Ropecon, the largest non-profit roleplaying convention in Europe, was this weekend. I went there, again, as it’s part of my standard yearly con circuit, but this time I took my seven-year-old son with me. That meant less board games, but more other programme and a new view on things. It was fun!

The highlight for us was the boffer sword workshop. I built a pair of swords for us. It’s almost 20 years since I last did that! My son took into that, and has been running around with the sword the whole day. Also, any guests at our place can now expect a solid beating with a boffer sword.

We did play some board games. I figured out that Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring: The Deck-building Game fits in an Ultra Pro double deck box with some pruning (leave enough Courage and Despair for three players, toss some Valor and Corruption – those never run out anyway). So, we played some of that. We also played iPad Carcassonne and Kingdom Builder together to pass the time. That’s very space-effective board gaming, and a really good way to use the iPad.

We got to try some new games. I introduced my son to Can’t Stop. I’ve played this one online, but only now figured out the actual rules. Fun game. Suggest for me.

Callisto is Knizia’s take on Blokus, but I think it’s inferior to Blokus in most ways. Too bad. Indifferent

Monza is a fun little HABA game that’s utterly trivial luck-fest for adults, but I think there’s some actual challenge for kids in the right development phase, and the game teaches good thinking. Indifferent