Gary Con IX (2017)

[Guy Fullerton]

My Flickr album for GCIX:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/63744171@ ... 1699762566

(I am slacking and not posting individual ones inline right now, sorry!)

[Welleran]

This is a Brew 2017 cross post.

[Kellri]

I think from now on, all photos of beer posted on K&KA should have grodog sitting pensively with a glass of water in the background.

[Chainsaw]

gizmomathboy running Circus Maximus


Ancalagon's game


Jeff and Ernesto


tacojohn's game, from John, clockwise:?, ?, ligedog, Josh, ?, ?, Jeff, ?

[dzubak]

Chainsaw,
What's the deal with that giant Tegel Manor book on page 8 of this thread? It also looks like they are selling reprints of the original. Fact or fiction?
-D

[Chainsaw]

Chainsaw,
What's the deal with that giant Tegel Manor book on page 8 of this thread? It also looks like they are selling reprints of the original. Fact or fiction?

Good question, my friend, and probably better answered by grodog or tacojohn. Very big book, not sure if it was a custom curiosity or not.

[Guy Fullerton]

The oversize Tegel Manor book is more than just Tegel Manor. It has several early JG modules, plus issues of Judges Guild Journal, historical notes, etc., and was done via this kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14 ... rs-edition

[Chainsaw]

Gary Con recap:

- I had a great time, as usual! Terrific seeing everyone. Too many names to mention, but really made me wish we all lived closer.
- Hotel was nice and clean, staff friendly and food pretty good especially considering the volume of people they served almost around the clock. Heard 1,750 total attendees this year.
- Some event rooms seemed a little crowded/hot/noisy depending on time and day, but I'm not sure that's avoidable. Nature of the beast at most conventions, I think. Logistics seemed fairly well executed overall. No mix-ups or issues on site for me or that I heard of (lost events, registrations, etc).
- The suite francisca and I rented fit two rectangular banquet tables well (seated 8-9 comfortably and had extra stools by the minibar). I have already reserved another one for next year. Can't be beat for off-grid games during the busy hours. Special thanks to francisca for hauling up his table and chairs! I owe him big time.
- I ran seven games this year, which I may end up doing again next year, even though it felt a bit exhausting at the time, because I did have fun. Plus, it should be less prep work because I'll be running the same things next year. Here are my game recaps, for those that like them, but these do contain spoilers.

Weds evening (930PM-midnight) Foolsgrave off-grid with ligedog (and his buds Ernesto and Jeff), Cloak n' Dagger, Ancalagon, Josh and three of Handy Haversack's crew (Kevin, Ross and Emily). We had a great time! Moved pretty quickly despite group size. We had some exploration (room with a 12 foot tall iron automaton; soot-filled room with a trapped chest; room that looked like a safe campsite, but had a puzzling "Don't camp here" warning written on the wall; room with some wild boars eating zombies; room with a pentagram and some meat hooks hanging from ceiling - the group then hung the boars from the hooks, which magically created rubies when their blood dripped into the pentagram; several empty rooms), some battles (iron automaton, black robed guy with skull amulet, jeweled snail, wild boars, zombies) and two deaths (Jeff cleaved in two by an iron automaton; Ernesto incinerated by the trapped chest that exploded), treasure (gold, gems, skull amulet). Ross picked Ernesto's pocket as Ernesto was leaning over to open the trapped chest. Later, Ross also resorted to "spanking the pigs." Lots of beer, laughs and fun!

Thurs afternoon (2PM-6PM) Crash at Corpse Creek with BigPerm, djcheshirecat, Ross, Bracton, stratochamp, Noah, Patrick and Patrick's son. This group operated like a SEAL team in Corpse Creek's very first running! They slayed a 20' praying mantis, stole a hydra's treasure right out from under its nose, used a Fly spell to find the crashed object (a giant space bug), ensorcelled my monstrous "kidnapper" centipede (underbelly exoskeleton opens up to store victims for slow digestion), fended off the yellow moths (that shoot concentrated yellow), disarmed the bug swarm trap, rescued the surviving trapper (and killed his spore-man cell mate), then used Sorcerer Eye to gain valuable intel and Fireball and strategic attacks to kill the sorcerer and his mutant bugs in like one round. Pretty awesome textbook case of patiently gathering info, developing a plan, getting the treasure and saving the day to make Hyperborea a better place. Nice work!

