#GenCon2024

Hi, friends and beans! For those of you who don't know me, my name is Haly, I am the Moonlight Bard, and the wheel of my year revolves around GenCon. Every year, I run events suited to my other interests: fiber arts (yarn dyeing), and board games.

Last year, two very good friends traveled all the way from Greece to attend GenCon. They had a busy schedule of meetings, and made the time for ONE event that was advertised as a world-building event. After the convention, they expressed to me how disappointed they were that it turned out to be just a sales pitch for the host's new book, and gave them no actual information about world-building. (Pro tip: free events at GenCon are ALWAYS sales pitches.)

After our conversation, when I reviewed the 2023 event catalog, I myself was shocked to see that there was no real world-building content! After all, this is the foundation of engaging board games, compelling table-top adventures, novels, comics, even our favorite songs. How could GenCon, a world-famous gaming convention fail to have something so critical to their audience?! I immediately decided to create a value-packed class dedicated entirely to world-building.

It took about 30 seconds of creative thinking to come up with the idea of making a world-building class based on a Tarot deck. This was based on last year's most popular GenCon shirt design: a Tarot card called "THE GAMER" and numbered MMXXIII. (I'm wearing it as I type this.) I have since invested about 200 hours of work in designing a 4-hour class, and it's accompanying workbook, from scratch (and Canva clipart). I have invested hundreds of dollars in supplies, including a copy of the Dungeons & Dragons Tarot Deck for each available ticket. (This is D&D's 50th anniversary, and we're all on the bandwagon!) I've even built in time for light "stars and wishes" feedback for anyone who wants it (everybody gets one, if they choose to use it)

This class is going to be incredible.

Remember right above where I said that it's D&D's 50th anniversary? Well, the demand for space for long-running events is higher than usual. Couple this with the lack of automatic space for world-building content (otherwise known as a content track), it has taken them an exceedingly long time to actually add my event to the catalog. For reference: the event catalog went live on May 8th, and ticket sales went live 2 weeks later; my other three events sold 75% of their tickets in the first hour of sales being live -- the traditional "opening day rush."

As I write this, GenCon is only 50 days away, and I have sold 0/25 available tickets. Because the class only went live in the event catalog today. TODAY!!!

Step 1: Help me spread the news!! Do you have friends, family, co-workers, or really anyone that you know who is going to GenCon AND interested in world-building? Or are they just interested in a cool new Tarot deck that was cleansed in the total umbra of the April 8th eclipse? Then tell them about my World-building Through the Tarot class at GenCon!

Step 2: On Saturday, June 22, I'm going to teach the World-building Through the Tarot class, LIVE on Twitch at 2:00 pm Eastern. So tune in, and give me feedback as I develop the instructor script for this class. Follow now and leave notifications ON so you don't miss it! (Unfortunately, you'll have to bring your own Tarot deck.)