Badmike wrote in North Texas RPG Con: 2018 10th Anniversary:Con Publications: This year we will have four con exclusives. One is top secret and won't be available until the con, limited to 100 copies at $20 each....might possibly sell out at the con.

The top secret con exclusive is a beautiful reprint of Palace of the Vampire Queen. This time the reprint it 8 1/2 x 11 inches and not a digest-sized reprint.  They have been selling like hot-cakes and will likely run out at the con.  Of the 100 that are available for sale, there are about 30 left I've heard.  

I'm in the same boat as "aia". Couldn't make the Con this year. If anyone would be so kind to purchase a copy on my behalf... I'm good for the money.

You can always PM and I'll send you the money.

James

benjoshua wrote in North Texas RPG Con: 2018 10th Anniversary:All issues of the Palace of the Vampire Queen convention modules sold out yesterday.     That was quick.

...i d say too quick!

Ok my request now is for the remaining 3 modules described by Mike in his last post.
Any chance that a fellow collects them on my behalf (and on my charge, useless to say)?

One more question,  some weeks ago even steve marsh wrote that he was writing smtg for the con? Did he bring anything over there? What was that?

Thanks and ciaooo

NTX was a blast this year.  Being the tenth anniversary of the con, there were lots of friendships renewed, traditions extended and new friends made.  This was my second year on staff, and I am now settling into a role I really enjoy.  I get to game a lot, talk a lot, help a lot and laugh a lot.  There were some epic moments and great stories that came from this con.

I arrived Wednesday morning, settled into my room, ate lunch and got ready to work.  I called Badmike, and he said we'd be moving in later that afternoon.  Unlike last year, the hotel had booked in a number of other groups right before us, so we couldn't set up early.  Vendors started arriving and realized they couldn't move in either.  We resigned ourselves to set up quick once we were given the word.  In the meantime, we just visited with all the new arrivals.

Here's Badmike telling some story to Kingofpain, Smarmy1 and Gary Oliver.


Here's the vendor room:

My first game was "En Garde" with Steve Winter DM'ing.  This rpg game began in 1975, shortly after D&D took off, but I'd never heard of it before.  The goal was for each 17th century French gentleman-player to rise in rank, status and money.  Every turn was broken up into a month with four weeks in which we decided how to allocate our time, whether it was dueling, toadying (sucking up to the rich and influential), fighting in a war, consorting with women, etc…  You could compete against other people at the table or work with them.  I did well in the game, rising in rank several times and becoming high up in my military regiment. While Steve did a great job making the game interesting and fun, I probably won't play in this game again.

Thursday morning, I was in another game with Steve Winter DM'ing (I really like his DM'ing style).  This was a 5th Ed D&D game with 1st level characters entitled "Awakenings."  Apparently, an entity had come to the planet to take it over by raising the intelligence of all animals to the point they could kill all other life forms (or something like that).  As the adventure moved along, we ran into stranger and stranger things, eventually running into a farmer who had been ousted by all his animals and kidnapping his wife and kids.  We tried to rescue them, but the cat threw some high-level spells our way.  I asked if that made him a spell-catster.  It was too early in the morning for most people to laugh or moan.  Anyway, we defeated the alien entity and saved the day.

Thursday night was the K&KA Social.  I had participated in the game the year before which featured about 23 players and two DM's.  While the expected group was over fifteen, we ended up with about ten players, which was an optimal size.  We were tasked with finding out why a section of shoreline had been such a problem and danger to anyone approaching.  We worked well together and ran into some crabmen which proved problematic.  Things were looking difficult until I pulled out my brazier of fire elemental summoning, which I accidentally called a brassiere of fire elemental summoning!  Once the error was noticed, I said, "She was one HOT woman!"  Anyway, I was cooking enemies left and right and we were able to proceed.  Unfortunately, the time was late, and we decided to reconvene the following afternoon.  I was not able to finish with the rest of the crew, but I understand they made some good progress and also lost a few players to violent deaths.

