Awesome con.
More later.


::brains... brains...::

Prufrock wrote in North Texas RPG Convention 2013: June 6-9: if you go to the NTXcon and do not schedule a game with Steve Winter you are an idiot.

I'll second that.  

Here is my synopsis of this year's NTRPGCON.

Wednesday:  Left work and drove the 15 miles or so to the hotel.  Took over an hour due to crappy traffic and construction.  Got my swag bag and purchased some really nice items.  Walked the hall talking to the early arrivals for a bit.  Headed to the airport to pick up Ligmancer since he was my roomie for the con.  Spent the rest of the evening just shooting the breeze with people and drinking a few beers.

Thursday:  Spent most of the morning talking with more new arrivals and meeting new people.  Jeremy (ligmancer) wanted some real Texas bbq for lunch so I told him to fly to Austin and get some since Dallas bbq joints are usually pretty bad.     I did manage to recall an article in the latest Texas Monthly magazine about the resurgence of bbq in Dallas so I took him, Smarmy, and Cimmerian to Lockhart Smokehouse just south of downtown Dallas.  The traffic was hell and it started to rain cats and dogs during the drive but we managed to make it in one piece.  They were already out of smoked brisket but we managed to pick up some ribs, sausage and a strange chunk of meat called clod (beef shoulder) in addition to some pretty amazing macaroni and cheese.  Couldnt eat all of it so I took it back for Doug.  We got back to the hotel and did more talking and then got ready for the Thursday night games.  I played in my regular Paranoia session as usual.  And as usual it was hilarious.  The guy running the game (Ben Burns) wrote up his own scenario instead of using a canned adventure and decided to base it on the movie Jurassic Park.  We had to figure out what the heck was going on first and then once we did, make our way to an island in a submarine type of vehicle and survive dinosaurs and each other.  Needless to say we used up all of our clones before we made it to the end.  Perhaps it was too difficult...or maybe because Nogrod kept killing people for his own amusement.  The HE grenade he stuffed down one player's throat during our frantic escape from the sub was particularly funny.  When he shot me in the back as I was trying to vault over the triceratops was not.  

Friday:  Morning Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure with Michael Curtis.  Went into this game knowing that it would be a lot of fun but had no idea that Michael was such a fantastic GM.  I honestly think he had more fun than we did!  He really got into the drama and excitement of the adventure and went above and beyond what I expect from a GM.  Our party had to find a way to survive the night in a city overrun by undead.  We battled persuasive mercenary zombies, albino undead alligators (with the help of an alley cat that may or may not have been the curious avatar of some godlike being), a ghostly presence in a belltower that "removed" the faith from our cleric, a band of scumbags attempting to charge a toll to use a mystical fountain, and something akin to the Grim Reaper before we finally escaped the city in a boat crewed by a heavenly host.  Later, spent the evening trying out Jeff Talanian's Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyberborea.  This game was something I was really interested in trying since I jumped on the Kickstarter for it and we all know Jeff was instrumental getting The Upper Works to see the light of day.  The people I played with were an interesting mix.  Some of us were cautious and others were full of bravado.  Lets just say we ran into some problems getting where we needed to go.  Hired by a wizard to find some green "diamonds" we set off into the desert to find the Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes.  We were a motley bunch and never quite gelled as a group.  Chris "Cimmerian" Finch didn't trust our benefactor and decided to assassinate him right after we located the resting place of the ship.  Greg Vaughn (of Slumbering Tsar fame) was running a female necromancer and kept whispering "Kill Him" every time we ran into someone he didnt trust, which was pretty much everyone.  His characters' interest in corpses was really creepy.      We entered the ship, found the dungeon beneath it, my character died a horrible spidery death, and the rest of the party found their way into the lair of the creature that was hoarding the "diamonds".  I got to run one of the sailors at the end (got in a couple of nice hits too) and the party ended up defeating the creature and his minions and locating what ended up being a pile of radioactive crystals which caused madness if held for too long.  Fun, crazy game, really cool setting, and Jeff is a really nice guy.  I completely forgot to pick up his new adventure though.  

