednesday that we keep forgetting. As the time-space continuum was already damaged by the previous delay, it appears to have spawned ANOTHER PICNICON!
PicniCon XXV: The Sum of Prior Odd Things (2023)
I find my inspiration for the PicniCon titles in strange ways, and rarely do they strike me so perfectly as this. 25 is the sum of the five consecutive single-digit odd natural numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9. And PicniCon is the sum of all the odd things that have happened before.
PicniCon XXVI: Iron Marathon Z!
Sometimes finding the PicniCon subtitle is difficult, and sometimes they just jump out at you. 26 is much easier than 25. Element 26 is Iron, there are 26 miles in a marathon, it’s the last letter of the standard United States non-illuminated Alphabet. Add it together and it becomes a 90’s Anime title.
A montage of numbers floats across the screen...
The pinball machine rolling over from 1,000 pts back to zero
An odometer hitting 99,999 just before all the registers shift
Your copy of Balatro jumps from scientific notation to Not-A-Number.
We’ve hit 26 PicniCons duly counted by Roman Numerals, and we’re rolling over to LETTERS.
PicniCon A: Animals!
It’s been a YEAR. And it’s been another year pretty much every week. So, with the theme of Animals, we’re aiming for a Cozy Vibe. Less of the Illuminati & the Paranoia, more of the Creature Comforts and Kodama. Bring the things that make you feel cozy. Wear your Footie Pajamas, Kigurumi [2], or slippers if you like. Bring your favorite comfort foods. Play games you know and love.
PicniCon B: Bed & Breakfast & Books
At PicniCon A, I was inspired when Carolyn brought over by Bring Your Own Book & Esther brought Publish or Perish to make PicnoCon B about books. But then I got hit by the inspiration stick again, this time wielded by Allie. Allie brought over Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast and it was the coziest, easiest to pick up, best story-making game I’d played in ages. I bought the PDF, printed it out, and I’ve now run it at (almost) every con I’ve been to this year. One of the lovely elements is that each run often has different players, is episodic, but adds to the overall story and unlocks new characters and events with each telling. Between Allie and myself, I plan on playing and running YB&B a bunch, and would love for folks to add to the story. (Which also still makes it all about Books)
Bring your book-based games, your game-based books, your book-based books, and books you’d like everyone to read!