Let's roll some dice, watch some movies, or generally just geek out. New posts at 6:30 pm ET but only if I have something to say. Menu at the top. gsllc@chirp.enworld.org on Mastodon and @gsllc on Twitter.
My thoughts on Gary Con will be brief. I doubt I’ll return. This isn’t a criticism of the con anymore than a non-football fan not liking a football game is a criticism of how good of a job the NFL is doing. It’s simply something that doesn’t appeal to me. I know a few industry insiders — two were my roommates — which means I’m within a degree of separation of almost all of the legacy ones. For me, the highlight of the trip was talking about the past, present, and future of the industry with Stephen Radney-MacFarland, James Lowder, and Dave Christ. The direct topic is interesting to me, but even more, this conversation inevitability leads to a back-and-forth on intellectual property law (usually copyrights). So, yeah; I’m in for that. Other highlights are conversations with Stephen and Jason Dandy (a non-industry friend) and with Jason and his friend, Mark, on sociopolitical issues. These guys think very differently than I do on most issues, but we engage in a form of constructive dialogue that’s very rare today. I even discussed abortion and Citizen’s United with no fear of generating anger from any of them.
But I can do all of that over Zoom. I don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on airfare, lodging, a convention badge, and grossly overpriced convention food to have these conversations. One could say the same thing about Winter Fantasy, but that’s a different animal. Just eyeballing it, I’d say I know about 50% of the people that attend, and when I’m not hanging out with them, I’m relaxing. It’s a genuinely relaxing vacation. The food is good, and the whole trip is just an awesome ritual. While Gary Con could become the same thing for me, I don’t need two of them. Winter Fantasy is enough.
YMMV
I hope it’s clear that I’m not saying I didn’t have a good time, and it’s certainly not to say that you wouldn’t. It’s a small-ish con, which is what I like about Winter Fantasy. I went with a mission to get to play (as opposed to DM) 1st Edition AD&D, and I played in three such games. I actually got to play the Dragon #56 bard in two of them. How many people can say they’ve done that? I got to play Stephen’s Delve game that uses a few mechanics that Vic and I added to our 4th Edition D&D game (e.g., “gang-up”), so I liked that. I got to finally make use of my Star Trek Adventures purchase by playing that game (granted, mere months before it’s rendered somewhat obsolete by its second edition). The only objective criticism I have is that there were too many tables in the rooms, which made it very difficult to hear your own DM/GM/judge, and I’m not alone in expressing that concern.
I saw only one celebrity (Pat Kilbane formerly of MadTV, with whom I spoke briefly), but I wasn’t looking for them. If that’s your thing, you may run into them for a selfie. The con was fairly easy to navigate, and I had no administrative difficulties at all.
All of this was good, but now that I’ve been there and done that, there’s no need to go back. I’m quite happy to have left Saturday so that I have all day Sunday to recover, and I return with added appreciation for both Winter Fantasy and my home gaming group. I don’t need this to be a regular thing, or even a sporadic thing, but if you’re a gamer, especially with an appreciation for its history, this is as good a con as any to attend.
Just expect to be inundated with some silliness. Every attendee got one of these.
When I started running 1st Edition D&D again two years ago (first time in 40 years), I gathered and took an inventory of my 1st Edition material, and then went on a spending spree. Then I went on another. About a year ago, I somehow made a purchase that blew my mind. It’s a mint condition (you read that right) Wilderness Survival Guide by Kim Mohan but signed by James Ward. It was such an unbelievable haul that I had to contact James, before I even received it, to make sure the signature was legit. James verified his signature for me. (I’m sure many of you have even better stories of James, but that’s mine.)
Shortly thereafter, Kim died. Yesterday, the community lost James. I didn’t know James, but he shaped my childhood. Of note, I didn’t study mythology because I played 1st Edition; I played 1st Edition because I was already a mythology buff, and that drew me to the game. You can imagine how much I loved Deities & Demigods when I was a kid. When I returned to D&D after 23 years away, it was for the tail end of 3.5 Edition, and despite that edition’s Deities & Demigods being even less useful than the original, it was still my favorite book. He also wrote the “zeroth” edition D&D sourcebook Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes (which I never used), and the TTRPG Metamorphosis Alpha (which I played once). That’s just to name a couple.