Saturday morning I got the opportunity to play Metamorphosis Alpha again.  Jim Ward is always a lot of fun so I was looking forward to it.  We played a bunch of young, pre-adult, tundra dwellers that were off on a rite of manhood to bring back something from the land outside the village.  We had 20 days to wander around before coming back.  We lasted two.  We couldnt decide which way too go at first.  South was the unending tundra with 30' tall walrus and 70' high polar bears.  The west was a primordial forest with trees that had spongy bark.  To the east was a frozen desert.  And too the north was the portal.  Everyone wanted to go a different way.  Finally it took a player with some shamanistic powers to divine that heading north through the portal held the least painful deaths.     We were almost killed on the other side of the portal by mutant corn plants.  Then there was the giant millipedes, the wheat fields with the strange purple gourds, and the blue fungus.  And although the giant snails were pretty tough, all but one of us survived (we ran out of time).  And even though Jim has a reputation of killing off PC's (completely unwarranted) it was I who sprayed my comrade with a bladder of acid and destroyed him while battling the snails.  What was I supposed to do?  It was dark and he got in the way.     Saturday night I leaped (leapt?) at the chance to play a full game of Star Frontiers with Steve Winter.  Last year I got to play SF for about 45 minutes before being pushed off to play three other games (Boot Hill, Met Alpha, & Cavemaster) for about the same amount of time until coming back to finish off SF.  Interesting idea for the con but it didn't quite work out the way people had hoped.  Of all the games I played at the con, I did more role-playing in SF than all of them combined.  The four of us that started the game (two showed up very late and we were able to work them in) were unknown to each other and played a different part in trying to solve the murder of a Yazirian crime boss and his family.  One of our team worked out of the district attorney's office (or whatever name it goes by in the UPF), another was a bounty hunter, yet another was ex-military and was a friend of the deceased, and I played a Vrusk slicer/hacker that was in it for the money.  We went from orbital casino to Star Law impound lot to the surface of the planet Pale and back again.  We traced down an exotic dancer that ended up being the illegitimate daughter of the dead crime lord and was being paid a tidy sum of money to do some underhanded things.  We did some investigating of the second in command, a Vrusk that was as ruthless as they come.  We interrogated a wormy little black market dealer who led us to some ex-military mercs that ended up being the assassins.  We struck a deal with a Dralasite crime lord to stay out of the way after we told him that he was being setup to take the fall for the murders.  And eventually we located the center of the conspiracy which ended up being the "Vrusk" right hand man who was a Sathar agent in disguise.  Had himself a nice surgical bay where he had Vrusk appendages grafted onto his Sathar body.  We blew his ass away.  

Sunday was Steve's B/X game Rings of Death.  Found out it was actually written for The Secret Fire RPG.  Steve did a masterful job with the adventure.  The maps, monsters, treasure, traps, and riddles were all very cool.  It was a difficult game and it is a wonder we didnt all die.  Beastmen, legendary druid magic, a demigod, a talking severed head, skeleton warriors with blue mold on their bones, a sarcophagus painted green that turned both the clerics into roe deer for a time, and just a lot of really well thought out encounters.  The only thing that would have made it better is if I had more sleep the previous night.  I was running on empty after only 4 hours.  The late night excursion to Denny's with Bracton, Blackmoor and Smarmy really kicked my ass.

The auction was insane.  $700 or so for Black Opal Eye.  Over $2000 for Quest for the Golden Orb.  Give it a few years and it will be just as crazy as the Gen Con auction.     The Three Castles award went to Jeff Dee for Cavemaster.  After playing it last year, I can't think of a more deserving entry.  They were all great but Cavemaster is such a unique and interesting game.

Was really happy to get to see all the awesome people that come to the convention every year and it was great to get to meet the people that showed up for the first time.  Looking forward to next year already!  For those of you that didnt get to make it this year, you missed out on a good one.  Will post some photos soon.

Badmike wrote in North Texas RPG Convention 2013: June 6-9:Chris is a great guy...he really took over for me and saved me a lot of time and effort was we decided to do the print signing a day early when it was quiet and less busy. Chris got all the prints and Certificates signed, as well as including a small mini-module based on the illustration that is for print buyers, and got the prints tubed for people attending the con who were picking up their copy. Thanks so much, Chris!

Aw shucks!  

I'll have an update on the prints over on the art thread.

More Thursday and Friday photos:

Zeb Cook's D&D game.  Bracton smiling because everyone else died:


Michael Curtis running a DCC game.  Doug Kovacs and Ligmancer on the right side:


Another angle of Zeb's game.  Zeb in foreground, from left to right: stratochamp, smarmy, invincible overlord, unknown, unknown, bracton, burntwire brothers.


