All Over Albany

Gathering in Schenectady to raid dungeons and slay dragons

From a previous Council of Five Nations con.

My teenage Friday nights were not your teenage Friday nights.

Before CGI made the fantasies of J.R.R. Tolkien and Stan Lee as accessible as an episode of Seinfeld, I joined a few shy friends on the bus to Schenectady for our weekly trip to the Studio of Bridge and Games on Eastern Parkway.

Like other teenagers, we drank, but in pubs named after dragons and griffons. It was only on paper and in our minds, and we were dwarves and magic-users and half-orcs. Like other teenagers, we flirted and dated, but it was usually with elves, and our success or failure was based solely on our charisma modifier. Since the object of our characters' affections was usually an avatar for a 35-year-old guy even less attractive than we were, we were happy for the manifestation of those successes to go unseen and unrealized. Like other teenagers, we experimented with dangerous substances, but it wasn't by choice. It was usually because something huge chomped on us with its envenomed fangs, and if we failed our saving throw vs. poison, we suffered some kind of penalty to our hit points or our ability scores.

Trips to rehabilitation facilities never came into the picture.

Dave Cheng is a member of the Schenectady Wargamers Association -- the group that made those Friday nights possible. "Movies and TV are passive," Cheng says. "You sit there, and someone else tells you a story ... Some people want to take the next step, and actually want to participate in creating the story themselves."

This weekend Cheng and the SWA will host hundreds of gamers taking that "next step" in storytelling when the Council of Five Nations -- one of the country's oldest gaming conventions -- returns to Proctors this weekend for its 36th year.

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