Gen Con Indy 2012

The Dreaded Balloon Dragon of Doom!!!
Beware the breath weapon...

Well I just got back from Gen Con in Indianapolis yesterday and it was a lot of fun as always.  I drove up on Wednesday with my good friend and GM Tony of the Savage Sword of Scadgrad and his kids and we met some other friends there where we had an adjoining room for ease of hotel gaming.  I wandered around in the exhibit hall for a bit on Thursday where I visited the OSR booth and bought a few modules and books and visited a few other favorite company booths.  Then I dropped off some of my old 3.0/3.5 books to sell in the auction and browsed the consignment area where I picked up a few things including Dungeon Module B4 The Lost City and a fairly decent copy of Unearthed Arcana.  I attended Gen Con last year and didn't play in any of the scheduled events (a big reason to go to the Con for me) so this year I vowed to sign up for a few things and/or sit in on a few games with generic tickets. 

I played in an AD&D game on Friday for a while set in the World of Greyhawk with a group of guys.  Four of these guys were there for a reunion of their old D&D group from back when they were kids who had drifted apart over the years after having moved away from each other.  We played a starter adventure available as a free download called Spider Farm by Stuart Marshall from the Knights and Knaves Alehouse.  I played a wizard (we were all 1st level) who obviously had magical darts - really I just rolled three 20s to hit in two rounds during the big fight with the brigands which was crazy lucky.  He also managed to save the day a few times with his one sleep spell and miraculously didn't die.  Afterwards we leveled up and set forth on another adventure to seek the source of the Goblin incursion within the Dreadwood Forest.  We found the dungeon that was their source which was guarded by a large group of giant spiders but unfortunately, we ran out of time before we could make it into the dungeon to where the evil Shadow Goblins had come from to attack the good citizens of the Yeomanry.

Then I sat in on a Runequest Second Edition game on Saturday for a little while with the same guys - I hadn't played Runequest since high school so that was fun too.  It was mostly a jousting tournament which was a blast (my guy got skewered but an NPC I ran afterwards nearly killed one of the player characters due to some extremely lucky dice rolling on my part (01 on my joust attack roll) and extremely unluckly dice rolling on his part (00 on the parry roll).  The healers attending the tourney healed him up afterwards though.

After that I played a Flames of War demo in the miniature game area where it was three guys playing allies in the early desert war (each guy had two platoons of light tanks - 2 with crusaders and one with Stuarts) against three guys with either three panzers (2 guys with two mark IIIs and a mark IV short barrel) and one guy with six Italian light tanks which were pretty much the same as the crusaders (fast but with very little armor or firepower and AT).  The mission was meat grinder so if your tanks got blown up, they just came back on from reserve at a random location so you could keep playing.  Playing light Allied tanks against German armor reminds me of why I like playing the Germans - not surprisingly, the Germans blew up about 30 of our paltry little light tanks and ended up winning the game but it was still a lot of fun.  This was of course made worse because in the desert there is little if any cover for the fragile little tanks to hide behind (really just some hills but mostly wide open desert terrain).

We also got in a game of the Blood Bowl team manager board game, two games of Swords and Wizardry White Box (0e D&D) and a game of Basic Action Super Heroes a.k.a. Bash (pretty much rules light Champions) in the hotel room as well which was also a lot of fun.  All in all it was a blast and a great vacation...

Swords and Wizardry White Box City Campaign: Lock, Stock and One Smoking Wand of Paralyzation

We resumed our on an off Swords and Wizardry White Box campaign last night playing as a group of thugs, the Weaselly Ferrets who control a four block area of a really bad neighborhood called the Devil's Breakfast table in the City of Vermistdadt in the Land of Moog.  Our previous explorations had mostly centered on delving in the ruins below the Sikorsky Building (a.k.a. Dyson's Delve) and during our last visit there, the group encountered a pair of Manticores on the third or fourth level and managed to slay them in a couple of tough fights and then found a wand of Paralyzation in one of their treasure hoards (though with limited charges).  However, on occasion, we have been tasked with "missions" by our Ogre boss Big Slick or his boss Oranishi (a.k.a. the Big Boss) which always turn out to be the most comical and entertaining game sessions and last night's session was one such adventure.

