MarsCon AAR
Or How I Learned to Moderate Panels, TTRPG Safety Tools, and Being in the Dealer Room
January 16-18 MarsCon 2026 was probably the most fun I’ve had at a con. Ever. I ended up mothballing Hensley Station (my author table) in favor of repping Cannon Publishing and running Cannon’s table in the dealer room this year.
It was something of a no brainer. J.F. Holmes (owner of Cannon) was unable to make the sojourn south from upstate New York. Living twenty minutes from the con hotel made me an easy choice for setting up and operating the Cannon table. Sure it meant not having my own table in artist and author alley. But, with my latest novel having released under Cannon’s roof I still had a title to flog. As it turned out I had to hold back a handful of Dirty Deeds: Vagabonds for an event I’m doing in early February.
Overall I think the Con was an unqualified success for Cannon. Dan Kemp, Claire Merrick, and Dan Gainor all made the trip. Dan Kemp, Claire, and myself were loaded up with panels, some we moderated and some we were guests. In all cases I heard nothing but praise. And laughter. Kemp is funny and leads/led an improbably interesting life1.
About a week and a half before the con I decided I probably ought to see what panels I was scheduled for. You know, so I could prepare. Have a thought or two about the thing the panel was going to be about. This is when I discovered that not only was I on six panels for the duration of the con, I was moderating four of the six. Interesting, in the Chinese sense of the word. Up to this point you could count the number of cons I’d attended on one hand and still have a finger left over. So I did some homework on who the guests were to be on those four panels and the topics, of course.
Fortunately for me all four panels were loaded with fantastically interesting authors. Somehow I managed to have the Literary GOH2 and the YA/LitRPG GOH3 on two separate panels and was able to dragoon one of the featured guests4 into crashing the Fighting in Writing panel5. Added bonus I was had Wayland Smith6 as a guest on the Detective Fiction in Sci-Fi panel. As it turns out I rather enjoy moderating panels. The guests had fun, I had fun, and best of all the audience had a good time. Or at least they laughed quite a bit. Which I generally take as an indication of a good time being had.
One of the four panels was TTRPGs as Collaborative Storytellling. Here is where I got to meet James (call me Jim) Deeley. Jim is a professional Dungeon Master7. Which means he runs games for strangers. For money. And, Jim has been in the TTRPG world since late 2000. So not quite as long as me8 but pretty close. We got to talking about Session-Zero.
This is how I came to learn about a thing in the table-top roleplaying game sphere known as safety tools. I was completely unaware such things existed. I’ve been running games since about 1988. And since 1997 I’ve gamed with the same group of people. At no point in any game during those thirty plus years of gaming did I encounter someone losing their shit over something in a game. Sure the occasional player would get butt hurt when something they wanted to do either backfired or didn’t quite go their way. But hey, that’s gaming. So, as you might imagine, I was rather astonished that A) safety tools such as The Deck of Player Safety existed and B) a broad swath of gamerdom both liked and used them.
More to follow on this particular subject as I learn more9.
Also, I am not shitting on the idea. Merely working to overcome my surprise that it exists. After all a good session zero should be about what we want to see in the story we are all about to tell and what we don’t want to see.
All of that to say I really enjoyed the panel conversation with Jim.
As for the rest of the con. This year was my first year having a table in the dealer room. Specifically a table for Cannon Publishing. This year’s MarsCon had hopping dealer room the whole time. I think the only time it was slow was setting up on Thursday evening and tearing down on Sunday afternoon. Between Dan Kemp, Claire Merrick, Dan Gainor, and myself we sold all but four of five of the books we had on offer. Some to existing fans and a bunch to new fans.
All in all MarsCon 2026 was a success for myself and for Cannon publishing. And I am looking forward to being there again next January.
The Prof in Dan Kemp’s Athenaeum series is something of a self insert, provided some things had played out slightly differently a number of years ago.
The wonderful Lisa Shearin author of The SPI Files, The Raine Benares Novels, and The Aurora Donati Thrillers.
The delightful Keegan Eichelman author of the YA Wisteria Rebel Series and Dragon Spar
The inimitable Keith R.A. DeCandido who’s written books in a number of my most favorite IPs including Star Trek, Supernatural, Ailens, Marvel, and World of Warcraft. He is also the author of the Supernatural Crimes Unit: NYPD series. Not to mention he is a martial artist and self-defense instructor. You can see why I asked him to crash the panel of fighting in writing.
This panel consisted of Dan Kemp former U.S. Army Airborne trooper (among other things), Phillip Pournelle retired U.S. Navy surface warfare officer who designs wargames for the military, Edward Swing who’s does Taekwondo and SCA, Gideon Smith who’s an MD among other things, Keith DeCandido martial artist and author of lots of things fighting, and finally me a retired U.S. Navy aircraft mechanic. You can see why I wanted another panelist with some chops.
Like Dan Kemp, Wayland has lead an improbably interesting life including private investigator, comic book shop owner, ring crew for a circus (then he ran away from the circus and joined home), deputy sheriff, and freelance stagehand.
No not that kind. At least I don’t think so. Since he writes and runs Tabletop roleplaying games.
1985 or so. Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, before you ask. And yes I still have my D20 from that box set.
Future series of articles/blog posts/observations incoming.