PicniCon is BostonGamers'[1] annual gathering, a weekend of good games, good friends, and good food!
In the home of BostonGamers' benevolent Dictator, Vivian Abraham. We are in Somerville, the Gaming Nexus, reasonably close to the T. The address is 5 Glenwood Road, easily accessible by bus from Sullivan Station and Davis Square. We have some parking available, and arrange for plenty of Somerville party permits.
On or about the 4th of July weekend, every year
There's both crash space and facilities to cook and store food, so bring sleeping bags if you're crashing and either food to cook or money to order out or chip in for groceries. Viv and I will be cooking and others are welcome to join us. I (Daniel) will provide many, many buffalo wings Friday evening, as is traditional. A note on alcohol: you are welcome to bring it, we usually have a big game of Baron Munchausen one night which involves lots of drinking, but we reserve the right to collect keys and/or cut folks off if necessary.[3]
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.
* The traditional (and infamous) late-night Baron Munchausen game (tall tales in the grand manner),
* Circumstances willing, a grand game of Encore, the team singing and lyrics game.
If you want to run a scheduled game at PicniCon, please send me an email. [4]
We'll still have room for pickup games, but we want to put some games on the map first.
Allergies: There are three cats, Minerva, Luna, and Neville - they apparently do very well with crowds. Please notify me of any food allergies and/or restrictions, and we'll do our best to accommodate.
Kids of All Ages: Welcome! The kid plays and teaches Ticket To Ride, Innovation, Ingenious, Dominion, Tak, and anything he can get his hands on...and will want to play with you. Feel free to play or refuse. [5]
Games: Bring _some_ games, but not _all_ your games. Feel free to send me a list of the games you want to bring, and I'll coordinate to reduce the number of multiple copies. We already have these games.
Just drop me an email and any difficulties can be overcome.
[1] What is BostonGamers? Good question...we’re working on that. Just not very hard.
[2] Come early, and you'll get drafted to clean. Stay late, the same.
[3] If you bring Sambuca, you must take it back with you! We have too much from previous years. Did you know Sambuca can go bad? I know that now.
[4] Please include the name of the game, the number of players you want, the system, if you're using pre-generated characters or want people to bring them, how long you expect the game to run
[5] Proud sponsors of the Geek Parent Conspiracy
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.