So in this episode, the Weasely Ferrets went "over the river" into the Dumfries on a search and destroy mission for our boss Big Slick and the Big Boss Oranishi. The highlight was the balls to the wall play of blasting everyone with the Wand of Paralyzation and the closing scene with Mr Green knee-capping the surviving ogre instead of ganking him so that he could tell the tale of who stole their Dreamweed which was totally something out of Goodfellas.  It was a fun session and without that wand, our plan (or lack thereof) wouldn't have succeeded mostly because we were seriously lacking in the fighter department - our only fighter was Snit the 2nd level halfling henchman and the rest of the player characters consisted of a 3rd level wizard, a 4th level wizard and two 3rd-4th level clerics.  The end result was well worth the price of two charges from the wand though and the story was reminiscent of some tale told about the city of Lankhmar and other heroes and villains in another world far far away...


Here's is a synopsis of events in the seediest, nastiest and meanest streets in all of the land of Moog, the City of Vermisdadt home of that group of rascals and cutthroats known as the Weaselly Ferrets who reside in the seediest and roughest neighborhood in the City of Vermistadt called the Devil's Breakfast Table:

Big Slick our Ogre boss had a job for us - go over to the Dumfries neighborhood (no small feat - five neighborhoods away through rival territory) and the docks accross the river and disrupt a shipment of dream weed arriving for one of our rival gangs.  He said either throw it into the river or abscond with some of it if possible.  He provided us with uniforms of the city guard and suggested that travelling there through the sewers might be the best course of action to avoid detection.

So while travelling through the rat infested sewers below the mean streets of Vermisdadt in the general direction of the river, we encountered a Chaos Minotaur wandering the filth infested tunnels and defeated it in a fierce melee.  The giant beast walked upon hooved feet, was missing its right horn and appeared to have some sort of glowing rune imprinted on its forehead almost like a miner's head lamp except that it was implanted into the chaos beast's head.  Poor little Snit the halfling took the brunt of its attack before the group managed to blast it in a fusillade of flintlock and magic missile fire whereafter it fell with a crash into the slime infested sewer.

Once the halfling's wounds were bound and he was healed up, we searched the body and found its loot - some gold, a scroll, a jeweled necklace and quite a bit of silver.  We kept most of the loot but put the silver in a bag, marked the spot and dumped it into the sewer to be retrieved later if possible (since it was a lot of coinage and very heavy), and threw the body into the center of the sewer to eventually be swept downstream into the river by the torrent of excrement and rainwater runoff from the filthy streets of the city above.  We followed the sewers until we came to where they emptied into the river and exited the tunnels in Butcher Town where we found a shady alley and donned our city guard outfits.  We weren't likely to be stopped there by the real city guard since that borough had its own police force and the queen's guard rarely went there.

So we crossed over the river on the bridge into the Dumfries neighborhood and Snit located the dock and mooring of the ship the Dirty Princess moored at an out of the way side dock in the warehouse district.  We boldly walked right up to the long shoremen unloading their cargo of wool or cotton onto the docks and Vortigern boldly pronounced "In the name of the Queen lay down your arms and surrender".  The two giant ogres amongst their number initially ignored the group but when the wizards started chanting and preparing to use the wand, our enemies won initiative and fired at the two with their flintlocks before they could cast sleep or use the wand on them and then charged the group to engage them in melee.  The other wizard, Greg the Green (a.k.a. Mr. Green), lost his spell but Vortigern moved off to the side away from the melee and paralyzed the group attempting to load up and make off with the cargo (they all failed their saves).

The group managed to kill a few of the gang members in melee but hardly scratched the ogres when more gang members or long shoremen came running from the gangway off of the ship towards the offloaded cargo on the shore to make off with it or attack the group.  Mr. Green managed to charm one of the gangsters that we were fighting and ordered him to go tell the thugs on the approaching horse and wagon to flee since the city guard was here.  Vortigern cast Phantasmal Force towards the gang plank that the men were crossing from the boat to the shore over the river and "summoned" a green dragon from the river to scare off the gang members coming from the boat.

