Highlights from 3W6 Con 2026
Last weekend I attended the 3W6 Con for the second time and they really are one of the most special conventions I've seen. The con is held at a neighbourhood centre in the 17th district of Vienna, Austria, with some tables happening in other nearby locations. Just like the podcast, there is a heavy focus on indie and storytelling games.
The first day was kicked off with workshops held by game designers Nathan D. Paoletta (World Wide Wrestling, Annalise) and Jason Cordova (The Between, Public Access, Brindlewood Bay), as well as a panel with them and Kathrin Fischer (EduTale) and Adrian Hermann (LAGIP, University of Bonn). The following three days were filled to the brim with game after game, with about 90 games being held in total.
What makes the 3W6 con special, though, isn't just the games: it's the community. Rarely have I seen a more welcoming and inclusive convention. Safety tools are deeply ingrained in the community which meant games could often feature an amazingly wide range of topics. Many people know each other and new people are welcomed with open arms. At the end of each day everyone can go grab a bite at nearby restaurants and chat with people, often deep into the night.
But let me tell you a little more.
Before the Con
There’s some stuff to know before you attend a 3W6 con, first and foremost being that you can run games there! A majority of the people do actually, as almost all games (except for those run by the VIP guests) are run by people attending the con just like everyone else. It’s not mandatory, of course, but it’s also a very welcoming community where you can even try running your first own games with the guidance of many experienced GMs.
The games can be put online quite a while before the convention and player registrations will open about a month beforehand - and people will register for games pretty much immediately. I have seen rounds fill within seconds and rounds that were put up after registrations have opened, have a much smaller chance to fill up.
There also is a very active discord server linked on the 3W6 website which I can really recommend joining, if you want to stay updated about everything.
Day 0: Workshops & Panel
On thursday two workshops were held by amazing game designers Nathan D. Paoletta and Jason Cordova.
In the first workshop, Jason talked about “Worlds Unscenes”. Unscenes are a type of scene that are used in many of Jason’s Carved from Brindlewood games, where players gain a lot of narrative authority while answering prompts about the world and setting. In the workshop many different ways of using these Unscenes were explored and the workshop ended with some group exercises to write Unscenes for a game idea of each table’s choice (we came up with a game about kids traversing a war zone and how they imagine being in a fantasy world - about as light hearted as you can imagine - and an Unscene that showed a location over time).
In the second workshop, Nathan D. Paoletta talked about designing for active participation in RPGs. The idea is that everyone on the game table is both performer and audience in varying degrees and how mechanics can make you actively switch between these roles. There was much food for thought in there, like the difference between rules dictating when someone is audience or performer, in contrast to social dynamics deciding who speaks when. This workshop, too, ended with a writing exercise, where different dynamics (Transition, Assign, Differentiate, Celebrate, Constrain, Player Relations) had to be incorporated into a new game idea (we made a game about cats embroiled into political drama and romance, while living in a human palace).
Last but not least there was a panel about building a community around a tabletop RPG! Kathrin Fischer gave valuable insights into the educational side of TTRPGS, Adrian Hermann talked about game communities from a cultural studies standpoint, and game designers Nathan D. Paoletta and Jason Cordova went into how they were managing their own discord communities.
Game Highlights
During the con I played in a three-part adventure of “The Lands Remaining”, run by Jason Cordova himself, and ran three rounds: “Rosewood Abbey”, the current playtest version of “Apocalypse World: Burned Over” and “Paint the Town Red”.
I absolutely love running games for this community. Everyone is super comfortable using safety tools for enabling deeply emotional play and people are generally fantastic players. My highlight probably was when one of the characters in my “Paint the Town Red” game, a fierce and bloody pirate that was always itching for a fight, had an intense and profanity-laden screaming lead-up to what seemed to be a fight - but ended in a deep kiss that had the whole table cheering.
The game I played in was a playtest for “The Lands Remaining”, a new game by Jason Cordova, inspired by media like Elden Ring, Dark Souls, Hollow Knight or The Fellowship of the Ring. It’s intended for long campaigns, so we only saw a small glimpse what the full game was like in our three sessions, but I was a big fan of what we did see. It actually felt a little videogame-y, but in a really good way. There were narrative boss fights with coffin-wielding skeletons, there were things to unlock and items to loot and I seriously never would have thought how good looting could feel in a narrative game. The characters had a lot of depth baked into them and I can especially see them work extremely well in long-term campaigns, exploring their backstories alongside the lore-rich world. It was a great experience seeing how Jason ran his own game and I also learned a few new tricks about how to run Carved from Brindlewood games.
After the Con
At the end of the con, we were warned about “Post-Con-Blues” - when after a long weekend of non-stop games, the world just seems not as bright and fun as it did here. And you can really see how people miss the games, when dozens of messages pop up in the discord about the great time they had, their highlights and appreciations.
The density of games (and people, when everyone is in the communal break room) surely can be a lot at times, so managing one's own social battery can be important. But I've heard there are plans for more quiet spaces next year, so fingers crossed!
It definitely was one hell of a weekend and I can’t wait for next year.
Below you can find some impressions from the con, thanks to Markus Widmer and @bright_daylight for providing most of the pictures!
