Conventions – Page 2 – STUFFER SHACK

Writing a D&D 4E One-Shot

Dixon Trimline takes us through his process of creating a one-shot adventure, and concludes it with an adventure download: Faith Like Venom!

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve experienced significant shrinkage in my available time and effective attention span, so I’m unable to commit to a week-long/month-long/year-long campaign. For me, I’m all about convention games, 4-hour quick-sits at gaming stores, or “What are you doing this Saturday?” delves. Each of these has a definitive beginning and ending. Of course, the players are just getting to know their characters and each other when the game ends, but that’s a small price to pay for the mental mobility of a one-shot. Thus, here is my process:

Step 1: The Idea

Imagine bumping into a gaming superstar at a convention, and she says, “I’m interested in your 1 o’clock game. Tell me about it.” If your instinct is to say, “The year is 689 in the fog-shrouded time of the Ancient Dragons, and all the world stands silently as evil seeps from the lands below…”, you’ve just lost your superstar.

Ideas are one sentence, the less thought given to them, the better. Don’t agonize over it, don’t examine every angle, don’t figure out the logic, the setting, or the plan. Come up with a single sentence that would make a player pause and say, “Really? Tell me more about that.” If you need to, drag out the dusty old Tome of Clichés: evil twins, betraying friend, early onset amnesia, the “more than he appears” character, working for the villain, and so on.

The party has to kill a lawful good high priestess and her snake servants.

Step 2: The Enemies

Using the excellent Monster Builder, make a list of the potential combat opponents, really uncorking your imagination and letting it spill all over the floor. Your goal is to have way more than you could ever use, varying the types of creature. Because the Monster Builder allows you to set the monster levels, don’t feel like you have to restrict yourself in your selection to just heroic, paragon, or epic monsters.

High Priestess, yuan-ti, giant snake, kobold, drake, kruthik, lizardfolk, snaketongue

Step 3: The Encounters

Decide on three set-piece encounters, using this pattern:

Encounter One

Use the KISYSDM method, or Keep It Simple, You Stupid Dungeon Master. You don’t know these players, they don’t know you, they don’t know their characters, and they don’t know each other. For these reasons, you should create a nice two-dimensional setting with few terrain challenges, and then insert brutes and minions. It’ll be easy on you and the players, and as a happy bonus, the players will figure out how to work together.

Use two (party level+1) brutes and 24 (party level) minions.

Note: According to Dave Noonan, minions should be worth 1/10 of a standard creature, and not the book-dictated 1/4.Trust me here, Dave’s right.

In a wide intersection, the party is attacked by two yuan-ti fangblades and their 20 snaketongue initiates.

Encounter Two

Break for roleplaying! Whether it’s a formal skill challenge or an informal wander-and-look, this offers a respite from the possibly hectic, probably grindy combat, giving the players a chance to interact with each other without the constant bleating from the DM.

The party investigates the snake-creatures and cultists that attacked them, researching the snake symbols worn and carried, talking to their back alley contacts, threatening the local priest who seems to be involved, and eventually tying the events to the high priestess, an upstanding cleric of Pelor who may be a servant of evil.

Encounter Three

As much fun as roleplaying is, many (most?) of the players may be getting antsy at this point, wanting to roll dice and hurt enemies. It’s time to give them that opportunity, in the form of an encounter that’s a good deal tougher than the first one.

Use one (party level+4) elite brute, one (party level+2) soldier or controller, two (party level) brutes, and 10 (party level) minions.

In the temple of Pelor, the party confronts the high priestess, discovering that she is, in fact, a victim, being controlled by a giant cobra who wants to RULE THE [whatever]. This battle will be against the giant cobra, the dominated high priestess, two yuan-ti abomination berserkers, and 10 spitting cobras.

Step 4: The Settings

By now, you should know the basic shape of the sites you’ll feature, so all you need to do is assemble your maps. Naturally, you can draw them yourself on Chessex Battlemats or Gaming Paper, or use the Wizards of the Coast Dungeon Tiles or Paizo Flip-Mats. Your artistic skill or your existing map items may influence the final settings, but if you approached your encounters in the broadest strokes, you can be flexible with the finished product.

For Encounter 1, I’d use my Paizo City Market Flip-Mat, and for Encounter 3, I’d use my Paizo Cathedral Flip-Mat. For Encounter 2, I’d keep it all firmly in the imagination, since the player characters should be wandering all over the city and interacting with lots of people.

Step 5: Getting Graphical

Using the jumbled expanse of the internet, locate good pictures for all the monsters and characters. This part of the process is both thrilling and infuriating, since I can often find a few great examples and several terrible ones. Make use of the Wizards of the Coast Image Archive, and, of course, the Google images site is always a fun ride, especially if you don’t mind the occasional totally naked non sequitur.

Step 6: Monster Markers

During game play, I always prefer markers over miniatures, and here’s why:

Multiple miniatures can clutter and confuse the board, and sure, that may seem like so much “fog of war,” but in practice, it’s just distracting.
Typically, DMs will have ALMOST enough miniatures for a given encounter, resulting in, “this ogre is actually an ice demon,” or, “this horse is actually a spider,” or, “this halfling is actually a dragon.”
If the player characters are the only three dimensional creatures on the battle map, it correctly elevates them as the most important beings present. This story is about them, not the opponents.

In a Microsoft Word document, lay out the monster images, cropped to the faces (small and medium creatures to 1.25″ x 1.25″, large creatures to 2.25″ x 2.25″, and so on) and numbered sequentially, and then print these pages onto white full-sheet shipping labels.

After sticking the pictures onto shoebox cardboard (good weight, and available for free at your local shoe store), cut the markers using the greatest thing to ever come out of craft stores, the sized circle punch. I use the 1″ nesting punch and the 2″ squeeze punch.

Step 7: Initiative Cards

In a Microsoft Word document, lay out the character and monster images on labeled folded cards, which will sit like tents in front of the DM, tracking initiative order and also displaying images of the monsters. I’d recommend printing on cardstock, white for the monsters and bright yellow or pink for the characters, for easy identification.

Step 8: Final Touches

At this point, the one-shot is finished and ready to run, so you should take a step back, maybe see a few other adventures to cleanse your palate, and come back with a fresh perspective. You want to reread this one-shot from the point of view of the players who will be experiencing it, asking the following questions:

Is there a clear through line? Does the progression through the encounters make sense, or does it feel disjointed and chaotic?
Will the puzzles or riddles or mysteries be painfully obvious to even the stupidest players? Remember that this will be the very first time these players will see these elements, and they don’t actually know the answers.
Are there parts of the adventure that will spotlight specific player characters? Will the thief be able to pick a lock? Will the bard be able to sing a song? Will the fighter be able to crack some skulls?
Are there any parts of the adventure—the monsters, their powers, the settings—that can be exploited by the players? Is this really a bad thing?

Note: If you find any parts that can be exploited, do NOT change them. Just come to terms with them. Allow it to happen. Become a leaf on the wind.

