RPGaDay 2016

RPGaDay 2016

I will be updating this page every day throughout August about this

August 1

#RPGaDAY How do you Prefer to Roll ? I prefer to roll dice... nothing feels better than actual dice

Yep putting together another page to update my Dice purchases... coming soon
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August 2

#RPGaDAY At GaryCon - During Pizza TOON - Dancing with Doughnuts at the end !!! Tribute to a Friend
Dancing With Donuts Video

Back Story: Pizza TOON was originally written for a Con in New Jersey and featured all the People who were at that Con as well of as other Conventions such as the Star Trac Con with Newkirk and Oldkirk

A few of the players signed away their life to sell Amwait

I had planned on Honoring a longtime Friend who introduced us to the fine art of Donuts Dancing when we would gather... this because such a ritual when at cons and anytime we got together... 

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August 3

#RPGaDAY Proud Character Moment Orc in Minions at GaryCon, having to recruit victims to come to the Lich's Lair.

 Jason Bulmahn

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My Orc had to put on a Wizards Robe and pretend to be human and enter a tavern to convince groups of adventures to go to a dungeon where there is lots of gold

I was informed by my lich master that I was to get adventurers that were not too powerful but powerful enough, just enough to make it challenging... I had a great time playing a groveling uppity orc 

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August 4

#RPGaDAY Most impressive -TOON, a 7 Year old girl and during a race, her father stretched his legs, used a pair of scissors to chop them off

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August 5

#RPGaDAY... Group Stories, walk into a room, 3 of us cast Fireball at the same time, 35 HD ttl. room collapses and the floor above it
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August 6

#RPGaDAY - I got nothing for Most amazing thing your gaming group has done for the community
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August 7

#RPGaDAY Biggest aspect of RPG influence, Reading and self teaching from books, 2 things I do very well
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August 8

#RPGaDAY Hard soft or PDF? I know where find info in books quick, impressive to drop original books on a table
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August 9

#RPGaDAY 9 Beyond the game, Ideal Session-Preferably people who like to hang out together outside of the game...

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August 10

#RPGaDAY 10 Biggest in game surprise ? As the GM, I cannot offer that information, that would be "insane"

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August 11

#RPGaDAY 11 Biggest Influence... Mark Cordoba and Steve Kartensen.. both pushed me to be that much more creative

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August 12

#RPGaDAY 12 Game most likely to play next - - Firefly RPG once we finish our AD&D 1st Ed dungeon crawl session


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August 13

#RPGaDAY 13 campaign success? -Multiple story arcs, several lines affecting many outcomes, epic quests. NPCs, Good villains or allies


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August 14

#RPGaDAY 14...Dream team to game with...Mark Córdoba, Steve Kartensen, Shaun Nelson, Fog, Big Tony and 3 women


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August 15

#RPGaDAY 15 inspirations I find them everywhere and anywhere, word, book, obscure movie...trivial conversations, little used charts


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August 19

#RPGaDAY 19 Best way 2 Learn RPG - Roll up a new character, see the options, what Armor/Combat is, then spell system


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August 20

#RPGaDAY 20 Most Challenging and rewarding Game to learn, Dangerous Journeys..not quite the Hack and slash, many layers that can be played

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August 22

#RPGaDAY 22 Random Game events keep occurring... TOON, there are always random running gags, D&D, same antagonist shows up from time to time


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August 23

#RPGaDAY Best Worst Luck Story... Elven Ranger killed 2 party members in the same dungeon 3 fights apart from each other



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August 24

#RPGaDAY 24 - Game Most likely to give others - AD&D 1st edition Players Handbook




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August 28

#RPGaDAY 28 Most Surprising thing friend has not seen or read - The Sword and the Sorcerer or Beast master



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August 29

#RPGaDAY 29 if you could Game anywhere Lake Geneva, Wisconsin... either in March(GaryCon) or when the memorial is completed(If it ever is)



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Dexcon 19 .. Morristown NJ June 29 - July 3

Confused Con, at least that is how it felt to me

I attended Dexcon 19 this past weekend. so this is how it went down. First off, it is Morristown NJ and you really had no choice but to pay for parking... 

