Good fun on a goose chase

Dan Bass (right) takes a break from games to watch online videos at Khan-Com. Photos by Frank Yu / for China Daily

Some board games expand over several tables.

In the suburbs of Beijing's Huairou district, a group of 30 plus people gather at the Goose and Duck Farm resort.

These people aren't run-of-the-mill vacationers looking to escape city life, instead they are trading long hours at the office for some equally intense gaming.

They are attending Beijing's first gaming convention Khan-Con, spearheaded by Daniel Bass and two other Beijing gamers.

Khan-Con is named after Genghis Khan and Khan Noonien Singh from Star Trek and was held from Oct 20 to 22. Participants played about 20 plus games, including Dungeons and Dragons and the Chinese fan favorite, Three Kingdoms Killers.

"We wanted to come up with a name that said something about gaming and was also Chinese," Bass says.

At 550 yuan ($88) per person, Khan-Con offered a two-day retreat that included overnight stay, four meals and transportation to the resort. Participants also received a free T-shirt and a set of dice.

Bass, 43, originally came to Beijing from the United States to study Chinese, in 1992, and attended Peking University. Then he worked at United Airlines, before taking up personnel work at Palace Hotel.

During the tech boom at the turn of the century, Bass returned to the US for two years, but the lure of China was too strong to resist.

In 2009, a few months after the Olympics, Bass and his wife opened the D&D Cafe, in the hope of expanding his circle of gaming friends.

"I wanted to create an environment where you could meet new people and play whatever you wanted without paying an hourly rate."

Bass's foray into restaurant ownership deepened his connections with the Chinese gaming community. Zhang Hao, 29, who has often been labeled as the "godfather" of Beijing's burgeoning tabletop role-playing gaming circle met Bass at D&D Cafe.

Zhang recalls walking with his wife through Chaowai Soho and running into Bass's store.

"Dan was very easy to get along with, we walked into the cafe and just hit it right off," Zhang says. "We haven't played many games together as of late but when we do, we have a great time playing and just hanging out."

Similarly Jason Sheets, 39, an attorney, also met Bass through gaming.

One of the three minds who came up with Khan-Con, he says that it is because Bass is such a fixture in the gaming community in Beijing that they were able to pull off the gathering.

After the end of the weekend event, where many players played games that lasted more than six hours, both organizers and participants considered the event a success.

Bass says there will almost certainly be another Khan-Con in 2013.

"The nicest thing about the gaming community is that they're really appreciative and really nice people," Bass says.

"For me, this was a lot of work to organize, on many levels. I was really stressed out, but in the end we were on the bus back from the Goose and Duck and they cheered me. It really made me feel okay about all the effort I put in. That people had fun was the most important thing to me."

ericjou@chinadaily.com.cn