My first gaming convention. I would explain but there is too much, so I will sum up.
Met awesome people, including people I had never dreamed I would meet. Gamed for 25 hours over two and a half days. Died in three of the four games in which I played.
Had more fun than should ever be allowed.
The details, if you want to read them, will follow.
No details of the actual encounters will be included at the request of the DMs, some of whom are preparing their works for publication. Suffice to say that every session challenged me as a player and inspired me as a Dungeon Master.
NTRPGCon Report
Moderator: Falconer
Session 1
Got into my office at 7 am Friday to make sure I could walk out at 3 PM.
Convention check-in started at 4pm. The hotel is 20 minutes from my house, so I got there around 4:30 and did my check in. The celebrities were already standing around outside the hotel smoking and chatting. I ran into Mythmere in that group and he had on a S&W t-shirt.
Checked in, started walking around getting to know people. Lots of Acaeum folks I didn't know. Lots of Dragonsfoot folks whose handles I knew. Few of them recognized me since I post on the Alehouse and on the S&W Forum more than I post at Dragonsfoot. I looked over the raffle prizes and was impressed by some of the cool stuff.
At 5pm Tim Kask tossed a stack of beautiful character sheets on to his table and told us to reread his ground rules for play and choose characters. By 6 we sat down to start the first session. Tim ran OD&D including Supplements from memory using a module he'd created just for this convention. The players quickly fell into a good rapport and intelligently explored the complex. I was able to play Xylarthen the Subtle, a Warlock (8th level m-u) and we all died about 6 hours later after some very enjoyable play. Tim announced that this was his first TPK. Thanks were exchanged all around, he graciously signed many autographs.
I went home shortly after that game ended, but I heard that Rob Kuntz's game (the one in which Grodog mapped and Lance H. died) went until 2AM.
I heard that Frank's game that session was also quite a lot of fun -- many had never played such high level characters (18th/20th using 1e+some UA).
The only game of 3e played at the Con was in Session 1 and it went until 5AM Saturday morning.
Got into my office at 7 am Friday to make sure I could walk out at 3 PM.
Convention check-in started at 4pm. The hotel is 20 minutes from my house, so I got there around 4:30 and did my check in. The celebrities were already standing around outside the hotel smoking and chatting. I ran into Mythmere in that group and he had on a S&W t-shirt.
Checked in, started walking around getting to know people. Lots of Acaeum folks I didn't know. Lots of Dragonsfoot folks whose handles I knew. Few of them recognized me since I post on the Alehouse and on the S&W Forum more than I post at Dragonsfoot. I looked over the raffle prizes and was impressed by some of the cool stuff.
At 5pm Tim Kask tossed a stack of beautiful character sheets on to his table and told us to reread his ground rules for play and choose characters. By 6 we sat down to start the first session. Tim ran OD&D including Supplements from memory using a module he'd created just for this convention. The players quickly fell into a good rapport and intelligently explored the complex. I was able to play Xylarthen the Subtle, a Warlock (8th level m-u) and we all died about 6 hours later after some very enjoyable play. Tim announced that this was his first TPK. Thanks were exchanged all around, he graciously signed many autographs.
I went home shortly after that game ended, but I heard that Rob Kuntz's game (the one in which Grodog mapped and Lance H. died) went until 2AM.
I heard that Frank's game that session was also quite a lot of fun -- many had never played such high level characters (18th/20th using 1e+some UA).
The only game of 3e played at the Con was in Session 1 and it went until 5AM Saturday morning.
Session 2
Rolled into the hotel lobby at 7:30 with coffee and bagel. Found the table that Allan Grohe was going to be running his AM game at and set up.
I should note that I had a devil of a time deciding whether or not I wanted to play in grodog's game or tacojohn's game. I figured, since he's the expert on all things Greyhawk, that Allan was, shall we say very mature and, err...given the last year, not long for this world. So, with that in mind, fearful that the legendary grodog would pop his clogs in the next 12 months, I opted to play in his Escape from Level 14 of Castle Grohawk rather than the Wilderlands-based game that tacojohn was running.
