Gary Con VII was...

[Buttmonkey]

awesome! Just sayin'.

[Tadhg]

awesome! Just sayin'.

No it wasn't! Unless you provide a report, pictures, videos, accounts of all drinking and gaming etc!

[Rigon]

It was a fantastic time. It was great seeing every one and meeting you.

And Rhu, you should have driven up on Saturday, you would have had a great time.

R-

[Tadhg]

It was a fantastic time. It was great seeing every one and meeting you.

And Rhu, you should have driven up on Saturday, you would have had a great time.

R-

Yeah, it's always tempting. But I had to work Sat & Sun. Looking forward to your report!

[Buttmonkey]

Gar. I'll go ahead and do an after con report. Here are some quick thoughts:

1. The women! The number of women (and girls) attending has increased substantially over the last 3 years. This year saw a big spike. It was really cool to see the hobby growing.

2. The food service was much improved over last year. 2 years ago (2013), the hotel's wait staff took orders from all of the tables and brought food directly to the table. Last year (2014), that was limited to the VIP area. I was very pleased to see the hotel go back to serving all of the tables again. It is a very nice feature of the con.

3. There were lots of opportunities for people who had not preregistered to jump into games. My Saturday afternoon game sold out super quickly, but for some reason only one of the players showed up. It took about 10 seconds to fill out my table with passersby. I also gave away one of my tickets for an event I decided not to play in. I don't think either of those things were isolated phenomena. If you put yourself out there, you will have a great time at Gary Con.

4. I tried a bunch of new systems. I got to play in a DCC funnel game on Sunday afternoon. The highlights for me were when I had my corn farmer make out with his mule to avoid being targeted for an attack by a group of monsters (with mixed reactions from the other players) and shouting, "I run straight for the sphincter!" It was a great event with an extremely skilled GM. This was a playtest for a module to be published by Goodman Games. Based on what we saw, it's going to be a great module.

5. I got to hang out with the Troll crew at the bar Saturday night. I had a short but invaluable discussion with Steve, Seskis, and CK Dad about GMing. It was great to get some confirmation that some of the things I do with the SIEGE engine are regularly done by skilled CKs even if not technically BTB. I also got to touch and flip through something Aihrde fans would have been excited to see. Seskis hogged it, though, so I never had an opportunity to run off with it.

6. I played in the "Battle for the Moathouse" Chainmail scenario Paul Stormberg has been running for the last few years. I had never played Chainmail before. It was a wonderful experience. Paul built in several surprises that made the event exciting and unpredictable. It was fun to hear about how Gary Gygax reacted to the surprises when he played it back in the LGGC days. Sadly, my lips were quite loose due to lack of sleep by Saturday morning and I had a bad habit of blurting out secret information in the presence of the enemy. I think Paul was about ready to whack me in the head with a club at one point, but handled it graciously. We didn't have enough time to finish scenario in the 4 hour slot (this is really an 8+ hour game for inexperienced players), but it looked like the forces of weal were going to crush my team of woeful Moathouse forces pretty quickly.

7. I ran 2 C&C events. The first was CK Dad's C&CS tournament adventure from Gary Con V. That is a great scenario and was a lot of fun for me and (I think) the players. The second event was something I cooked up myself. I enjoyed the hell out of running it even though I just about lost my voice shouting over the crowds and other games to make sure my players heard me. I found that experience much more rewarding than being a player has ever been. I'm going through a shift where I am transitioning from someone who GMs because otherwise no game would take place to someone who would rather GM than play. I never thought I'd evolve into that. The best part was the players really seemed to enjoy what I came up with. There was a great kid who really got into it. At one point the party took a captive. The kid asked if he could kill him. I said, "Sure!" The rest of the party quickly told him not to. So he asked if he could hurt the prisoner. I said, "Sure!" again. Then he asked where he could hurt him the most. A short time later the prisoner was clutching his groin and the party's LG cleric had an alignment shift. It sounds creepy when I write it out, but in the moment it was pretty damn funny. The kid was bloodthirsty in the best possible D&D way. I got pretty enthusiastic positive responses after the event. I think the feedback was sincere. It's tough to know for sure since I think most players will politely congratulate the GM after an event even if they didn't enjoy it very much, but I'm pretty pumped about the whole thing.