Through Line. The adventure story is quite simple, starting with an attack, moving to an investigation, and concluding with the big snake battle. The party halts the growing darkness, saves the high priestess (hopefully), and lives to fight another day (again, hopefully).

Puzzles/Riddles. The investigation is freeform, merely requiring the player characters to poke around and ask questions. They’re looking for the WHYS (why were we attacked?), and then moving onto the WHAT NOWS.

Spotlight. If you’re providing pregenerated characters to the game, it becomes much easier to develop spotlights, since you’ll know exactly what the characters are capable of. Even so, you can assume the party will include strikers and probably a defender or two, which explains the high-damage, low-defense brutes, and it might include a controller, so there are piles of minions. If I knew an undead-bashing cleric was coming, I might want to toss in some zombies too.

Exploits. The party might decide to take prisoners in that first encounter, which could screw up my investigation during the second encounter. They could also turn the second encounter into their Traveling Torture Tour of this nameless city, “Tell me what you know or I’ll cut off another finger!” Finally, and most troubling, they might elect not to look into the attack, deciding, “We were attacked by snake-men and cultists. Weird. Let’s go to the inn and drink.”

What About Dungeons?

Maybe you read this and thought, “That’s all well and good, but I want to create a dungeon one-shot. Dungeons don’t work as encounters, but as a player-selected series of rooms. I can’t control which one they’d go to first, then second, then third.”

Except, of course, you can. You just don’t have to tell the players you’re doing it. Your first encounter might be the ORC LAIR, which covers five interconnected rooms and contains a total of 30 orcs, which lay into the characters in waves. This would still look like a dungeon but play like a one-shot.

Conclusion

Believe it or not, I’m not suggesting that every one-shot has to adhere to this structure—easy battle, non-combat, tough battle—but I’ve found it to be a reliable template for my own quick delves or convention games. In the snake example I gave, it would still work even if I shuffled the encounters a bit:

Encounter 1: Church representatives ask the party to investigate their high priestess who’s been acting strangely, which means we lead off the adventure with non-combat.
Encounter 2: During the investigation, snake men attack the party, and flee once they realize how tough and scary the party is.
Encounter 3: The party pursues the snake-men to the cobra lair, and fight the snake cult.

For any of these, the biggest challenge for the DM would be believably connecting the encounters, and that’s where I can load the party up onto a story-train, and click-clack, click-clack, click-clack, we’re onto the next encounter through a cut-scene. In a time-sensitive game, like at a convention, this approach always works, and the players tend to be more forgiving.

So, do you want to see how I wrote up this example adventure? I didn’t go into a whole lot of detail, but then, I rarely do.

Download Adventure-FaithLikeVenom, which sounds like a combination George Michael and Madonna song. Man, I’m old.

Con man III: Running at Conventions

This series is an extremely subjective report about gaming conventions. Despite the temptation to be second person dictatorial (“You must, you should, you shall”), I’m going to keep this first person apologetic (“I did, I think, I was”), because I really can’t tell you what your convention time will or should be. In part 3, I consider running games at conventions.

I’ve never been particularly confident running games, and as zero hour approaches, I turn into a total shuddery basketcase – skipping meals, missing sleep, and forgoing personal hygiene. Conventions probably appear to be the worst place for a Nervous Nelly or Anxious Andy like me, but I’ve found them to be an excellent fit, mostly because the players have quite literally invested in having a good time. They want this four to six hour block to be fun, and that translates into a fair amount of forgiveness at the gaming table.

I’ve never signed on to run a convention game with the expectation of tit-for-tat, regardless of how much I like… um… remuneration. Don’t misunderstand, there’s nothing wrong with a free pass for a day of GMing, but it doesn’t work for me, since I get all caught up thinking I have to justify my game, since I’m getting something out of this session. I’m better off just running for the love of the game, and if someone constructively comments that my game was completely awful, I can say with a clear conscience, “Well, I didn’t get anything for it,” and then punch him in the face.

Bring the Bling

Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m completely off the hook. Just as the players bring excitement and engagement, I have to push myself to bring the best game I can, a real brain-blaster that’ll leave the players thrilled and awed and wanting more. This is no time for coasting. I should devote myself to running out the best game these players have ever seen, with all the crazy fancy doodads and geegaws that I’ve long since given up on in my home game, since, “They just take me for granted.”

I’m talking about pictures and presents, tea-stained letters with charred edges and fully featured battle maps with 3D elements (whatever you can get through airport security), jewelry and music and costumes and Broadway actors to voice all the NPCs. I need to go completely over-the-top to guarantee a fine time had by all, and players who walk away thinking about the scenes instead of the dice.

Road Testing

Given the player investment, I have found this to be a perfect time to roll out new features of my games. For example, I was able to practice and commit to the Rule of Yes, as I was faced with mostly strangers, which meant there were no lasting consequences to giving every bit of latitude to the fun-for-fun’s-sake players. It can’t impact my Saturday night game, it won’t set any uncomfortable precedents, it won’t open the power-gamer Pandora’s Box. It’ll just be me saying Yes as often as I can, and maybe start to learn how to incorporate it into my home games too.

Also, I tried rolling in the open for the first time, and it was a truly beautiful thing. Either this is a game with random elements or not, and if it’s not going to be, then I should do away with dice altogether. So I simply let the dice fall where they may, and allowed the game mechanics to do their work. Yes, characters fell and one even died, but everyone knew these outcomes were objective. I received no angry glares or silent judgment, and the player with the dead character even comforted me, saying, “Hey, it happens. I still had a great time.”

Everyone is Welcome

I was amazed at how many people jumped in on my games when they had never played before. This is a pretty big thing, and it’s something I already talked about as a player. People are going to be coming to these games as newbies, with no preconceptions or prejudices about how the game can run, and I need to be able to accommodate that lack of familiarity. To this end, I brought two flavors of pregenerated characters to one game (simple and complex), and built in time to create the characters in another game. It was a learning process, and it worked extremely well.

In fact, the game where we created the characters was a huge hit, and the players were able to really take ownership, though this did require a fair amount of preparation beforehand, as I brought the character sheets and printed creation steps for everyone there. The result, as you can imagine, is a table of players who all wanted to rush downstairs to the vendor booths and buy the game. I’d call that a success.

Smaller is Better

Ah, curse my expansive nature! I have gotten better, but it’s to my shame that I admit I’ve run games at conventions that would have needed, at minimum, 37 hours to play, and that would just be to get through the introduction. I’d spend all my time developing this massive, sweeping game world, with rules and laws and backgrounds and settings, with governments and motivations and in-fighting and intrigue, and dump the poor characters into the middle of all this, and then become frustrated when they barely touched the first encounter before time was up.

This wasn’t their fault. I was a great big storytelling moron. I had lost sight of the idea that conventions are all about short stories; not novels. Recently, I did better but still not perfect, and that means that I still have some work to do, but at least I’m aware of it. I know to build a tight, balanced game and realize that it would be perfectly fine for that game to end a little early, giving these poor, happy players a few moments to decompress and move on to their next game, instead of missing lunch and having to sprint up three flights of stairs to their next session.

