Recap: My Gencon Labyrinth Lord Game

As you know I attended Gencon this year. This was my second Gencon and since I've been DMing for most of my D&D life I thought I'd try to run a game.

I created a senario last year called The Burial Crypt of the Bandit Queen running Labyrinth Lord. I played the senario twice prior to Gencon. The first group were "successful" but the game was a bloodbath. Of the 8 PCs and hirelings who entered the final battle only 3 PCs survived. You can read the details of that adventure in my previous posts. The second group timed out before we could finish the entire senario.

I tweaked the adventure only slightly by adding additional traps, one room, and changed another. These made the adventure more interesting.

The table consisted of 5 players including my buddy I grew up playing D&D with in public school. That was the first time we played together in probably 25 years. So it was special game in that regard. The rest of the group were a great bunch of guys, including the author of Saturday Night Sandbox. A couple had played together and they all had a great sense of humor. My friend and I had just come from a Reich of the Dead game with a bunch of pricks (they lost [EDIT: rules-lawyers who sucked the fun out of the game), so it was really nice just to sit back, play, and have fun with a group of guys with exactly the same gaming interests and sensibilities.

There were a couple interesting developments in this game. The first is that the party found a secret door in the first room and chose to go through it rather than head down an open hallway where there had been signs of activity. The second, was that random monsters kept cropping up: giant rats in the well room, bandits behind the party, etc.

At the chasm bridge, the party tried to send a human across until I reminded them that he couldn't see. The then unwisely decided to send Kerthanis the elven wizard with AC8 instead of the dwarf in platemail. Half-way across, poor Kerthanis was attacked by stirges and died...face-down on the rope-bridge :)

The final battle was a difficult one, The Bandit Queen was a special monster - a spell-casting ghoul - who called her 8 skeletal minions to defend her when the party entered. Again, this was a challenge, but by that time both the fighters found platemail, healing potions, and a longsword +1, +2 vs. Undead, so it's not like I was too harsh, Mhuahahaha.

The rolls just did not go the PCs way, time and time again they missed needing only one more hit to drop the Bandit Queen, and so the adventure resulted in a TPK after 2 hours. Huzzah!

Overall, I had a lot of fun. I hope they did too.

What a great group of guys to game with. They were awesome.

Enjoy the pictures:

My Gencon Recap in Pictures

At this exact moment I have more pictures from Gencon than I do time to blog about them individually.

I also caught a cold at the convention and feel rather crappy.

So, here's Gencon 2010 in pictures:

THE MAIN GATE THURSDAY MORNING:


THE 2010 RED BOX




COLONIAL BATTLEFLEET: KINGONS ON THE NEUTRAL ZONE!!!


KLINGONS: IT WAS A GOOD DAY TO DIE!!!


REICH OF THE DEAD


KROID ASSCLOWN GOES FOR THE FULL-FRONTAL ASSAULT...AND DIES


MY BUDDY AND I CLOSE THE DEAL ON THE AMERICAN GIs


SOME GOBLIN KING THINGY


MY LABYRINTH LORD GAME: I'M DMing (A specific post on this when healthy)


A FANTASY GLADIATOR GAME: MY BUDDY IN COMBAT WITH A GOBLIN


VICTORY AS MY CHARACTER (SPARTACLES) SEALS THE DEAL AND ENDS THE GAME


WINGS OF WAR FURBALL EVENT: SADLY MY BUDDY GRABBED THE SOPWITH CAMEL. I'M IN THE GERMAN TWO-SEATER


THE WOW FURBALL HAD 29 PLAYERS!!! CRAZY STUFF.

Off to Gencon

I'm off to gencon first thing tomorrow.

I'll post a recap with pictures when I return.

Cheers.

My Gencon Plans

I'm attending Gencon this year. I attended the convention in 2008 with my wife. We stayed on the outskirts of town and she dropped me off on the way to the outlet mall south of Indy.

Back in February I talked one of my old D&D friends from public school into coming. He didn't need his arm twisted but wouldn't have gone on his own. His wife is going so that gives my wife someone to chum around with. We are staying downtown this time.

This might sound strange but when I went in 2008 I didn't play any games. I played a couple demo games like Monsterapocolypse but that was it. Living in Southern Ontario we really don't have cool conventions to attend. So I used the opportunity to tool around the vendor booths, sift through old D&D stuff, and look for minis (and thus avoid paying duty). It was time well spent. I also really didn't have a feel for the enormity of it all. I certainly do now. I was also completely on my own and didn't know anyone to hang out or game with.

This time, I've registered for a bunch of games and will DM a Labyrinth Lord game myself.