They were initially startled and frightened by the illusory dragon but they made their morale check and attacked it and dispelled the illusion with one blow.  After the dragon disappeared, they started wondering where the dragon went and began looking in the water.  The result was a successful distraction since it delayed them from their initial goal of making off with their illicit cargo or attacking the group, at least temporarily.  From down the street the horse team with the rival gang members was approaching with the aim of offloading the cargo while the fight was going on, but the horse team failed their morale check upon seeing a giant river dragon crawling out of the water onto the dock as the horses reared up and sped away pulling the wagon behind.  The charmed gang member also failed his morale check and fled upon seeing the dragon.

At this point, Mr. Green started blowing on the guard's whistle he found in the pocket of his uniform (indicating more guards would arrive at any moment) and the ship's crew started ditching the rest of the cargo overboard, untied their moorings, lifted anchor and the ship departed from the slip and the remaining longshoremen and gang members fled as well.  Meanwhile, the two clerics and Snit were having a rough time of it having dispatched the other gang members but they had only hurt one of the ogres slightly and the other was unharmed and they were taking a beating.  They were hurt badly and wouldn't last another round so Vortigern used the Wand of Paralyzation for a second time on the melee including three members of our group (two clerics and Snit the halfling) and the two ogres.  The result was that one ogre failed his save, one made his save and one of our clerics was paralyzed but the other two made their saves and were still mobile.  The remaining ogre, seeing that his men were either all paralyzed, dead or fleeing turned tail and ran down the street to beat a hasty retreat.

Since our intended mission was more to hurt our rival gang than anything and show them who was boss, Mr. Green knee-capped the paralyzed ogre with his flint lock rather than killing him (so he would remember who stole their illicit goods and rightfully fear the Weaselly Ferrets), and we gathered up the dream weed from the bails of cotton and wool piled up on the dock and headed back to the sewer to make our escape.  We made it back to our turf to report the result to big slick and give him and the big boss a cut of the merchandise (the dream weed we had retrieved).  He asked for the uniforms back and congratulated us on a job well done - he particularly liked the knee capping job - he said it was a nice touch and would teach our enemies to respect us in the future...

Swords and Wizardry White Box City Campaign: The Entrance to Hollowheim

RECAP from 8/19/2011 S&W Session

We played Swords and Wizardry White Box last night at Scadgrad's house since we were missing too many key players to continue in G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl in our usual Friday night Labyrinth Lord Game. It was the same campaign I played in a few times at Gen Con in the Devil's Breakfast Table neighborhood (a really rough part of town) as the Weaselly Ferrets gang with a slightly different cast of characters. The events take place in a large city setting that is heavily influenced by Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing's default setting (flint lock firearms, chaos enemies, Skaven, Beast Men etc.).  It was a blast like before at Gen Con and below are the hilarious and gruesome results.

A contingent from the Weaselly Ferrets Gang consisting of Franzen Conner the Cleric, Vortigern the Wizard, and his henchman Snit the halfling (amongst others), descended into the depths of the Sikorsky Delve (SPOILER ALERT - this is actually Dyson's Delve modified for the setting) and retrieved a huge sum of loot which was distributed afterwards to those present and a generous cut was given to the two bosses in the interest of full disclosure. 10% was given to Big Slick, our Ogre boss, and 10% was given to the Big Boss Oranishi (also an Ogre) so that they wouldn't think we were holding out on them (which could have gotten us concrete galoshes). We also discovered what we think is the entrance to Hollowheim which was a set of stairs leading down from the Arch Wizard Sikorsky's abandoned lab which is where a good portion of the loot was found. Following is a brief recap of events:

The group descended through the abandoned tenement and into the sewers without a hitch after evicting a few homeless vagabonds from the tenement while en-route. When we descended into the first level, we encountered a large group of Skaven accompanied by two Storm Vermin which we quickly overcame. We descended the stairs to the next level below. The halflings were scouting ahead of the group (we had another one now) and when they got to the intersection where we had previously fought the fire beetles, they were attacked by four of the tough chitinous critters. The halflings tried to flee back to the group but were caught in the hallway by the beetles and a fierce melee ensued. The beetles were dispatched and then we searched their lair (the room with all of the junk in it) and found a locked coffer with 2000 g.p.!