Conclusion

Running games at conventions is a unique privilege, and not one to be taken lightly. At my last con, I had a massively wonderful time, and learned a ton (as is evident from at that text above), and unlike previous unsuccessful experiences, it left me wanting to run (don’t walk) to my next convention, with dice in hand, story in heart, and a ton of props in my bag. I want to tell a story, and I want it to be fun. Wanna play?

Con Man II: Playing at Conventions

If anyone makes the mistake of mentioning conventions in my immediate vicinity (close burst 5), I will blather on endlessly about signing up for games you’ve never played before. There isn’t a better time to try the new and unfamiliar, since the convention GM will almost certainly have experience, and the players will come with bulging Bags of Enthusiasm. There is a greater sense of “we’re all in this together,” a greater degree of patience and willingness to handhold, attributable to the very real money that was spent to come to this convention and play these games.

Contrast this attitude with Meetup.com or jump-in games, where the participants are more likely to want to get this game going, to reach the destination, or to continue the ongoing series without distractions like, “How do I pilot the spaceship?” or “Which one’s the 12-sided die?” Inside the convention, people are excited to show off the game they love, the thrills, the wonder, the purest joys. Outside the convention, people are focused on stealing away a few hours from their crazy-busy week to reach a goal, defeat the enemies, improve their characters, and revel in successes and rewards.

When planning for the games I would play, I took this all to heart, signing up for as many brand new games as I could, with the expectation that I would soak up as much glittery shininess that the convention had to offer. I did manage to forget a small bit of knowledge that’s extremely important to my sanity: they call it a comfort zone for a reason. Jumping from new game to new game to new game, surrounded by strangers and bursting with questions, can be damaging to the ego.

I get sick of never knowing what the heck is going on, never knowing what to do or how to do it, constantly asking the same fundamental questions. This had nothing to do with the reactions from other players, who were always helpful and easygoing and frequently as ignorant as I was. It was a quintessential “It’s not you, it’s me” situation. I don’t like feeling persistently stupid. Call it a character flaw.

From the games I actually attended, here are some mini-reviews and titanically important take-aways, which I must remember for future conventions.

Change Happens

A month before the convention, the DM and players in my not-so-regular local game gave me the rundown of World of Darkness, and it sounded like something I’d really enjoy. So, after check-in, I hurried up to an extravagantly fancy boardroom called The Elms and enjoyed some quality alone time. It can be pretty tense, sitting by yourself when you should be playing, wondering if you’re in the wrong room, or on the wrong floor, or maybe even at the wrong hotel. I didn’t want to go out investigating, understanding the sitcom trope of everyone showing up the moment I left.

After some time, Jason and Sarah came in, both of them looking forward to the game but showing little hope in it happening, as the registration line downstairs was still long, messy, and not moving. Chances were excellent that the GM (or Storyteller) was still standing in that line, realizing that his game was done and gone, and acknowledging that he’d just have to move on with his life. After some time chatting, Jason stormed downstairs to express his outrage, Sarah laid her aching head down on the table, and I reluctantly snuck away. As it happened, the game had been canceled, but nobody bothered to tell me.

Given that conventions are constructed from people of all ages and maturities, they are extremely fluid, and can change instantaneously. Yes, I’m entitled to Super-Adorable points for hanging with a game that had clearly gone toes up, but I wind up losing just as many Efficiency points for sitting foolishly in a mostly empty room. After the first lonely fifteen or twenty minutes, I could have (and should have) walked the halls and poked into rooms, looking to worm my way into another game that had started at noon.

Scary Roleplaying

I had previously played Call of Cthulhu exactly once, and remember being mostly lost and acting off the cuff: “I’ll toss my Blackberry to the solider and shout, ‘If I die, get this to my newspaper!’ Then I’ll run off after my brother… um… can I do that?” It’s a game that’s all about roleplaying, since combat often ends with character deaths and player tears. I guess you’re not really expected to draw your .38 and engage the Nameless Horror.

In this game, we players were given multi-page, tiny-font backgrounds, and our histories, goals, and motivations were drawn in opposition to each other, making us as much of the antagonists as the tentacled monstrosity tearing through the rift in reality. I found it to be entirely overwhelming, and more than a little daunting to play this fully realized character that I just laid my hands and eyes on. I’m not denying that my roleplaying muscles have atrophied quite a bit, which left me shaken and silent for much of the game. I had a few moments of thrilling action, but mostly I was an audience to the other players being heroic and brilliant.

Going forward, I’m going to have to carefully consider my game choices, since tactical roll playing fits more with my sensibilities these days. I can thrill at the successful hits, the high damage, the amazing leaps, but I may need to work on those acting muscles before taking on true roleplaying again.

Not Every Game

From 10 PM to midnight-and-then-some, I played a demo of a game called Eclipse Phase, masterfully run by writer/designer Jack Graham, who was smart, articulate, clever, and had amazing hair. For this hard science fiction game, we found ourselves in one of the hotel suites with low lights, droopy eyelids, and a cast of thousands, clutching laminated character sheets and trying to figure out why something or other happened.

The story was immensely complicated but not nearly as complicated as the game, which plays like Call of Cthulhu designed by an acid-dropping Stephen Hawking and transcribed by a crazy person. The character sheet had 8 million tiny numbers written all over it, dark print on a dark background in a dark room, and I spent most of the game with no real idea what was going on. When the action really got going, I was completely lost.

It seemed like everyone else in the room knew what to do and how to do it, and this was after we’d all established that nobody had ever played it before. Every time the GM turned his attention back to me with a mildly judgmental, “Okay, what do you do?”, I stared at my character, looked around the dim room helplessly, and made soft gulping noises until he moved on.

The simple truth is, I’m not going to love every game I play. It’s a hard fact for me to accept, since I’m paying to be here, and I want to get my money’s worth. Still, I can’t know a game isn’t for me unless I play it, and at least it was only a 2-hour session that I lost. Maybe it was the setting, or maybe it was the hour, or maybe it was the game, or maybe it was just me, but this game simply didn’t ring my bells, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Conclusion

Hopefully, I’ll be better equipped to take on my next convention, with the correct degree of expectation and a clear understanding of what I love and what I… don’t love so much. Hate seems like such an ugly word. If I spend the interim exercising my roleplaying muscles and taking other games around the block, I’ll be in good shape to have a good time, and that’s why I go to conventions.

Con Man I: Registering for Conventions

One of my biggest flaws (and trust me, there are many) is the inability to simply hang loose and let things happen, reacting to events as they occur. To put it another way, I’m a planner. No, that’s not quite right. I’m an OVER-planner. I will book dinners, shows, and flights a hundred years in advance, and then leave for those activities shortly after I book them. I can get a little squirrelly about life improvisation, when the world takes an unexpected left turn and normal people roll with the change and I stand dithering in the middle of the road and get run over by a truck.