I arrived Friday evening and I go to the Lobby... after wandering around for 10 minutes, I finally ask where the registration desk is.... I was toold to go down a hall way and then across to another hallway... then I found the Registration Desk... They hand me an envelope, with the badge in it, then laminate the badge there

They do not tell me that a sheet needs to be filled for each game so I had no idea that I was supposed to do this. 

SO I ran my Evening Toon game and that went very well and I was going to go to the D20 burlesques, however, I went upstairs to where the show was.. First I was told they had to see my ID by the 2 security people... and then I was told the tickets were 15 dollars and 25 for a VIP seat.... seeing as how there was no mention of any additional cost on The DEXCON info page... and I was tired... I decided to pass.. Then looking at their page for the event, they were charging 10 and 25.... 

So I left the con and found a place to sleep and Returned on Saturday... To run another TOON game and a Firefly game.. .

One of the things I do, is run systems and games that no one else is running... I have never seen a Firefly game looking through past games that are run there... I do not dare to Run AD&D 1st edition because this is not a con for classic gamers.... More on that in a bit

So, my 9 AM TOON players really came ready to play, they were awesome and really got me going to be even better then the night before... 

Took a break and walked around then got my Firefly game stuff... This was my first time running the system and everything went great, the player loved it . Toward the end the Cupcake cart came around and they had Serenity Cupcakes, the woman pushing the cart asked us if we knew what ship was on the cupcakes....

But the owner missed out on playing in my game

OK, So what is Dexcon                  Dexcon Webpage

Dexcon tries to be everything from Board games to LARP to Video Games to all sorts of other things... as I was not their to partake in anything else, I can't really comment on most of it.  

They do not cater to Tabletop RPGs... They do have Living City, Pathfinder Society, Adventures League and that with Indie games is where they devote their RPG...

Johann Sanchez, first met him at Defcon in the 90's

The LARP has been slowly going away according to a friend of Mine and Living City is losing space every year...

I have attended Dexcon and Dreamation in the past many years ago and they still use the same systems as they always have. 

I got free entry into the con for running 3 games and that is an OK perk, but to not comp parking for a GM is kinda lame..

People like that this is a many track con that tries hard to be many things, but for myself, as a GM stuck in a hallway to run my games while people are walking by was not something I was fond of.

So I walked around and there are people selling and running demos everywhere, yet they needed to check my badge when I went into the "Dealer Room"  There were artists and stuff down one large walkway and RPG games in another hall way. The Registration desk was in the middle of the hotel need the "consuite" where they put out munchies and drinks... Side note... I went in to grab a single cookie, as I reached for a tong, some lady was yelling at me to sanitize  with the sanitizer on the table... OK.. fine... squirted a huge glob on my hand grabbed the tong with santizer dripping off my hand, got my ONE cookie and left the tongs slick with sanitizer... 

First off, I am there to run game for the con and not put up with bullshit, I am running games, It is not up to me to read your shit when I am trying to get my games going, and why the fuck where the sheets not in my envelope to begin with. 

SO, there were signs on some bathroom that (and this is a new trend) that they do not police bathrooms and people should use whatever bathroom they feel like using in the moment and on some bathrooms they replaced the Mens and Ladies signs with a Printout of a toilet...  Nice, instead of just not commenting, they went the extra step to make some of their attendees feel completely uncomfortable

SUMMARY

As a place that I could partake in the other offerings, it was not very friendly, there is no Facebook page or any way to generate interest in getting together with people. Simply people tended to be on their own there was no change to do any real open gaming because so many people were not there for RPG

The people who played in my games, I assume, had a great time, I had a great time running my games.   

The other issue this Con suffers from is the Fourth of July Weekend, that is when it run. That is what keeps me away from attending                 

DEXCON 20: July 5 - July 9, 2017.

Next year they get a reprieve because the Fourth is a Tuesday, bout they in the following year it starts creeping toward the weekend again

Now I did manage to run into a couple of old friends from many years ago. 

Post Gary Con - Lessons from an Old Dungeon Master

I love to Run Games, I am a far better player than a Dungeon Master. I am a Great Dungeon Master

I love to create games that I would love to play in, I am my own play tester. The only thing I really need people for are to make sure I can run it in in a certain amount of hours

So I came across a blog where they had people describing their first time as a Dungeon Master at a convention so I though I would expand on this.

