News Articles
Games Club Hosts Annual Gryphcon
Convention typically draws about 200 participants
BY DAVID DICENZO
By day, May Sherwood works at M&T Printing in the University Centre. But away from the job, she has a number of potential personas, be it a werewolf, an alien or even a samurai. Sherwood is one of about 100 members of the U of G Games Club, a unique group of students and local residents who are gearing up for their annual Gryphcon, a three-day gaming experience slated to run March 23 to 25 throughout the University Centre.
The event features a number of role-playing games where participants play strange and different characters working their way through a specific storyline.
“The appeal is that it's fun to act like someone else for a while,” says Sherwood, the club's current secretary and future vice-president. “It's fun to try and figure out what you're going to do.”
The Games Club also has a number of more traditional board games like Risk and Settlers of Catan in its second-floor University Centre office, but role-playing games (RPGs) such as Dungeons and Dragons are typically the games of choice among members. In RPGs, gamers take on the roles of fictional characters, which are directed by a GM, the game master, also referred to as a storyteller.
“With board games, you've got an objective and you're trying to meet it,” says Erik Blatherwick, one of the Gryphcon co-ordinators. “With role-playing games, you're playing a character. It's a story. You're not really playing to win. You're playing to portray the character as best you can.”
Blatherwick says the gaming community has been hit hard by the proliferation of online games. Massive multi-player online role-playing games allow millions of players to sit behind their computer screen and play for hours on end.
“The only thing we can do to compete with that is that you're dealing with the person,” he says. “Sometimes something will happen that is completely unexpected, and you have to deal with that. I personally like the challenge of that more than going online.”
U of G student Andrea McVeigh, another Gryphcon co-ordinator who got into gaming back in her high school days at GCVI, agrees.
“Meeting other gamers to play in person is more creative,” she says. “It's more of a social outlet.”
Although the online community has stolen its share of participants, the annual turnout at Gryphcon suggests that lots of gamers are still doing things the old-fashioned way. The convention typically draws about 200 participants over the weekend, some coming from as far away as the United States, says Sherwood. This year for the first time, the FLASH (fantasy, literature, anime, sci-fi and horror) Club is also involved in Gryphcon.
The funds collected by the paying customers are reinvested into the Games Club, so members can stay on top of the ever-changing gaming market, says Blatherwick.
“The idea of doing bake sales didn't really appeal to anyone.”
For more information about Gryphcon, visit www.gryphcon.org.