GaryCon V Recap Post- Part III: The Weekend

Ladies and gentlemen, sorry about the delay. This is Michael here, and I kinda agreed a while back to write up my last two days of GaryCon to get the lead-in to Dave's last two days. Sadly, I've been having a host of issues, so I've kept things delayed... a few months. I really need to finish this up. SO! Where were we?

Saturday started pretty well honestly. It was the one day Dave and I were going to be sharing two games, and the first game was Mutant Future. Or to be more accurate, using the Mutant Future setting to play out an episode of THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN! Ah, nostalgia and kids' shows. And the GM honestly rocked. ( +Tim Snider of The Savage Afterworld- Dave) I won't go too heavy into details, god knows Dave might want to, but this was a GREAT game, with the GM playing up the motif with the opening credits played on his laptop, as well as a commercial break. Lots of fun, imaginative playing of the setting, and honestly we really abused some of the opportunities we got. Great game and great start. I think we kinda beat it a bit early, got handed free settings books for if we wanted to do Thundarr ourselves, and went off to eat some before our next game. (Long story short, I managed to quadruplicate Ookla to defeat the enemy. -Dave)

Again, that was intended to be our first game, and I was looking forward to my second as well. See, the followup was a game of Dungeon! I really love that game, and I do need to get a copy of it myself. (I got one! -Dave) Wizards of the Coast did a reprint of the game so if you like board games, pick it up. Again, it was hosted by the creator of the game, who's name escapes me, Dave will probably correct it in. (David Megarry -Dave) And he told again the story of the game, showing the first edition and the tables it was originally played on. Very cool stuff. Sadly, I got to feeling unwell by the time the history was told, and had to excuse myself. So I got to miss out on the actual game itself. Went back to my room and rested most of Saturday away, using my laptop to keep in contact with people online and post some in forums. Even sick, I did some role-playing. Shush.

And that takes me to Sunday, and the last game on my list. The one I'd been looking forward to all con. Call of Cthulhu. Honestly, I'd never played it and I'd wanted to for SO LONG. I love the Lovecraftian setting and I really had been looking forward to it. By the time I got there, there were about five other players waiting, and more showing up as we settled in to talk and chat. Friends and people I'd met from prior cons, I was really looking forward to the game!

And the GM never showed up. Nobody knew what happened to him, where he was. Talked to the con staff, they had no idea what was going on. Table was bleeding players as people went to try and see if there were openings in second pick games when yet again the awesome con staff came through. There was someone with some experience in Call who was willing to GM for us. Great man, I REALLY wish I could remember his name (I am HORRIBLE with names) (Don't ask me, I was playing Traveler at the time- Dave) who more or less ran us through a condensed form of one of his basic sessions. Dave came along during the game, his own game plans kinda shot, and he sat to watch a good deal of the fun as we tried to investigate through a mysterious death and tragic murder. (No, my game went pretty well actually -Dave) All of it looked to lead up to an occult conspiracy and a plan to summon an elder god, and two of our impromptu group got captured by cultists and held in a prison under their base. The rest of us came in, not knowing they were trapped, and confronted the leader of the cult...

And I will admit part of this was my just being kinda tired and feeling ready to head home, but... When the cult leader asked us if there was anything he could say to get us on his side? I sold everyone out, kinda. I'd been hired, NOT paid, and had been working this nonsense without any hope of recompense. I think it rather tickled the GM that I was more than happy to be paid off, and my detective left the rest of them behind to cash his check and get on the first ship he could find to France, get as FAR away from all that nonsense as he could. Honestly? Great end to my last day.

Dave and I had already packed up the car so, we left. Got lunch at a nice out of the way place with... Crap. Dave, tell the rest of the story, my brain is pudding for names.

Afterwards we hung out with +Christopher Stogdill, +Carolyn Stogdill, +Paul Raasch and +Scott Schwartz at Hogs & Kisses in Lake Geneva for lunch before heading home. Overall, it was a great time.