8. I had a fairly unpleasant 5E session. It was my first attempt at playing 5E. The system is okay, but I really am not a fan of mixing a skill system with class-based D&D. The DM was good, but his adventure was just awful. That was a weird combo. I am baffled how a DM who can run encounters that well could write something so bad. I was frustrated by some of the players trying to argue rulings with the GM. For example, we fought a monster that was initially lying in a sarcophagus. A player asked if he was going to get a bonus to his to hit roll since the monster was lying down. The DM ruled he would not. Then the player kept trying to argue the point. The argument was a pointless waste of time. It got frustrating very fast. I was really tired due to lack of sleep when the adventure started. I quickly craved PC death so I could get the hell to bed (this was my last session of the day). Sadly, you have to work really hard to die in 5E. I got close, but a wand of cure light wounds had me back up before I had a chance to fail three death saves. I about cried when my PC survived. That left 3 more hours of pain to endure. This was the first time I've ever been tempted to walk out of a game session at a con, but I thought it would rude and unfair to do so, so I gutted it out. Ghastly experience. A little of that was due to the 5E rules, but I would be willing to try them out more thoroughly.

9. I enjoyed a really fun Savage Worlds game. It was my first SW session. We played a team of super villains who had to defend the earth from an invading alien race. The heroes of the world already got their asses' kicked by the aliens. That was pretty amusing until we realized that meant the aliens were going to be plundering our world, too. The adventure was a long but fast-paced slugfest as we attacked an alien outpost and blew up the mother ship. It was almost entirely hack and slash, but I loved it after slogging through the 5E Session From Hell the night before. I found Savage Worlds to be pretty comparable to C&C in terms of speed of play/action. It was a great time with a fun group of players.

10. I got to meet several more people from the boards, including CK Dad, Ancalagon, and Rigon. Ancalagon was in one of Seskis's C&C sessions with me. He did a great job or role playing the party's cleric.

[Rigon]

7. I ran 2 C&C events. The first was CK Dad's C&CS tournament adventure from Gary Con V. That is a great scenario and was a lot of fun for me and (I think) the players.

Can you PM with some info on this? I plan on running a couple of games at Con on the Cob this year and am looking for a good module to run.

R-

[Tadhg]

Gar. I'll go ahead and do an after con report. Here are some quick thoughts:

Excellent Report!
Thanks Buttmonkey, much appreciated!

[Buttmonkey]

7. I ran 2 C&C events. The first was CK Dad's C&CS tournament adventure from Gary Con V. That is a great scenario and was a lot of fun for me and (I think) the players.

Can you PM with some info on this? I plan on running a couple of games at Con on the Cob this year and am looking for a good module to run.

R-

You should PM Seskis and/or CK Dad. They were kind enough to give me a copy, but I'm not sure I have permission to disseminate it further. CK Dad isn't around here much anymore (I think he is heavily focused on Shadowrun at the moment), but Seskis seems to drop by once a week or so.

[Tadhg]

Btw, BM . . did you play any FITS with Monsieur Carr? And did he run the LeMans race?

Also, did Steve run a large C&C game?

Tanks.

[Ancalagon]

<snip>

10. I got to meet several more people from the boards, including CK Dad, Ancalagon, and Rigon. Ancalagon was in one of Seskis's C&C sessions with me. He did a great job or role playing the party's cleric.

Thank you for the kid words, Buttmonkey. I had a great time gaming with you through Seskis's most excellent adventure. Hope to sling dice with you again!

[Buttmonkey]

Btw, BM . . did you play any FITS with Monsieur Carr? And did he run the LeMans race?

