MadCon takes up space at the Grand Wayne Center this weekend for three days full of games, plus a mad assortment of special events only found at conventions.
“Enter a whole new world with amazing roleplaying game experiences," said MadCon founder Dane Leicht.
He said you can also let a new board game tickle your fancy, test your painting skills in the miniature painting competition or learn a new technique at paint and takes.
The popular vendor hall, where local game shops and nerdy vendors present their fabulous wares is also a must-visit.
WBOI’s Julia Meek and Leicht discuss how games, as a form of storytelling, build community and the many madcap adventures that await.
Event Information:
Fort Wayne MadCon 2026
at the Grand Wayne Convention Center
Friday, Oct. 23 - Sunday, Oct. 25
Find registration and activity information at the Fort Wayne MadCon website.
Here is a transcript of our conversation:
Julia Meek: Dane Leicht, welcome.
Dane Leicht: Thank you for having me.
Julia Meek: So, in your madcap world, it's time to return to Wonderland and let the games begin, as you say. Just what kind of mad, mad, mad world is this?
Dane Leicht: Well, MadCon is inspired by, of course, Wonderland and all of the goofiness that happens in that story, but so too is it inspired by Oz and Discworld and so many other whimsical fantasy worlds.
Julia Meek: It is storytelling.
Dane Leicht: It is storytelling. It's storytelling at its peak of wordplay and at its peak of whimsy and its off-the-wall humors, and that's what MadCon is all about.
Julia Meek: The madness.
Dane Leicht: The madness. Absolutely.
Julia Meek: So, this is your brainchild, and it was born under a great star just last year as a matter of fact; what motivated you to start this?
Dane Leicht: I absolutely love the types of games that you can only play at conventions. And that is to say, when you play games with your friends, you understand your friends, you know your friends, you have the inside jokes, and all of that's an absolute blast.
But when you go to a convention, you're playing games with people you've never met before, people you don't know that share this love of a game and share this love of playing.
And sitting down with a stranger and becoming a friend over the course of two hours of rolling dice and pretending to be an elf is just my idea of a really good time!
Julia Meek: [chuckles] Games in this case means exactly what? Board games, but not just board games. No monopoly here.
Dane Leicht: Yeah, there's no monopoly and there's no Scrabble. These are games that some of which require a great deal of strategy, some of which require a great deal of storytelling; some have a great deal of randomness to see what happens. Board games, miniature games, all sorts of let's just say less common games.
Julia Meek: And words you use tend to be ethereal and whimsy. So there's a little bit of that included, perhaps, in most of the games we're talking about?
Dane Leicht: Oh, absolutely. One of my favorite board games is one where you're building a haunted house. I mean, there's just these wonderful games that you play that I just adore.
Julia Meek: And so does the world. That's an interesting concept if you think about it. Immersing yourself in your own game, in your own story. It's an ancient custom. We're making it fresh and modern here. Does the world need more storytelling, good old storytelling?
Dane Leicht: Oh, it absolutely does. We need to be able to sit down with each other and have fun and tell a story and tell a tale. It's as ancient as sitting around a fire and just the stereotypical telling ghost stories type of encounters are part of gameplay.
It's part of human play. And just like every other creature on Earth, we learn through play. You know, we sit down, we play with someone, we tell a story to someone, we tell a story with someone. It requires trust. It requires listening to each other.
It requires interaction. It requires knowing our own self to a certain degree, and all of that is stuff that we need very, very badly.
Julia Meek: Indeed, indeed, yes.
Dane Leicht: We need that community.
Julia Meek: And just how long have you been hooked, Dane?
Dane Leicht: I have been playing games a very long time. Now, games like this didn't really start till middle school, but even before middle school at home, when my mom's sister and I would play Clue, we would play Clue in character.
So someone would be Professor Plum, someone would be Mrs. White. And we would take on the character as part of the game. And so, for me, it was very natural in middle school with my friends to sit down and learn there's this entire world in which we roll dice and make up the story and slay monsters and you know save the village and that, I mean I was ushered right into it.
Julia Meek: You be the story, yes, yes. So, break it down for us, Dane. Game playing, role playing, miniatures, special events, costuming. How does it fit and flow under one roof, even a grand one like you'll be under the Grand Wayne Center?
Courtesy/Fort Wayne MadCon
Dane Leicht: One of the big parts of pulling this all together is the community and the people that love these games.
We are able to have a Marvel Crisis Protocol tournament because there is the love of the little Marvel superheroes that are combating with each other to have this little skirmish where we have a Halo miniatures game tournament.
I mean, the Halo flashpoint is a fantastic game, and so many people think of Halo and they go, "Oh, the video game?" Like, no, the miniature game where we paint the little guys and we roll the dice, and we just have a blast on a table. All of these are just brought together by communities that love them.