We went back out into the hall and instead of heading back to where the other group had fought the Skaven, slave rats and Storm Vermin, we went the other way instead (down the left hand hallway). We opened a door in that area and were attacked by an old Skaven Sorcerer! He zapped a couple of the front line guys with some kind of lightning spell and we pounced on him and killed him. He had some loot and a +1 suit of halfling sized leather armor that went to Snit. We also fought a large group of giant rats which were quickly overcome and went through a temple which had been re-dedicated to a Skaven god. There were bodies impaled on pikes all over the place. We went back into the hallway and it led to steps down! We went down to the third level and ended up in a catacomb with niches every so often that held old mouldering and dessicated bodies. We searched them methodically and found a large sum of loot in one and lesser sums in several others (we searched about eight of them) and also found a secret door in one of the catacomb burial niches. While searching a few of the last niches, we were attacked by four ghouls. Since we had three clerics in the group, they had no problem turning the ghouls and we decided to head into the secret door before they returned.

The secret door turned out to lead into a tunnel that went on for about a half of a mile. At the end we found the Arch Wizard Sikorsky's lab! There was all kinds of equipment all over the place and two tables. One table had what looked like some kind of watermelon like pod thing on it and the other had a similar pod that had been opened and was empty. Then we were attacked by a spider like crab critter that was hiding under the table that looked like the thing in the first Alien movie! (This was actually a Xenomorph Face Hugger from Digital Orc's Blog) As it attacked, the other pod opened up and another one attacked Snit too! As the first one attacked, its victim tried to disengage from melee but it was way too fast for him and scurried after him along the ground like a crab on crack - there was no escaping these nasty little tick like parasites!  We were horrified at the prospect of what would be birthed from our stomachs should they attach to our faces so we did our best to defeat them as quickly as possible.  We killed them fairly quickly (in one round really) but they sprayed us with acid as they died and a couple of our weapons got damaged and were useless (they required repairs) and snit and the other fighter henchman got burned badly as well.

Then we searched the room and found 4,000 g.p. and a nice stash of gems including five that were worth 500 g.p. each! That was a major jackpot. We also found stairs leading down through the door on the other side of the room which we presume is the long hidden entrance to Hollowheim! Hollowheim is the massive and ancient dungeon below the city, that was previously only accessible from several other gang's turf. If our assumption is correct, it can now be accessed from Weaselly Ferret turf for the first time! In the interest of full disclosure, we told both bosses about our discovery but nobody else outside of the gang.

Afterwards, we threw a big block party for our little four block area to try and win over some local support with our new found wealth. The next day as we were recovering from our revelries, we were summoned to Big Slick's office where he promptly told us that Goldfag was a problem and should be dealt with at our earliest convenience (meaning immediately). Goldfag was the Ogre mercenary who originally told us where the entrance to the Sikorsky Delve was, and that it probably contained an entrance to Hollowheim. Obviously, the bosses thought this was a problem now and decided that he needed to be permanently silenced lest others discover our new found secret. We consulted our information sources and found out where he was likely to be found and where he was last seen.  We then went out into another portion of our big boss's territory that was outside of the Weaselly Ferret's turf and beyond our four block area of control to look for him. We found him arguing with a street merchant over the price and quality of goods he had eaten and was refusing to pay for. One of our hirelings decided to talk to them in an attempt to try and mediate the dispute while the others maintained a low profile elsewhere on the block.

The fighter hireling and our other wizard offered to buy him a drink and he gladly accepted so they headed off to a tavern. We quietly slipped in, two at a time to avoid his notice but he was obviously suspicious of the offer. While he was greedily gulping down his ale and ordering food to try and make the most out of his benefactor's offer, one of our compatriots just outright clocked a nearby bystander and started a huge brawl. Most of the women and others that didn't want to get involved fled out the door, but a good twelve or so tavern goers, along with our group of 9 thugs got into a robust tavern brawl complete with breaking chairs and mugs over each other's heads and general fisticuffs - it was a downright donnybrook! One of the tavern wenches went outside and blew a whistle to summon the city guard as well.