I signed up for my recent convention many months in advance, just days after the pre-registration window opened, and I only waited that long because I wanted confirmation from a friend of mine that he was going too. After registration, I had to wait anxiously and impatiently for the con organizers to post their RPG schedule, just barely resisting the urge to fire off “Well? WELL?” e-mails to them.

Finally, their games went up, and I fussed over the listings for an entire week before booking my weekend roster. The schedule I settled on was–oh, what’s the word?–ambitious. Driven by lunacy and stupidity, I filled in every available minute of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, mourning several games I wanted to jump in on but simply couldn’t because of that appalling federal prohibition on cloning.

My plan was:

FRIDAY

10 AM: Arrive and collect badge
12 PM – 4 PM: World of Darkness
4 PM – 8 PM: Call of Cthulhu
10 PM – 12 AM: Eclipse Phase

SATURDAY

9 AM – 1 PM: D&D 4E (I was running this one)
2 PM – 6 PM: D&D 4E
6 PM – 8 PM: Unhallowed Metropolis
8 PM – 12 AM: Shadowrun

SUNDAY

10 AM – 2 PM: Gamma World (Again, running this one)
2 PM – 6 PM: Gamma World

Because of the timing of my own games, smack dab in the hot zone on Saturday and Sunday, I missed out on a lot of gaming opportunities, but figured I might sneak about looking for open slots or pick-up games if at all possible. I didn’t build in a ton of time for meals, sleep, breaks, or socialization recovery, since I am a terminally introverted person and all this interaction with humanity could have a debilitating effect on me.

Needless to say, my carefully constructed schedule exploded and fell to pieces almost immediately, and part of that was a raucous chaos of any gaming convention and the rest of it was my own tender system rebelling around Saturday afternoon, forcing me to hide inside my room and miss several games. But I get ahead of myself.

Badge Collection

You might think that because I pre-registered (and received confirmation), and this was a convention that has been running several years, and the start date wasn’t a secret to anyone, that it would have simply been a matter of showing up at the right place, checking my name against a list, and then grabbing my badge. You would be wrong. The processing line was long, angry, inefficient, and immobile, despite several organizers walking up and down the line shouting at us. What should have been a 5-minute inconvenience transformed into an hour’s infuriation, and I actually missed the worst of it. Other registrants wound up standing in that line for up to three hours, missing their games entirely.

Is there a take-away here? I’m not sure, except for a feeling of smug justification for showing up absurdly early. I couldn’t predict and shouldn’t really plan for such a total cluster-mess, but these things do happen, so I think I’ll go on arriving early, expecting the worst and hoping for the best.

Game Schedule

For those of you young’uns (young, dumb, and full of… energy) out there, my schedule might seem like a stroll, but for me, it rapidly spun out of control, and I started hating the idiot who put it together. That would be me, of course. This was me from several months earlier, who took the position of the arrogant playoff pitcher who says, “I’ll sleep in November.” So I’ll be going to bed late and getting up early, so what? So I’ll be missing meals and running on adrenaline and Mountain Dew, who cares? This is a great chance to play in new games with interesting people for an entire weekend, so I’ll push myself to the absolute limits and the heck with my rest, food, and sanity. That me from several months earlier really was an idiot.

For my next convention, I am going to schedule less and build in more breaks, along the lines of SESSION-[BREAK]-SESSION, even if it means fitting in half as many games. One thing that rapidly came into focus for me was how freeform many of the gaming sessions were, allowing (and even encouraging) walk-ins, since the people who had registered had gone mysteriously missing (probably because they were still standing downstairs in that registration line).

Repercussions

I am, by nature, and insufferable contrarian, and if you tell me that I have to color the sky blue and the grass green, I might choose purple and yellow instead, and then throw my crayons at you. This is pretty much what happened to me on Saturday, as I examined at my string of back-to-back-to-back games, and muttered an angry, “No.” After running that first game and then scampering around snorking food, I started feeling the pressure of the rest of the day and reacted badly, blowing off my 2 o’clock, and then my 6 o’clock, and then, since I was on such a roll, my 8 o’clock.

No, this wasn’t fair to the GMs, and it reflects poorly on me, but it was a good opportunity for learning, since I now know that I don’t have it in me to be so straightjacketed by a schedule. If I had it to do over again, I would have left that 6 PM – 8 PM block empty, and maybe even the 8 PM – 12 AM one empty too. I could have swung by those rooms, poked my head in and said, “Room for one more?” And you know what? There would have been.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I’m going to have to get better at reacting instead of proacting, since it fits better with my convention abilities. I need to schedule less and wander more, see what’s available and let the world take the turns it’s going to take. I’m going to have to get better at improvisation, since this life doesn’t stick to a script or a schedule. I’m going to have to get better at hanging loose and letting things happen.

How to Fight the Convention Gods, and Lose!

What follows is a dissertation that not only proves the existence of Convention Gods, but that said Gods are both Chaotic Neutral and all-powerful. I will present my argument as a series of battles, with the final battle concluding the war. By the end of this reading you will understand that you simply cannot fight Convention Gods and expect to win.

Battle 1: Desire – Victory!

The war begins with my desire to experience my first convention. It’s a simple volley, and the Convention Gods quickly cede the victory to me, as they know that I’ve been wanting to experience my first convention for about three years. I felt strong going into this battle, and came out the confident victor. Of course, this victory gives me a false sense of hope, as I simply have no idea of what I’m really getting myself into.

Battle 2: Planning – Victory!

For this trip I wanted to bring my wife and kid with me. It was quite understood that I wouldn’t really have any time for them (except for the occasional meal), but they understood that. My wife’s parents would also be accompanying us, to keep my wife and kid occupied with touristy-type activities. This ensured that my family wouldn’t be bored for the duration of the weekend, and in fact, got to take their own mini-vacation. The plan was for me to drive down with some friends Friday morning, and my family would drive down later in the day (after their commitments were taken care of).

It was the perfect plan. My whole family got to take a mini-vacation, and we were expecting the whole trip to cost very little.

Battle 3: Execution of Travel – Defeat

Of course, all great plans are doomed to fail. Months of anticipation were almost crushed when the Convention Gods threatened to close the pass with a heavy snow-storm. Also, I got sick this week, further threatening the possibility of going. So the whole week prior to the event was filled with stress, as I didn’t know if we’d get to go or not.

Thursday comes, and the parents-in-law have to drop out. This means that if we still get to go, the wife and kid will have less to do. Also, the wife doesn’t want to drive by herself in a snowstorm, so I’m going to have to drive her. That means that I don’t get to leave in the morning, having to wait until she is ready to go in the afternoon. This would practically ensure that I wouldn’t get into the game that I wanted to on Friday, the game that I wanted to play over all others.

After our late start on Friday, we head over the mountain (and of course it’s snowing). Right off the bat we are forced by the Department of Transportation (DOT) to pull over and put on cable-chains, cable-chains that my wife bought a month ago. Of course, they don’t fit, so I have to buy another set right there. After that we head back out onto the freeway, and DOT has left the area. Sweet! I can take the cables off. So I drive about ten miles and then take off the cables.

