It’s the most wonderful time of the year! PAX Unplugged time! This is only my second time attending this all board game and tabletop convention but I have been looking forward to it since PAX Unplugged 2021.

Don’t tell PAX East, but PAXU really changed what I want out of conventions. I spent a lot of time at PAX East hanging around the tabletop area, a place I didn’t even really know existed until recently. I mean, it was there, it takes up a third of the expo hall, but I didn’t understand the magic happening there.

Last year when I went, I was flying solo and had only recently joined board game Instagram and TikTok. Ever since then, I’ve immersed myself in those groups, following different creators and interacting with that small community. I’m on a couple different board game focused Discords too! So I should have people to meet up with and hang out with this year a bit more than last year.

I’ve got a few things on my schedule so far:

• Friday, 12:30 Dicebreaker’s Tabletop Awards 2022
• Friday, 7:30 Learn & Play: Trick Taking Card Games
• Saturday, 12:30 Learn & Play: Root?
• Saturday, 4:00 Brain and Kaur MeetUp (Brain in a Jar and Beneeta from TikTok)
• Saturday, 5:00 Learn & Play: We Built This City on Games (with Grant Lyon)
• Saturday, 7:30 Learn & Play: Downforce (with Dani Standring)

I’m really excited that the team from Dicebreaker will be there! I met Wheels back in 2019 at PAX East when the channel had just launched. Since then, he published a TTRPG – The House Doesn’t Always Win -, which I did back so I’m going to take it with me in the hopes of getting it signed. I’m also hoping that Matt Jarvis will be there. He works on the Dicebreaker website as the head editor and helped me with my one and only bit of online writing I’ve every been paid for and I just want to say thank you in person.

The Trick Taking Card Games program features “Cat in the Box” which was one of the hottest Gen Con titles so I’d really like a chance to play it before I succumb to the hype.

I technically know how to play Root as I have many hours in the digital edition, but I’m intrigued by the Learn & Play, which sounds like it’s going to poke fun at the complexity of this game.

I met Beneeta and Kacey at PAXU 2021 so I’m hoping I can make the meetup, though Grant, who I also follow on TikTok, is hosting the 5pm L&P program so I may have to flip a coin.

I will DEFINITELY be attending Dani’s L&P program. I’m on her Discord and I think a bunch of us are going to that session so if nothing else I will get to meet in person some of the people I’ve been chatting with online for months.

There will be many more additions to my schedule, but some of the things I love about PAX Unplugged is just the ability to wander into any given area and find games to play – either official booths wanting you to try their games or the board game library LFG section or the roleplaying games on demand. I think one of my goals will be to try out Wanderhome or Fiasco, if they have those up again in the On Demand section.

What do you have on your PAX Unplugged schedule?