Special Guests
UK Games Expo are delighted to announce a number of special guests for this years show.
Luke Gygax
Luke was literally born into gaming as he is the son of Gary Gygax, the co-founder of Dungeons & Dragons, the first Roleplaying Game ever created. Luke began his creative endeavors at an early age as he was literally raised playing D&D. He designed the Bullywug and played the iconic fighter/magic-user Melf whose eponymously titled Acid Arrow and Minute Meteors are still used in the latest version of D&D. Luke recently retired from the Army after over 30 years, and spends his time creating new material through his publishing company, Gaxx Worx (gaxxworx.com). His latest products are set in his World of Okkorim fantasy milieu. You can get digital copies at the Gaxx Worx webstore.
Luke is also the founder and head of Gary Con (garycon.com), a memorial convention in honor of his Dad held in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin every March. Lake Geneva is Luke's hometown and it was where his father founded the convention Gen Con, TSR Inc and wrote Dungeons & Dragons. The city is truly the Heart of Tabletop Roleplaying Games. Gary Con grew out of the memorial held after his father's funeral where family and friends gathered to celebrate his life by doing what Gary loved so much; playing games and sharing camaraderie with fellow game enthusiasts. Gary Con has grown and embraces all the talented designers who laid the foundation of our community and welcomes games and gamers of all types from around the world.
When Luke isn’t creating adventures or coordinating Gary Con, he enjoys spending time with his wife Bouchra, their three daughters, Miriam, Amira and Sabrina, and their faithful hound, Grogu.
Luke will be running a number of exclusive sessions at the expo. This will be revealed soon with a chance to win a seat on the table!.
He will also be doing a seminar on Growing Up Gygax, explaining what is was like growing up with D&D.
You can also visit his stand, GAXX Worx at 2-607. You will able to meet him and get signed copies of your books.
Sir Ian Livingstone
Ian Livingstone is the co-founder of Games Workshop who launched Dungeons & Dragons in the UK in 1975. He is also the co-author of the multi-million-selling Fighting Fantasy gamebook series. At UKGE this year, Ian and the Darkroom star, John Robertson, will be verbally sparring with each other in a fun live reading of Ian’s City of Thieves.
2023 is the 40th anniversary of the publication of City of Thieves. This best-selling Fighting Fantasy gamebook is a fantasy adventure in which YOU, the hero, are tasked by the villagers of Silverton to save them from Zanbar Bone, the undead Night Prince. To do this, YOU must first travel to the notorious Port Blacksand to seek help from the grand wizard Nicodemus before confronting the Night Prince.
Terror stalks the night as Zanbar Bone and his bloodthirsty Moon Dogs hold the own of Silvertown to ransom. Our hero John Robertson's mission will take him to Port Blacksand's dark, twisting streets, where thieves, vagabonds and creatures of the night lie in wait as he tries to find Nicodemus. Beyond Port Blacksand lies the stronghold of the infamous Zanzibar Bone.
Will John succeed on his mission? Ian Livingstone and the audience will do their best to stop him!
Half of each ticket fee will be added to the UKGE Charity donations.
Sir Ian and John Robertson will be playing their way through City of Thieves on Saturday 3rd June at 5pm in the Hilton Pavilion.
Click here for more information.
Sir Ian will also be on stand 2-T21, where he will be selling and signing copies of his Fighting Fantasy books and DICE MEN: the origin story of Games Workshop.
No Rolls Barred
No Rolls Barred (NRB), formerly Phenoma-Nerds, is a YouTube channel and group of board game hobbyists, actors, comedians and wrestling fans who come together to play and review board games.
The channel specialises in playing games as a friendship group, rather than offering a detailed, dry explanation. The point is to show the experience of playing a mix of games of all levels of complexity. The tone is accessible, irreverent and often adult-themed, with long-term themes and recurring jokes. There are often wrestling-like rivalries with faces and heels that occur between the many cast members, each of whom have interesting personalities.
NRB at UKGE2023
Watch the cast of the popular YouTube channel No Rolls Barred do an in person Board Game Club, live in front of you, our audience! No Rolls Barred is a comedy board gaming channel that showcases just how much fun board gaming can be, gathering comedic talents and expert board gamers together to see how outrageously entertaining that mish mash of players are.
It promises to be full of eclectic fun, frolics and ridiculousness as we see some of the silliest board gamers on the planet compete to see who can win it all in front of hundreds of people. It's going to be an hour of stupidity, needless spitefulness and a lot of questionably good puns. It's going to be an hour of thrills, spills, and comical voices. It's going to be an hour of absurd plays, betrayals, and poorly done impressions!
So come and join us, and always remember to get on board!
Watch their YouTube channel here.
Alex Kammer
Alex Kammer is a lawyer, a freelance adventure/game designer, and is the Director of Gamehole Con, the largest tabletop gaming convention in the upper Midwest. Alex has numerous published titles to his credit from an array of publishers. His deeply and profoundly anticipated next book, The End of Everything, will be released from Frog God Games in 2023. His other works include a series of platinum and mithral bestselling titles on the Dungeon Master’s Guild, the most recent being, Thay, Land of the Red Wizards. Alex also is one of the owners of True Dungeon, the magnificent, life-sized, immersive, role-playing experience played in a walk-through dungeon environment. Finally, while Alex has not stolen anything recently, the wise play is to keep an eye on him. One cannot be too careful.