As you can tell from the blog, I'm a straight-up medieval fantasy D&D gamer. I don't want to use my limited gaming time playing other games. Just gimme some dice, D&D, and stand back while I crush skulls. I decided to broaden my horizons this year and play some different games. On Thursday we are playing Colonial Battlefleet: Klingon Border, and attending a Hirst Arts Seminar. I'm hopeful to pick up some tips. Friday we will be at the OSR Discussion in the morning, Reich of the Dead in the afternoon, and play my D&D adventure in the evening. Saturday it's on to Beginner mini painting, Gladiators, and Wings of War. We will return on Sunday.

So, all in all, a much busier schedule than last time. If you are attending let me know, I'd like to hang out with fellow blog-o-sphere-ians. :)

I intend to have fun as I may not be returning until my children are much older and can come along.

My Hirst Arts Dungeon (in Progress)

Inspired by the posts on Grognardia, A Paladin in Citadel, and others, I decided to purchase some Hirst Arts Flagstone molds and have a go at creating some dungeon pieces.

My intent here is not to create whole dungeons a-la Dwarven Forge. My idea is to keep the graph paper central to dungeon exploration but to "zoom-in" enough to construct 2-3 rooms at a time with the dungeon pieces.

At first I created a small dungeon with the walls on the outside. That seemed like a good idea for two reasons: aesthetically the blocks look nicer on the outside and, with the blocks on the outside, you are afforded more space to create little alcoves etc without actually taking up your room space.

Anyway, here's a couple shots of the work-in-progress. I think I need one more big cast to create more single tile and double tile walls to make the set playable. Once I'm confident that I have the pieces I need I'll prep and paint.

Question: Do you use either Hirst Arts or Dwarven Forge pieces in your game? How has it worked out? So far I'm pretty happy with the result.

What does D&D and Sum41 have in common?

Absolutely nothing.

Actually one of the guys in the band is a family member and my wife and I went to the Warped Tour just south of the border at Darien Lake (NY) in the last couple days and I took some behind the scenes pics.

Enjoy.






Gencon info and more miniatures coming up soon...

Much Ado: Recent OSR Kerfuffle

Like some other blogs, I do try to keep this blog politic-free. There are a couple things I would like to say, and these are generally applicable to the OSR spats that crop up from time to time.

In the final tally, does anyone really care about people determining who has the longer whatever? I don't. I mean really, who cares?

I will say this. I have no problem with someone saying that the OSR produces better material than TSR - and I don't have any problem with someone else disagreeing. I've read good stuff and crap from both.

Something is missing though. This isn't about new or old material strictly speaking. To me, this is about having both. I want to play Against the Cult of the Reptile God with my group followed by Death Frost Doom or whatever AND I want to do it with a rule set that people can find without scouring Ebay for a book that's half falling apart. I want a version that brings new gamers to the hobby (easily). The OSR rocks.

Moreover, I want to game with my old AD&D screen and my new Otherworld painted miniatures while chomping Funions and swilling Mountain Dew. Ok, I really didn't mean the Funions part.

I don't care who wants or gets credit. I don't care who produces/ed better material. As a consumer I'll be my own judge.

Whatever happened to publishing good product and letting the product do the talking? Can somebody please take the High Road (from the start)? Who needs the drama.

More Painted Miniatures

Here's a quick post of some recent work.

The first depicts Otherworld's Shriekers and Violet Fungi and the second some adventurers from Megaminis.

You can click twice to zoom the image.

In the next post I'll talk a little bit about my plans for Gencon. Cheers.

Otherworld Miniatures: Gygax's (Orange) Goblins:

As many of you know, I've been busy painting my Otherworld Goblins. In this endeavour I've tried to stay as close to the source material as possible. Regarding goblins, the AD&D Monster Manual states:

“Goblins range from yellow through dull orange to brick red in skin color. Their eyes are reddish to lemon yellow. They dress in dark leather gear, and their garments tend towards dull, soiled-looking colors (brown drab, dirty gray, stained maroon).”

This was a tough decision as I've always considered goblins green in skin colour. I've bought most of the Otherworld humanoids and I want to make sure that each looks unique on the table (Hirst Arts prototypes forthcoming). Gygax noted that as the PCs make their way through levels they should face a corresponding monsterous humanoid: Kobold, Goblin, Orc, Hobgoblin, Gnoll, Bugbear, Ogre, Troll and so on. So they need to be individualized. This is easily done if one does a close reading of the MM.

So here are the final images of my goblins. I hope you like them. I will have pictures of my Shriekers and Violet Fungi up in a day or two, followed by some additional Gencon information.

You can click twice on the images for close-ups. Cheers.

My Gencon Labyrinth Lord Game

I'm DMing a Labyrinth Lord game at Gencon this year. It will be my second Gencon and my first time DMing.

I've posted character sheets of the 5 PCs at a basic blog for the game. I'm using a combination of rules from the Labyrinth Lord Core Book, Advanced Edition Characters, and some basic house rules.

You can check it out here.

http://theburialtombofthebanditqueen.blogspot.com

Sorry the hyperlink function isn't working today.