Vampires, knights and dragons will overrun Oberlin on the weekend of March 4 through March 6.

“This year, I have to say, props go to [sophomore] David Lou. He has been the beacon of light during this run of OberCon,” said sophomore Joseph Maiville, one of the organizers of OberCon.

Although for many at Oberlin, the suffix ‘-con’ evokes association with the Oberlin Conservatory, Maiville believes that when gamers outside of Oberlin see the name OberCon they know it means “convention.”

“There is GenCon, DragonCon, Comic-Con,” he said.

This year the OberCon organization was once again run as a Winter Term project headed by sophomore David Lou.

“Everyone did what I asked them to do. We contacted a lot of people,” Lou said.

“We got more done than I expected, but not as much as I hoped,” he added.

Unlike last year, there will be no guest speaker. However, one new thing is the seminars on how to create a good character for any type of role-playing game and how to run a Live Action Role Playing (LARP) session.

OberCon is open to the public. Last year there were people attending from all over the state and from other states as well. Although there is no admittance fee, some events, such as Magic: the Gathering tournaments will have a fee.

The organizers have thought about making OberCon exciting even to the uninitiated.

“I am organizing a major event called Fate of Kings,” Maiville said. “It’s a LARP, set in a small village in Medieval Europe, and the system is completely developed by Mark Simmons and me.”

Although this is against the LARP policy in general, this event will be open to non-gamers as well, so that if anyone wants to wander in the role-playing world for a bit without having to participate, this is their chance.

Other events include Unmasked, Oberlin’s local vampire LARP, Dungeons and Dragons, Shadowrun and Celebrity Survival Island.