1 - You are running things for strangers, people who may not enjoy your games because you cannot make everyone happy

2 - You have a slot to run your games, usually 4 hours

3 - You have to deal with the room noises and the amount of games in one area

I thought I would describe my first Con and running games VS. my last TWO Cons running games (and playing) and the differences between the cons

1992 - Defcon 3  - New Brunswick, NJ - 
Number of attendees - 500

3 Days, food -Hot Dogs and soda sold by the con and on site restaurant
Did not stay at con site

Ran Entrance to Classari (twice) and 2 other games

Average Age of Players - 20

This was a small con and the room was noisy, I ran games and they went amazingly well. I ended up locking my keys in the car after a food run on Saturday and had to reschedule games as someone ran me home to get my spares. Returned to the con and ran games. The next day I ran another game then went to the awards ceremony. I won best DM despite having to reschedule games on Saturday


2015 - Philly GamersCon - Trevose, PA   -   
Number of Attendees - 700?

3 Days, attended Friday and Saturday, did not stay overnight  - Food, i brought my own but on Site Restaurant 

Average Age of Attendees - 38

Played in my first Pathfinder game that friday and ran 2 of my classic Con games (Attitude and AAAhhhh) 

I will say that all the player in my games had a good time, even persuaded the Mother of one of the players to join us in order to fill the table, she enjoyed it as it was mostly role playing and solving Puzzles/ finding information


2016 - Gary Con 8  - Lake Geneva, WI -  
Number of Attendees - 1000

4 Days+Precon party the day before. Food - Table Side service, full restaurants and bar, Key Club
Stayed at the secondary Hotel

Ran Entrance to Classari, other AD&D and Toon

Average Age of players - 45+

Larger con with many VIPs,  The 3 games I played in were exceptional, One was because I was in a game where the DM was Ernie Gygax, the players themselves screwed up and F'd the game for us... but I came away with some great stories and the one player who decided to use burning hands on a fire Giant (may as well cast heal on the Giant)... My Druid was almost worthless for the entire game thanks to the screw up (Ernie was so dissapointed we did not get further into the adventure

One game was Minions with the Lead Designer at Piazzo, great game I brought my A game and I was great playing an Ocr serving a Lich

I also was an NPC in a Firefly game (I am thinking of bringing this to an East Coast con) This was great and was rolling max scores a few times

My game went well as noted on my GaryCon wrapups


SUMMARY

My First con Experience VS my last con experience are vastly different

Let's point out that this could also be because of the locations of the cons, NJ vs WI. East Cast gamers are different than the Great Lakes region (where RPG essentially began)

The age of the Gamers is different, (As my age is very different from then) which is why I included the con I attended last year.



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If I exclude the one game that I think was a failure on an ambitious premise, I think that many players at Gary Con really did not grasp the role-playing aspects of my Pregens for the most part. In the 2 sessions I ran of one of my games, the cleric is supposed to find and obtain disciples... none of the 2 sessions even made an attempt at this. I have half a table of role-players and the other half seemed to not grasp the pregens

so here is how the section is written in the Pregen

You had a vision that Vidar, your patron deity, beckoned you to seek the Throne of the Gods in order to fulfill your destiny and become a full god instead of the minor god you are in this realm.

However, you must obtain 9 Disciples in order to be eligible for the honor. 

Maybe it is just me, but I see so much that I can work with and play... Every single encounter would be a chance for me to gain a convert
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So one of the real reasons I love to run TOON is that is allows people to be wacky and actually role play as silly as they can be. Now I have not run TOON for a long time but it was some of the best games I actually ran, I did not have the thoughts of "They are not getting this"

I will say that my second session of the game mentioned above was a higher dynamic of Role playing than the previous one. I have run this game a lot and always ask for input as some of the puzzles that I think are easy tend to really baffle people

I think that one or 2 people in each of my AD&D games just did not get the concepts of the game at GaryCon... Now I have had people who were not thrilled with certain things in my games and maybe it is a East Coast thing but I have not had games where it was dislike from the start (unless they were just quiet people and this was their first time playing and I misjudged them)

I am attending another one day con this month with Attitude and AAAHH, my 2 Con games I run everywhere, so I will see how it goes and update this piece at that time

UPDATE 7/12/16
So I ran AAAHHH at a Local one day Con... Legacies Game Day... It went very well and the same issue with the cleric persists... I may have to revisit what is written for each character...

