I was a guest last week back at Gary Con, a convention celebrating the life and works of D&D co-creator Gary Gygax. It was held in the Grand Geneva Resort in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. It is one of the best-run, most-fun conventions in gaming. For me it is a chance to game, meet new gamers, and hang out with old friends from TSR. And I pick up some interesting stuff in the process. Only one of the items shown at the right is from a Kickstarter. The rest come from my experiences in beautiful Lake Geneva (hey, it didn't snow this time). Here's what is in the photo:
Various Shadowdark Products by Kelsey Dionne, Arcane Library, saddle-stitched digest-sized booklets, 2023-2025. Shadowdark is the new hotness, an Old School Revival pitching into a New School Revival for FRPGs. I picked up a copy last Gary Con out and was really, really impressed with the simplicity of the game, the new twist they added, and the clean b/w presentation. This time out I picked up a recent versions of their 'zine, Cursed Scroll (64-pages) and latched onto a copy of the adventure Raiders of the Hidden Temple (26-pages) at the dead dog party Sunday night. Looking forward to digging through this, and should mention they are doing a MASSIVE Kickstarter for a campaign setting.
Secrets of Morocco: Eldritch Explorations in the Ancient Kingdom by William Jones et. al. Chaosium had a booth at the con, celebrating 50 years of the company (their first project, the White Bear & Red Moon boardgame came out a year after D&D, and introduced everyone to the world of Glorantha that would host Runequest). And they brought some old stock they found in the warehouse. In my case, this worked out well, since I was struggling with The Blessed and the Blasphemous, which was set in Morocco about twenty years later (B&B also caused me to start reading Destination Casablanca, by Meredith Hindley, a rich, well-told history of the region in WWII). History overlaid with the Cthulhu Mythos. Looking forward to reading the Chaosium version.
Runequest Starter Set by Greg Stafford, Jeff Richard, Jason Durall and others, Boxed Set, Chaosium Inc. 2022. I've been impressed with what Chaosium has done with its starter sets such as Pendragon - they are heavy, meaty, affordable introductions to the game. This one is packed with four booklets (rules, campaign setting, solo adventure, adventure), character sheets, maps, and polyhedral dice. Runequest is a complex game set in a complex world, and this set pushes to make it accessible to newcomers.
Wildspace Magazine issue #2 Elves of the Stars and #3 Groundlings' Guide to Spelljammer, Various authors, David Shepheard, Editor, Published by The Piazza, 2024. I'm delighted that people are still enthusiastically playing and expanding the original Spelljammer campaign setting. Last year I was presented with issue one, and this year with Pdf printouts of issues two and three. Issue two concentrates on the elves in the Spelljammer universe, which are pretty much the British Navy. Issue three is an excellent collection of articles on introducing Spelljammer to your groundling characters. These are free, well-done fanzines, clearly labors of love. Terry Hawkins, who gave me the copies, also gave me a draft copy of his adventure Race Across the Stars, a Spelljammer space race through a slew of Wildspace locations. As an aside, he's looking for someone to publish it.
These mugs with those mugs |
Woodford Reserve Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, 200 ml. I'll be frank, I'm of mixed emotions about people giving gifts to the Dungeon Master. I mean, you paid to come to the convention and came all this way, you don't have to toss a coin to the GM. That said, I will not turn down a kindness from fans, and a small bottle of whiskey is greatly appreciated when I get back to rainy Seattle and the post-convention head cold. Thank you.
TSR Alumni totchies. Tim Calhoun puts together a gathering of old TSR employees every year, and his work is greatly appreciated. It is a chance to see old friends and catch up on what everyone has been doing (spoilers: We're all getting old). We had drinks. We had drink tokens. This year they were poker chips. They were so cool I forwent my normal third beer in order to keep this one. Also, former TSR colleague Kevin Melka does 3-D printing, and I snagged a black unicorn from him, which I gave to the Lovely Bride and is currently on her desk.
Orcus Dice Bag. I got this at the Gary Con Merch booth, which has a host of neat stuff - hats, tropical shirts, adventures, and yes, dice bags. This one features an truly old-school Orcus on it. I has been years since I got a new bag, and it pairs well with the whiskey to create my own Chivas Regal moment.
Tower of Gygax, various authors, 50-page ringbound booklet, various years. A tradition at Gary Con is the Tower of Gygax. Oh, I'm sorry, it should be read TOWER! OF! GYGAX! This is 2-hour public session where various DMs run players through a series of encounters, the bulk of which consist of an entrance, and exit, and something nasty and murderous in-between. I had the chance to run it with veteran designer Doug Niles at the other table, and we had a great time. My style of running, particularly in combat encounters, tends to be a bit ... flamboyant. If you get a chance at Gary Con, take it out for a spin. (Oh, and I got a button as well).
It belongs in a museum! |
ANYWAY, Lake Geneva was the site of several Sanitariums/rest homes/health resorts, the most impressive of which was Oakwood, a massive five-story brick structure just east of town. In fact, the apartments that the Lovely Bride and I lived in when we first moved to Lake Geneva (The Colonial View Condominiums) were built on the site of this sanitarium. I picked up the book for potential Call of Cthulhu history, but did not know this. Nifty little book.
Monty Python's Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme RPG (No it isn't!) by Brian Saliba and Craig Schaffer, Exalted Funeral/Crowbar Creative, 350-page Hardbound, 2024, Kickstarter. OK, This is the only non-Gary Con entry this time out, and is probably the weirdest game I've seen in the last decade (and I have one where you play vampires wanting to drink Hitler's blood). Saliba and Schaffer have cheerfully plundered the entire Python corpus to produce a huge volume in which no bit of the comedy group's work goes untouched. Dead parrots, spam, the Spanish Inquisition, the whole lot, all wrapped around the core of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. However, there is a REAL RPG underneath all this silliness. A step-level approach to damage. Pendragonesque character traits. A host of character classes. Character Personas for the Gamemaster (sorry - the Head of Light Entertainment) who can over the course of play be sacked and replaced with a randomly-rolled NEW GM (Sorry, Head of Light Entertainment). I find this one fascinating in its mechanics, but am going to have to dig down through all the spam to find them. The Kickstarter came with a box of dice (including a boulderous 30-Sider, a sash for the HoLE and some plastic coconuts). No, they hit every base on this particular license, with a playable game. It's kinda frightening.
And that's if for this collection of loot/swag/totches/kickstarters. More later,