Julia Meek: Indeed,andminiatures (and miniature-making)areyet again an ancient custom. What is that like? That whole miniature world. What kind of satisfaction? Can you describe it in a word or two?
Dane Leicht: A word or two. I have never been good at a word or two, Julia. Ever in my life, a word or two. [both laugh] Miniatures. We all like to see things from a bird's eye view, and when you're playing a miniatures game, you have this kind of power and bird's eye view. So, you have the great plan playing out in front of you. So, I think the draw of miniatures is that you can see something you can't see in person, and you can strategize in ways you can't in person, and kind of create this entire experience, you know, in 32-millimeter scale.
Julia Meek: It really is your world, and you control it. Yes, that all makes sense. Okay, these are really all ancient customs brought into and beyond the 21st century. In your mind, what is the universal as well as perennial appeal of gaming at the very base of storytelling?
Dane Leicht: The very base of gaming, at least the gaming that we--I love to participate in so much, is story. It is community. Those two words. Oh God, you got me down to two words--you're amazing. [both chuckle] Story and community. That's gameplay.
We tell tales about the person that rolled a natural 20 at the exact right time because that story is exciting, and that story only comes about when we're with this group that can appreciate what a phrase like "that natural 20" actually means, knows.
So, when we're with our people and we're telling our story and we're playing this game and something unexpected and exciting happens, it shifts the story. Both good when things go good and bad when they don't.
Even competitive games, when we are down to drawing the last card and our only hope is to rely on the heart of the cards, and all of a sudden, we pull out the lightning bolt at the right moment.
Those create story, and we gather with those that appreciate it, and we grow closer to each other by not only just telling what happened, but by participating in the telling, which is so much stronger.
Julia Meek: And that's the community of it. Your two words. Now okay, you seem to be an outgoing and fun-loving, creative--is that a safe assumption? [chuckles]You are destined to seek the wild and crazy. What about your fellow gamers? What does this sort of activity unleash on those maybe not as outgoing as you?
Dane Leicht: So, you don't have to be extroverted to love these games. There's a lot of introverts that I play with where I absolutely adore what that mindset, what that outlook brings to a character.
The best example is I'm playing with some friends right now. My friend's wife joined the game. We've all played with one another. This is her first time playing in a game with us, and her entire character is a little standoffish because you know she's getting a feel for the group and getting a feel for how we're playing.
And she's not quite as extroverted as I am, and she's not super introverted. But just that little bit of quietness makes so much louder the participation of folks that are playing games like this, where you know that when Emily says anything in character, it's profound.
It's important because it's something that a lot of introverts and she also thinks about and well, you know, how do I best talk about this? So, when it does come out, it's you know unlike me that I just spout anything that comes to mind, and most of it is just gonna make it on the cutting room floor.
With her, you know there are these little things that really, really matter. And in this community, everyone has this place and this voice that's important to the story.
Julia Meek: And rather makes their own. When you choose your character; the character becomes you.
Dane Leicht: It does, and I've had introvert friends play extroverted characters, and there's some stumbling there. But it's like anything else. I've tried to play introverts before. It never works. I never make it past one game. But all the different personalities can touch these different games and have this storytelling and have a vital, a vital place in the story.
Julia Meek: And how has the big explosion of home-friend and the parlor, wherever you meet gaming, driven this trend toward bigger, bolder gatherings like you are throwing?
Dane Leicht: You know, we definitely hope to take on the title of bigger, bolder. I mean, it's not too often that you have a couple hundred people that gather together for these sorts of things.
But you know, here in Indiana, we have Gen Con, which had 74,000 attendees last year. It's the biggest gaming convention in the United States. It's in Indy. It's in Indianapolis, right here in in the state. And so, this appeal to gaming is massive.
And having a large group of people come together and know that--here's the best way that I'd think to answer this. Lots of people like lots of different games, and sometimes if you have trouble finding that group that likes the game you do, it feels like no one plays the game.
When you have a larger gathering where all of a sudden, you're looking through the list of games to play, and you can see, oh, Axis and Allies, I can play that with someone other than the same three guys that I've been playing it with for the last 40 years. Yes, I want to play that with new people.
You know, those sorts of games are something conventions can do, where we can look at a game and say, "I love this game, but I always play the same people." These are brand new people that love it, which expands our community and expands the story and brings new voices in in a way that I adore.
Julia Meek: Makes its own story.
Dane Leicht: It does. It does, every time.