In related news, GaryCon VI has officially been announced for March 27-30, 2014. For more information go to garycon.com

The GaryCon V Recap Post- Part II: Friday

[This is a continuation of the belated recap of GaryCon V that took place in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin last month. This recap also features my brother Michael as a guest blogger.

Also, I need to get this done so I can move on and blog about other things.]

Friday

One of the things I told myself I was going to do Thursday was to get everything together for the Shootout. That didn't happen, so for the second year in a row I was scrambling to get building models assembled and paper minis cut out. The glue sticks I purchased for the models didn't work at all, so I had to run back to Wal-Mart to buy tape. As for the minis, it turns out that I didn't have them with me when I left upstate New York. And my attempts to print out copies from the hotel's printer failed spectacularly as they didn't have any PDF viewers on their office computer. I decided to make do with the fantasy minis I used the day before and continued on. My only interruption being when Michael came back from his 9am game earlier than expected. I'll let him explain.

There Will Be a GaryCon V Post!

I was planning on vlogging my way through GaryCon V, but the presence of hundreds of people at the Geneva Ridge Resort put a damper on the wi-fi. My video of the events of "Day Zero" would have taken over eight hours to upload back in Wisconsin. And my constant worrying about the video on Thursday led to me not preparing for a game on Friday until the 11th hour. So I decided to eschew any "journalism" and focus more on enjoying my vacation, which is really what my trip to GaryCon was about.

Anyway, without further ado, here is Day Zero.

GaryCon is Tomorrow!

And I do have some content to add about it! However, I committed to doing a vlog about traveling from my brother's apartment to Lake Geneva and all relevant subjects about it. The video has been recorded, but now I'm waiting for the Flip program to finish compiling all the small vids into one video to upload to YouTube. So as soon as that's done I'll append it to this post for all to see.

But just for a Cliff's Notes version, things are pretty awesome right now.

8 Days Till GaryCon! Employment Opportunity!

Just read this on the Kenzer & Company Forums:

Interested in learning the nuts and bolts of running a hobby game company? We are currently looking for a part-time intern. We are looking for a reliable, responsible, detail-minded, organized individual who does not mind doing manual labor. This job will included but not be limited to: Warehouse duties: packing product, shipping orders, moving boxes, transporting orders to post office and UPS, etc. Convention duties: set-up, take-down, working the booths, running demos, etc. Proofreading and playtesting. Extensive knowledge of our products is a plus. This job would be a maximum of 10-20 hours per week. A reliable vehicle is required. Must live in a reasonable proximity to our office in Waukegan, IL. Please email Jennifer@kenzerco.com subject: INTERN, if interested.

As I have mentioned in the past, the Kenzer crew are a bunch of great people and I am a huge fan of their products. So if any of you that live in the northern Chicago suburbs, this may be an opportunity worth seeking out.

12 Days Till GaryCon! Good Signs.

You know that GaryCon is rapidly approaching when +David Kenzer takes a break from working on the HackMaster Game Master's Guide to see who else is going.

Now I just have to make sure I get him to sign my "Air Mail Stamp" Hacklopedia of Beats (top left).

16 Days Till GaryCon!

With GaryCon approaching rapidly, I was reminded of the time +Jolly Blackburn came up with a bunch of Monopoly style "Get Out of Player Character Story" cards a few years ago.

I haven't had the need to use the cards yet, but it's always better to be safe than sorry.

(And in case you are wondering, yes there are counter cards to get out of someone playing the "Get Out of Player Character Story" card on you. It's at the same link.)

20 Days Till GaryCon! Memories of GaryCon IV: Day Three.

Previously on Weekend Wizardry...

Since the video above is from both days two and three, I figured I would use it yet again to fill in some of the blanks.

So Day Three... For a Saturday it was kind of just there as far as gaming went. On one hand, I had a bit of a letdown at the beginning of the day. On the other hand, I did gain a few new experiences that went very well for me.

To start with, I had a level 5 HackMaster game I was running that required pregens. Pregens that I did not have at the time. So I needed to roll up six fifth level PCs in the course of a few hours. I also needed space to lay out my books while I did this, which the desk in my room did not allow. So I went to the bar at around 7am to get started. Only to get kicked out because the staff had to clean up. So I moved to the restaurant where open gaming was held. Only to get kicked out of there because the media was doing an interview with Luke Gygax in there. I finally found a table to sit at in the lobby and came up with a group of PCs.

