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David Nett

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David Nett

David is a writer, actor, and producer and avid roleplaying gamer. He’s the creator of the award winning webseries GOLD (2008), Night of the Zombie King (2010), and Geek & Sundry’s RPG-themed fitness show Max Hit Points. He also

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David Nett

David is a writer, actor, and producer and avid roleplaying gamer. He’s the creator of the award winning webseries GOLD (2008), Night of the Zombie King (2010), and Geek & Sundry’s RPG-themed fitness show Max Hit Points. He also wrote and produced Geek & Sundry’s Starter Kit and Shout! Factory’s Sword & Sorcery RPG series Always a Sword, and has contributed to dozens of RPG-themed series at Geek & Sundry, Nerdist, Caffeine, and others. He’s the co-creator, along with Todd Shashwick, of ProgCore Fantasy, and 2026 will see the release of their system-agnostic sorcebook ProgCore Fantasy: Dark Age of Theer, as well as their companion actual play series (ProgCore Fantasy: City of Sorrow), soundtrack (Songs from Theer), and (hopefully) the animated short Passing Shimmer. Alongside all of that, he and his wife Christy own Hero’s Journey Fitness in Burbank, CA, a gym designed by and for nerds and geeks with the conviction that fitness belongs to everyone.

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Brian Lewis

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Brian Lewis

Brian Lewis is the Chairperson & Co-Owner of Gen Con, LLC and Managing Partner of Azora Law, PLLC. A passionate admirer of the social fabric that defines the tabletop gaming community, Brian is deeply grateful to play a role in

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Brian Lewis

Brian Lewis is the Chairperson & Co-Owner of Gen Con, LLC and Managing Partner of Azora Law, PLLC. A passionate admirer of the social fabric that defines the tabletop gaming community, Brian is deeply grateful to play a role in building and preserving a community where all people have a seat at the gaming table. His roots in gaming reach back to the launch of Magic: the Gathering® where he served as the first lawyer for Wizards of the Coast. Over the course of his career, Brian had the privilege of helping bring Pokémon® to the world outside of Japan, participating in the acquisition of D&D® and TSR, assisting in the sale of Wizards of the Coast to Hasbro, and crafting the legal framework for the Open Gaming License – work that has had a lasting impact on the tabletop gaming landscape.  

Brian later founded Azora Law, a firm specializing in complex global intellectual property portfolios and enthusiastically serves as general counsel to many gaming companies, entrepreneurs, and creators supporting innovation across the industry. At Azora, Brian championed the development, drafting, socialization and launch of the Open RPG Creative License (the ORC License). In his role as Chairperson and Co-owner of Gen Con®, Brian is committed to assuring that as the convention continues to grow, it honors its more than 50-year history while creating new opportunities, experiences, and communities. His vision is for Gen Con to remain a safe, welcoming space where fun, empathy, play, and connection flourish-now and well into the future. 

Brian takes seriously his role as a custodian of the tabletop gaming industry. He also nourishes his soul wing-foiling, snow skiing, cycling, and you can occasionally see his adventures and progress in Facebook’s Body By Gygax Challenge group.

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Thomas Valley

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Thomas Valley

Thomas Valley is a forever dungeon master who has been organizing or running events at conventions for over 40 years. He’s the co-founder of GameConclave, a convention services company, and one of the Premier Organizers for Wizards of the Coast’s

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Thomas Valley

Thomas Valley is a forever dungeon master who has been organizing or running events at conventions for over 40 years. He’s the co-founder of GameConclave, a convention services company, and one of the Premier Organizers for Wizards of the Coast’s new Organized Play program: Legends of Greyhawk. Thomas once played pinball with a young Luke Gygax at the Mecca Center in Milwaukee, and will happily brag to anyone that his RPGA membership number only has 5 digits.

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Monica Paprocki

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Monica Paprocki

Monica Paprocki is an award-winning Filipino cosplayer from Chicago and serves as the CEO of GeeksAGogo.com. She has been featured in prestigious publications, including The Chicago Tribune and The New Yorker, among others. Monica was also part of the

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Monica Paprocki

Monica Paprocki is an award-winning Filipino cosplayer from Chicago and serves as the CEO of GeeksAGogo.com. She has been featured in prestigious publications, including The Chicago Tribune and The New Yorker, among others. Monica was also part of the wardrobe team for Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter during its Chicago show. She actively participates in discussions about diversity in the cosplay and gaming communities, providing tutorials for cosplayers of all skill levels at various events and seminars.

You can find her at www.GeeksAGogo.com!

Or follow her on social media:

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Jeremy Crawford

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Jeremy Crawford

Jeremy Crawford is the game director at Critical Role’s Darrington Press. Before joining Critical Role in 2025, he was the lead designer of the Player’s Handbook (2014 and 2024) for Dungeons & Dragons, and he oversaw the development of rules

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Jeremy Crawford

Jeremy Crawford is the game director at Critical Role’s Darrington Press. Before joining Critical Role in 2025, he was the lead designer of the Player’s Handbook (2014 and 2024) for Dungeons & Dragons, and he oversaw the development of rules for D&D over the past decade. He also led or co-led the design of the Monster Manual (2025), Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything (2020), Eberron: Rising from the Last War (2019), Xanathar’s Guide to Everything (2017), the Dungeon Master’s Guide (2014), and many other D&D books. Since 2018, he has been one of the game masters and players in the live-play show Acquisitions Incorporated. Prior to 2007, he co-designed the game Blue Rose and wrote for the games Mutants & Masterminds and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

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Antonio Canobbio

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Antonio Canobbio

Antonio Canobbio is the Chief Creative Officer of Titmouse, Inc., a multi-hyphenated animation studio and pop culture brand with offices in Los Angeles, New York and Vancouver.  