Also, did Steve run a large C&C game?

Tanks.

Someone was running Dawn Patrol, but I don't think it was Monsieur Carr. Thinking back, I'm not sure if I saw him at Gary Con this year. The only wargaming I did this year was the Chainmail scenario I mentioned in my recap.

Steve ran his large game, but I was playing in Seskis's "Ziggurat of Zon" adventure with Ancalagon at the time, so I can't report on how it went.

[Ancalagon]

My first Gary Con was a hellagood time! I played in some AD&D1e and 2e, Swords & Wizardry, Castles & Crusades, All Flesh Must Be Eaten (The Zombie Master survived the Ghetto Holocaust, of course!), and AS&SH and enjoyed them all.

With that being said, I think I enjoyed the sense of community at Gary Con just as much as the gaming goodness. Hanging out between and after games with folks from DF, the TLG forums, and K&KA was just amazing!

I'd like to raise a glass to the friendly folks from the various boards I was fortunate enough to meet / hang out with / drink beer with / sling dice with during the con:

Cloak n Dagger
Captain Blood
HowandWhy99
Diaglo
Francisca
Paul J. Stormberg
Handy Haversack
BigPerm
Chainsaw
WSmith
Seskis
Buttmonkey
Grodog
Ghul
Steve Chenault
Tim Burns
EOTB
Ligedog
TacoJohn
Guy Fullerton

HAIL!!

[Rigon]

7. I ran 2 C&C events. The first was CK Dad's C&CS tournament adventure from Gary Con V. That is a great scenario and was a lot of fun for me and (I think) the players.

Can you PM with some info on this? I plan on running a couple of games at Con on the Cob this year and am looking for a good module to run.

R-

You should PM Seskis and/or CK Dad. They were kind enough to give me a copy, but I'm not sure I have permission to disseminate it further. CK Dad isn't around here much anymore (I think he is heavily focused on Shadowrun at the moment), but Seskis seems to drop by once a week or so.

I contacted CKDad on Facebook.

R-

[tylermo]

So, you played some Savage Worlds? Great game. SW and C&C have been my primary go-to games for years.

[Buttmonkey]

7. I ran 2 C&C events. The first was CK Dad's C&CS tournament adventure from Gary Con V. That is a great scenario and was a lot of fun for me and (I think) the players.

Can you PM with some info on this? I plan on running a couple of games at Con on the Cob this year and am looking for a good module to run.

R-

You should PM Seskis and/or CK Dad. They were kind enough to give me a copy, but I'm not sure I have permission to disseminate it further. CK Dad isn't around here much anymore (I think he is heavily focused on Shadowrun at the moment), but Seskis seems to drop by once a week or so.

I contacted CKDad on Facebook.

R-

I saw that. If he can't find the files quickly, just shoot me a PM and I can get the stuff to you within 24 hours. I can even send you the updated character sheets I used. I thinned the herd a bit by eliminating classes I hate to CK and simplified the magic item selections.

[Rigon]

7. I ran 2 C&C events. The first was CK Dad's C&CS tournament adventure from Gary Con V. That is a great scenario and was a lot of fun for me and (I think) the players.

Can you PM with some info on this? I plan on running a couple of games at Con on the Cob this year and am looking for a good module to run.

R-

You should PM Seskis and/or CK Dad. They were kind enough to give me a copy, but I'm not sure I have permission to disseminate it further. CK Dad isn't around here much anymore (I think he is heavily focused on Shadowrun at the moment), but Seskis seems to drop by once a week or so.

I contacted CKDad on Facebook.

R-

I saw that. If he can't find the files quickly, just shoot me a PM and I can get the stuff to you within 24 hours. I can even send you the updated character sheets I used. I thinned the herd a bit by eliminating classes I hate to CK and simplified the magic item selections.

Thanks.

R-

[Relaxo]

... "I run straight for the sphincter!"

That explains your username....