‘CharCon’ returns to Charleston for 17th year

By Elijah Newell, RealWV

CharCon, West Virginia’s annual gaming convention, is on this weekend at the Clay Center in Charleston. From board games and miniatures, to role-playing and a cosplay contest, CharCon has something to satisfy both the casual and competitive game enthusiast. This year’s event runs through Sunday, July 14.

Travis Reynolds, founder and director of CharCon, explained why he started the event eighteen years ago. Reynolds said that he had grown up gaming in the 1980s and 90s, and his love for games as a child turned into a hobby as an adult. He and his friends decided to launch the convention in West Virginia in 2006 after noticing the lack of gaming events and communities in the state, as well as the general lag behind the rest of the country in introducing new games to Mountain State gamers. So far, he says that their organization has achieved that goal.

“We are a non-profit, so we kinda are in it with the goal of growing tabletop gaming within the state, and trying to bring families and friends together at the table to do some fun activities that center around playing games, but also socializing with one another, and enjoying one another’s company,” Reynolds said. “We’ve been pretty successful with that.”  

Reynolds described some of the events at CharCon in detail. One competitive contest the organization hosts is qualifying rounds for CATAN Championships. By playing and winning in this qualifier round, players at CharCon can earn their place in the national level CATAN Championships. Reynolds said that the championship qualifiers are highly competitive, and that some of the players at the CharCon event in previous years have even gone on to win at the national level.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Reynolds said that there are plenty of opportunities for non-competitive gamers to enjoy themselves at the event. He said that they bring a vast library of around six to seven hundred different board games that people can take out and play casually with their friends and family. If there is a game that participants haven’t played before and would like to try, Reynolds noted that a group called The Stooge Gamers comes and spends their time at the event teaching new games to participants. Reynolds said that some people spend nearly all their time at the event playing casual games. 

“You’ll often see people sit there at a table for hours and hours, play a game, put it up, grab another game, play it, put it up, grab another game,” Reynolds explained. “Other people will come and go, ‘Hey, I’m gonna go to lunch,’ someone else grabs the seat. So yeah, it’s just hanging out, having fun playing games.” 

Reynolds then provided more details on the cosplay costume contest at CharCon. He said that the contest is run by a staff member of the event, who herself is a cosplaying fan. He explained that each year, the event adopts a theme and encourage attendees to dress up in that style. For example, Reynolds said that this year’s theme was focused on cosplaying characters from the film The Princess Bride. The staff member in charge of the costume contest judges participants using a scoring system that favors costumes designed with the fewest pre-fabricated parts as possible.

In the past, the mass gathering of gaming fans in costume has lead to some interesting events. Reynolds highlighted one year in which a couple, dressed as Han Solo and Princess Leia from Star Wars, got married at the convention in front of a statue of Solo. Reynolds was proud of the impromptu moment. 

“I think that’s the sign your conventions made it, if you’ve hosted a Star Wars wedding” Reynolds said, chuckling. 

CharCon 2024 will continue to run on Saturday the 13th and Sunday the 14th. Reynolds pointed any interested readers to their website, charcon.org. From there potential participants can purchase online tickets for the convention, as well as get specific information on the hours and location of the convention. 

Reynolds said that one of his favorite aspects of the event is the community that has grown around it. 

“For me, it’s seeing the same people every year that maybe I only see once a year at the convention, and I’ve been seeing them come for 15-plus years, and now they bring their kids, or they bring their spouse or whoever it might be, and its just kind of a growing family, and you get to see those people,” Reynolds said. “You get to see them play games. If you’re lucky you get to sit down and play a game together… for me that’s the great thing – seeing people and watching them have fun.”

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