Badmike wrote:

ScketreWhisp® wrote:
Please don't make this mistake ...

it's NOT the first weekend of June, it's the first THURSDAY of June every year.

So sometimes that is the first weekend, and sometime it's the second weekend ie: this year it was the second weekend since June 1st was on a Friday.

If you start marking the first weekend of every year, you might miss one !

Just put aside the first two weeks of June every year and you'll be good, plus you really need the extra time to prepare/recover from all the con goodness. (btw, the con wont' be the first weekend in June again until 2014)

Mike B.

It sucks that my department holds there annual global conference every year during the same time    I may have to ask them to change that  

You can always tell the lack of sleep confuses people and blends the days together...

ALL the panels except the Artist Panel were held on Friday, not Saturday... obviously Jeff lost track of days in his loss of sleep stupor

But that's okay, as long as you had fun Jeff, it doesn't matter what day you thought it was

Badmike wrote:Also the Sandy Petersen/Steve Marsh panel into the origins of Call of Cthulhu was very, very interesting.  

Will that video also be posted, Mike?

Badmike wrote:I felt like attendance was far less than it should of been for most of these (in the 10-20 range, I thinkg the CoC panel was the least at 9-10 attendees).  I attribute this to not really having panels last year (due to Rob's Dungeon design class) and to the fact the panels were held in the board rooms on the complete opposite side of the con where all the main rooms were (no walk by traffic to speak of).  I thought the raffle and auction filled the room very nicely, though I would also like to see them next year held in a bigger room with more walk-by traffic.  I'm sure we'll find a good space for next year.

I decided to stay at the table for selling books vs. attending the panels, otherwise I would have definitely attended all of them.

Just a note, if you are interested in copies of the limited edition digest modules we sold at NTRPG Con this year, they will go up on RPG Marketplace either today or tomorrow.  If you don't already have an account there, then get one now!!!

http://rpgmarketplace.com/

Mike B.

Digests available:

Wee Warriors Reprint: Misty Isles (D&D)

Tim Kask: Castle of Glass & Sinister Secret of Sweetmeade Abbey (OD&D)

Steve Winter: The Death of Tlangeshan (Empire Petal Throne), Rendevous With Ruinator (Gamma World), and The Tomb of Amemnes (D&D)

Erol Otus: Island Town (D&D)

Well, first I have to say that my son and I had a blast at this Con!  As my first real Con experience, it couldn't have been much better.  My only complaint was the hotel's temperature control systems were all over the place with hot hallways and some gaming rooms and then frigid gaming rooms on the other side of the venue.  Oh, and the restaurant wasn't very good but that was less of an issue with me as I had a car and could get offsite to eat.  We were signed up for an event in pretty much every slot and enjoyed them all.

We arrived Wednesday night, somehow dodging the storms that had plagued the Dallas area all afternoon, causing massive delays at the airport and a log-jam of people trying to check in to the hotel.  We arrived just before the hoards started arriving at the hotel so check in was smooth.  We then spent three or four hours hanging out in the registration area talking to Doug, and then Jim Ward, Steve Winter, Tim Kask, and Frank Mentzer as those special guests eventually arrived from their long day with the airlines.  When we went to bed at around 1AM, Doug was just leaving with a couple of other guys to take the special guests out for some grub at IHOP.

Thursday we slept in, missed the special guest lunch at Texas Land & Cattle and eventually ended up at Fuddruckers for a late lunch.  We then spent a couple of hours browsing the stuff for sale in the registration/dealer area and this began my purchases that eventually ended up being about twice what I had budgeted for buying goodies from vendors.  I was honestly surprised at how much cool stuff there was to buy and each time to looked through the various tables and shelves, I found something else that I wanted.  Thursday night we played in Mythrus Tower with Matt Finch.  As a huge fan of Erol Otus, it was really cool that he was playing in this game as well.  I played a Magic User and my son was a Thief.  Both of our characters died in this game.  I can't remember how mine went but my son hit a cabbage that wasn't a cabbage with his sword releasing something bad (acid? gas?) that caused 70 points of damage.  Bye bye first level character!  Matt allowed us to make new characters and continue.  I brought in a Cleric and my son a Fighter.  Those two survived until the end of the session.  At one point Matt asked my son if he was under 18, which he is (13) and Matt then gave him a softcover copy of Swords & Wizardry which he later autographed for him.  This was a super cool thing to do and just served to make the session even more memorable.  Matt runs a fun game, stands on his chair for much of it, keeps things moving quickly and in our session somehow managed to juggle 13 players.  Lots of fun and a good start to the events we were signed up for.

