It's been a really long time since I have had the chance to update the blog. A new business will do that to you. That said, I hope to get back into a decent blog schedule. On to the Gary Con report.
We left on Wednesday for GaryCon, Nathaniel (my cousin-nephew-son) and Jake were with me. We let the recently-turned-eighteen Nathaniel drive the first 2 hours of our journey, to the Michigan-Indiana border. From there, I took over. It was a good thing, too, because Chicago was Chicago. Stop and go traffic all the way to O'hare. Here we grabbed my good friend Ian. After he climbed aboard the trip was pretty smooth.
We arrived in Lake Geneva, dropped luggage, and headed to Frank Mentzer's party. Not much to note there. We looked at some artifacts of our gaming heritage, and had a good meal. Then headed back to the hotel. We headed to the bar and began our hellos with old friends. Zach Glazar, Bill Webb, The Barkeeper, Bad Mike and others showed up throughout the night. Honestly the first couple of nights became a haze. Too much alcohol and too little sleep and food.
Thursday morning rolled around, and Ian and I headed to our game: In Search of the Unknown: A DCC Character funnel. This game was a blast. Chris Lauricella made a great game. We found Blackrazor (from White Plume Mountain), which killed a lot of people. We found several other artifacts that had less impact on the game. I know he said Strahd's Cloak, a Staff of Power and other things were available. The other artifact that had significant impact was Acerack's Skull, which we used to make a momentous end to the game. In my infinite wisdom, I sat in a chair that summoned a demon. A fellow party member threw the skull at the demon, causing the entire dungeon complex to implode on itself. The adventurers who survived were rich beyond measure though, as we had filled wagons with loot and left it outside for our inevitable triumph!
Next up was Jim Ward's Metamorphosis Alpha game. It was a lot of fun. Jim, of course, had TPK'd the group before it was done. He was nice enough to sign my How To Write Adventure Modules That Don't Suck before the end of the day. I also ran down and grabbed a copy of Epsilon City to have him autograph as well.
Then we headed to dinner with the Frog Gods. Bill, Zach, Skeeter, Mike and Erik were there, and our buddy Jim had shown up in time to eat too. The steakhouse at Grand Geneva Resort is really good. We were all well sated and most of us well sloshed! We took a bit longer than expected and were about 20 minutes late for Scooby-Doo vs Cthulhu. Our buddy Chad "Danger" had no problem filling our seats.
Friday morning was an exercise in mind over matter. The hangover was palpable. But, with a good nudging from Ian, I was able to get moving. Ian, Nathaniel and myself headed to the Gary Con Open. We were pleasantly surprised to be in the same group as a couple of last year's winners. I'm not going to spoil the module for you, as it can be purchased from GARY CON when they get the bazaar up and running again. Jon Johnson was our GM, and he does a great job. Thanks to a well timed Limited Wish, we advanced to the finals. More about that on Saturday Morning.
Next on my schedule was the 1974 Gen Con demo of Castle Greyhawk. It was supposed to be played at Horticultural Hall, but was moved to Gary's old house on Center Street at the last minute. Paul Stormberg, of THE COLLECTOR'S TROVE ran this event. It was a great deal of fun, with moving floors, a rug beater room, a wrapping room and other oddities of Castle Greyhawk.
This adventure was written by Rob Kuntz, and was a great deal of fun to play. This was the second time I have adventured into Castle Greyhawk on original maps. The other time was what brought me to Gary Con in the first place. Both were in Gary's house. I may be the luckiest fan RPG'er on the planet. I'm willing to share stories, but you need to ask.
At 8 pm, the whole group of us showed up for the Head Frog's Mythus Tower game. Bill Webb is just a pleasure to watch GMing. He skillfully has 20+ people playing through a dungeon. Splat, my fighter, was able to procure a Rod of Resurrection from another character at the end of the night. Bill's games are episodic, and have reoccurring characters that gain levels. The new guys (Nathaniel, Jacob, and Jim) all hit level 2. Ian hit level 4, but I didn't gain a level. Stupid fighters needing lots of XP. Bill has a stable of about 10 re-usable adventures that he runs at cons, so I don't want to give anything away. All I can say is "control the light." This ran until about 1 am.
I'm going to continue Saturday's adventures tomorrow. Hopefully it will push me to get more regular at blogging.
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