As the CCO, Canobbio oversees the creative direction of all Titmouse projects

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Antonio Canobbio

Antonio Canobbio is the Chief Creative Officer of Titmouse, Inc., a multi-hyphenated animation studio and pop culture brand with offices in Los Angeles, New York and Vancouver.  

As the CCO, Canobbio oversees the creative direction of all Titmouse projects including Star Trek: Lower Decks, The Legend of Vox Machina, Venture Bros., Scavengers Reign and Big Mouth..  

Canobbio began his animation career working as a layout artist in his native city, Paris, until Chris Prynoski, who was working at MTV, noticed his unique portfolio drawings showing up on the fax machine (yes, really – via fax!). Shortly after Chris and Shannon Prynoski started Titmouse in 2000, Canobbio joined them in Los Angeles. 

Today, Canobbio continues to oversee the visual development and art direction of all productions that pass through the studio.

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Todd Stashwick

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Todd Stashwick

Todd is an actor, writer, dungeon master. His roles as Captain Liam Shaw in Star Trek: Picard  and Deacon in 12 Monkeys,  he will also be starring alongside Paul Bettany in the upcoming Marvel’s VisionQuest on Disney+. He’s currently

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Todd Stashwick

Todd is an actor, writer, dungeon master. His roles as Captain Liam Shaw in Star Trek: Picard  and Deacon in 12 Monkeys,  he will also be starring alongside Paul Bettany in the upcoming Marvel’s VisionQuest on Disney+. He’s currently co-writer on the video game Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra with Video Game luminary, Amy Hennig.  Todd is an old school DnD player from the late 70s become a pillar of the gaming community, with appearances on Geek & Sundry’s Starter Kit, Shout! Factory’s Always a Sword, the Glass Cannon, Beadle & Grimm’s Faster Purple Worm Kill Kill, and running multiple celebrity Charity D&D streams for Childhood cancer research. He has co-created the D&D inspired tiki cocktail book Mystic Libations with former imagineer, Brandon Kleyla. After a phenomenally successful Kickstarter he and his creative partner Davidi Nett, are currently  hard at work on their multimedia TTRPG project ProgCore Fantasy: Dark Age of Theer.

Troy Denning_Gary Con 2026 (GIVE PHOTO CREDIT TO Andria Hayday)

Troy Denning

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Troy Denning

Troy Denning is the New York Times bestselling author of more than forty novels of fantasy and science fiction set in a variety of popular game and movie worlds, including Halo, Star Wars, Dark Sun, and the Forgotten Realms. He

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Troy Denning

Troy Denning is the New York Times bestselling author of more than forty novels of fantasy and science fiction set in a variety of popular game and movie worlds, including Halo, Star Wars, Dark Sun, and the Forgotten Realms. He began his career directly out of Beloit College in 1981, when he landed a job at TSR Hobbies as a games editor. Over the next two years, he held several games-related positions at TSR, including manager of games editing and manager of game design. He left in 1984 to join John Ricketts, Mark Acres, and several other former TSR personnel in founding Pacesetter Games, where he served as the VP of Production and designed the award-winning tile/boardgame CHILL: BLACK MORN MANOR.

After a short detour to manage the acquisition and editing department at MAYFAIR GAMES and work on a variety of freelance gaming projects, he returned to TSR in 1989 as a senior game designer, where he designed the DARK SUN game setting with Tim Brown, Mary Kirchoff and Brom. It was during this period he also wrote his first New York Times bestseller, the Forgotten Realms tie-in novel Waterdeep.

Upon completing the DARK SUN setting, he transitioned to full-time novelist by penning the first five DARK SUN novels, the Prism Pentad. He continued to write tie-in novels for TSR until 2000, when he was approached to write STAR WARS novels. It was a happy match for more than a decade, producing 12 novels in a variety of series.

Then Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012 and rebooted STAR WARS continuity. (Grrr.)

Denning completed the final novel in the original “Legends” continuity in 2013 (Crucible), then happily moved on to a new love with the publication of HALO: Last Light in 2015. So far, he has published a total of eight HALO novels, and occasionally emerges from retirement to work on other HALO projects. [Photo Credits Andria Hayday].

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Pat Kilbane

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Pat Kilbane

Pat Kilbane was bitten by the roleplaying bug in 1979 with the Holmes D&D Basic Set and has been playing ever since. He has a penchant for the science behind RPG rule mechanics (which led him to create the web

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Pat Kilbane

Pat Kilbane was bitten by the roleplaying bug in 1979 with the Holmes D&D Basic Set and has been playing ever since. He has a penchant for the science behind RPG rule mechanics (which led him to create the web series RPG Science) and is the director of The Dreams in Gary’s Basement, a documentary film about Gary Gygax and the creation of Dungeons & Dragons.

Beginning his career as an actor, Pat spent three years as a series regular on Fox’s Mad TV. He also played the Anti-Kramer in the Seinfeld episode “The Bizarro Jerry” and guest starred in films such as Evolution, Semi-Pro and Day of the Dead.

Now a writer/director, Pat penned the zombie book The Brain Eater’s Bible (St. Martin’s Press), wrote and directed the Discovery Networks series Dark Secrets and spent two years under contract with Dreamworks developing science-fiction concepts for television.

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