Nope. DOT simply moved further up the mountain. So I have to pull over again to put them back on. Ok, now after another twenty miles I’m allowed to pull over and take them off. I get out, open the driver’s side door of our van to get my jacket, and an 18-wheeler charges unnecessarily close at 50 miles an hour, throwing ice-cold slush up my entire backside – from head to heel. So much slush got thrown up that it drenched the inside of my van, and even got all over my wife (who’s sitting in the passenger seat on the other side of the van!). -sigh-

So, a three-hour trip ended up taking six hours… six miserable hours.

The Convention Gods laugh at me.

Battle 4: My Target Game – Defeat

But all is not lost! I get to the hotel and get checked in. The staff are nice and professional, and there’s not a single person in line to register for the convention, so I get my badge in what must be record time.

And, I get there just in time to sign up for my target game, the one game that I really wanted to play. The one game that if I didn’t get to play in any of my other preferred games, I would still be happy.

Annnnnd it was canceled. This was the only game that I was really looking forward to, and not being able to play it really soured the rest of the weekend. In defiance, I spent most of my time that Friday in my room with my wife and kid.

The Convention Gods laugh at me.

Battle 5: Paying for my Trip – Defeat

I took a bunch of gaming stuff with me, with the intention of selling it at the convention. There was a market/swap meet on Saturday morning, and I was fully expecting to clean house. In fact, my buddies also gave me their stuff to sell, since they’d be playing games. I would miss out on any games for the first half of the day, but that would be ok because I was going to pay for our entire trip with my sales.

Well, not only did I not make very much money, but my kid bought a bunch of junk, thereby spending everything that I made. Of course, I made my friends a bunch of money while they were busy having fun, so it wasn’t a total loss in that respect. It’s just unfortunate that I thought my trip was going to pay for itself, and am instead a few hundred dollars in the hole. I would have been fine with the cost, had I been expecting it.

The Convention Gods laugh at me.

Battle 6: Hotel Food – Defeat

I’m from Reno, and I’ve worked in hotel/casinos for 13 years. So I’m used to a huge variety of restaurants, from diners to cafes to buffets to steak houses. Our hotel tried, but their food set-up just failed. The variety, the price, the service, it was all just wrong.

I’m not going to go into heavy specifics, because I’m sure we’ve all received bad service, been over-charged, and had lousy selection of poor food. But I will ask: who ever decided to combine a steak house with a buffet? Those are culinary polar opposites.

And come on waitress, when our crappy food / lousy service / over-priced bill is $30 and we give you a $50, do you really think that coming back with a $20 bill as change is going to get you a $20 tip? I think not.

The Convention Gods laugh at me.

Battle 7: My First (and only) Convention Game – Defeat

My first and only convention game could have gone better:

I go to the room of my first convention game – a game I haven’t played in over 15 years – and am immediately hit with a “humid gamer aroma,” to put it nicely. Ok, I can get used to it, I guess.

On a good note, a father/son duo was playing in this game, so that was cool.

So, the GM hands out some half-filled out character sheets. We then spend the next hour finishing our characters – an hour well-wasted.

The game (a game that is supposedly about style over substance) was instead all about substance, and combat. The first death of the game happened within the first half-hour, and it was a player character.

With all the secret notes being passed around the table by the GM and the fixer, many of us were left out of the game’s story, and were left wondering if we were ever going to work as a team.

I haven’t played this game a lot, and it’s been well over 15 years since I’ve played it, but I had a better grasp of the rules than the GM did.

At one point, my character took an action that directly affected another PC (I felt the PC was trying to screw us, so I tried to stop it). My character had good reason to interfere with the other PC, but that player didn’t like it. He proceeded to berate me with questions as to the validity of my actions, then said I had no reason for taking such an action, and shouldn’t do that – yadda yadda yadda. This dude was all over me, acting like a complete ass and cry-baby. I was this close to calling him a god-damned bitch, and telling him to shut the fuck up, but I guess I took the high road. I said that if he wanted to play my character, I’d hand him the sheet. That shut him up, and play continued. I hate freaking cry-babies.

With my wife’s parents not here, my wife and kid are stuck to themselves. Halfway through the game my wife calls me to say that our 6-year old kid left the room in a fit, and that she went after him, only to lock herself out of the hotel room. So (of course), I have to leave the game to go let her back into the room, and listen to her tell me that our kid has been a raging Godzilla, and that she’s thinking of leaving on Sunday instead of Monday. Awesome.

The end of the game reveals that the Fixer PC was indeed pulling a fast one on us. I was right. Yay.

The Convention Gods laugh at me.

Battle 8: The Last Stand – Utter Defeat

I trod my way back to the hotel room, a room that is littered with junk, clothes, gaming crap, and a sour wife. I tell her about my night, and say that I hope Sunday and Monday are better, and that if she wants to leave on Sunday, I’ll catch a ride with a friend on Monday. She says that there’s no way she’s staying past Sunday morning, and hopes that it doesn’t snow while she’s going over the pass (because she hates driving in the snow, not to mention over a snowy mountain).

That was it. That was the moment I knew the Convention Gods had won. There was no way that I would let her go over the mountain with the possibility of it snowing, her getting stuck for hours, or worse. I knew I was defeated, utterly defeated, and I drove us home the next day with my tail between my legs.

The Convention Gods laugh at me, hysterically.

Final Score:

Convention Gods: 6 – Winner!

Chris: 2 – Loozah!

I apologize to you, Convention Gods. You are all-powerful, and I am defeated. I promise that if I ever try to go to another convention, I’ll play by your rules.

What I’ve Learned:

For my next convention, I will make plans, but I understand that such things are subject to change.
I will leave all family members home, so that I can devote more time to the Convention Gods.
I promise to devote all of my time to you, to make sure that I’m at your worship from Friday afternoon to Monday morning.
I will bring better, healthier snacks. I will drink more water, instead of soda. I will not eat in a steak house, and I will not complain about the food.
I will make an effort to look forward to more games, instead of placing all hope into only one game.
I will run a decent game for my fellow gamers, because they deserve it.
I will not try to pay for my trip by selling gaming junk. I will instead go to the gaming convention with the intent to game.

I bow to you, Convention Gods. You humble me.

PAXEast Preview

PAXEast is coming! PAXEast is almost here! If I wasn’t excited before (and I was, mind you) I’m totally geeking out now that the schedule is out. You know it’s a good thing when thinking about it makes you smile like there may be something wrong with you.

But Brian, what is PAXEast?

PAXEast is a festival celebrating the best of tabletop, video and PC games. Developers come and host panels showcasing new games and expansions, and talk about how to get into the industry. Companies host games, previews and often give you hands-on time with new technology and titles. There’s a large show floor, stores to sell your stuff, places to meet new people, concerts and free play rooms including PCs, old arcade games and every console you can think of. You get all this for the price of admission. A three-day pass is $55, and as of this writing there are less than 1000 200 left. . . nevermind. There are no more three-day passes. Individual one-day passes (EDIT: Except Saturday) are still available.