Friday morning was a trip back in time as about forty of us went to the La Quinta, the original con hotel.  Unfortunately, the air-conditioning on the bus was low functioning, and the bus driver couldn't fix it.  Then, when we arrived at the hotel, I went in the lobby asking where our con meeting was located, and they told me we were at the wrong hotel!  Fortunately, Doug showed up, fixed everything and we settled into the conference room.  It was cramped.  It was loud.  But it was fun.  I was in tacojohn's game, and we were tasked with looting a jungle ruin.  Kingofpain, Mizzle and a number of other experienced gamers were in our group, and I assured myself that we'd have a great time and not do anything stupid like splitting the party.  The first thing we did once a group of white apes showed up was split the party, and we lost a player (Skeeter).  Kingofpain could not roll anything over a five almost all game.  Anyway, we found the mother lode, killed a bunch of monsters and had a great time.  Lunch was also spectacular with some local BBQ.  Here's most everyone loaded up on the bus:


Here's lunch:


Friday night was grodog's Castle Greyhawk game.  This was the second time I had been in this game and what a treat!  We had some epic battles including one with a purple worm which swallowed one of the players and another player sent in an aerial servant to rescue him!  And succeeded!  We eventually accomplished out goal, although it took until about 1:30 in the morning. Here a photo:


Saturday morning, I played in Skeeter Green's Rappan Athuk game where we took some incredibly high characters (15-18th level) against Orcus himself.  Since we had some last-minute dropouts (boo, hiss) I played two magic users, and most people played two characters.  Skeeter's wife played and she made things very interesting with playful banter.  While we did well in our first encounters, we did poorly against Orcus, although, I don't think we had much of a chance anyway.  It was fun shooting some spells at Orcus and watching them take no effect. Here's a photo (the guy on the soda can was flying):


Saturday night I played in tacojohn's Arden Vul game which was 1st edition with 5-8th level characters.  We had to find a couple of magical swords in a semi-underwater set of crypts.  I played an 8th level magic user, and had a great time.  We had to find a lot of secret doors and avoid several traps, but we were successful in the end, eventually fighting a huge demon as the big boss at the end.  Here's a photo:


Sunday morning, I played the most unusual 1st edition D&D game ever.  In fact, I thought I was in the wrong room at first.  The DM had everyone playing a character from the movie Predator, complete with blasters, scanners, etc…  We traveled to Greyhawk to search the spaceship from Expedition to the Barrier Peaks!  We had to recover some lost/holy item.  Along the way, we had to fight robots, human marines, another group of Predators, aliens and a froghemoth!  I had tons of fun in this game, and we accomplished our mission.  Kingofpain was not rolling well in this game either. Here's some photos of the action:




The real-life excitement unfolded on Saturday as it appeared a thief or two was in our midst.  I learned that several items were missing, including Chris Clark's briefcase.  Fortunately, while searching for a security guard Saturday night to lock up the vendor room, I came across his briefcase in a hotel staff hallway.  Bracton was very helpful in helping me contact Chris' wife and get the briefcase back to him.  Fortunately, all his stuff was still there (books signed by Gary Gygax, etc…) so it was probably someone hoping to steal a laptop.  Whew!

It was sad seeing the end of the con come to a close.  Here's a photo of a Sunday night supper crew (complete with tacojohn's daughter and grodog's son):

Quick write-up of my Con experience, sorry no fancy pics like benjoshua  

Saw many many Acaeum friends, gamed with a good number of them and chatted with more. Unfortunately not enough hours in the weekend to cover everybody so I apologize to those that I missed, hope to see you next year.

Almost everything was fantastic again this year, huge kudos to Doug and Mike and benjoshua and everyone else on the staff. Incredible job again this year, we are so fortunate in our community to have events like this. About the only thing less than perfect is the hotel has truly terrible food.  

Quick game recap:

Wednesday night I played in Throwi's Basic game, the Con module B2.5 Caves of the Unknown. Bracton was also in this game. Major faux pas on my own part by bringing some local beers but forgetting a bottle opener, sorry Throwi I'll get you next time!

Thursday AM I played in Keith Sloan's Forgotten Grottoes of the Sea Lords (1e), which also had Acaeum members Bracton and Stratochamp. Very enjoyable game, a cave/dungeon crawl set cliffside with several different villains and locales depending on player choice. Keith runs a lively game too, was quite fun despite an 8am start time.

Thursday afternoon I played in the AD&D Open game What Depths Zenopus run by BillBarsh. Other Acaeum members were Bracton, Heresy, and Grodog's son Henry. This Thursday group ended up winning the tournament this year, my first win in 5(?) years of playing in the tournament. Most gold at the end won, although you could spend gold to revive fallen party members. Our group ruthlessly declined to revive anyone, including young Henry who was first to fall. I ended up falling too, but fairly near the end and our group had a big win in the last room we finished that probably put us over the top.