Julia Meek: This is an intentionally inclusive gathering--three day's worth of it, as a matter of fact. Lots of moving parts. How did you, and how do you, going forward, coordinated it all? What kind of a mad army do you have at your command, General? [both chuckle]
Dane Leicht: Well, none of this could happen without my wife's massive help and support. I don't think she left the headquarters of MadCon last year for the two days that we did it last year. Sarah's just fantastic about being, you know, supportive and loving and helpful and all those things.
In addition to her, all of the games are run by people right here in the community, people that want to share their game, that want to share what they love. And really, what I see myself doing, I claim the title organizer.
Right now, as of this afternoon, we have more than 165 different games scheduled. So, 165 different games and events are scheduled between Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. And all of those are run by people that love them. People that this is their favorite game, and they want to share it with someone.
And so, what makes MadCon work is it's this community of people who love games that want to share that with someone else. And I see myself as the one that provides the place where that can happen in a situation where more people might see a game that they wouldn't see otherwise.
Or they might experience gaming to a level they hadn't before. There is a game called Deadlands, which is a weird fantasy Wild West game, and there's going to be an eight-foot table with an entire Wild West village on it.
You know that sort of experience you just can't do everywhere. So, this provides that special place for people to really tell their stories.
Julia Meek: And it sounds like you can always find someone to help you get that out there and put it together to be able to tell the story.
Dane Leicht: Oh, absolutely! There is nothing that a nerd loves more than telling you about the story they love.
Julia Meek: It's a nerd-friendly environment you create, obviously. What variety of nerds do you attract then?
Dane Leicht: Really, an incredibly wide range, I would say. There are so many people that some of which may be surprising and some of which are perfectly stereotypical. But if you're part of any community, that's how every community works.
We can look at the group of gamers and go, Oh, you know, that's you might think that a gamer is the old white guy that's 40 years old and ranting about his character. No, that's me. [both laugh] But at the same time, one of you know my 20-something year old sister-in-law loves games.
It's something that all of us can kind of find the game we adore and and get into. My 14-year-old son adores miniature games. He loves Marvel Crisis Protocol. I mean, all of these things, all the different individuals and people in this community, like I said before, they have their place in the story, and having them telling the tale is what I adore. And so, what kind of nerds? All kinds, every flavor.
Courtesy/Fort Wayne MadCon
Julia Meek: And all ages.
Dane Leicht: All ages, all kinds. This is a place where I want absolutely anyone who plays any kind of game to find something they adore and to be able to share that.
Julia Meek: Okay, so would you walk us down that rabbit hole, I believe you call it, and run us through a day's activities?
Dane Leicht: Absolutely. So, Friday evening is just going to be in the evening, so we'll start there. We have several tables that are set up for role-playing games.
We have a Tomb of Horrors game, which, for those that know Dungeons and Dragons, know it to be one of the most notorious and classic dungeons. So we have someone that's running that game. We have a live-action murder mystery that's going to be playing out, and we have a One-Piece card game tournament going on.
All of these simultaneously, so it's hard to participate in all of them in their entirety, but that's also part of the convention experience. There's a lot going on, on purpose.
Saturday, there are a couple stage shows that will happen. We have a cosplay contest in the evening. We have a lecture on the importance of role play games and their role in therapy. We have board games being played. We have 15 different tables of role-playing games from Call of Cthulhu to Dungeons and Dragons 5.5.
All while a vendor hall next door has 30 nerdy vendors that have brought all of their most fantastic wares, from crocheted creatures to dice, with Chessix coming out. The largest, you know, right here in Fort Wayne, the largest provider of dice in the world is right here.
To Nomenclature Dice, which is a small custom dice maker who lives here in town. So, there's just this wide range of what goes on day to day. In addition to that, the board game library goes on all day.
So, if you don't want to find an organized game, or out of the 165 plus, you don't find your favorite, well, the board game library is bringing 4000 games to play. So, there's, if you can't find a game that you love to play at MadCon, then please tell me we will find it and we will have it next year.
Julia Meek: Meanwhile, one can come with their own posse. One can come with their club. One can come all by themselves and find something exactly right and fun for them to do.
Dane Leicht: Oh, absolutely! I just had a conversation with someone that came out today to pick up some games to run for MadCon, and she was asking, you know, what kind of games should she play? You know, should she just do this one, or should she run this one also?
And I said, no, you know, run as many as you want. My goal is at the top of every hour, someone that is looking for a game to play, can look around that play area and go, that table still has seats open. I'm gonna go see what they're doing. That's the goal of MadCon.
I want there to be empty seats at tables so that someone can walk up and say, "Hey, you know, what are you guys doing? You know, what story are you telling? So, they can participate in that. That's the big goal: is there will always be something.
Julia Meek: And costumes certainly are not mandatory. I know they're encouraged. What percentage could you guess might be in some kind of cool, crazy outfit matching the day?