Curt (cgould42) hanging out with Dennis Sustare:


Steve Winter running Gamma World.  Leadjunkie at the bottom right:


Some kid demonstrating his mutant power of singing off key:


Frank and his posse:


Day one at the Michael Curtis School of Dramatic Dungeon Mastering:


Michael about to backhand Erol Otus:


Can you believe people were eating salad???

Were the Acaeum Art prints available for pickup at NTRPG?

Mars wrote in North Texas RPG Convention 2013: June 6-9:Were the Acaeum Art prints available for pickup at NTRPG?

Affirmative.  I'll try to post a print update tomorrow on the print thread.  I am home and wiped.  

Nice group of photos John.
The six art sketches created during the Artist Panel and pictured by John above were purchased (individually) at the auction later that day.

The convention was (as always) so much fun.
There were plenty of familiar faces and many new ones and I was happy to see old friends once again as well as meeting new ones.

IMO: The hotel was the best yet, both for service and accommodations.
There were plenty of places to dine close enough to walk with only a small bit of danger of becoming road kill.
The food at the Hotel was also good so there was no need to walk anyway unless you wanted something different.

I played in the Wednesday evening poker game with Jim Ward and Zach.
We waited for a while hoping more players would sit in, but we finally started with just us three.
The game lasted for quite a while until Zach eliminated Jim and a short time later I got lucky and won all the chips when I spiked a third king on the river to beat out Zach's pocket aces.

I played Ticket to Ride not once but twice; first with Frank Mentzer et al, and late one night with Tim Kask et al.
That board game is fun and I learned much from the folks I played with in those two sessions.

Also got to play in Allan Grohe's Aliens adventure once again with some folks who left later than others.... as is usually the case, this was the last game to be packed up.
As usual the Marines died and the Aliens feasted; though I heard several groups were successful during the weekend.

Gladiators was a fun new experience (that trophy has some heft to it!) and we who died thank Robert Badalato for running the game and the Circus Maximus preliminary's as well.
I was able to make it into the Semi-Finals of Gladiator and ran a team for the final run with Tim running Circus Maximus.

As always I played in some sessions of Mythrus Tower run by Matt and Bill.
Always fun and packed with players of all ages.

I wanted to thank all the special guests who once again signed the Convention poster and the Brown Journal book.
My personal thanks to all the conventions special guests for the time they always afford to us fans.
And my thanks to Bill Barsh of Pacestter games for a wonderful surprise for me at the end....  

Another NTRPGCon come and gone. I'm still recovering my sleep deficit, and have that bittersweet, "do I really have to wait another year for the next one" feeling. A huge thanks to Doug and Mike for putting in the time and money to create such an incredible experience for the old school RPG community.  Kudos again, guys.

Unfortunately for me, the Con began a day late.  I was supposed to fly in on Wednesday, and had signed up for Jim Ward's high stakes poker that night.  But I ended up in New York for work on Wednesday, so didn't arrive until Thursday (after a 7 am flight out of Newark).  I then spent most of Thursday in my hotel room working on the computer (free WiFi at the hotel).  But I was able to break away for Zeb Cook's B/X game, "Journey of the Search for the Lost Castle of the Savage Isle of Horror on the Borderlands."  He started out asking us to answer questions about the first adventure our group went on years before, and created the adventure based in large part on the answers we came up with.  It was a lot of fun, though my character's death by snake, and near fatal battle with rats -- which were quite enjoyed by Zeb and several other members of the party -- had nothing to do with the answers I gave.  The Burntwires, Smarmy, Invincible Overlord and stratochamp were present for the festivities.

Friday dawned with me back on the computer for work. Finally dragging myself out of the room late in the morning, I headed over to one of the side rooms, which was air conditioned to within a few degrees of the freezing point of nitrogen, and Steve Winter's game, "Raid into Trollheim".  (I hadn't made the connection between Steve's last name and the temperature in the room until now; I assume it was a coincidence, but now I wonder . . . .)  Benjoshua was in the game, and Kingofpain has included a picture in one of his posts.  In the end we freed a bunch of slaves, confirmed that a war is imminent, killed lots of orcs and trolls, and brought back the head of a senior troll for interrogation by the Elf king.  Against stratochamp's wishes, we ran before facing the Formorian.  As has been noted by others, Steve is a great DM, and a fantastic time was had by all.

