GenCon, the largest gaming convention in North America, will kick off in the next couple of days. For many, this convention is one of the biggest highlights of the year for them: over 70,000 attendees will descend onto the city of Indianapolis to play, buy, watch, eat, breathe, and sleep all things games. The convention itself includes a wide array of gaming, such as tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPG), trading card games (TCG), and board games. From organized play to actual plays, private rooms and live streams, you can essentially find any gaming need and niche at this popular convention.

Whether this is your first time going or if you’ve been going every year (or maybe you can’t go but you want to live vicariously through those who are able to make it), here are some vendors, events, and possible announcements to check out in the TTRPG space at this year’s GenCon.

Want to watch instead of read? Check out the video version below.

A Preview Of Dungeons & Dragons’ Forgotten Realms

The most popular tabletop roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), has a close history with GenCon, both being directly tied to Gary Gygax. Every year, Dungeons & Dragons has the biggest presence in the TTRPG space at the convention. You can find a whole slate of D&D games hosted at the convention from companies like Baldman Games & D&D In A Castle, and you can find amazing companies that sell D&D adventures & supplements like Ghostfire Gaming and AAW Games.

This year, the parent company of D&D, Wizards of the Coast, will release two new expansion books for players and dungeon masters set in the most popular game setting, the Forgotten Realms. Created by Ed Greenwood, the Forgotten Realms has a large presence in the TTRPG world, which has been the setting for many popular media in recent history such as the 2023 movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and Baldur’s Gate 3. With the books set to release at the end of the year and official GenCon play events showing a preview of the new player expansion book, it’s almost a guarantee that we will hear more about these books and possibly what else to expect for the future of the world of Faerun.

Game Theory Tables To Reveal “The Table Of Adventure”

Speaking of Dungeons & Dragons, the gaming table manufacturing company Game Theory Tables will reveal at GenCon The Table Of Adventure, which is the first ever officially licensed Dungeons & Dragons table. Designed to give every party everything they need to run an epic fantasy campaign, The Table of Adventure touts having a design that’s made to give the Dungeon Master and players everything that they need in seconds, from a quick DM Screen set up to multiple electric ports, to additional modular pieces that frees up space on the table for your dice and notes. This new gaming table will be revealed to the public for the first time at GenCon this year.

Showcasing Critical Role’s Latest TTRPG, Daggerheart

Earlier this year, the popular TTRPG livestream entertainment group, Critical Role, released a new game entitled Daggerheart. Published by Critical Role’s publishing company, Darrington Press, Daggerheart is described as a collaborative narrative-forward roleplaying game. The game became instantly popular with Critical Role’s fanbase and has also found success within the TTRPG community. Although Darrington Press did not have much of a presence at last year’s GenCon, they and Critical Role will be pulling out all the stops at this year’s convention. Critical Role will hae a live show just north of Indianapolis where they will play Daggerheart in their fantasy setting of Exandria, Darrington Press will have a booth in the Exhibition Hall, hosting a series of play events of Daggerheart, and holding a show case and live demo of the game, led by Critical Role’s Game Master, Matt Mercer.

It is expected that Critical Role and Darrington Press will make a major announcement and new reveals regarding Daggerheart. Some have speculated that there will be a new homebrew guide as well as possibly announcing campaign 4.

A New Edition, A New Box Set, And A Surprise From Free League

The Swedish TTRPG company Free League Publishing will be at GenCon this year with some exciting new updates. Known for games such as Dragonbane and Alien RPG, Free League Publishing will be showing up their latest edition of the sci-fi RPG Coriolis, entitled The Great Dark. They will also showcase the new starter sets for The Lord of The Rings Roleplaying 5th Edition as well as their own system based on the same popular novel series, The One Ring. They have also teased that they will have a few surprise guests with some exciting news. This will take place at their showcase event, which will take place Thursday, July 31st, at 3 PM EST.

Dice Goblins and Dice Dragons, Unite!

It wouldn’t be a gaming convention without buying a new set of dice. GenCon announced that they will have close to 600 vendors at this year’s convention. Included in this list are popular dice making companies such as Dispel Dice, Dice Dungeons, Elderwood Academy, Misty Mountain Gaming, Q-Workshop, Norse Foundry, and Sirius Dice, and they have some great dice stocked for this year’s event. Some of my favorite dice sets that I own are from these companies, like Q-Workshop’s Dracopolis set and Sirius Dice’s D&D Class sets and their new Daggerheart dice, “Fate of the Mortal Realms”.

My personal favorite, however, is FanRoll dice. They create amazing dice sets for a wide variety of TTRPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, the new Invincible RPG, the popular board game Catan, and more. Every year at GenCon, they have exclusive convention themed dice that they sell in limited quantities, and this year is expected to be a sellout, with “The Eye Of Genevieve” (Genevieve being the name of the dragon mascot of the convention), the GenCon Black Light Dice Tray, and the Dragon Inclusion dice set. Even if you are not planning to purchase them, definitely check them out to see the amazing quality that they put into their convention-themed sets that they release every year.