Around noon the game began, and it was slated to be pretty big. The event was full, or close to it when the convention started. My brother and friend Paul being two of the people signed up. As the game started, it turned out Paul and Michael were the only players to show up. Blown off again. And this time I wouldn't get any new players to fill in until much later. As the video shows, Paul and Michael were playing three PCs a piece to keep things from being a slaughter. By the time our time had run out, Jerimy Grafenstein of Kenzer & Company had found four people looking for a game and managed to get them hooked up with us. The game ended up being a success. In another nice turn, I managed to run combat without using minis and mats. Not a big deal for old school gaming, but they are a big help when playing HackMaster.

Later that evening, I played in my first Pathfinder game. Having stopped playing D&D after 2nd Edition, I wasn't sure what to expect. I was also the old newbie in a group of Pathfinder vets. The good news was that everyone from the Pathfinder Society, players and GM, were incredibly helpful. I also got the Pathfinder novel Prince of Wolves as a bit of swag from the game. And apparently, if I read the book, one of my future PCs will get a +2 holy rapier from the Pathfinder Society. I haven't read the book, but I did buy the Pathfinder Core Rules when I got home.

I guess overall, Day Three was a day that started bad, but got better as it progressed. Next week, we wrap up the memories of GaryCons past and look towards creating new memories of games yet to come.

34 Days Till GaryCon! Memories of GaryCon IV: Part II

So Thursday started off with something new. Me sitting at a desk in my underwear desperately trying to get about nine paper building assembled in time for the shootout. I managed to convince Michael to help me ans soon we had our buildings done and I got some pants on. Things were looking up.

After a quick bite we went downstairs to find our table and get set up. I was a bit disappointed to see that we were at a small table shoved in the back room of the convention center. It wasn't until well into the game that we were actually given three tables and had that entire room to ourselves. Players began to line up, the majority from the Kenzer boards. Though I never took an actual count, I would say that we had at least a dozen players going. And despite having around twelve people gathered around the table, for some reason everyone seemed to be drawn towards the bathhouse for their starting position. It even got named the "Bathhouse of Blood" for all the kills that occurred around it. One of the highlights of the game when +Barbara Blackburn joined in, said "Take that you man-varmint!" and shot another character in the butt.

The game went for about three and a half hours before everyone had their fill and there was one player left standing. Since I didn't have much in the way of prizes to hand out, I had to settle for giving the winner the cheap paper model of the bathhouse as a reward.

After that I went to the Kenzer booth where I managed to get +Jolly Blackburn, +Barbara Blackburn, and +Steven Johansson to sign my special upside-down bound Hacklopedia of Beasts. Michael and I had ourselves some dinner and around eight o'clock we were back downstairs for some more gaming. This time I was playing HackMaster instead of GMing it. Our GM was +George Fields, the Ironman of HackMaster GMs. George runs more HackMaster games than the freaking Kenzer D-Team!

One thing that I like about making the switch from game master to player is that not only do I get a chance to get out from behind the screen, I also feel that by playing under other GMs makes me a better GM. It's nice to take a look at how other people interpret the rules and handle players. Even if you don't agree with how another GM makes a call, it does give you insight into aspects of the game you may have overlooked.

George's game wrapped close to midnight, and I was spent. Michael went on to do some more gaming that evening. Within two years he went from the timid guy unsure about even going to the convention, to socializing with strangers at a moments notice. I, on the other hand, went to bed for a much needed rest. After all, there were still three days of gaming to go.

55 Days Till GaryCon! GaryCon III: Part III

Shortly after I got into D&D, my buddy Dennis introduced me to Top Secret, an espionage role-playing game. The game was interesting too me as it was another game that only relied upon percentile dice to resolve actions (Marvel Super Heroes being the other one I knew about). It was also the first game I played that had a point-buy system for character creation. Shortly afterwards I purchased a copy of Top Secret SI, the 'advanced' version of the game. I figured I would get a chance to run and play some games of intrigue and adventure. Unfortunately, I could never find anyone willing to play Top Secret. Thus the box sat on a shelf until I forgot that I still owned it.