That evening, I played Sandy Petersen's new board game, "Cthulhu Wars."  If you've seen the pictures, the miniatures are incredible (almost too large to be described by the word "miniature"), and really disturbing.  It is the kind of game that will definitely take a lot of time to master.  Sandy and his son Arthur helped us understand the basics, and I spent most of my time just trying to comprehend the powers of my Great Old One and its minions.  I certainly didn't have time to figure out the powers of the other players, which explains why I, along with the other two players, were completely unprepared when stratochamp announced he had won.  As has been posted elsewhere, Sandy has started a Kickstarter to fund production of the game, and, be it madness or not, I'm a supporter.

Stratochamp and I hung out for a while in the main hall after that.  We talked to Steve Winter and Zeb Cook, Badmike and Greg Gillespie (of Barrowmaze fame).  Then Ligmancer and Kingofpain wandered by offering cigars and whisky, and who am I to turn down such an offer?  We found a side entrance to the hotel, which appeared to be THE place to be, as a crowd had gathered. Jeff Talanian was there, and Blackmoor came by after a while as well.  Bed finally beckoned around 2 am or so.

By great good luck, Saturday morning's game was not scheduled too early:  Steve Marsh's Mistworld, at 10:30 am.  Steve is just the nicest guy, and Mistworld is unique and inventive.  We spent time at the beginning making up our characters in Steve's system, and then wandered forests and crossed planes in a successful effort to save our adopted village from an evil infestation.  One word of advice.  If you are playing with Steve and the party is heading down a path, and he asks if you want to leave the path . . . say no.

Saturday afternoon was the raffle and auction.  Lots of great items were up, but none of them ended up going home with me.     Doug also gave the Three Castles award to Cavemaster, by Jeff Dee.  It was initially a tie between that and Barrowmaze, and had to go back to the judges for a second round to determine the winner.  I haven't played Cavemaster, but it beat out some incredible competition (Jeff Talanian's Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea, and Goodman Games' DCCRPG, in addition to Barrowmaze).

Saturday night was a game of AD&D on Barsoom (John Carter's Mars), with Tacojohn as DM.  I know nothing of these books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, other than to the extent last year's movie can be said to reflect the books.  We fought and managed to kill a lot of really tough monsters, until it became clear that we had gone entirely the wrong way.  Nearly out of magic, we called it a night.  But we may take Jon up on his offer to continue the game next year.  He's a really good DM, and he clearly had a lot of fun dropping some really big and nasty miniatures on the battle mat.

After the game, I stayed around the hall again, and eventually headed over to the hotel bar with Blackmoor.  Jon and stratochamp came by after a while.  And then around 1 am or so Kingofpain and Smarmy wandered over, and suggested we head to Denny's.  Taco and stratochamp took a pass, but the rest of us piled into King's car, and off we went.  About ten minutes after we got to the restaurant, I realized that Jeff and I had left the hotel bar without paying for our beers.  I called the hotel front desk and told them to call the bar, apologize for us, and to put the tab on my room.  But it turns out that Doug had already had our drinks added to his tab.  Have I mentioned what a great host Doug is?  We finally got back to the hotel about 3:30 am.

Sunday morning, and I had to get up early and put some work in on the computer again.  But with that done and not needing any breakfast (that Denny's food stays with you a while), the last game of the Con was DCCRPG, with Harley Stroh.  I really can't say enough about Harley.  He loves to DM, and his enthusiasm is absolutely infectious.  If you haven't played with him before, do not pass up the chance.  Whether or not you play DCCRPG is irrelevant.  He is one of the best DMs there is.  And for the first time in years, he did not kill my character.  Oh, he tried.  The last two rounds of the game, the big baddie attacking my character and only my character, and Harley rolled a 4 and a 5.  I lived!

As others have said, the hotel is really pretty nice.  There was a lot of space; other than during the raffle and auction, it never felt crowded.  The rooms were nice, though nothing fantastic.  My only complaint would be the lack of refrigerators in the rooms.  And the bar and restaurant were pretty good (though I think the bar closed early Thursday and Friday night).  The breakfast buffet, for only $10, was definitely a good value.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the weather.  My last time, two years ago, the high in Dallas was over 100 degrees F (about 38 C).  Walking outside from the air-conditioned hotel was like walking into an oven.  This year, Doug somehow managed to arrange for temperatures in the 80s.  Beautiful.

One of the best parts of the convention is meeting fellow Acaeumites.  Many are now, or at least feel like, old friends.  There really are no better people in the world than those who frequent this forum and gather, a few times a year in Texas and Wisconsin, to play games together.  Thanks to Doug and Mike, and all those who make these conventions a blast.