James is just the latest entry in a long list of TTRPG gaming legends we’ve lost, but as I didn’t know any of them personally, everything they’ve ever meant to me will exist for me as long as I do. No one can take that from me. But last month, I lost yet another family member in a long list of ones that meant a lot to me, so I get that I’m not the one grieving today. There’s a piece missing from each of their family members and friends, and I get the impression James had many. It’s hard to find a picture of the guy by himself. He seems always to be hanging out with someone, shaking hands, etc.
My condolences to all who’ve lost something so significant yesterday.
My return to 1st Edition AD&D (“1e“) is now two years strong, and now I’ve added a 4th Edition D&D (“4e“) game to my schedule. So, it was a nice surprise for my friend, Mike, to let me know that he was offloading his old school D&D material. Before you get too excited, he’s giving these materials only to people he knows well because we’re getting them on the honor system. The only cost is to make a (tax deductible) donation to a cat or dog charity that represents the approximate cost to buy them in the store or on eBay. Considering I’m going to get a cat in early April, that’s an easy ask of me.
So, what did I get? First up, the box sets and hard-covers.
Menzoberranzan box set, Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn box set, Greyhawk Adventures, Dragon Lance Adventures, the Scarlet Brotherhood, a reprint of the Second Edition Player’s Handbook, Oriental Adventures, and Dragon #56
In general, I never owned any of these in the day, and I bought the PDF of Oriental Adventures from the DMs Guild during my recent rebuy because the hard cover wasn’t on sale. I’m glad I now have a hard cover without paying through the nose for it. I’ve been intrigued by Star Frontiers based on the relatively recent chatter it’s generated — the less I say about that chatter, the better — so I picked it up out of curiosity. As for Dragon #56, I told Mike I wasn’t interested in any of the magazines except perhaps the one that has the 1e bard in it, redone as a character you can play at 1st level. Sure enough, he had that issue. Score!
Next up, some soft covers.
I was planning to buy the Book of Lairs and Book of Lairs II, so that makes this supplement all the sweeter. I never owned any of these materials either. Now for the minis.
Yeah, that’s quite the haul, ain’t it. Of particular interest . . .
I never owned this guy. In fact, I never knew it existed, and I was quite the mini collector during the 3rd Edition D&D and 4e days. Somehow this one escaped me. Right now, the cheapest I see it on sale is $20 + about $6 shipping, so this one will set me back a bit.
These are just a few of the minis that I’ve never owned.
These are a few of the minis that I own but could always use more of. My players may not appreciate multiple Balors on the field of battle, but them’s the breaks.
One of my Living Forgotten Realms characters had a giant owl, so I was a bit disturbed when the stand for that mini broke. No amount of crazy glue could fix it. Now, I’ve replaced it. I think I took the second one out of some sort of cosmic spite.
Importantly, I have every intention of using these goodies in my 1e and 4e games, so this is quite the haul.
Some animal shelter is going to be very happy very soon.
A while back, I told you I was preparing for a return to 1st Edition AD&D, and to do so, I had to update my stash of 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons (“1e“) materials. Fast forward a couple of years. I’ve been running a 1e game for the first time in 40 years, and the only addition I had to make to my stash was the Egg of the Phoenix. Now, I’m less than 24 hours away from hosting a 4th Edition (“4e“) game (alternating DM duties with Luddite Vic), finally finishing my unfinished business, but I already have all the 4e stuff I could even need.
On a related note . . . .
