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Don’t tell my editors: I was nervous to cover PAX Unplugged 2024 this weekend. It’s not that I was worried about how the convention would turn out (as my colleague Graeme McMillan has said before, the running of a PAX con is uncommonly smooth), the trepidation was all about me, a casual gamer at best. Do I have the info and expertise to cover this massive beast that is tabletop gaming? Will I be able to properly report on these products that indie developers and fans have spent so much time, money, and love on? To put it in more appropriate terms, I felt like I was starting a session with a pretty low ability score. 

What I found, though, was that I didn’t need to be the world’s biggest fan of TTRPGs, TCGs, and the like to enjoy PAX Unplugged. Actually, I can say I didn’t just enjoy the con, I adored it, and not only as a casual fan of games. I loved PAX Unplugged, primarily, as a horror fan.

Weirdly enough, though, it took me a full three days to figure out why. And if you’ll indulge me, I’m going to put down my thought process here. Sure, I know that you don’t need to hear this if you’ve already been to PAX Unplugged - you already understand the magic of the show - but if you’re a horror fan with a handful of D&D sessions under your belt like me, it might convince you to give the show (and shows like it) a shot in 2025.

Or maybe you’ll just understand why my next couple op-eds are going to be about evil lemurs. Either way works for me.

The first reason I came up with for why PAX Unplugged scratched my eternal itch for the eerie is far too simple, but it's true: I had such a spooky time at PAX Unplugged because there were loads of onkers horror art. Indie games, major franchises, even fan-made projects were awash in gooey monstrosities and cosmic abominations, to the point that a visitor could get overwhelmed. In fact, I don't think I could honestly tell you which mind-warping piece I saw stood out to me the most; I wouldn't know where to begin.

Honestly, it was a little bit like one of my other experiences in Philadelphia this weekend, when I traveled to the Barnes Foundation, one of the world's most important impressionist galleries. Don't worry, I'm not trying to liken a handful of mind flayers to the works of Van Gogh, I'm only trying to make the point that, when you're surrounded by such titanic talent, it's hard to pick a favorite.

(Actually, that's not quite true - I did feel attracted to the Cézannes this time, partially because of the handful of skull motifs. What can I say? I have a type.)

But if I dig a little bit deeper, I find a different answer that resonates more, and it's got everything to do with who I and others like me are as horror fans. Before I get there, though, I want you to consider something - of all the films ever made, the most frequently returned to theaters are horror movies. Why is that? Well, if you're a movie theater operator, it's because they'll sell tickets. But why will they sell tickets?

Color me biased, but I think the answer's pretty simple: when people go to see horror movies, they go as a group.

I've written before about the theory of how horror as a genre can be theraputic; to make a long explanation short, some mental health professionals believe that confronting terror behind the safety of a screen prepares the mind for confronting real-life terror all around us. If that's the case, doesn't it make sense that you'd rather confront terror alongside people that you like? Put differently, don't you want to come face-to-face with horror as you're all together?

(If that last line sounds familiar to you as a PAX Unplugged attendee, it should - I've pretty much lifted it wholesale from the tagline of Ravensburger AG's Horrified, an extremely popular board game that had a huge presence at the con this year.)

Once I discovered the shared group aspect between both tabletop gaming and horror as a genre, a whole bunch of mini-answers to my original surface question surfaced. Another reason people like horror as a community is that you get to see your friends scared in a safe way, whether that be by Jason Vorhees shambling out of the shadows or by the punishing mechanics of the upcoming Age of Umbra campaign in Daggerheart. 

Then you've got the idea that the community confronting horror are usually a gang of outcasts, both as the real-life and the characters that represent them on the TV or the board. A 'ragtag group of youths defying eldritch evil' is as much a description of most D&D campaigns as it is the synopsis for A Nightmare on Elm Street, and the parallel is born out in the landscape of other gaming options. Walking around the exhibition floor, I saw posters for some of my favorite fright flicks - Alien, Evil Dead 2, and Halloween among them - reworked as the box art for games based on the same stories.

Looking back, I think I had the idea that those couple of horror movie-themed board games were going to be my 'in' to PAX Unplugged. Foolishly, I assumed what I would enjoy most was a thin sliver of overlap between the tabletop industry and the fiction genre I call home. But the Venn Diagram I discovered was a hell of a lot closer to a circle than I expected, and I suspect that I came away from the con with one of the same sentiments as the folks who have been gaming for decades longer than I have; that is, live or die, defeat the monster or fall, we’re in it together.

Despite the fear (rather, because of it), that’s a pretty great feeling.

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." Join Popverse's freaky forays into frightful filmology with:

• The best horror movies of all time, according to horror aficionado Greg Silber
• The most underrated horror movies from the past couple years
• All the new and upcoming horror movies for 2025 and beyond

And much gore. Er, more. Much more.