Alex will be running three games over the weekend. These will be End of Everything parts I, II and III. The End of Everything. It is a sprawling D&D adventure filled with cosmic weirdness and darkness. These shows are rated 18+.
Tim Hutchings
Tim Hutchings is an artist, indie TTRPG/larp designer, video-post generalist, and professor of game design at Bradley University in the US. His solo TTRPG game Thousand Year Old Vampire won three Ennies and the Indiecade Tabletop Award and has, so far, been translated into Italian, French, Spanish, and Japanese. His game A Fantastic Desire for Adventure; or Young Tim Hutchings Tells You How to Live won an Indie Groundbreaker Awards from the Indie Game Developer Network; his larp A Crow Funeral won a prestigious Golden Cobra.
In the past few years Hutchings' has accumulated a seemingly random range of accomplishments: He was awarded a grant from the Seattle Art Museum, has credits on the films Wendell & Wild and Passing, received a teaching award, was a guest at Lucca Comics & Games, showed his art at half a dozen galleries and museums in three countries, and won a game design competition in which he was the only entrant. His game work has recently been featured at two international conferences, both of which happened to be held in New Zealand. Tim is an old member of the CAR-PGA and a new member of the SFWA.
Hutchings' latest game is the unprofitably enigmatic A Collection of Improving Exercises, of which a limited number will be available at this con. His upcoming game Thousand Year Old Campfire -might- be ready for a UKGE premiere.
Simon Fisher-Becker
Born in London in 1961, Simon is best known for his portrayal of Tony Fazackerley in PUPPY LOVE for the BBC and as Intergalactic Black Marketeer, Dorium Maldovar in the BBC’s hugely successful – DOCTOR WHO. Simon has covered the whole spectrum of the industry; everything from Shakespeare to Panto, Musicals to Farce, equally at home with Comedy and Drama.
Simon has been Co-Host on The No-Name Trivia Show with Joseph McGrail-Bateup and Paul Boultwood since 2020. He has the Award Winning ‘Simon Says’ section. He produces his own Simon Says VLOGS on YouTube and Simon Says Sci-Fi for The Legend of the Traveling TARDIS show fronted by Christian Basel based in Florida. He also has his own YouTube Channel where he posts regular VLOGS.
Other Credits include Television: Dr Who, Getting On, Afterlife, Love Soup, One Foot in the Grave, Doctors, Sedgfield Park, 99-1, Hale & Pace, The Good Guys, The Bill, Crimewatch Factfile and London’s Burning. Films: The Great Director (playing the Ghost of Alfred Hitchcock), Pundemic, Les Misérables, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (The Fat Friar), Sweet Thing, An Ungentlemanly Act, Beg! Arrivederci Millwall. Theatre: Includes, Exclusive – with Paul Scofield, Eileen Atkins and Alec McCowen, The Busybody, The Emperor of the Moon, An Inspector Calls, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth and his one man play Hamlet: Tragedy of a Fat Man by Paddy Gormley.
Simon’s voice a regularly put to good use as Radio Presenter and Narrator. For Big Finish…. Gallifrey V and an Iris Wildthyme story – A Lift in Time – and The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles, reprising the role of Dorium Maldovar in 2018 and again in 2021 in the second series of Jenny. Simon also lends his voice to the spoof animation Doctor Stew and a regular for the American Audio series – Hawk Chronicles.
As a writer Simon has written shows a semi-autobiographical trilogy. Fantastic Books Publishing have published Simon’s wonderful collection of self-deprecating anecdotes under the titles, ‘My Dalek Has A Puncture’, ‘My Dalek Has Another Puncture’ and ‘Let Zygons Be Zygons’. All available on Amazon since November 2021.
Simon has teamed up with Rocking Horse Media working on various projects including, a comedy short Reduced to Clear and the documentary, Bigger on the Inside highlighting disability awareness
Simon appeared in Harry Potter House Tournament Quiz fronted by Dame Helen Mirren in November 2021.
Ben Aaronovitch
Born and raised in London, Ben Aaronovitch had the sort of unrelentingly uninteresting childhood that drives a person to drink or Science Fiction. The latter proved useful in his early career when he wrote for Doctor Who (before it was fashionable), Casualty and the cheapest soap opera ever made – Jupiter Moon.
Alas his career floundered in the late 1990s and he was forced to go out and work for living. It was while running the Crime and Science Fiction sections at the Covent Garden branch of Waterstones that he conceived the notion of writing novels instead. Thus was the Rivers of London series born and when the first book proved to be a runaway success he waited all of five minutes to give up the day job and return to the bliss that is a full time writing career.
Ben is coming to UK Games Expo on Friday June 2nd as special guest of Chaosium. Visit booth 1-1035, and get your copy of Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game signed!
Ben will appearing on the Main Stage at 12.00 noon on Friday 2nd June for an interview with On Tabletop.
And at 2.00pm the same day in the Panda Theatre, Ben is participating an a panel session with Rivers of London RPG line editor Lynne Hardy and other members of the creative team, discussing how they took his major novel series and turned it in to a roleplaying game.
Alex Yeager
Alex Yeager ( Now COO at Amigo Spiele, ex-Steve Jackson Games ex-Mayfair Games). Alex has over 250 credited playtest or development credits for a wide variety of board game companies, as well as producing and writing for podcasts. Alex also enjoys comics, music and other people’s pets.
Alex will be hosting our Boot Camp this year. Click here for more info.