57 Days Till GaryCon! First Event Accepted!

Are you ready to Hack?

Just got an email from the GaryCon staff that my first game got accepted. If you are interested in learning how to play HackMaster, and you have no problems getting up early in the morning, then sign up for "Monsters in the Barn" on Thursday at 8AM.

The even is what we in the HackMaster Association call a "Learn to Hack". That means I'll be covering character creation as well as running a one-shot adventure. Do you dare to try to save a small farming village from a band of dangerous kobolds?

See ya on the 14th.

58 Days Till GaryCon! Swag of Conventions Past

This one is going to be a short photoblog. Here in a nutshell is all the free stuff, or swag, that I have picked up from GaryCons II-IV.

Click for a larger picture

Front and center is a Hyperborea lithograph by Ian Baggley from GaryCon II. Going back and to the left (no JFK jokes please) are the other GaryCon II items: two issues of Knights of the Dinner Table that I already had and the Kingdoms of Kalamar Campaign Setting and Atlas for D&D 3.5. The Campaign Setting is actually maybe 5%-10% rule specific, the rest if mostly descriptive text with plenty of adventure hooks for the clever GM.

GaryCon III swag includes The Random Exotic Creature Generator by James Raggi IV, and The Cabal King by Jason M Cook and Jon Johnson; a tournament module that was supposed to be run at GaryCon II, but events conspired to keep it from being run.

For GaryCon IV, I have the commemorative GaryCon d4 (on the copy of The Cabal King) and the Castles and Crusades module Dwarven Glory by Stephen Chenault. Having never played C&C, it was an interesting read and has piqued my interest in the system.

While the main purpose if GaryCon is to play games and make friends, getting free stuff doesn't hurt either.

76 Days Till GaryCon! Memories of GaryCon II- Part 2

So Friday morning started with my Learn to Hack game and the table was packed. I had about 8 people signed up and all of them showed. Since this was the first time I was demoing a game for people, I was concerned that I wouldn't have enough time. Back then you registered in four hour blocks, and I was sure I needed at least six hours to get things done. So I signed up for two sessions with the plan to take as long as was needed.

The session went really well as far as the players went. The thief was a combat machine taking out kobolds left and right while the dwarven mage struggled to keep up with the rest of the party. By the end of the session, my voice was almost gone and I retired to my room for a few hours before returning to the floor to chat some more with +Derek White, +David Kenzer and +Jolly Blackburn. At the end of the day, we hit the bar where a bluegrass band was playing. We took in the sounds and enjoyed a few adult beverages before calling it a night.

The next day started very slow. Originally, I had anticipated needing to work that morning as at the time I had a part-time teaching job. But since the class I was supposed to teach was cancelled, I had my morning free. So I set out for the Chicago suburbs to drag my brother kicking and screaming to GaryCon.

This is the face of a man who wanted to sleep in on Saturday.

Michael was quickly introduced to the Geekpreacher. Michael quickly apologized for not talking much as he described himself as "socially awkward". To his credit, Derek pointed out that the fact that showing up for the convention meant that he wasn't really socially awkward. He elaborated further that since gaming is a social activity, no one at GaryCon could truly be socially awkward. This improved Michael's mood considerably as we coined the new phrase "awkwardly social" to describe your typical gamer.

My brother had brought his copy of Mertwig's Maze with him to the convention in case anyone wanted to play. It didn't take long for him to find out that the game's creator, Tom Wham, was at GaryCon. So with that in mind, he spent the afternoon working up the courage to ask for an autograph. Meanwhile, I prepared for the game I was playing later that night. At about 9pm, in the middle of a tension-packed game of Aces & Eights, Michael came to my table to let me know that not only did he get the game signed, he also got to sit down and talk to Jean Wells for about ten minutes. "I had to go back to the room and geek out," was his reply afterwards.

