Monday, February 12, 2007

Winter War 34 in review

Ten Things I Liked About This Weekend

  1. I had a great time chatting with a lot of great people that I don't game with during the course of the year.

  2. My old school D&D game was a lot of fun. Managing ten players went fairly smoothly, except for the one kid who wanted to stab a wizard who had a cyclops friend. I had a blast running this module.

  3. I played Clay-O-Rama, the super-silly game of Playdoh-based carnage. More on that when I can show you pictures.

  4. The Encounter Critical game was superfun. Mutants were propositioned. There was a quantumly indeterminate Warlock's Pit containing a substance such as crocodiles and/or sharks & lions. Blink Beasts pulled people off of dewbacks. And Darth Viraxis was put out of our misery. The players are already jazzed up for next year's adventure "Obiwan Shinobi in the Wilden West".

  5. I didn't go crazy shopping. I found a 3.5 monster book for 75% off, some dollar bin old gaming crap, and a couple minis, including this thing:Carnage-Bot!

  6. Pat and I snuck away long enough to make a run for the local comic shop. In the 50 cent boxes I found some Avengers: United They Stand and the one issue of Legionnaires that I've been wanting. And some more Sensational She-Hulk.

  7. Don returned my copy of Starter Traveller, which he had borrowed for grognardy research purposes. Thanks, Don! He also gave me some helpful ideas for maybe attempting a new superhero campaign. Don is solid awesomite.

  8. My sister was able to attend. Some of her games went less-than-swimmingly, but I think she still had a good time overall.

  9. I was able to leave early Saturday night. (See item 4 on the next list.) For those of you who were making fun of me for not being hardcore, I would like to direct your attention to this.

  10. The Catpissman Ratio was way down from last year as far as I could tell.

Five Things I Didn't Like About This Weekend
  1. No one signed up for my Mazes & Minotaurs game. I put quite a bit of work into that adventure. I think my pitch in the con program book was a bit bland. And mythic Greece isn't exactly a redhot genre.

  2. My daughter was out of town. She was having a good time with the grandparents, but I still missed her.

  3. I didn't get as much time as I would have liked to chat with everyone.

  4. My nephew and I crippled each other with point blank shots on turn 2 of the Blind Sniper tournament. Better luck next year, Ian!

  5. I was hoping to score a copy of Dungeon Crawl #4, Bloody Jack's Gold, but none of the vendors had it in stock.
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Posted by Jeff Rients at 9:07 AM
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6 comments:

  1. evildm11:47 AM

    I would have totally signed up for your game man!
    One of my big "when I win the Lotto" fantasies is to invite all my online friends to Vegas for an extended weekend of gaming, buffet raiding, and strippers. oh to dream...

    and I know what you mean about missing your kids. I can go about six hours then I start missing my rugrats as well.

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  2. Anonymous1:09 PM

    Rat on a Stick! The joy of franchise delving; what a treat :) I wanted a copy of that for what felt like forever, and finally got my mitts on it in a dealer's room in '94. Quite a goofy little gem.

    Glad to hear Viraxis got what-for (and hope to hear more here or on the list)! Sorry to hear about the Mazes game, but they also moved it to what is often a difficult time-slot for an RPG to fill (lots of gamers stay up later than they're used to on Friday night at a con, for example).

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  3. Jeff Rients1:51 PM

    I decided to use Rat on a Stick at the last minute and had no time to do a proper conversion. On the fly conversion went fine. I don't know T&T that well but it's close enough to D&D I can fake it.

    Then a "Flame Demon" came up on the wandering monster chart. That took me by surprise, but I cracked open my Judges Ready Ref sheets and used the original Balrog stats. That made for a tough fight, but 9 first level PCs and one pet board were able to bring it down.

    It made for a very exciting final encounter of the session.

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  4. gamerchickJenn10:01 PM

    I thought I'd share my own list...

    Ten Things I Liked About This Weekend: P-U-E-R-T-O R-I-C-O

    But really,

    1. Gaming for several hours at a time without a six-year-old begging to play.

    2. Not having to worry about looking or smelling good since no one else there does (OK, so I'm somewhat kidding).

    3. Signing up to play 3 racing games, which could have been devastating but actually turned out to be a lot of fun.

    4. Winning 2 of the 3 racing games, one with an all-or-nothing claws-out move at the end (as for the one I didn't win... see #s 2 and 3 below).

    5. Totally creaming a bunch of old, crusty gamer men at Puerto Rico (twice).

    6. Growing fangs and crossing over to the dark side in a suspenseful game of Betrayal at House on the Hill.

    7. Finally being taken somewhat seriously by some of the gamer guys after giving them a run for their money in the boardgaming events.

    8. Gaming for several hours at a time without a six-year-old begging to play (did I already mention that?)

    9. Being told by Don that, of all the groups staying at the hotel this weekend, WE were the normal ones.

    10. Mountain Dew and Poppycock

    Five Things I Didn't Like About This Weekend:

    1. Mountain Dew and Poppycock. (I think I gained, like, 10 pounds. Sit, eat, sit, eat, sleep, then more sitting and eating. Thanks to Alan Dyche, I ate more Cashew Lover's Poppycock than I've eaten in my whole life).

    2. 15 guys beating me to a pulp during the big Circus Maximus race just because I'm a girl (THEY said it!).

    3. 15 guys getting mad at me for leaving the game after they beat me to a pulp (because I wasn't quite dead as my bruised body was being dragged by half-lame horses around the track sans chariot).

    4. Missing out on playing one of my personal favorites - Railroad Tycoon - because I was judging a game in the same time slot.

    5. Being so indecisive that I ended up NOT buying a game even though I actually had enough Dragon's Table credit and cash-on-hand to get whatever I wanted.

    For the record, playing in Tim Gritten's Really Nasty Horse Racing Game (for the second straight year) was the highlight of my weekend. Great game, great GM, great fellow players. I hope he brings it back next year. As for now, I am in my post-con depression. Sad, very sad.

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  5. the Red-Haired Maniac8:03 AM

    Hey Jeff...

    You can get a PDF copy of DCC#4 at Your Games Now for $6.99. Just thought you'd like to know.

    BTW-- Marc had a blast in the Encounter Critical game at the convention. Thanks much. =P

    peace... Dave

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  6. Anonymous9:49 AM

    I'll admit to some surprise on your game not running. But I'm glad WW34 was a blast for you otherwise.

    And I didn't have to worry about Michael -- he drove himself to the con after school, and spent the weekend playing miniatures games.

    Thing I didn't like about my own con: walking. I need a flying gocart to get around the site.

    Things I did like: NO ONE with a complaint. EVERYONE saying they were having a great time. New record numbers for people playing games. Most cons track number of people registering (which we do), but for years now I've preferred to track what I refer to as the BIS number (butts in seats), or what more polite folks might refer to as "people playing games". And we had new records for that in every time slot (except Saturday Twilight).

    And taking two hours to sit down and talk with some folks I hadn't spoken with for very long in years.

    Thanks to all of you for making WW34 fun, even for the chair.

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