I've mentioned once or twice before that the University of Illinois has a new student gaming group, the MetaGamers. Looks like they've reached the point where they are organizing their own conventions. The afternoon/evening of January 21st will be MetaCon Spring 2006. And the venue will be none other than the U of I Foreign Language Building, the place where the Conflict Simulation Society used to hold Winter War! The available details on MetaCon seem awfully sketchy for a con running in only 10 days, but they may be doing most of their organizing at the weekly club meetings. I wonder if I'm the only one who misses the regular meetings of the CSS? Nowadays the Society only exists to put on Winter War. Anyway, it looks like MetaCon will be one of those cons where you won't know too much about it unless you go there on the day of the event.
While trying to sniff out more info on MetaCon I discovered that I'm not the only one in town running a D&D game using the Gestalt rules from Unearthed Arcana.
So,
ReplyDeleteGestalt chars sound interesting. How has it been working in play?
I don't see it as that different from standard D&D play. Gauging their effective level against canned modules can be tricky though. And the players love all that raw extra power.
ReplyDeleteIt does tend to diffuse PC niches though. If you've got the kind of player who wants to be the only party member who does 'X' they will have to try harder to be the best at whatever they do.
One thing we discovered early in the campaign is that controlling what classes, feats, and races you allow is even more important. Since the start of play I've cut back on allowed stuff a bit. The big one was monster classes and ECL races. To be balanced in a Gestalt game those need to take up an entire level.