The Aces & Eights game ended early due to an impromptu shootout on the train. So my brother and I grabbed the Geekpreacher and his buddy Redd and headed to the bar to play Give Me The Brain and The Red Dragon Inn. The next morning we took part in The Lodge's breakfast buffet before heading for home. On the ride home my brother, who not more than 24 hours earlier was peeved at the thought of going to Lake Geneva, turned to me and said, "Next year, I'm taking time off so I can attend the entire convention."

And thus a family tradition began.

(EDIT- "Awkwardly social" is the term we came up with. Not 'socially awkward' which already exists.)

78 Days Till GaryCon!: Post-Christmas Day Gaming Swag.

I hope everyone's holiday went well. While I didn't ask for any gaming materials for Christmas, being in the Chicago area for the holidays means being able to hit one of the best gaming stores out there. I've mentioned Games Plus before when I first started this blog. Now that I live in upstate New York, I only get to visit it twice a year, during Christmas and GaryCon. So after spending the annual Boxing Day family get-together with my Dad and stepmother at Olive Garden, I headed to Mount Prospect to pick up some gaming gear.

The first order of business was to get 8 d3s for HackMaster. I chose the standard d6 labeled 1-3 twice as opposed to the "three-sided" die since they are easier to acquire and read in my opinion. These are pretty popular among HackMaster players like myself. Particularly among those that favor battle axes, which do 4d3p damage. I could have used a lot of these at last year's GaryCon, so I decided to stock up prior to GaryCon V. I also grabbed the latest two issues of Knights of the Dinner Table while I was at it.

In non-gamer swag I managed to get nine movies including Blade Runner and Layer Cake, both of which get the old gears turning when coming up with adventure ideas. Hopefully I'll be able to watch a few of them when I get home.

Speaking of which, Friday is going to be a travel day for me. Since this may impede blogging, I'll be posting Part Two of Memories of GaryCon II tomorrow.

90 Days Till GaryCon! Memories of GaryCon I

As they say in writing circles, "Start at the beginning."

It was March 2009. It had been nine months since I graduated from college and one months since I had been laid off from my first job out of college. I had no job, no leads and no game. It sucked. And when things suck you desperately need something to improve your mood to keep you from tailspinning into even more suckness.

So one day I was on the Kenzer & Company Forums where I read a post from Jolly Blackburn about GaryCon. Gary Gygax had passed away the year before and his children decided that celebrating his life with a gaming convention a la the original GenCon was preferable to mourning the anniversary of his death. I read this post and decided that a) I needed to get out and do something and since b) it was free I would make the drive up to Lake Geneva for GaryCon I.

Getting there was an interesting experience. It was cold and dreary as March in Wisconsin can be without snowing. The hall was small but filled with energy, I walked in with trepidation, even though it was free I was worried about just walking in and sitting down just anywhere. I looked around at all the packed tables until I saw the Kenzer and Company Table. There was Jolly Blackburn, playing what would become the now current version of HackMaster with my future friend the Geekpreacher. I wanted to say hello and tell him i was a fan of his work, but I didn't want to interrupt him while he was gaming.

But then, luck came up and gave me an opportunity. While I didn't have money for a donation to the convention, I did have enough to purchase food and drink which also went to the con. A woman came by selling small brownies for a quarter a piece. On impulse, I bought two and gave one to Jolly as a token of appreciation. He responded by inviting me to game with him and the rest of the D-Team.

For the rest of the day I had a blast. I learned the new system and got to meet the people behind one of my favorite games and magazines. In another bit of luck, I mentioned to Brian Jelke about my job situation and it turned out that the company he works for was hiring structural engineers and he agreed to forward my resume to their HR department. At the end of the day I swore that if there was another GaryCon the next year, I would attend it.

Next Friday: GaryCon II.

The Trials and Tribulations of the Play-by-Post Game.

As of yesterday, my play-by-post game of HackMaster has been going on for five months. Five months is not an inconsiderable amount of time as far as role-playing games are concerned. Typically, a character advances in level once every four to five weeks of real time. By the end of level one, players will have received at least one decent magic item. Then you take into account the the amount of "game time" spent traveling, training and recovering from wounds and you would expect that in the game world the PCs are level six with some really good items and a year has passed since the campaign started.