Last year I was mostly there for Dungeons & Dragons. I played Dark Sun before it was out, played a number of console games I do not own, played D&D on the MS Surface Table, and met a ton of cool people.

That last note is what I really think PAX is about. PAX is about people, gamers and geeks especially, but really they embrace anyone with a passion. Lines are always entertaining because the person next to you wants to talk to you. They also want to hear what you have to say.

This year I’m still most excited about D&D. I don’t spend a lot of time playing video games anymore, so I’m less excited about the console and free play rooms this time around. This year’s venue is much larger than last year’s, so I expect there to be more stores, and a larger show floor. That sounds pretty great.

So what if I want to find Brian at PAX?

Well normally that would be weird, but at PAX it’s not! PAX is all about meeting people, and if you see me, my all means say ‘hi’ and tell me what I should be doing better. Or talk about whatever you want really.

I’ll definitely be checking out Jane McGonigal’s Keynote this year. If you don’t know Jane McGonigal, check out her video from TED on her website. Basically she’s convinced herself that playing video games can save the world, and wants your help to achieve that goal. It’s kind of awesome.

Also on Friday, from 2 to 3 in the Merman Theatre, is a panel called D&D Edition Wars. It’s where you get to hear Alexander Macris, Keith Baker, Zeb Cook, and Mike Mearls rip apart the different editions of our favorite game. Later that night, from 7-11, Wizards is hosting a Heroes of Shadow Preview. I’ll be in line about an hour early for that. I need to figure out when to eat that day. . .

On Saturday, I’m going to try to hit Pitch Your Game Idea with my brother, James. You get 45 seconds to pitch your game to industry professionals. The best 3 ideas win prizes!

Then on Sunday, from 4:30 to 5:30, there’s a panel called Getting What You Want Out of Your Gamemaster. It should prove insightful about designing games that are engaging for players and GMs.

Wizards of the Coast announced their schedule as well. Only they did it all sneaky on the PAX Forums. I’ve submitted my name for The Dungeon Masters Challenge and to judge a couple of sessions of D&D Learn to Play. There’ll be another PAX Post before the event so I’ll be sure to let you know exactly which official events I end up being a part of.

I should have a smart phone with me that weekend, so you’ll be able to track my movements via twitter, @BrianLiberge.

Anything else you want from this year’s PAX?

I want to DM two different 4e games. I hope one of them will be the previously mentioned Dungeon Master’s Challenge, but I also want to do something smaller in the TableTop Freeplay area.

I also want to play two games that aren’t 4e D&D. So I’ll be looking for people who are hosting open tabletop stuff. Some games I’m interested in are Mutants & Masterminds, MouseGuard, Dragon Age, Leverage, GammaWorld, Fate and Pathfinder. Obviously these things take time, I’m already positive at least one of the panels I want is likely getting cut. If people are planning to run something in a nearby hotel, either Saturday Morning, Sunday Morning, or Sunday Evening, let me know!

Because of the bigger location, I really hope there are more vendors. I’d love to pick up some stuff I don’t normally have the opportunity to buy.

How can I find out more about PAX?

Well I’ve already linked to the PAX Schedule and Forums. Check out their FAQ. Also, check out the Hitchhiker’s Guide to PAXEast.

One last note/plug. The Westin is right next to the Boston Convention Center. Attached to the Westin is M.J. O’Connors, Irish Pub with fine dining fair. I really like it, but I’m biased, my brother’s one of the Chefs. Because they’re literally the closest food to the convention center, I’m trying to get them to do some game-themed menu items and drinks. Who doesn’t want to have some Pac Man & Cheese?

Give them a try, and tell them Brian from Stuffer Shack sent you! If you want to support my menu idea, hit their contact page and send them an email! You’ll thank yourself later when sipping your Legend of Zambuca at the bar and sending down those Princess Peach Margarita’s to the Frag Dolls at the other end.

So are you going to PAXEast? Anything you looking forward to or want to see? If you’re not going, what do you want to hear about from those who are going?

Con Games 2: Champions

Part 1 is here.

Run by the convention organizer, this Champions RPG was set in the Marvel Universe, featuring X-Men tangling with Brotherhood mutants. The GM, a great big guy with sleepy eyes, split the eight participants into two groups (good and evil), then took each group aside and assigned the actual characters. Given the size of our group, he had wisely enlisted an associate GM who managed end-of-the-table questions and tracked various die rolls.

The title of the game was, “For the Brotherhood!” If you know the X-Men from Marvel Comics, you’ll recognize these characters. If you don’t know the X-Men, you should really consider broadening your reading.

Our group, Cyclops, Ice-man, Wolverine, and me, Colossus, got telepathic word from Professor X that the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants were on the move, this time ransacking the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We flew to Central Park in our SR-71 Blackbird just as the brotherhood (Pyro, Avalanche, Blob, and Sabretooth) exited the museum.

This was another game I had never played before, and I enjoyed it quite a lot. I remember exactly nothing about the rules now, except that the game ran very quickly and was a lot of fun. If I had it to do over again (PC antagonists and playing with friends), I’d encourage my friends to take the other side, forcing me to form alliances with strangers. I guess what I’m saying is: play new games, play with new people.

Pyro immediately spread his arms when he saw us, igniting a 10′ high wall of fire between our groups. Cyclops took charge, skating up into the air with Ice-man on his bridge while commanding me to “fastball special” Wolverine at Pyro.

“What about Sabretooth?” I shouted back, seeing him cradling something in his claws and disappearing away from the park and into the city.

“Don’t worry about him!” Cyclops said. “He won’t get away.” And with that, he and Ice-man blew Avalanche off his feet with a combination eye-blast and ice-spear. Avalanche went down, driven deep into the dirt.

The excellent and terrible thing about convention games is the interaction with strangers. When you play with friends, you have a pretty good idea about the alpha personalities, who’s going to lead, who should probably follow, who’s tactically brilliant, who only thinks he is, and so on. In this game, the player running Cyclops had decided 1) he was in charge, and 2) Sabretooth splitting with some secret item didn’t matter. Cyclops was wrong on both counts.

With some ease, I scooped up Wolverine and hurled him across the park, but Pyro was ready, dodging right, deflecting the slashing claws with a fire shield. I charged immediately after, and saw the Blob lumbering to meet me. This was going to be a fight.

Wolverine had managed to scramble back to his feet, but even as he was turning to finish Pyro off, Cyclops accidentally blasted him, hammering him to the ground. With a gesture, Pyro turned his fire wall into a fireball, exploding straight up at Cyclops and Ice-man on the bridge, forcing them to dive for cover. Then Pyro turned his fire onto Wolverine, burning him alive where he lay.