Even though I can no longer stand 3rd Edition (“3e“), there were some books that were fantastic that I wish I had never sold. Serpentine Owl, who’ll be playing in the upcoming 4e game, gave me the reprint of Deities & Demigods (in perfect condition with the 3.5e conversion in the back); Erik (who left Twitter/X) gave me Hordes of the Abyss and Tyrants of the Nine Hells (both also in perfect condition); and then Jason (on Twitter/X but doesn’t appear to use it) gave me the Book of Vile Darkness (in pretty good condition). If I had gone through eBay, I would have paid almost as much for those four books as I did for all the 1e reprints I bought combined, but I got them all free.
If you click through the Book of Vile Darkness link, you won’t be able to view it without logging in and removing filters for adult content.
<gears turning>
So, after mulling it over, I realized, “The universe has provided so much in this regard, I think I can justify doing something stupid, especially something that isn’t too stupid.” I went to eBay and purchased the mediocre-at-best Book of Exalted Deeds just to have a match to the Book of Vile Darkness. I don’t know if I’ll ever use the material, but it’s nice to have that matched set, and I didn’t have to pay anywhere near USD$100 to get it. Now, I think my stash is complete, but who knows what I’ll be writing in a year?
— Rob Bodine, also gsllc@chirp.enworld.org (@GSLLC) July 15, 2023
Screenshot below in case either tweet is ever deleted.
I shared a screenshot of Jason’s tweet to other social media, including Facebook, and most who responded agreed that it was funny, sometimes rolling with the joke and adding more. Sure enough, I found the one rotten apple in the bunch.
It went on further, but why burden you with that?
I guess “girls” need to avoid this guy, because he just refuses to have fun. The funny thing is, Mike was one of the people that reacted to the post with a laughter emoji. Go figure.
So, here’s a shitty memory. I had a rough childhood. I won’t go into detail except as relevant to this post, which is relatively tame, but still kind of sucks in a way that gaming nerds will relate.
As a victim of the Satanic Panic, I was forbidden from playing D&D in 1982. Two years later, as a high school sophomore, my cousin introduced me to Barbarian books store in Wheaton, MD (now Barbarian Comics). This is where he bought his comic books. That didn’t interest me at all, but the store also sold RPG material. I knew not to buy D&D materials, but as a high school student, I rebelled a bit and bought FASA Star Trek material. Needless to say, I kept it secret for as long as I could, because that’s still “the same thing” as far as my family was concerned.
I bought the 1st edition box set, the 2nd edition box set, numerous adventures, and a bunch accessories. The accessories included starship models that could be used with that game. Each cost $4.00 (plus tax), so if I bought fifteen of them, that was probably about two weeks pay. Considering I was forced to pay for private high school and college, that’s a fortune, but I can assure you I bought far more than 15 of them. I continued to buy material all the way until the first couple years of college. When my family eventually found my hidden materials, they were largely destroyed. I managed to hide most of my written material, but the starship models were a total loss, and a few accessories disappeared. For a high school/college student in the mid- to late-80s, these were expensive. They were all destroyed by my older brother, who enjoyed enforcing my mother’s prohibition against, well, virtually anything that made me happy, gaming or otherwise.
A couple of years ago, I replenished my entire catalogue of 1st Edition D&D (“1e“) material. There’s nothing I ever owned, or even ever wanted, that I don’t now own. I spent somewhere between $300 and $400, but that bought me more material than I could ever hope to run in the 21 years I statistically have left on this planet. I’m fortunate enough that I afford that. However, take a look at this bullshit. If you didn’t click through (or you’re reading this years after the eBay listing was removed), this is one of those $4.00 models that is selling for $40.00 plus $4.20 shipping. Here’s a screenshot for posterity.
This is an obscure, seldom used starship.
Imagine buying merely fifteen of these now. I’m not a math major, but that should be $633.00 just for materials that aren’t strictly necessary for the game. Buying them at these prices can’t be justified unless you’re truly wealthy.