Friday morning we were up early to play DCC RPG with Michael Curtis.  This game was much more fun than I was expecting.  I really don't need another game system as I'm perfectly happy with pre-2e D&D but by the end of this session, DCC had won me over and I would consider playing or running it in the future.  Michael is an excellent DM, very animated and boisterous.  He perched on his chair like a pterodactyl during one scene and actually took a pratfall during another.  Like Matt, he kept things moving for the ten players and in our five or six hour session, we managed to navigate the shifting tower and defeat Emirikol.  I played a Dwarf and my son was a Thief.  One of the players playing an Elf and sitting to my immediate right (Wolfbrother?) called on the Three Fates and rolled very well which made the climactic fight far easier for us than it would have otherwise been.  This was our second game where Erol Otus was a fellow player.

After a break in the afternoon, we played in Tim Kask's Snakeriders of the Aradondo OD&D game Friday night.  This was such an interesting and unique experience!  I have played AD&D 1e and 2e, and plenty of basic and expert D&D but had never played OD&D.  Tim's game certainly didn't disappoint.  Peril around every corner, jungle teeming with giant carnivorous apes, caimans, giant frogs and bigger things, and a dangerous and spooky underground environment.  I played a Dwarf Fighter and my son was a Human Thief.  Sadly my son is the one who taught us lesson learned #1 as mentioned by Tim in his Con recap earlier in this thread.  Climbing a tree while on watch and invisible only to fall asleep later is not conducive to survival.  He was dragged away by apes never to be seen again, except for a hand and some clothing fragments.  Another PC died after having his head torn from his shoulders by a giant snake (Kingofpain I believe) but at least he survived until the very end of the session before dying a horrible death.  All in all this was an incredibly fun session and a real glimpse into the mind of Tim Kask.  And Erol was in this game as a fellow player as well.  Too cool!

Saturday morning we were up early again to play in Jim Ward's Metamorphosis Alpha game.  As this was part of the GameFest, we played with Jim for a little over an hour and then switched to Boot Hill with Frank Mentzer, and after another hour or so switched to Star Frontiers with Steve Winter, and then to Cavemaster with Jeff Dee and then back to finish up with Jim's MA game.  These games were all good fun.  Jim's MA game was the hardest I laughed all weekend.  As the youngest, Jim made my son the LT, and another player as the oldest was the Sarge.  Poor Sarge was tasked with trying to comprehend my son's orders and mis-interpret them to keep us alive.  The highlight was one of the characters getting exposed to enough radiation to mutate and him giving birth to the "Crystal Baby".  Words can't describe what followed.  I will say that Tim's description of Jim Ward is accurate.  Kindly manner, concerned demeanor and expressive face.  Listening to Jim describe our doom in a kindly and concerned voice is something else.  Frank's Boot Hill game was great, and Frank gave us a nice history lesson to start things off.  Showed how much time and effort he put into researching stuff.  We were really just getting started and were just about to get into a shooting match with some indians when we had to switch.  I'd love to see Frank's notes for this scenario.  Then we were off to Steve's Star Frontiers.  Steve runs a fun game and it would have been cool to play in a full session of one of his games.  We fought some huge Yeti-like aliens and then some robots.  I haven't played Star Frontiers in years and had a great time.  Then we moved to Cavemaster with Jeff Dee.  I had already purchased the Cavemaster book from Jeff the day before and had started looking through it.  I thought it looked interesting and the short session with Jeff only solidified my thoughts.  The unique mechanic and distinct feel of the game make it fun.  Not having to worry about magic items, spells and monsters, but instead having to worry about food, water and other resources make for a different style of game.  I'll definitely introduce this game to my kids sometime this summer.