It was my friend Dave playing Wolverine, and up to this point, he was disappointed with his choice. He had turned into smashface ragdoll, and the PC running Pyro had elected to use deadly force to actually KILL Wolverine… which he came very close to accomplishing.

Ice-man recovered from the fire attack and threw an ice cage around the advancing Blob, who easily pounded his way through it. I reached the fat man at this point, throwing my arms around his and crushing, getting a roar of pain and anger. We struggled like that for a while, with the Blob trying to break out of my hold while I crushed him. I could feel him weakening, especially after Ice-man froze the air around his head and inside his lungs, but then he managed a reverse on me, wrapping his great arms around mine.

“Let’s see how you like it, metal boy,” he growled, but I pulled the same maneuver, breaking free entirely and stepping backward.

This was a great example of really clicking with a stranger at a convention table. Being the biggest tough guys at the table, we had decided to lay into each other, and it played out just like that, as we bashed and smashed and crashed and crushed each other in turn. It was a very effective, very believable comic book scene, and I feel like I can credit both the game rules AND the GM, who ran it effortlessly.

Cyclops had fired a few more eye-blasts at Pyro, but couldn’t punch through the shield, and Pyro continued to pour his hellish attack on Wolverine’s still body, clearly intending on killing him.

Sabretooth reappeared, racing in from the side and clawing out great big chunks from Ice-man’s bridge, which wavered but didn’t collapse. Ice-man slipped though, and fell hard to the ground, where Sabretooth began tearing great big chunks out of him. Sabretooth, it appeared, had gone a little crazy.

For those of you thinking this was strictly a good guys versus bad guys game, a big twist is about to occur. To the GM’s credit, it wasn’t such a massive, major twist that would have thrown the game into excessive, grindy disarray, and it was timed exactly right. The X-Men and the Brotherhood had gone just far enough to really establish a red hot battle, and then…

It was then that the two Sentinels appeared.

Twenty feet tall, thick armor, flight, and hand blasters, the Sentinels were created for one job only: destroy all mutants. The battle shifted at this point, as enemy became ally to defeat the new threat. Well, at least, most enemies became allies. Sabretooth was lost in bloodlust, and continued tearing bits and pieces out of Ice-man, at least until the first Sentinel blast hit him.

As an adventure designer, it never would have occurred to me to shift the battle so dramatically, forcing us adversaries to join forces to defeat an overwhelming opponent. Keep in mind we PCs had been whomping away at each other up to this point, so we were hardly at our best when the real enemies appeared.

The Sentinels were tough, ignoring all but the most brutal attacks. Wolverine managed to claw a good bit out of one, until it pounded him away and started hovering outside of his reach, blasting downward at him and Sabretooth. The Blob roared “Truce” at me, and then we cooperated on the second one, the big man flinging me in a revised “fastball special,” allowing me to bury my fist deep into its chest. I held on up there, hammering away at it, and then it batted me off and flew up in the air, thinking it was safe from me.

But I can jump. I sprang up again and managed to get another hold on its leg, crushing the armor. It kicked me off, hovered higher, and blasted downward, making all kinds of craters but failing to hit me. Blob and I started digging boulders from the ground and flinging them, causing minor damage. Avalanche (finally back on his feet) started sending great waves of earth at the Sentinel, smashing it hard and actually getting through the armor.

The other one was set upon by Sabretooth and Wolverine, leaping from a tree and tearing their way up its legs in a race for the head. Cyclops fired away with his optic blasts and Pyro with his fire attacks, and shortly, Ice-man tried to freeze the boot jets on the thing.

It was clear that the GM had not planned on any of our tactics, and was simply rolling with our moves, allowing each of us to shine in our own special way. Before the Rule of Yes had come into vogue, this GM was being awful liberal with his Yes answers, much to his credit. We were still challenged–the Sentinels using their flight to get away from us–but the GM never played it unfair.

The situation became desperate for the first Sentinel, so it resorted to desperate measures. It flew in a huge arc, scraping Wolverine and Sabretooth off on trees, then it dropped close to the ground, stretched out its arms, and jetted straight into Cyclops and Pyro.

It burst through walls of ice from Ice-man and walls of stony earth from Avalanche, and hit like a runaway train. Cyclops was crushed, Pyro was flung, and it looked as though the tide would turn again. Until, that is, Pyro focused on the fire coming out of the Sentinel’s boot jets, reversing the flames, sending them up the robot’s legs. The explosion was enormous, rocking nearly everyone off their feet.

I doubt there were any rules in place for this kind of cataclysmic event, the GM just went with Pyro’s move, allowing the Sentinel’s destruction but not dismissing the cost of such a move. This is one of those rare tabletop gaming moments when I remember the event as though it actually happened, instead of merely remembering sitting at the table and throwing funny-shaped dice.

The remaining Sentinel, damaged but not down from the Blob and me, dropped horizontal and blew through our group, wrapping one huge hand around Ice-man and then disappearing into the sky, ignoring our trailing attacks, escaping with our friend. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants escaped as well, scampering away as we plotted our pursuit of the Sentinel, leaving the remaining X-Men alone in Central Park.

All right, so we heroes weren’t exactly given a happy ending, but I can guarantee that every player around that table had a freaky good time. We each got our special moments, the kind of scenes where we tug on the sleeves of friends and say, “Hey, let me tell you about this one Champions game I played in.” Plus, it does feel faithful to the source material, since comic books never really end, do they?

Part 1 is here.

Con Games 1: Shadowrun

Note: A few years ago, I went to a gaming convention somewhere in Connecticut with my dear friend Dave, and had the opportunity to play a few games I’d never played before, which is why conventions exist. If you go to a convention and only play inside your comfort zone, you are totally missing out.

In the Shadowrun game, I played Samson, an enormous rock-headed troll who was about 90% metal and carried a large pistol, a large rifle, and something called a laser crescent axe, which sounded delightfully vicious. The rest of the group was Andy, a dwarf who liked shooting people and fixing stuff; Francis, an orc thug who liked shooting people and breaking stuff (especially when people called him “Frank”); Lee Chan, an elf punch n’ kick specialist; and Bobby, a zip-zowie-bang spellcaster.

First, the setup: We were involved in a scheme both lengthy and complicated, which included such things as the mean old company Wolfur & Sons, some doctor named Johnson, a stolen serum we had to recover, and a happy little business called Stubbs Medical Corporation who conducted research, explored scientific boundaries, and dabbled in human experimentation. Most of the folks there were just your average work-a-day data entry clerks and secretaries, and for some reason, that meant we couldn’t drive through the front door and fire high-caliber, explosive-shelled, glaser mega-rounds into everything that so much as winked in our direction.

So that night, a-sneakin’ we did go, through the first floor, then down some stairs to the basement, bonking the heads and tasering the dreams of the minimum wage security guards we met. Easy beans. We went down an elevator to the sub-basement, where we found the desired serum being injected into a sallow-faced street girl. We got the girl, and then everything went splat. Or more accurately, budda-budda-budda-budda, as a pair of nasty looking swivel machine guns popped out of the walls and started stitching new and exciting patterns through our brave group. Our clever computer girl went offline permanently, and our brave leader was reduced to grated cheese just after ba-banging one of the machine guns with a grenade. And here came some guards from the elevator, a trio of unhappy looking fellows, orc, troll, and human.