I’m now running a 1e game for the first time in 40 years, so I’m in no position to complain. However, I’d really love to play FASA Star Trek again. Unfortunately, I know of only two local people that are interested in a in-person game, and one of them isn’t what I’d call “reliable.” (Note: I hate online gaming.) In short, there’s no chance of an in-person game, and certainly none in which I’m a player. That’s a tough pill to swallow, but I can live with that. I’m fortunate to be playing 1e. Moreover, I’m working on starting a 4th Edition D&D game, which also appeals to me. I have plenty going on, and will probably have more than I can handle soon enough.
But as an American, I’m spoiled and want more.
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On June 5th, to (understandably) little fanfare, I announced that I was heading to Origins. I’m leaving on Thursday after work, so I won’t be getting into Columbus, OH until after midnight. That means my effective schedule is as follows:
Friday
9 am – 1 pm
Free
Friday
2 pm – 6 pm
Running games
Friday
7 pm – 11 pm
Running games
Saturday
9 am – 1 pm
Running games
Saturday
2 pm – 6 pm
Free
Saturday
7 pm – 11 pm
Running games
Sunday
9 am – 2 pm
Running games
Sunday
2 pm
Leaving for home.
So, if you want to hang out during my downtime, let me know. I will want to hit the gym Friday morning, but I’m an early riser nowadays, so that shouldn’t get in the way of a breakfast or late morning hangout that day.
Here’s an Idea
I’m bringing some stuff with me. Old school stuff. AD&D stuff. I’ll be prepared to run a 1st Edition D&D version of module S2: White Plume Mountain, and I’m going to try to be able to run module C2: The Ghost Tower of Inverness in case anyone would prefer that. I’ll have pre-generated characters ready to go. This isn’t for an official slot, but if anyone wants to sit down in a hotel lobby and play a 4-hour session of one of those mods on Saturday afternoon, let me know. I’m also willing to grab a table at the convention if Dave has room and everyone would rather meet there, but if so, you’ll have to have a ticket.
If, on the other hand, you just want to hang out, that’s cool too. I tried this as an official game at the last Winter Fantasy, but it didn’t work out, and it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if it didn’t work out at Origins. Still, it can’t hurt to be prepared.
At least, that’s what the U.S. Coast Guard tells us.
One of my favorite villains is fantasy roleplaying is Medusa. In Dungeons & Dragons (“D&D”), that’s a species of creature. In Greek mythology, that’s the name of one of three of her kind, known as Gorgons. Most of you know this, but for those that don’t, here’s one of many videos on them. While I respect the work game designers do, I’m always going to prefer mythological creatures to those game designers invent. Mythology got me into D&D, not the other way around.
3.5 EditionD&D
I love the way D&D has treated medusae generally. I vaguely remember an article in Dragon Magazine during the 3.5 EditionD&D (“3.5e”) days with a writeup on their ecology, which included their male counterparts, the maedar. I never got to use that article because it came towards the end of 3.5e, and I was so caught up in running Living Forgotten Realms and other canned adventures that I didn’t write much of my own material. I always wanted to write a medusa as a BBEG.
4th Edition D&D
In 4th Edition D&D (“4e”), I loved how 4e’s game mechanic was applied to the medusa’s petrifying gaze attack. In 4e, save or die was jettisoned and replaced by what you could call “save thrice in a row or die.” That is, you got three saves over three turns before you were killed, dominated, or whatever. If you saved successfully once during that run, you shook off the effects (though relatively rarely, you still might be subject to an aftereffect on a successful save). This worked really well with the medusa because each failed save during that three-round process resulted in increasingly bad effects. That is, on the first failed save, you were slowed (i.e., speed cut in half). On the second, you were immobilized (i.e., speed of 0). On the third failed save, you were petrified. This gives the player a means to immerse oneself in the action, as the cascade of worsening effects can give you the feeling of slowly turning to stone. (FYI, medusae weren’t the only creature to use this cascade.)