In two rounds, we slowly managed to coerce the brawl into Goldfag's direction while he was still eating and drinking at his table and then we let him have it! Two of our group fired their flint locks at him but both missed (and one accidentally killed our fighter henchman that had started up the conversation with him), the two wizards fired magic missiles at him and Snit threw a dagger at him as well wounding him badly. He struck back hard though and walluped one of our number before we finally jumped him with daggers and rapiers and dispatched him. Meanwhile, the bartender had pulled out an blunderbuss to keep people from trying to rob him in the brawl and once we started attacking the fat ogre, he let us have it and killed the other halfing hireling with his gun (not Snit, the other one). With our foe dead and two of our henchman also lying on the floor in pools of blood and obviously no longer with us, we beat a hasty retreat back to our turf before the city guard showed up. The GM told us aftewards that the bartender was actually a 5th level fighter and not one we wanted to tangle with so much.  And that's where we ended the session...

GEN CON Indy 2011 Wrap Up...

Well, I went to Gen Con in Indy a couple of weeks ago and had a blast.  Its only the second time I've ever gone and made the trip from Richmond with Scadgrad, our GM from our regular gaming group.  We met up with one of the guys in our online Averlorn game and a few of their friends in Indy.  I went to Gen Con once before in Milwaukee back in the mid nineties while I was freelancing for ICE and had a blast then too.  During that time, I played in a bunch of RPG events, acted as an assistant GM for ICE for a few of their Rolemaster RPG events and manned the ICE booth several times to help them out which was really cool and added a lot to the experience.  

Legotaur!

I have to say that Gen Con 2011 was very crowded but there was lots of stuff to do, things to see, things to buy and games to be played.  I signed up kind of late so missed out on most of the good game events but did manage to get into a few good seminars.  One seminar was put on by the guys from Xtreme Dungeon Mastery and it was hilarious - I haven't read their book yet but Tony tells me it is quite good.  It was all about throwing out the rule book when necessary, and doing what you have to do to have fun in the game which is, after all, the whole point of playing any game.

We also went to the PDF Publishing Seminar put on by Wolfgang Baur, Steve Russell from Rite Publishing and I think the third guy was from Super Genius Games but I didn't write his name down.  Tony and I went to this seminar because we have been contemplating doing some self published PDFs for a while now (he's an artist and graphic designer and a very good and creative GM and I'm a published game artist, architect and amateur writer) and wanted to get a bit of info on how to go about it and what's involved.  What amazed me from the seminar is that there are people out there (like Steve Russell among others) who actually publish PDF RPG products for a living.  They have actually turned this pursuit into a viable business and a full time job!  I never even thought that was possible but it is an interesting revelation.  They talked about all kinds of aspects of PDF publishing like frequency of publication (weekly, monthly or whatever), turning your PDFs into actual printed works through print on demand verses larger publishing runs, business aspects such as legal protection of your personal assets by setting up an LLC, accounting issues (don't overlook this important aspect of the business), price points for the sale of your product, marketing, subscription models, and distribution platforms such as Drive Thru RPG and the IPR (for Indy games) among others.  All in all it was a very insightful, informative, and well done presentation.

Joseph Browning at The OSR Booth

We also went on our daily tours of the convention floor and auction hall and visited all kinds of booths in search of  new or used game products, dice, and gaming accessories or to find out about all of the cool new games being published or produced which was a lot of fun.  I spent a lot of time at the OSR booth and checked out a bunch of new games and products from a number of established publishers and some newer ones as well.  I also had the opportunity to meet Joseph Browning of Expeditious Retreat Press.  We played through one of his modules in our Averlorn Campaign - you can read the recaps here: The Barrow Mound of Gravemoor.  Several of the guys bought new board games and we tried them out in the hotel room or the public areas of the hotel.  We also had a chance to play Swords and Wizardry White Box a few times and I have to say, I was impressed with it.  It was a lot of fun and seriously simple to play rules wise.  I was a bit skeptical about playing a 0E system at first but once you get over that and realize how easy it is, it really makes the game play fast, so we managed to get a lot done in only a few sessions.  Plus character creation is a breeze - we had new characters up and running in about 15-20 minutes.

I also spent some time networking and scouting out game companies in an effort to find some cartography work and met some really cool people in the RPG business.  I even ran into a few old friends from back in the ICE days.  All in all it was a lot of fun and I would really like to go again in the future if possible.