(COMMENCE PLAY): So began the firefight in the research bay, as Lee Chan hai-yahhed into combat, firing her gun and slashing with her mono blade, Andy the dwarf and Francis the orc engaged a little more cautiously, and Bobby the mage cast a few spells and nearly fainted from all the excitement. As only a true rock-headed troll can, I grabbed the barrel of the remaining swivel-gun and directed it at those party-pooping guards, but it refused to fire, so I tore it out of the wall. Shortly, the three guards were dispatched and we were discussing options on how to get the heck out of the building.

Air ventilation shaft? Nah, not big enough for the big-as-a-nightmare troll. Climb up the elevator shaft? Ride the elevator? Ride on top of the elevator? Form a barbershop quintet and tour the country? All excellent suggestions, but after exhaustive discussion, we settled on Francis the orc riding atop the elevator with Serum Girl, while the rest of us rode inside the elevator, humming along to “The Girl from Ipa Nima.” It was quite soothing.

In the basement we discovered our remaining team member sporting the latest in large bullet holes through various body parts. He had gone down fighting, polishing off the guards who surprised him there, but not in any shape to attend our after-mission party. Francis went into the security office and found a bank of monitors displaying all corners of the building, including the corners upstairs on the ground floor. This was how he spotted the armed guard hiding up there, waiting for us to come up the stairs so he could leap out and shout, “Surprise!” Instead of playing along, I tossed a concussion grenade into his immediate vicinity, and completely ruined his day. No, it didn’t kill him, but it made him very sad. We took him hostage and introduced him to Serum Girl, and the two hit it off famously.

Andy called up our ride outside, an excitable fellow with a name like Transit or Ransom (Transom?), and found out that he had been set upon by a couple vans as he waited outside to pick us up. Currently he was tearing all over town with the two vans pursuing, trying to keep close to the building while avoiding getting his body riddled with bullets and his sweet ride all dinged and scratched.

“How do you want me to come in?” Transom asked.

“Straight through the front glass,” Andy said. So that’s what driver-boy did.

CRRRASSSHHHHHHHHH! went the front of the building, and Transom skidded around in a tight circle and the side door slid open. We were in, and then we were gone.

We returned to our safe house where we dumped our prisoner and considered our situation. Dr. Johnson told us to meet him with the serum (now in girl form, with Retsin!) at Pier 17. We’d pile onto his yacht and all leave together for a new and better life, a life where the food is sweet, the drink is plentiful, the cartoon birds land on your shoulders, and nobody ever shoots you in the eye. Sounds great, except hardly any of us had been born the day before, so we made other plans.

We placed Serum Girl in Transom’s handy hands, and, after loading up on My-Tee Kill-Deth weapons and ammo, we secured our very own set of wheels, a large and muscular Humvee, and drove to the pier. It was located in the middle of a dreadfully run-down wharf, with abandoned warehouses, twisted chain link fences, and not the slightest sign of cartoon shoulder birds. Down at the end of Pier 17, we could see a town car idling beside a big old boat, and figured this must be the place.

Francis the orc exited the Humvee early and scampered towards one of the warehouses, and Lee Chan hopped out right after that, running around the other way. Andy the dwarf, Bobby the mage, and trolled-out me kept riding.

We all heard the gunfire from inside Francis’ warehouse, and I suggested to Andy the dwarf that he encourage the town car off the pier and into the water. Of course, I said it more like, “You smash, make boom,” so he did, stomping on the accelerator and roaring towards the town car. Two fellows who were definitely not Dr. Johnson dove out right before we hit, and the battle was joined.

I burst from the side of the Humvee and buried my axe into the side of an elf, who responded by blowing off most of my face with a pistol that fired a silent storm of razors. Yee-ouch! We exchanged blows for a while, me consistently missing, him consistently hitting me in the head area. Andy the dwarf and Bobby the mage tangled with the other guy, another spellcaster, who wanted to do something really nasty but couldn’t because Francis in the warehouse had found a sniper rifle and evaporated most of the spellcaster’s head. Lucky for me, the rest of the team shot, blasted, and slashed the elf before he was able to fatally razor me.

Lee Chan and Andy the dwarf examined the boat and discovered a trip-wire by tripping over it, and it blew in a massive explosion that nearly killed them, so we decided it was time to leave. There was a little bit of wrap-up and explanation, but suffice to say that we were

double-crossed
didn’t have the serum
there was no Dr. Johnson
and most of my face was missing

But, the street girl wanted to join our group. So, it wasn’t a total loss.

Part 2 is here.

DunDraCon 35 – How to Enjoy My First Convention?

Let me tell you about my first convention: I was in middle school at the time, and I walked through some sci-fi thingy where they had a bunch of stuff that I can’t remember. Cool, huh?

I remember not really being all that impressed. Actually, I was downright disappointed. You see, I like comics, and had a good collection of X-men stuff, Spiderman stuff, Conan stuff, and my favorite – Groo. So for me to be at a comic book convention was pretty cool.

Unfortunately, as soon as I walked in, I saw comics that were selling for $10, $20, and $30+ bucks, and I said, “what the freak?! Who would pay that for a comic?” Mind you, I was used to walking into the 7-11 and picking up my Groo for a buck or two. When I saw that comics actually had covers with cardboard backing – all for the book’s protection, I wrote off comics right there. Ergo and ipso facto, I wrote off all conventions by association. Not once since then have I wanted to go to any convention. I was burned.

So, for the past two years I’ve been gaming off and on with John Lewis and Colin Dowling, and they’ve been telling me all these cool stories about their past gaming conventions. The getaways, the games, the gaming stuff, the fun gamers, the hot larpers… uh, and so on. They say it’s just a great atmosphere. So, my interest has been growing…

DunDraCon is coming up in a few months (four?), and I’ve decided to attend. Of course, this assumes that the jail can do without me – we’ll see, but that’s the plan, anyway. Aside from what I’ve been told, I really still have no idea what to expect. After hearing all these stories, I feel that I may be setting myself up for disappointment. So, I’m asking for a little help…

Assuming that I go to DunDraCon, how can I make it a great experience? I’m looking for any and all tips and advice that will help me enjoy the event, and make me look forward to future gaming conventions. Best comment with advice wins a free set of Mini Counters! – Cause that’s how I role.

Oh, you’ll also win if you send me the very first issue of Groo, in great condition, sealed in a hardcover, bullet-proof case, signed by the warrior himself.

[Random thought that has nothing to do with this article: I just had a birthday two days ago. I don’t know if it’s good or bad that just before my birthday I realized I was one year younger than I thought I was. I was sitting there arguing with my wife over it, culminating with me counting years on my fingers. So, one year younger – I don’t know if that’s a win or a loss.]