Thursday night (930PM-130AM) Foolsgrave off-grid with JoeMac (assassin), his two friends Dave (warlock) and Dave (ranger), and Josh (playing his same necromancer from Weds night). These guys really kicked ass! Smaller group than Weds, and very efficient (despite much liquor!). They explored maybe two dozen rooms, avoiding/fleeing several wandering monster encounters along the way (yellow moths, metal monitoring sphere, green slime, evil adventuring party, Thaumagorgon cultists, giant vampire bats), found two chests of gold and ultimately made their way into the overgrown tunnels to the north, where they killed the fucking shambling mound that guards the portal to the insectoid dimension! I rolled for shit for the mound's hit points (21/80 possible), then lost initiative almost every time, whereas Dave's warlock rolled two natural 20s, Dave's ranger had a few arrow hits, JoeMac's assassin had two backstabs and Josh's necromancer's skeletons had a couple hits. Of course, the best part was warlock Dave mocking JoeMac and ranger Dave the whole time for not doing as much damage "limp dick mother fuckers." Might have been the booze talking! They recovered about 4,000GP worth of loot and 2,000XP. Pretty badass for three Level 1 and one Level 2 adventurers! I totally keyed that room with a "too tough" monster thinking it would slaughter whoever found it. Never know what can happen!

Fri afternoon (2PM-6PM) Crash at Corpse Creek with Guy Fullerton, Josh, Dennis and Dan (from Ghul's home group), Paul and Eric. This group brought a different mojo than the Thursday group, LoL! Although they killed the giant mantis, snuck into the gargantuan space bug corpse, found the sorcerer's inner sanctum and took him out, when they recovered the Spawn of Yog, the adventure didn't end. They decided to see if they could use it to turn the space bug into a gargantuan, hill-sized slime. And they did. And then this enormous, 250 tall x 500 long slime slithered off into Corpse Creek to make Hyperborea a worse place. We all had a good laugh! It actually felt more like a CAS or HPL ending than anything I've ever run. Good work!

Fri night (830PM-130PM) Foolsgrave off-grid with ligedog, Ernesto, gizmo, Jeff, Josh, Del and francisca played from 830PM-130AM, with Ernesto again quickly setting the tone by barrelling through a door and into room with 24 big-handed zombies that pummeled him dead in one round (everyone else watched from the hall, laughed, shut the door and left!). They soon found three adjacent teleportation rooms: one returned Josh to the entrance, one sent them all into the 24 zombie room (luckily they pushed through the corpses, fleeing unharmed) and one teleported them onto the meathooks in the pentagram room (their draining blood created some valuable rubies). They happened upon a walking treasure chest, but it fled after too much damage and was too fast for even ligedog's barbarian. We ended in a high note, with Ernesto defacing a demonic idol, which invoked a powerful demon with two pincers, two claws, a wolf head and a tentacle zapper - it slaughtered Ernesto, gizmo and francisca almost immediately - everyone else fled back to the surface, happy for the bigger shares.

Sat morning (10AM-2PM) Strange Tale of Crystal Point with Ernesto, mrmanowar, Welleran, Brian (Welleran's bro), Dex and Scott (from Welleran's home group) and Emily. This game marked the tenth time I've run this adventure and I have to say this group did really well. They explored the sea caves and defeated the mutant sorcerer (though first Emily became enthralled with his crab-slug idol-sculpture, which Cory's pyromancer burned up to free her) and his mutant barnacle-crab-men henchmen (which nearly sliced Dex's laser pistol wielding fighter to ribbons), recovering the Black Claw of Chalak (which made poor Scott's features wither and sink, and his mouth reform into a crab-mandible). From there, they destroyed my giant four-clawed crab (Emily and Scott's casting ice storm and lightning), gathered its valuable magical eggs and hiked to the cliff top. They then descended an old silo shaft, found a damaged reactor control room and... then it was time to go. Too bad we didn't have more time. Still, they did slay both the sorcerer and also the giant four-clawed crab, which no other group has done. Congrats!

Sat night (830PM-1230AM) Foolsgrave with Noah, Noah's Son, Kevin, Kevin's Son, grodog, Guy, Scott and Tom, all new to the dungeon, played from 830PM-1AM. Lots of carnage (Guy 1 sundered in two by the iron statue [-24 HP]; Guy 2 and Tom 1 obliterated by a floating metal monitoring sphere's green energy ray [Mike's berserker killed it, grodog found some crystals inside]; grodog's skeletal servants Guy 1 and Jeff 1 incinerated by trapped chests) and a couple fun rooms (they found the teleportation rooms [ended up on the meat hooks over the pentagram, but got the rubies]; a room with a multi-faced floating object asking them "GUILTY or INNOCENT?" [scared, they left]). They also found gold in two chests (killed some dark blue giant beetles guarding one), destroyed a walking treasure chest (lots of gold inside!) and found two potion bottles (one filled with white mist, the other heart-shaped with red liquid). Again, finished on a high note, with Kevin topside in the Laughing Skull tavern, opening the mist-filled bottle - a ghost emerged and the patrons all fled in terror!