1st Edition D&D
I’m running 1st Edition D&D (“1e”) for the first time in 40 years, so I had forgotten quite a bit. There are a couple of things about medusae that I relearned. First, their gaze attack targets a single creature, whereas in later editions it attacks multiple targets. Second, the gaze is active, not passive. That is, a character merely gazing upon a medusa doesn’t harm the character; the medusa has to intend to petrify the opponent. (See Monster Manual II, page 55 for more information.) While these represent a break from mythology, as you’ll see, they worked to my advantage. One other thing to note is that I house ruled petrification to use the 4e system of slow progression to being petrified.
B2: The Keep on the Borderlands
Going into last session, my group and I knew that we had reached the end of the adventure. So, I told them that I’d be railroading them a little bit to make sure we wrapped things up and that a particular encounter occurred. That encounter was with spoiler alert! a medusa – I named her Xisper – who was captured by inhabitants of the Caves of Chaos and chained to a wall. She used her gaze attack against one PC, but he saved successfully. Some of the PCs held true to their good alignment and refused to allow anyone to kill her but indicated that they’d leave her to her fate, so Xisper immediately went into negotiation mode. Long story short, that negotiation led to them freeing her to clear out the gnoll infestation (the one area the PCs never addressed) and gave me the perfect recurring NPC to bring back at a later date. She’s undoubtably evil, but alignment in my game world is always more complicated than the books present, so she could still be of use to them, and them to her. This is even better than a BBEG.
Xisper will return.
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Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to nor endorsed the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
Here’s a screenshot of the PC screen for the character builder:
Westlocke is a pre-generated character from module S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.
And here’s Westlocke’s current character sheet. The data I said would be missing has now been added, and you can see that the character sheet is, as I like to call it, “one-stop.” You don’t have to look up spells in hardcover books if you’re using my character sheet, even if those spells come from magic items.
A few weeks ago, I hosted another 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons (“1e”) game at my home. The group spent over an hour at the start of the session just reminiscing about the good old days when most of us first met. This was during the era of 4th Edition. Inevitably, the subject of synDCon came up. synDCon was the gaming convention financed primarily by Vic and me. The two of us did almost all the work of running the convention once it began. It was large enough that we had everything represented (see below), yet still maintained the coziness of conventions like Winter Fantasy.
synDCon Was Awesome
I need to put my modesty aside for a bit and say that we pulled off something magical (pun absolutely intended). In our first year, we took advantage of a holiday and put on a four-day convention. We provided tons of organized play: Living Forgotten Realms (4e), Pathfinder Society, and Heroes of Rokugan (Legend of the Five Rings). We also had individual games from less popular RPGs being run here and there, tons of card games (including, of course, Magic the Gathering), tons of board games, and we were the official DC-area convention for Munchkin. We had special events, a LARP, dungeon delves I wrote based on classic 1e adventures, and live music on Saturday night for one of the cons. Our slots were staggered so that slots didn’t start every four hours but rather every two hours. If you wanted to sleep in a bit, you could. You’d just start playing at 11 am instead of 9 am, but there were enough 2-hour slots of other things to do that you could still get three slots of gaming in.
It wasn’t run in a convention center, nor in the basement of a mediocre hotel, but rather in a really nice “hotel and executive meeting center” right across the street from a Metro (subway) stop in Rockville, Maryland. As the county seat for Montgomery County, there were tons of restaurants, et al. in the area, including a gaming store down the street. Of course, we had a gaming store as our in-convention vendor both years, and we generated about 200 attendees both years. Our attendees represented everywhere in the United States east of the Mississippi (e.g., Florida, Georgia, and Ohio), but we gave an award to a guy named Matt for having come the farthest for the con (Alaska).
We had tremendous support from volunteers that helped organize the detail while Vic and I focused on the big picture, and we’re forever indebted to those friends, but I’ll be damned if my feet weren’t atrociously sore by the end of both cons.
Seriously, it was stupendous, and everyone that attended and commented on it said so.
