The playing is the thing // World's largest game fair creates fantasy land for devoted gamers

MILWAUKEE Although Alan Christesen has played Dungeons & Dragons fora decade, he attended the 24th Gen Con Game Fair at the MECCA herelast weekend just as a spectator. He passed up the chance for somechallenging play so he could protect the 21 D & D characters he hascreated and nurtured for as long as three years.

"The dungeon masters here are professionals," said Christesen,18, a student at Purdue University, who came to the convention fromwest suburban La Grange Highlands with his brother and mother. "Theyhave the ability to think of traps the characters may not be able toget out of. I have two really evil characters I especially like.They could die off. So I don't play here."

This was the big-time for players of fantasy games, all right -the world's largest convention for role-playing, military andminiatures gamers. At the four-day Gen Con (short for GenevaConvention, named for Lake Geneva, Wis., where the convention washeld the first several years), characters and adventures that liveonly in the minds of conventioners came vividly to life, as avidplayers from all over the nation - and even a few from foreigncountries - sat down for one long game after another.

While most role-playing aficionados didn't seem to give it muchthought, a favorite character developed playing with friends backhome could have met his match in an adventure set forth by anexperienced dungeon master, a sort of storyteller/rulekeeper whoguides the players through the scenarios. For a player likeChristesen, who takes his role-playing seriously, that would havemeant he could never use that character again.

Still, this was Christesen's second Gen Con. He attended lastyear, too, with his brother, who has been coming even longer. Thisyear, Christesen decided to check out war games, which may be basedon real or fantastic past battles, or on futuristic ones. War gamesusually have gameboards, more structured rules than role-playing, andclearcut winners and losers.

More than 13,000 people attended Gen Con, many of them from theChicago area; heaven only knows how many imaginary cyborgs andstarship commanders and wizards and Napoleonic infantrymen taggedalong.

While most conventioners just came to play, some of the moreavid gamers brought their own games. One was Neil Northway of west suburban Villa Park, whorecreated the Civil War battle of Shiloh. Tiny lead soldiers inblue and gray went at one another on a historically accurate terrainthat covered a couple of lunchroom tables and presented thepossibility that the North could emerge victorious this time.

Northway, who clerks in a Mobil service station in west subur ban Lombard, read several books about Shiloh before transferring ascale map of the battlefield on to his 16-by-4-foot gameboard.

Northway is active in the Chicago chapter of the HistoricMiniatures Gaming Society, and he ran his game for interested playersthroughout much of the convention. Northway, like many Gen Conattendees, is a zealous games fan. When he finished up each night at11:30 p.m., he joined friends for a couple of drinks and then wentoff to "play more games" - the World War I air battle game Blue Maxis a favorite - till 3 or 4 a.m. Then he caught a couple of hours'sleep and came back at 8 a.m. to run his game again.

Some of the wars fought here were strictly science fiction, suchas the 31st-century struggle in the FASA Battletech series.

Other games were based in the mythical, often Arthurian past.One such role-playing scenario used Advanced D & D rules to pit eightwizards against one another in an internecine contest for leadership.

Most fantasy games simulate war in one way or another. Most ofthe games are really stories, and the plots advance as players rolldice or use powers their characters are assigned, or have accumulatedin past games, to overcome perils and, hopefully, achieve variousgoals.

D & D is a major influence in fantasy games; many gamers beginplaying D & D as teenagers and move on, in many directions, fromthere.

In role-playing, each game has a dungeon master, or referee, butthe group - the players as a whole - decide how the adventure isplayed out; there is no right or wrong way to proceed.

Players at Gen Con were teenagers or young adults, and themale-to-female ratio looked to be about 100 to one (althoughconvention organizers insist 15 percent of attendees were women).

Sean McLane, 21, of Lafayette, Ind., was wearing a pair of hornswhile he perused the manufacturers' displays at the convention. Hegot started with D & D and still likes role-playing games. McLanewants to be a game designer and is striving toward that goal whilealso working at a Lafayette Wal-Mart.

Peter Hildreth, 40, a traffic court hearing officer in Concord,N.H., comes out to Gen Con every year; this year he drove out as partof a group with his 24-year-old sister, also a gamer.

Hildreth got involved in D & D in the late '70s, working his waythrough law school as a counselor in a Boy Scout summer camp. NowHildreth plays Advanced D & D and other role-playing games with a group of five other people about once a week. Hildreth usuallyserves as dungeon master back home. "Here, I get to play," he says.

Alan Christesen's mother, Barbara, who teaches kindergarten inwest suburban Berwyn, said she doesn't agree with the criticism thatfantasy games estrange young people from reality.

"(Fantasy gaming) is an excellent way to develop thinkingskills," she said. "It teaches kids to use their minds."

"Before 12, kids don't need rules to role-play," said DarwinBromley, president of Mayfair Games of northwest suburban Niles,which produces railroad-oriented board games, DC Heroes and Chill, ahorror role-playing game, among others. On the other end of thespectrum, when men leave college, they may find they don't have thefree time for gaming. "Role-playing chews time," Bromley said.

"Gaming is a way to play army, or cowboys and Indians, forsomebody older than 10," said Ross Babcock, executive vice presidentof FASA, a Chicago manufacturer of a line that includes two hotfuturistic games, Battletech and Shadowrun.

While some players were dressed as Vikings or medieval monks ormonsters or Desert Storm troopers (a costume contest on Saturday drew75 participants), the standard uniform was T-shirts and comfortablepants - from jeans to combat fatigues. And the T-shirts said it all:

"So many monsters, so little time"

"The only good troll is a fireballed troll"

"Peace through superior firepower"

"Conan the Librarian"

"Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle playing games"

Gaming presupposes a certain interest in bookish things; gamersare by definition readers.

"Ten years ago, everybody at Gen Con looked alike," said the33-year-old Babcock, who as a teenager was himself an avid gamer."They were the stereotypical gamer, the classic nerd-type - glasses,overweight, smarter than average, lacking the social skills of theaverage teenager.

"But since then, games have become more than just variations on(Lord of the Rings, a series of fantasy books by J.R.R. Tolkien).They're a lot more tongue-in-cheek now. Every game company wants tolower the entry point for new players, and you're seeing the basebeginning to broaden. The new kids are more mainstream, but they'rejust as hooked."