This was my second consecutive year of attendance at CharCon, a small tabletop gaming convention held in Charleston, WV. My 2024 report is here, and most of my observations about the venue, vendors, and surrounding area remain applicable for 2025.

As noted last year, the venue is shared with a science center. Some clever individual in the con staff made the decision to put the cosplay tables (and photo backdrops) right at the main entrance so all the kids (and their parents) coming to the science center could encounter the cosplayers as soon as they hit the doors. Bonus points to the Twi’lek X-Wing pilot and whoever brought the life-size remote-controlled R2-D2.

Gaming

Once again, CharCon delivered a good variety of TTRPGs. It’s a breath of fresh air from the interminable organized play offerings that have dominated con gaming tracks for a number of years now. I will note that a number of locals also attended Origins, and they apparently delayed getting their events submitted until after that con.

CharCon uses tabletop.events to allow preregistered attendees to register for game slots ahead of time. This is good for those of us who preregister, but it can mean tables are filled before late-registering folks or spontaneous attendees can get into them (as happened to one of our friends this year). As a mitigating factor, though, I will say that a number of the GMs expressed willingness to make space for walk-ups if at all possible.

Shadowdark

I got hooked on Shadowdark at this year’s RiverCityCon and promptly began running an irregular West Marches-style campaign for the Louisville Gaming Mafia. However, I haven’t actually gotten to play since that introduction in January, so when I saw a slot on the schedule for Friday afternoon, The Girl and I jumped on it.

This was a Shadowdark adaptation of the Dungeon Crawl Classics module Sailors on the Starless Sea. We wound up with a classic 1st-level party of cleric (me), wizard (The Girl), fighter, and thief. GM John did a fantastic job with pacing, narration, and GM judgement. We came as close to a TPK as I’ve ever seen in a session I’ve played, with both casters downed and bleeding out before the intervention of an allied NPC. We recovered, dropped the BBEG with mathematical precision, and narrowly escaped the dungeon.

The Girl’s wizard conclusively demonstrated just how powerful the sleep spell can be in Shadowdark. Area-of-effect crowd control without a saving throw was arguably the session MVP.

Savage Worlds: East Texas University

Friday night saw me, The Girl, and Evil Twin Sister back at John’s table for a Savage Worlds session. This one used Pinnacle’s East Texas University setting, which I can best describe as Southern Fried Buffy. All five PCs were college freshmen dragged into a scavenger hunt (spoilers at link) for items with which to set right a magic ritual gone sideways.

Savage Worlds is not a system that I seek out for running anything of my own, but for quick play and convention one-shots, it really sings.

Appalachia Project

The Girl, Evil Twin Sister, and I went into this session expecting something maybe akin to an Old Gods of Appalachia knock-off. What we got was a very lightweight Appalachian-stereotype-flavored hack of D&D 5e run by extremely energetic GM Ramsey, founder of Game Grove. He explained that Appalachia Project was his attempt to make D&D accessible to total novice players by removing as many mechanical barriers to entry as possible.

I was never entirely sure if this was supposed to be Appalachian Gothic horror or slapstick. It seesawed back and forth between the two. Perhaps my pre-gen PC, Cleetus the paladin (with a raccoon animal companion), should have given me an earlier feel for the intended tone.

Of the four RPG sessions I got in this weekend, this was decidedly the least in line with my personal preferences. The table made the experience good, but it’s not something I’ll seek out at future cons.

Star Trek Adventures

I try to play at least one new system every con. For CharCon ’25, this was it. GM Kamen Rider Gumo (his tabletop.events handle) served up an excellent intro session that felt, both mechanically and narratively, like a classic Trek episode. Elder Brother was playing our first office and helmsman, I had the chief engineer, and two other players had the science officer and chief medical officer of the Miranda-class U.S.S. Luna. Our first contact situation rapidly spiraled into intervention in a solar system-wide cold war between two factions of aliens drawn from Appalachian cryptid lore, which we resolved through frothing, scenery-chewing gunboat diplomacy.

I hadn’t really looked closely at Star Trek Adventures before this, as it’s not something for which I have an immediate application. However, I came away with an extremely favorable impression. It certainly didn’t hurt that the character and ship sheets’ graphic design is classic Okudagram. I also greatly appreciate the momentum mechanic which builds a shared pool of extra successes on rolls, and the fact that the ship and her crew can augment PC rolls.

Surrounding Area

The con brought back the Sister Samurai hibachi food truck, Big Marv’s Cafe BBQ stand, and Dippin’ Dots booths for on-site food service this year. Our off-site food selections were a repeat of Sitar of India, Cafe Appalachia, and Pies and Pints, all of which were excellent.

The Girl and I also got into Taylor Books on Saturday morning and spent some time bemoaning the lack of quality local bookstores in our current area of residence. Taylor seems to be as much multi-faceted arts center as bookstore, as it has an attached gallery and art cinema. The actual book selection is well-curated, and we’ll likely stick our heads in there again next year.

Verdict

CharCon continues to impress. The con is well-run and inclusive, and it makes the most of the space available to it in its venue. We’ll be back next year.