Well, as most of you know, Allan is not anywhere near old enough to pop his clogs in the next 30 years. And he ran a very enjoyable game that involved very little combat but lots of curious puzzles. No treasure of note was hauled, IIRC, but we did get out alive. This was the only game I played in where I didn't die.
The players didn't play cohesively for the first hour or two. Several were highly individualistic as players (this was a recurrent feature, as a couple of them ended up in nearly all the games I played this weekend). But I had a good time and I think most others did, too.
Allan kindly offered me a look at his maps after the adventure was over, and we talked about care and feeding of the megadungeon. Truly a treat.
We got on a bus, the whole lot of us and went to the local home of one of our hosts, Doug Rhea, who shoveled food and drink down our hungry maws while we lounged in the shade and relaxed, grateful for break from the sometimes exhausting fun of adventuring.
Rolled into the hotel lobby at 7:30 with coffee and bagel. Found the table that Allan Grohe was going to be running his AM game at and set up.
I should note that I had a devil of a time deciding whether or not I wanted to play in grodog's game or tacojohn's game. I figured, since he's the expert on all things Greyhawk, that Allan was, shall we say very mature and, err...given the last year, not long for this world. So, with that in mind, fearful that the legendary grodog would pop his clogs in the next 12 months, I opted to play in his Escape from Level 14 of Castle Grohawk rather than the Wilderlands-based game that tacojohn was running.
Well, as most of you know, Allan is not anywhere near old enough to pop his clogs in the next 30 years. And he ran a very enjoyable game that involved very little combat but lots of curious puzzles. No treasure of note was hauled, IIRC, but we did get out alive. This was the only game I played in where I didn't die.
The players didn't play cohesively for the first hour or two. Several were highly individualistic as players (this was a recurrent feature, as a couple of them ended up in nearly all the games I played this weekend). But I had a good time and I think most others did, too.
Allan kindly offered me a look at his maps after the adventure was over, and we talked about care and feeding of the megadungeon. Truly a treat.
We got on a bus, the whole lot of us and went to the local home of one of our hosts, Doug Rhea, who shoveled food and drink down our hungry maws while we lounged in the shade and relaxed, grateful for break from the sometimes exhausting fun of adventuring.
Session 3
Everyone returned to the hotel for the start of the 6 PM game session on Saturday. I was in Rob Kuntz's El Raja Key game and I opted for an Elf F/M-U rolled up on the spot under pure PHB rules. Everyone was level 2, so Rob approved me as a 1/1.
The party never really cohered or acted as an intelligent unit so, as a player, it was a disappointing session.
But I must stress that watching Rob as a DM more than made up for the insanity of our Keystone Kops approach to dungeoneering. Watching him deal with unruly players who wouldn't honor the basic table rules was an education, too. I thought he did an admirable job managing the chaos.
I would have thrown my own hands up in frustration had I been the DM.
If there was a poor choice to make, someone in our party made it: ignoring treasure, wasting time searching, describing character actions in vague generalities rather than clear specifics, etc. At one point, I elected to eat some food found in the dungeon and promptly died. That was fun since, according to Rob, Gary's character Yrag died in the same way in the same part of that dungeon in 1972. And he signed my character sheet to that effect.
Shortly after my PC's death, Paul Jaquays had to leave so I ran his PC for the remaining hour of the game.
The TPK resulted when (as the result of a wandering monster check) our halfling thief opened a door, gained total surprise on 9 gnolls -- and attacked them with a missile weapon. *sigh* The fighters then massed at the door and got the snot beaten out of them by the gnolls. One gnoll kept rolling 19 To Hit and near max damage with a flail. Spells failed, we couldn't hit, and we were bottle-necked at the door way.
The decision was made to sound the retreat when much of the party was down to 1 or 2 hit points and only one or two gnolls had been damaged.