[Terrex]

- I ran seven games this year, which I may end up doing again next year, even though it felt a bit exhausting at the time, because I did have fun.

Damn, Chainsaw, that's a lot DMing!

[Ancalagon]

It was a great time all around, folks!

I really enjoyed getting to game / hang out / enjoy some Spotted Cow / talk with a lot of folks: Cloak-n-Dagger, Chainsaw, francisca, Handy Haversack, Big Perm, ligedog, Ghul, grodog, tacojohn, gizmomathboy, chgowiz, GuyFullerton, Steve C. and Tim B. from TLG, Ross, Kevin, Josh, Emily, Ernesto, Dell, Morgan, Jeff, Nick, Collette, and anyone else my partially undead brain may be failing to remember by name.

The games in which I played were excellent. Special praise goes out to Cloak-n-Dagger for his White Box Adventures scenario, Buried, to Chainsaw for his AS&SH scenario, Foolsgrave, and to chgowiz for allowing me a 5-hour glimpse into his most excellent campaign world.

About 15 months ago I had to step away from the DM screen, put my campaign on hiatus, and become a player in a game due to grad school time requirements. Gary Con IX was my first real opportunity to get back in the DMing saddle since then by running 3 sessions of AD&D. It was good! Players enjoyed themselves with my Things Best Forgotten adventure... even if they died by blunt trauma, being hacked to death, fire, cold, poison, transformation into monsters, disintegration, or in one case, having the soul forcibly removed from the body so that... something else... could inhabit it.

[Chainsaw]

- I ran seven games this year, which I may end up doing again next year, even though it felt a bit exhausting at the time, because I did have fun.

Damn, Chainsaw, that's a lot DMing!

Every morning, I said to myself, "What the hell were you thinking!?!" but I had fun in every game and plan to try to repeat next year.

[Handy Haversack]

Nice pix and recaps, Chain!

My AS&SH games were all full in theory, but Sunday took its toll on actual attendance. I ended up with three TPKs in two games! It's a dangerous world.

I played in AS&SH games from Ghul, Mabon, and Lige, and it was the best. I had a great time with them and seeing you all, and so did my crew. Wish I'd been able to get there in time for your Wed. night game, Chainsaw! Freakin' Laguardia. But it was great to see you all. Seeing everyone again and getting to game with at least some of you has become a really important part of GaryCon for me.

However. Credit where credit is due: All hail Grodog, winner of GaryCon IX! He TPKed us at 4 AM Monday morning in the Black Resevoir. My 8th level MU was about 5' from escaping to tell the tale. Serves me right for trying to help the group.

I think this is two years in a row for Grodog since he was in the boat with me and Welleran when we were the only ones who escaped from Francisca's lobster-clams last year. Will his streak reach three? Be there next year to find out!

It was a great game and a perfect way to cap off the con. Ave Grodog, imperator!

And I think we can posit Cloak'n'Dagger as a candidate for losing GaryCon. When he got ready to step into the breach and single-handedly take on the BBEG in Ligedog's Too Long in the Midnight Sea AS&SH game, he jacked in his apmpoule of speed, drew his laser dagger, won initiative, and moved in to take his three attacks and for the kill. Three d20s in hand, he unleashed -- and rolled three 1s. And then Ligedog retorted with two natural 20s and two max (3X damage) effects on the crit chart, and that ended CnD's brief career as our last hope. At least you were already unconscious when Manny hit you with that lightning bolt.

It wasn't your fault, CnD. When probability itself has turned against you, there's just not much you can do.

Great time, everyone!

[Handy Haversack]

And here's a pic of Chainsaw from Manny. Peter wanted me to point out that Chainsaw cheaped out on a Bronze badge and had to do the whole con in black and white!

[Chainsaw]

Haha! Busted!

[Guy Fullerton]

Wed & Thurs photos...

Chainsaw's Wed Foolsgrave (clockwise from top-left): Chainsaw, Jeff, Ernesto, ligedog, Kevin, Ross, Emily, Ancalagon, Cloak n' Dagger's empty seat, Josh


grodog and tacojohn's Black Blade Publishing booth, with tacojohn in the red shirt


Welleran's thursday Sightless Sisters: Clockwise after Welleran's DM's position: Ted, ?, Brian, Josh, Wheggi, Greg




Welleran showing his custom six-siders, with one custom version for each campaign his group has done:


Now Scott (from Welleran's group) has taken over in the second position clockwise from Welleran (after the previous player had to leave)


Evidence of our expedition


Grodog's Castle Greyhawk game on Thursday night. Clockwise from Grodog: ?, ?, Mike, Sofie, Eric, Emily, James, ?, Shiv




My cleric, he tries to avoid the sting of Grodog's level


Thursday night, Welleran, gizmomathboy, Brian, Dex wargaming