I also went to DexCon and had players for TOON and Firefly...

Garycon.... Aftermath.. Swag and Sigs

Con Swag Bag

Upon my Check in at GaryCon, I got the Gold badge level ($130.00) Swag bag

The content as Follows: 

GaryCon Events Guide

Badge and badge holder

Pathfinder hard cover Module

KODT Comic (Forgot to get this signed while I was there)

DCC Module

3 Chaos Wars Miniatures

1 Set of Gemstones dice

Dwarven Forge Kickstarter Card

Dragonlock downloads for a 3d Printer (Not that I have one)

Goodman games Scratch off adventure

Mission I.S.S card game for 1 to 4 players

Gary Con Shirt

 Gary Con GM Shirt

4 Cups, the black one is the GM Cup and has the perks of all the cups

My Purchases

I was actually hoping to sell more cookies in order to finance my purchases at the con, but that did not happen so I only made a few purchases, they were very calculated for a few reasons... 

One, for a signature and I was impressed with the Firefly game system

Two, To help out a budding artist and show her some support

Three - To buy a print I have loved since opening the red box when it first arrived in our hobby shops.

Fourth - To show additional support to our Aussie Friend

This is the probably the only con I have went to where I did not come home with all sorts of dice, I even missed out on the Gary Con 8 sided dice because I thought Saturday morning I would be safe to get them so I did not even get any additional con swag

By Simon Todd's daughter Bernie

I actually only bought the one Dice and the Pic, Heath knew I was was pretty bummed out Saturday and gave me 2 dice (these are better than the GaryCon Dice anyway) 

THE AUTOGRAPHS

Other people value autographs a lot more than I do, that is one of the reasons I miss out on getting things signed, I would rather pick someone brains than ask them to sign anything... 

Ended up selling this because I need Funds for my Home Heating System Replacement fund.

Jason Bulmahn, Lead Designer @ Paizo

Larry Elmore, Artist  and Frank Mentzer

Luke Gygax

Larry Elmore, Artist
Merle Rasmussen, original creator of Top Secret who sold the rights to TSR

Ernie Gygax

 This is my travel copy of the PHB, I will still use it and not think twice is the sig gets ruined


The Character is the one I played in the Hobby Shop Dungeon at Garycon, also signed...

WRAP UP

  It is a memory and I love to game with many of the people I met at another time... 



The Drive home simply was tough and horrible, I will never do that again by myself. I would have to trust the person who agrees to drive with me that they would not back out... 


I had an amazing time for the most part and was treated fairly well by everyone. It is not something I feel compelled to repeat even though I missed out on several things I wanted to attend.  


I heard a lot of complaints that no one was finishing the game objectives, I was very bored in the Hobby Shop dungeon that took forever for me to get into the game and then ended after a short time..The highlight was throwing the doggy toys for Kaecie, Ernie Gygax' service dog

Update... this was no reflection on Ernie or the game itself... The players as a whole made a HUGE blunder that led to boredom... and someone used Burning hands on the Fire Giant DOOOHHH


All of my other games completed their objective and although I wish I could have stayed for the rest of my Minion game, the Firefly game by Daniel was FN Awesome... Not to mention Margaret Weis took real joy in playing with all of us. She made feel special by seeking my out the next day as she said she would in order to sign my Firefly book....  


Talking to VIPs several times, not once did any of them ask what games I was running. I understand they really don't care, but some polite conversation might be nice, I am sure I came off as either a total fan or someone who has disdain for their status

Maybe my expectations were higher, but while it was GREAT, Saturday was jut a mostly bad day for me... and Driving through Chicago with the full blown Flu was absolutely miserable and I felt I was going to die

The entire crew at the Party on Saturday night was pretty awesome 



Before I came to my decision, I was even thinking about a few games that I would develop for next year (or any Cons i may attend)




UPDATE  - A year later  March 2017
I plan on going back to GaryCon in 2018. I have started to write my games. 
I will doing a 4 hour Toon game
A Dangerous Journeys game
"So you think you have an Attitude" "So you think you have an Attitude , Too"
PODW
Aaaahhhhhh
Quest for the Gate Between Worlds(all games subject to change)