We were not going to get out alive once we turned to run.
We wrapped around 1AM. I have no clue what happened in the other games.
Everyone returned to the hotel for the start of the 6 PM game session on Saturday. I was in Rob Kuntz's El Raja Key game and I opted for an Elf F/M-U rolled up on the spot under pure PHB rules. Everyone was level 2, so Rob approved me as a 1/1.
The party never really cohered or acted as an intelligent unit so, as a player, it was a disappointing session.
But I must stress that watching Rob as a DM more than made up for the insanity of our Keystone Kops approach to dungeoneering. Watching him deal with unruly players who wouldn't honor the basic table rules was an education, too. I thought he did an admirable job managing the chaos.
I would have thrown my own hands up in frustration had I been the DM.
If there was a poor choice to make, someone in our party made it: ignoring treasure, wasting time searching, describing character actions in vague generalities rather than clear specifics, etc. At one point, I elected to eat some food found in the dungeon and promptly died. That was fun since, according to Rob, Gary's character Yrag died in the same way in the same part of that dungeon in 1972. And he signed my character sheet to that effect.
Shortly after my PC's death, Paul Jaquays had to leave so I ran his PC for the remaining hour of the game.
The TPK resulted when (as the result of a wandering monster check) our halfling thief opened a door, gained total surprise on 9 gnolls -- and attacked them with a missile weapon. *sigh* The fighters then massed at the door and got the snot beaten out of them by the gnolls. One gnoll kept rolling 19 To Hit and near max damage with a flail. Spells failed, we couldn't hit, and we were bottle-necked at the door way.
The decision was made to sound the retreat when much of the party was down to 1 or 2 hit points and only one or two gnolls had been damaged.
We were not going to get out alive once we turned to run.
We wrapped around 1AM. I have no clue what happened in the other games.
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grodog
- Uber-Grognard
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I'll post a summary of my session tonight, hopefullyFlambeaux wrote:And any of you who were there should feel free to comment on my summary. I'm certainly not attempting to be exhaustive and I know there's a lot I missed. *)
grodog
----
Allan Grohe
Editor and Project Manager
Black Blade Publishing
https://www.facebook.com/BlackBladePublishing/
grodog@gmail.com
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html for my Greyhawk site
https://grodog.blogspot.com/ for my blog, From Kuroth's Quill
----
Allan Grohe
Editor and Project Manager
Black Blade Publishing
https://www.facebook.com/BlackBladePublishing/
grodog@gmail.com
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html for my Greyhawk site
https://grodog.blogspot.com/ for my blog, From Kuroth's Quill
Anybody have any photos to post (or a link where they're posted elsewhere)?
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I didn't take any photos, but lots were taken. The Convention website is being rebuilt and I expect that photos and video will become available there.T. Foster wrote:Anybody have any photos to post (or a link where they're posted elsewhere)?
Lots of Dragonsfoot folks were around, so I'd expect photos over there.
Foster, I suspect photos will be filtering in to this thread eventually as well:
http://www.acaeum.com/forum/about8062-0-asc-540.html
http://www.acaeum.com/forum/about8062-0-asc-540.html
Oh lord, yeah, I would say that would be accurate. As a group, we were at cross purposes and it was an ongoing train wreck which was hilarious. I am really surprised we lasted as long as we did. There are worse ways to spend an evening than laughing your ass off for 6 hours.Flambeaux wrote:Quatzl, would you agree that our party for El Raja Key was a Keystone Kops/Three Stooges type of experience?
On a general note, it was fantastic to meet the folks that attended, the special guests/DMs were gracious and told us many a tale (real and imagined). Mike and Doug (from http://www.acaeum.com/), who organized the event, did a great job, and already checking off my calendar for next year.
During the DMs' smoke break, Rob told me that your group was surviving based on an incredible run of luck. "Jesus Christ, I can't believe it" was repeated more than once.
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jgbrowning
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