Saturday afternoon we attended the auction/raffle.  It was entertaining watching the bidding wars, culminating in the big one for the reference sheets.  Then it was OD&D Lich Dungeon with Frank Mentzer Saturday night.  I've long admired Frank's work and was really looking forward to playing D&D with him as the DM.  This game didn't disappoint.  Frank runs a great game.  I played a Cleric and my son played a Fighter.  We had fun with the puzzles in this old school dungeon that Frank reminded us that he wrote in the 1970's.  We encountered some not friendly kobolds and then orcs.  Two of us were killed, my character included.  My son's character dragged mine out of the dungeon and he had a chance to survive after some healing from an NPC Cleric but I failed my system shock roll with a whopping 90% on my roll.  I won't soon forget the Mad Cleric knocking on doors and eventually finding one to speak back to him.  He was making a couple of the player's in the group nervous and overly cautious but I thought it was great fun!  Thanks to Kingofpain for making this an even more memorable game than it would have been, and thanks for the beer!  Thanks to Frank for running a fun game!

Sunday morning we were up early again to play Dragon Lairds with Jim Ward.  There were seven players, Jim included, and he gave away a signed copy of the game to the winner (sadly not me!).  This was a fun game and I will definitely consider picking this up in the near future.  The Tom Wham art on the cards is worth the price of the game.  After this game, we hung around saying goodbye and getting some last minute autographs and then departed the Con heading for Houston to continue our summer vacation visiting family.

We had a blast and will definitely return in the future if circumstances allow!

I picked up some great stuff at the Con, including Haven The Free City, DCC RPG, most of the digest modules that were printed for the Con, a few items from Bill Barsh (including 1 of 100 on T2), Lesserton and Mor, and other fun stuff.

Many thanks to Doug and Mike for putting on such a great Con.  Thanks to all the special guests for their time, willingness to sign books, general companionship and running great games.  And thanks to Kingofpain for the welcoming my son and I to Dallas, being a genuinely nice guy and the free beer!

Badmike wrote:Just a note, if you are interested in copies of the limited edition digest modules we sold at NTRPG Con this year, they will go up on RPG Marketplace either today or tomorrow.  If you don't already have an account there, then get one now!!!

http://rpgmarketplace.com/

Mike B.

Digests available:

Wee Warriors Reprint: Misty Isles (D&D)

Tim Kask: Castle of Glass & Sinister Secret of Sweetmeade Abbey (OD&D)

Steve Winter: The Death of Tlangeshan (Empire Petal Throne), Rendevous With Ruinator (Gamma World), and The Tomb of Amemnes (D&D)

Erol Otus: Island Town (D&D)

Excellent, got my copies of these modules, thanks Doug / Mike !!

I hopefully will make it there in person next year, I haven't played D&D or any other RPG in about 20 years (only collecting) and never been to a con, so I look forward to it.

Thanks,
Jorge

JohnGaunt wrote:Mostly untitled photos.

Day 0 (Wednesday):
. . . http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q90/ ... 20Day%200/

Day 1 (Thursday):
. . . http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q90/ ... 20Day%201/

Day 2(Friday):
. . . http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q90/ ... 20Day%202/

Day 3 (Saturday):
. . . http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q90/ ... 20Day%203/

Day 4 (Sunday):
. . . http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q90/ ... 20Day%204/

Some good candids.

Lich Dungeon is extremely sandboxy -- you have 32 options when you first arrive on L1 -- which in turn feeds the DM many options to build on party actions. It was a delight to have a diverse and contradictory group of players to create such interesting, oft amusing, and occasionally tense situations.

F

I thought you were already a legit Con. My mistake I guess   Graz on the new venue.

I will register as soon as it goes live. I had the best time ever (Don't tell Doug, but I liked it better than GaryCon )

Zach