A Slight Diversion Before My Point
I’ve been thinking of doing something other than a Vegas blackjack trip for my fall vacation – I say this every year, so we’ll see if I follow through – and was considering an RPG gaming convention instead. Because I wanted to play 1e, I was initially thinking about GaryCon, but a friend pushed me towards GameholeCon. It was an easy sell because the timing would be better. GaryCon would interfere with Winter Fantasy, but GameholeCon would slide right into the Vegas slot (again, pun absolutely intended). The trouble is that Winter Fantasy and synDCon have spoiled me. I have no intention of going to a convention and paying between $100 and $200 per night for my hotel room if I’m staying at least 2 miles from the convention. That’s ridiculous. It’s like GenCon on a smaller scale. The city is obviously not big enough to handle the convention. So, I decided to look into other options.
There Aren’t Any
Sadly, I went through all my options I could find online, and nothing quite matches the magic of Winter Fantasy or synDCon as far as I can tell. The lists were not complete – Winter Fantasy wasn’t even mentioned (?!) – so maybe there are some other cons out there, but I can’t find them. The cons are at least one of the following: in an inconvenient or excessively crowded location, lack inexpensive parking, or focused on only a few things (usually the shiny new things of the day). Some are also not “cozy,” which I define as between 200 and 350 people. It’s large enough that there can be plenty to do, and you can meet new people, but small enough that you’ll always be able to find your friends and hang out with them. Winter Fantasy doesn’t even satisfy all of these characteristics perfectly – I tried to run 1e but only one ticket for only one slot of three was sold – but it’s as close to perfect as I think practical for a cozy con. It’s also in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. I’m fine going out there, and I will every year they’ll have me, but I find it odd that an area with as big a gaming community as DC doesn’t have something like this.
And this is my point. DC needs a convention like synDCon or Winter Fantasy. Such a con isn’t going to hit the radar scope of the big players (i.e., Wizards of the Coast and Paizo), but it’ll appeal to plenty of players. The DC area is filled with them. Our Gamers’ Syndicate gaming club had over 200 people that identified as members, and we ran game days every single weekend in as many as five gaming stores at a time. While organizing synDCon, I learned of several other groups just as large that had never even heard of us. They were organizing at other stores. This area has an abundance of gamers, and I suspect there are even more here over 10 years later.
Will There Be a synDCon III?
That’s the magic question. I’m happy to organize it, but as we discussed at the game session, my demands are high. First off, I want to do it right or not do it at all. I’m not willing to put together a con in “the basement of the Best Western.” No offense to the chain in general, but that happens to be a hotel we visited that would be the site of a con not worth having. It was downright gross but not unlike venues of cons I’ve attended in the early 2000s. No thanks. Second, having learned from my experiences with the first two, the only way I’d do it is if I had a number of additional owners willing to slap down cashier’s checks for at least $2,000 each (or more depending on how many people commit) and having signed an operating agreement that prevents them from every cashing out that initial investment. That is, I need a sizeable stable of people willing to commit whole-heartedly so that I know I’ll have both the funds and the work ethic necessary to make this doable. Trust me when I say that it’s not enough that someone throw money at me. I need to know that they’re committed to doing the work necessary to pull off a great con. Because it’s been over 10 years, I don’t know what the minimum acceptable number of owners would be, especially without knowing exactly how much each would be willing to contribute up front, but I do know $2,000 is enough to motivate most gamers to stay the course and do what they could not to throw that money away. Any of them willing to drop $2,000 are likely to take it seriously.
Another thing I remember is that no one wanted to be the guy, the “convention coordinator” or CEO who had to make the calls when weird situations arose. While I’m happy to be that guy, I’m not willing to be the one that puts out the feelers (beyond this post, I guess) and see if there’s interest. If I thought my odds were better than 50% of finding such interest, I would, but I don’t think there are enough people willing to make this kind of commitment, so why bother trying? I did my part for king and country, and wound up with a small, overworked group. If this is meant to be, then someone else will have to get the ball rolling. So, while I’m not the one destined to put this together, I strongly suspect there’s a market for it, and my recent thoughts and conversations on the matter sure leave me wishing someone would.
If that’s you, drop me an email when you think you’ve got something real.
Play What You Want 