Dane Leicht: Well, with a new convention, it's our second year. Not as high as some others, of course, but we will always have folks in character. We have a cosplay contest where the winners will not only get one of the keys to the con, which is a special trophy.
I had custom made for all of the tournaments, but they'll also get tickets to the Spirit Bomb concert that's Saturday night. That's being held at the Embassy the same weekend. So yeah, I strongly encourage costumes of all kinds.
They are by no means mandatory, but my daughter will be in costume because she cannot go to a convention without being in costume, and so will my son. So, it's...
Julia Meek: How about their dad?
Dane Leicht: Oh, I will be The Hatter all weekend.
Julia Meek: All right, we were hoping. We were hoping!
Dane Leicht: All weekend long.
Julia Meek: So, what kind of a destination event draw do you anticipate for this second year's madness?
Dane Leicht: So, our first year, our furthest visitor came from Louisville, Kentucky.
Julia Meek: Impressive!
Dane Leicht: Absolutely fantastic guy. Love that he made the trip up. This year, I know that we're having folks from just outside of Cleveland are making their way out. We have folks from all the way up in the mitten of Michigan coming down.
So, it's really fantastic to see the MadCon's reach expanding a little bit, where we can kind of cross-pollinate our nerdy communities. Where you know, when I think of my online home game, and I have friends in Utah and Texas and Ohio and Minnesota, and we all come together and play online. It's a blast.
Well, we can do that in person now, and that growing circle reminds all of us that there's so many folks that love the games we love all over the place, and having them come here to Fort Wayne, I just think--I'm selfish. I'm here. I I like that they're coming here. [laughs]
Julia Meek: Come on in, come on in, everybody!
Dane Leicht: Absolutely, absolutely! Everybody is welcome. No exceptions, no exclusions. This is a case where you, when you are telling your story, you are to be who you are, and when it comes to MadCon, be exactly who you are.
Julia Meek: Yes. [chuckles] So this is truly such a blend of old-fashioned fun, parlor games, masquerading, you know, pretty much directly geared toward a high-tech electronic consumer group of the 21st century. How does an intensely creative in-person celebration resonate with all of that in this fast-paced kind of "electro" world we live in?
Dane Leicht: We will always need each other. Humans telling stories and being in community is a necessity for us to thrive and to, in my opinion, to be the fullest that we personally can be is when we are interacting and engaging with other people.
It's part of how we understand ourselves. It's part of how we understand each other. And we can sit and scroll all we want, and I do it too. I mean, I get home at the end of the day and I don't have any energy left, and all I want to do is see, you know, how many YouTube shorts can I go through until I turn into a potato.
But we can't thrive like that, and we'll never be able to thrive like that.
So yeah, we're a tech world, and we're a continually connected world, and we're a world in which more and more amazing things can be done with technology that, in many ways gets closer and closer to some of the sci-fi that a lot of us love, but at that same time there is still that longing for each other.
Julia Meek: So, it all starts with and goes back to community.
Dane Leicht: It goes back to story and community. Those two words, more than anything else, are what I hope MadCon is--not just for me, but for those who participate. I want someone to come away from this weekend with 15 different tales of what took place.
You know, I want everyone's next favorite gaming memory to happen in the Grand Wayne Center, where a goofball in a top hat walked by right as they rolled a natural one at the worst possible time.
I want to be there when the amazing play happens, where their miniature tactical trap is sprung, and they win the game and have that sense of pride and accomplishment that they hold on to forever. Yeah, I want those stories to be created in this event, and I want to hear them.
Julia Meek: Obviously, you love MadCon. It's not easy work. What motivates you to do it again, and hopefully next year again and again? Why work so hard, Dane?
Dane Leicht: There are two answers to this. I have a short-term goal with MadCon that MadCon is large enough that we're able to go across the SkyBridge and occupy the Indiana hotel lobby over at the Embassy across the street.
Because in that beautiful Art Deco 1920s styled room, we could play some Call of Cthulhu games that would scare the tar out of people and be absolutely perfect. I just want to be big enough to make that happen. [both laugh]
The ultimate goal of MadCon is just to create this place where people can look at this event in the fall in Fort Wayne and have fun. Fun with a capital F, capital U, capital N.
That is the mission statement of MadCon—to have fun with friends and strangers. I want it to be a place where you meet someone you've never rolled dice with before and make a lifelong friend.
I want it to be a place where you run into a friend that you knew 30 years ago, and for some reason, because you both like the same thing, even though you've drifted apart, you find yourselves again at this event.
That's my goal--my goals for MadCon.
Julia Meek: Fort Wayne Creative Dane Leicht is founder and organizer extraordinaire of MadCon. Thanks for sharing the story of your madness, Dane. Have another great year--and game ON!!
Dane Leicht: Thank you so much.
