Wednesday
Got in a little late, drank some Spotted Cow (a recurring theme), and played Carcassone in the lobby.
Thursday
Descent into Vladikavkaz -- ran my first game of the con. As it's a sub-level of a much larger dungeon and had a lot of possibilities, I gave the players a treasure map with some annotations to give them a choice of what to do. They chose wisely and took on the Stone Sisters and their "goth girl" blind warriors (the player's nickname, not mine). Lots of fighting and mayhem, a few casualties, esepcially when big-momma spell-casting super medusa showed up.
Chainmail: Viking Assault on a Norman Fort -- this one was run by Paul Stormberg, originally written by Gygax. I was on the Norman side and co-commanded the outer defensive fort against the initial Viking assault. We did a great job of mowing down the Vikings with bowmen as they approached -- until they reached the walls and a crazy-good roller mowed down the entire line of my archers. Still, I think we out-maneuvered the attackers by not fixating on the fort's defense as our objective (it was to protect the Earl's lady and a chest of his treasure, which we immediately evacuated). In the end, we won through straight attrition, having slaughtered most of the attackers.
Archer-eye view of the screaming hoard:
Crypt of the Lost Fire Opal -- This was also Paul Stormberg. I picked the female magic-user as my pre-gen, only to learn to my chagrin we were going to all be 1st level - that meant a lot of creative play to be useful since my spell allotment was very meager. Still, we had a good time exploring the dungeon, and were amused by the hand-slapping antics of Disciple Koh (played by my brother). I think we threw Paul for a few loops, too, as we did a few unexpected things like befriend the bandits living below.
Friday
Jutland with Miniatures -- I put together a set of ship miniatures for use in playing the Avalon Hill game Jutland last summer and decided to show them off this year. The game was fun, except that the four hour block was not quite enough time to really have a good game. The poor German players ran into the entire British fleet with his little scouting force of Battlecruisers, and much mayhem ensued, though the German gunnery was superb, sinking the HMS Agincourt in the first salvo with a lucky hit on its magazine.
German battlecruisers flee the Royal Navy, hoping to reach their own battle fleet:
I had a break on Friday, the first one I'd really had, and got to meet EOTB and talk his ear off about my campaign in the pub.
Castle Greyhawk -- One of my yearly "musts" is Grodog's Greyhawk. This year I was in the same group as EOTB and Capitalbill. I played a high-level Paladin and got to lop off the arm of an Iron Golem, so I was pleased! I think the free-flowing Spotted Cow was wearing down our brains a bit; that was certainly the case with me!
Saturday
Aliens: Hunt the Queen -- Another great Grodog game, this has also become a yearly "must." I played Hudson, so I got to throw out lots of good quotes from Aliens. However, unlike the movie version, I had some great rolls and took out several alien critters with my pulse rifle. Sadly, Allan had a lecture to give which ended the game early (I think we were toast anyway, given that Apone, one of the best fighters, got killed pretty early on).
Grodog's Aliens:
Lost City of the Elders -- this was one run by Rob Kuntz and proved to be heavy on abstract problem-solving. It went well enough, as we only lost one PC who ended up being sacrificed by some elder beings to who knows what. As it turned out, the mission we were sent on was bunk -- it was a ruse to send some rubes (the party) into another dimension as an experiment.
My only other break was short, but long enough to fulfill another annual "must" - dinner at Medusa in downtown Lake Geneva. That place is awesome! And given my Thursday adventure, quite appropriate.
Night of the Walking Wet #4 -- my last event was the highlight of the trip, as always. This one was run by Tavis Allison and has been ongoing since Garycon 2 with the same core group of players and PCs. As always, we had a blast as much for all the table talk as the adventure itself. Tavis is a great DM but gets even higher marks for keeping things flowing when he has a table full of rowdy knuckleheads. We picked up more or less where we left off last year and reentered Castle Kraak where we wandered about some areas previously not explored. My character got to slay an evil wizard AND his hydra (a polymorphed Hobgoblin, I think) in one round with some spectacular rolls. That made my night! This game with these players and DM was a fortuitous combination that continues to be the best part of the con for me. I'm looking forward to continuing it next year!
Tavis' Walking Wet (with all the piles of table plunder - no one goes hungry in this game):
This was another great year. I'm amazed that I can game for 14 hours a day and still feel like I missed so much of it.
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