My First Time Tabling at a Big Con

Slingin’ Games and Takin’ Names

Dec 17, 2024

We’re a couple weeks out from my first time tabling at PAX Unplugged. It was an inspiring, validating, and, most importantly, learning experience.

I’m still tired. But I have lessons to share so I soldier on.

Never Booth Alone

I had the incredible privilege of sharing booth space with the good folks at Turtlebun, along with Good Luck Press and A Wicked Workshop. I could not have asked for a better crew for my first time tabling. Turtlebun have been doing this for a number of years so they know all the little things to bring (cushioned flooring is essential). Sharing made the booth more cost-effective for everyone involved and allowed a first time seller like me to be at a con that I likely wouldn’t have been able to get approved for on my own.

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But most importantly, this meant that the booth was well staffed. No one had to be standing behind the table for 8 hours. At most, each of us worked 4 hour shifts, and at minimum there were always 4 people at the booth. It was easy to take breaks and keep our energy up so that the hours we were at the booth were that much more effective. So even if you are not sharing a booth with another company, make sure you have enough people working with you to keep everyone standing come Sunday.

Have An Easy Yes

These are those products at your booth that are two things:

Cheap
Quick to summarize

For me, this is without a doubt Something Is Wrong With The Chickens—a brochure game about chickens with the powers of eldritch horrors taking revenge against factory farmers (that’s the pitch!). It’s a $5 brochure-sized game. That combined with how quickly it is to explain makes it that impulse buy that gets people to stick by the booth and hear about the more complicated games.

Think about those small games that you can turn into the “easy yes”. Is there a digital-only game that you could print in a small and cheap format?

Get Cute With It!

This was a lesson I learned directly from watching Brian sell games. Sometimes you have to be cheesy and cute with your sales pitch!

My favorite thing Brian did actually came from how he would sell Birds Are Amazing from Turtlebun. This hilarious poster game would clearly have caught someone’s eye and Brian would simply say:

“You can stop looking. You’ve found the best game of the whole convention.”

It worked just about every time.

Which games grabbed your attention at this year’s PAX U?

Never Stop Learning

Throughout the weekend, I soaked up everything I could so that I could be sure to implement those tips and tricks the next time I table. I watched how Brian and my other boothmates made sales. I jotted down the best display supplies my more seasoned peers had set up. I watched what people responded to when hearing about a game—and more importantly, what made their eyes glaze over.

PAX Unplugged was a fantastic first con for me as a publisher and, with the lessons from it, the next one is bound to be even better.

See you on the floor!

— Elliot

3 Great Buys from PAX Unplugged

For Your Last-Minute Gifting Needs

TOKEN by Gabriel Robinson

Token is a two-player, one-shot, GM-less game described as “a tragic tale of longings, enticements, and fates entwined in the dark woods.” What drew me to this game was the unnerving and sorrowful-looking cover, and what kept me was the beautiful simplicity of its design. The game revolves around you and a friend playing a “seeker” and a “dweller,” two characters trying to find each other for different reasons while slowly uncovering a deep connection between them.

This translates, for me, into something like: What if, in the fairy tale, the knight trying to slay the dragon didn’t realize the dragon was his long-lost brother, cursed by a witch? The game wants to hurt you so good, and its writing, mechanics, and random tables ensure you leave the experience steeped in bittersweet, tragic pain. It brings a grounded perspective to age-old folktales and allows you to tell that story with all its nuances.

Token uses mechanics adapted from Jesse Roth’s Trophy, and all you need are a few d6s to play. The book is filled with random tables to enrich your story, and the character creation process guarantees the characters you create are both deeply intertwined and deeply sad. Will you find your fellow player and uncover how you’re secretly connected, or will the trials of the forest claim you before your fated meeting?

It’s an easy read and great for folks without a consistent gaming group who want a quick, pick-up-and-play experience for two. I can’t wait to play this game, and if you’ve already tried it, I’d love to hear how it went!

Arc by momatoes

I swung by the Exalted Funeral booth several times, and every single time, I couldn’t stop looking at the cover of Arc. The cover art is breathtaking, and holding the book feels like it’s whispering, “Buy me!” The game pitches itself with, “Play Arc if you want to slay the Apocalypse.” Ummmm, hell yeah I do, buster! Let me make those Horsemen regret ever crossing me!

Once you crack open the book, the artwork draws you in immediately. While the game has a bit more crunch to its rules, it operates on a simple d6 system for skill checks—players roll against a Threshold Number, with the GM assigning difficulty modifiers. Arc feels like your typical high-fantasy game, but with the urgency of narrative-driven systems like Alice is Missing or Rom Com Drama Bomb. You’re racing against a Doomsday Clock that will unleash the Apocalypse when time runs out.

The combination of built-in urgency, enticing character creation, and juicy death mechanics makes me wish I had a long-running campaign group to dive into this with.

The Last Caravan by Ted S. Bushman

I picked up The Last Caravan at the Mythworks booth. Like many of Mythworks’ games, the cover art immediately gave me strong video game/comic book vibes. At first, I thought it was cool, but didn’t want to spend the money. Then, Mythworks’ very own Ray Chou told me about the session zero he recently played, and I was sold. I got up, grabbed a copy, and was lucky enough to have Ted Bushman there to autograph it for me.

The Last Caravan pitches itself as a “cars and aliens role-playing game about a midwinter in the wake of an alien invasion.” It’s a 3-5 player game that requires a GM (referred to as the Atlas), some d6s, a map, and this book. Players are prompted to build a caravan of travelers—ordinary people who are thrust into extraordinary circumstances.

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The artwork absolutely pops off the page, and the lore provided for GMs is rich and compelling. By Sunday of PAX, this game was sold out—and for good reason. The Last Caravan helps you take an everyday group of people and transforms them into heroes. If you like War of the Worlds or enjoy survival horror, this game is perfect for you.

Now I’ll be begging Brian, Elliot, and Abby to play all of these games with me. They’ll probably refuse since it’s already our “job” to play games. So go yell at those cowards to play with me for once!

— Shenuque