In reality, exactly one day has passed in game time. The party has fought exactly one battle and haven't found any treasure. I have accomplished in five months what most campaigns get in their first hour. It has been so slow that at times I have had to railroad the party just to keep things going.

Another problem has been player attrition. I have had four players drop out of my game since it started in April. And out of that four, only one had the courtesy to give me a heads up. The rest just disappeared, never to post again. Fortunately I have been able to get the party back up to five players. Unannounced dropouts happen in normal games, particularly ones at game stores. But on a message board where a quick PM to the GM to say, "Sorry, I don't have time to do this anymore," is quite aggravating.

That's not to say it's been all bad. One thing I have enjoyed about the game being play-by-post is the amount of role-playing the players have put in. For example, out of the five PCs only one (a dwarven Cleric of the Guardian) doesn't speak a common language with the rest of the party. While there are two other characters that speak dwarven, one is a soft-spoken dwarf that rarely says more than a few words to anyone, and the other is an absent-minded mage that forgets to translate for the party unless prodded. It has led to some entertaining conversations to say the least.

Also, the pace has allowed me to flesh out some of the backstory for the archipelago. It has also allowed me to make changes to the setting that weren't part of the original concept. It's nice to come up with adventure ideas without feeling rushed.

Ideally, this would be a weekly game played either in-person or through something like Skype or Google+. But since I have to make due with what I have, I might as well make the most of it. I'll try to keep everyone appraised of how things go as the happen, no matter how long it takes.

I'm Published!

Great News! Well for me at least.

For the past three years, I have run a short HackMaster adventure at GaryCon. It was a little introductory game to get people accustomed to the basics of the game. Like a lot of gamers, I had always wondered if I had what it took to actually write an adventure that a game company would publish. So a few months ago I shot an email to Jerimy at Kenzer and Company and sent him my adventure.

It paid off. HackJournal #39 is now available and the first article is my adventure, "Monsters in the Barn".

It may not be a long adventure. But for me, this is huge.

G is for GaryCon (Followup)

If you haven't seen them already, here are my vlogs from GaryCon for days zero, one, two and three.

First of all, it looks like plans are underway for GaryCon V. The estimated attendance this year was around 550 people. At the rate things are going the convention may have to move to a bigger venue as The Lodge. I actually wouldn't be opposed to that. When GaryCon II was first held at the Lodge, I thought it was a great venue. It was big enough for all the con-goers and had great amenities like a Friday night seafood buffet and a Sunday morning brunch as well as a bluegrass band in the bar on Saturday night. It was a gaming convention with a little bit of everything else to keep things interesting. Then the hotel changed management and next thing we know, the restaurant is closed for the convention save for some burgers and overpriced bags of chips. This year saw a limited menu of "gamer grub", but it pales compared to the good breakfast I had with the Geekpreacher two years ago.

As far as gaming went, I overextended myself this year. At GaryCon I, I sat and played what would become HackMaster Basic with the Kenzer & Company D-Team. At GaryCon II, I ran my first HackMaster Learn to Hack and played Aces & Eights. At this year's convention, I tried to run and attend as many games as possible. And I ended up too tired to engage in any of the festivities in the bar afterward.

GaryCon 2012 Catalog is up!

Apparently, the event catalog for GaryCon IV went up last weekend. Sign-up for events start on the 29th. Just a reminder that I am running an open event on Thursday, "Last Varmint Standing" (number 110602). So be sure to stop by the table and take your turn at Aces & Eights. See you there!

Confirmed for GaryCon!

Well, my room is book, my badge is purchased, and my three events have been confirmed for GaryCon IV. The Event Catalog won't come out until February, but I'll be running an Aces & Eights Shootout on Thursday and HackMaster games Friday and Saturday. In between that I plan on going around to play in some OSR games and try my hand at Pathfinder.

Posting has been sporadic due to the holidays and the lack of a regular game. I'll try to come up with some content in the coming year.