Thursday evening I played in Ghul's (Jeff Talanian's) AS&SH game The Ice Sphinx where I was a machine with my repeating crossbow, felling enemies and (nearly) party members alike. Unfortunately we did not defeat the main menace, but we did enrich ourselves and escape with our lives.

Friday morning I went with the busload over to the La Quinta games, I played in Frank's high level 1e game Stoned Again with Heresy and Smarmy1. I will echo benjosua's comments that it was loud, cramped, and a lot of fun! I think the hotel workers thought we were crazy. Amazing how far the Con has come in just 10 years!

Friday evening was my 2nd AS&SH game with Ghul, this one called The Palace Ruins of Xambaala. This was kind of a part 2 from last year's Friday night AS&SH game, which about half our table had played in. I very much enjoyed Xambaala both last year and this year, this is a module that Jeff said is coming out this summer (or fall?) and I'll be sure to pick it up. It's very Robert E Howard-like, and really hits the sweet spot of what the Hyperborea mythology is all about.

Saturday AM was a B/X adventure by Steve Marsh called 99 Barrels of Beer (I think there were several Acaeum members in this but I only know Smarmy1's screen name). We drove a caravan loaded with beer cross country with a stop at a ruined tower and an attack by a Beer Elemental.

Saturday afternoon was a re-scheduled 5e version of Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits run by The Gamehole (Alex Kammer). I was fortunately able to make this as I had another game cancel at the same timeslot. An interesting run through using 5e characters dealing huge damage figures but it was all for naught as Lolth butchered us in the end. Heresy and Smarmy1 were also in this game.

Saturday night after the auction was BillBarsh's annual Saturday night game, this time a revised version of the first Pacesetter module The Thing In The Valley.

Sunday morning I played a Swords & Wizardry Light version of a Rappan Athuk level set out on a huge table in miniature. My first time playing S&W Light, it worked well... quick and dirty character creation and fast play. I died quickly and re-entered the dungeon with another character but only lasted slightly longer the 2nd time  

I had a half-cooked pizza and an inedible hamburger, but found a decent choice later with the Southwestern Cobb salad (although it was made differently the two times I had it). Maybe Thursday was just a bad night, the same time I got the awful hamburger Ghul got a Buffalo Chicken wrap that was so bad he couldn't finish it.

benjoshua wrote in North Texas RPG Con: 2018 10th Anniversary:NTX was a blast this year.  Being the tenth anniversary of the con, there were lots of friendships renewed, traditions extended and new friends made.  This was my second year on staff, and I am now settling into a role I really enjoy.  I get to game a lot, talk a lot, help a lot and laugh a lot.  There were some epic moments and great stories that came from this con.

Thanks for the detailed write-up, and nice meeting & playing in the K&KA game with you at the con. Just remember "brazier" rhymes with "Frasier".  

wjaehnig wrote in North Texas RPG Con: 2018 10th Anniversary:Saturday AM was a B/X adventure by Steve Marsh called 99 Barrels of Beer (I think there were several Acaeum members in this but I only know Smarmy1's screen name). We drove a caravan loaded with beer cross country with a stop at a ruined tower and an attack by a Beer Elemental.

Thanks for the write-up of the con. I was in this game and in fact I believe I was sitting next to you. I didn't realize you were an Acaeum member. I played the M-U with the bone-eating Spirit Centipede familiar. Great game! Steve really treats his players well - he brought us two different "breakfast deserts" - a pie and a pastry.

benjoshua wrote in North Texas RPG Con: 2018 10th Anniversary:I just finished reading the con module, B2.5 Caves of the Unknown, written by Charley Phipps, Mike Badolato and Thom Wilson.  This is an expansion adventure created to dovetail with B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, and was written specifically for the convention.  It's a quality publication, twenty-four pages in length and features blue maps on the inside of the detachable cover!  There is solid art content within and on the cover.  The content is good overall, but to me, the best writing and adventure concept is the section written by Thom Wilson.  This section has some intrigue, some mixed motivations, and good opportunities for out of the box thinking and role-playing if players like that.  There are still copies for sale from Badmike at $20.00 each.  There were only 250 copies printed.  

Sir, you are exceptionally kind and your comment here humbles me greatly.    I'm glad you enjoyed it!

~throwi