Tales from OSRCon - First Thoughts

My journey to Toronto for OSRCon 2011 this past weekend was so action-packed, stimulating, and out-and-out fun that I hardly know where to begin.  Trying to capture the essence of the event in words will be challenging enough; to express the various ways it has impacted me personally is a whole other matter, and will no doubt spin out over the course of the coming year and the years to come.

My Friday morning Labyrinth Lord game gets underway.

The first word that comes to mind as I reflect on my OSRCon experience is: magic.  Another way of putting it would be to use the word synergy.  Whatever the descriptor, there was a palpable enthusiasm and harmony and momentum in the air across both days of the two-day event.  I felt a relatively high degree of group cohesion amongst the attendees, and the vibe was overwhelmingly positive and fun-o-centric.  As Chris alludes to in his blog post, that gaming room got loud!  People really got into their games, gave it their all, and as a result a deliriously enjoyable time was had by everyone.  

And while all the players and DM's and Guests of Honor "brought it" to the game tables and to the Saturday panel, surely Chris Cunnington's expert planning and orchestration of OSRCon was the pivotal factor in the Con's overall success.  Never have I attended an open-to-the-public group function of this particular size and scale that was so well organized and executed.   The facility was TERRIFIC, the fridge was always stocked with cold soda and water, there were some really classy prizes given away at the between-session raffles, and -- most amazingly -- Chris kept us all on schedule.  That's right: virtually every event started and ended exactly when it was supposed to.  That is something of a rarity for events like this, especially for one like OSRCon that is in its very first year of existence.  Chris clearly knows what he's doing, and it showed in the calm, gracious, and efficent way he brought OSRCon off this year.

THANKS CHRIS!

Chris Cunnington, OSRCon's fearless leader.

Deep gratitude is also owed to the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation, and Fantasy, the sponsors of OSRCon and co-providers (along with the Lillian H. Smith Library) of the fine facility in which the Con was held.

Deserving of a special shout-out is Kris Kobold, the very capable and engaging DM of the two contiguous Expedition to the Barrier Peaks sessions in which I played. The two things I'd like to say about Kris are:

(1) Yes, "Kobold" is indeed his REAL surname. No frikkin' joke. If that doesn't signify that Kris' best destiny lies with fantasy RPG'ing, I don't know what does.

(2) Kris is at the same time one of the most efficient and most playfully humorous DM's I've gamed with. He has a real sense of fun about him that draws players in and distinctly raises the level of engagement -- and, at times, hilarity -- at the table. And he really knows the AD&D rules, so game play at those sessions flowed fluidly and easily.

For me, those two Barrier Peaks sessions flew by really quickly and were quite eventful and action-packed. No dull moments there at all.  In short, I had a complete blast.

THANKS KRIS!

"Dammit! Why won't you guys enter the froghemoth's lair??"

The view from my seat on Day One of Barrier Peaks.

Saturday morning: Part two of Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, with talented (and fortuitously named) Dungeon Master Kris Kobold.

There is so much more I could say, and indeed regular readers should expect to see more Tales from OSRCon pop up here over the next several days and weeks. For one, I want to post separately about how my own Labyrinth Lord sessions went. (In a nutshell: GREAT!!) Details will follow as soon as I re-gather my wits, calm down a little from the weekend's excitement, and gain some perspective from which to reflect more insightfully upon those sessions.

That said, I want extend a SPECIAL THANK-YOU to all the players who came to my Labyrinth Lord table and faced The Tower of Death over the course of those two days: Rene, Marc, Rob, Theo, JC, Steve, Greg, John, Gary, James, and Garfield.  You were all simply terrific, I had a great time playing with you and couldn't have done it without you!

Lastly, thanks to Marc for the lunches, the great talks, and for lending me a much-needed spare copy of the LL rules during my Saturday session; and to Theo for the KILLER DICE.  Great memories, guys.

Theo wins Steve Jackson Games' Illuminati at a between-session raffle. Fnord!

All photos by Garfield Noyahr.

To Toronto Tomorrow!

Tomorrow afternoon I head up to Toronto (three hours away) to attend OSRCon, where I will be running two separate Labyrinth Lord sessions, both involving The Tower of Death, my recently written and playtested Con module. I am really looking forward to this.

Between my preparations and travel to OSRCon, and Spawn of Endra's recent cross-country move, things have been quiet here at the blog, and may remain so for the next couple of weeks. Regularly scheduled programming will hopefully resume in late August or early September.

In the meantime, I will make sure to take some pictures at the Con, and will issue a full report after I get back!

12-13 August 2011 (Fri. and Sat.) 
In Toronto at the Lillian H. Smith library

Old Games From 1975-85 ** New Games Inspired By That Era

Show Me Your Dice Marathon

Here is my entry in the Gothridge Manor "Show Me Your Dice" Marathon!

Here are the current dice I pull out of my "use at the table" jar for use during a typical session.

Here are all my dice, not counting the miniature sets in my LotFP and S&W White Box Boxed Sets. 

And here is my cat Charlie, investigating my dice.

OSRCon Approaches

I just booked my hotel for OSRCon, which takes place in Toronto in just over a week.  I recently playtested The Tower of Death, my Con module, and will be adding a few last-minute flourishes this weekend.  Based on what happened with the playtest group, I may swap out a monster or two, and might even adjust one level's map in a few small, fiddly ways.  But besides those tweaks and compiling a roster of pregenerated PCs, I am ready to go!  The Tower of Death awaits brave (or foolhardy) OsrCon adventurers!

In related news, I was just over checking out the OSRCon blog, and saw this exciting announcement about "Mind Games," a killer RPG'ing display the Merril Collection will be sponsoring at the Lillian H. Smith Library while the Con is there.  I will have to make sure to pop upstairs and check that out, even though it promises to be a busy weekend, between running my two Labyrinth Lord sessions (Fri. at 9:30am and Sat. at 3:30pm), playing in two sessions of the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks Fri. and Sat., and tuning in for the awesome looking "How Have RPGs Changed?" panel featuring James Maliszewski, Ed Greenwood, and Alex Von Thorn (Sat. at 2:30 pm). 

Should be great fun!

Tower of Death Playtest Report

I recently (on 7/18) ran a "beta" version of The Tower of Death, the home-brewed module I will run twice at OSRCon in a few weeks.  Of course, I cannot reveal any specific details of the module here, but I did want to jot down a few comments about how the playtest session with members of my home Labyrinth Lord group went a couple of Mondays ago.

- We had three players altogether, two of whom are regulars in my group, the third being the wife of one of our players, a charming lady with whom I have played Mutant Future before. In other words, a well-experienced group for the most part, though small enough that in order to increase play flexibility (as well as the chances of party survival) I asked two of the players to run two PCs each, for a total party size of five.

- The PCs were all generated using straight Labyrinth Lord rules, i.e., 3d6 in order for attribute rolls, but with some trading of values for prime requisites allowed as per "Choosing a Class" instructions on LL p. 7.  I did not require players to keep PCs whose initial attribute bonuses added up to less than zero.

- Since The Tower of Death assumes a party of third-level adventurers, all PCs were summarily leveled up to Level 3, and also given a choice of two magical items, one from each of the following two lists:

List A
+1 weapon
+1 ring of protection

List B
potion of healing
potion of climbing
potion of speed
scroll of ward against undead
scroll of ward against magic

I also hand-waved giving slightly better armor to PCs whose initial gp rolls wouldn't afford them at least chain mail.

- As Spawn of Endra has noted in his own comments on the session, there were some PC deaths early on, in large part because I forgot to remind the players at the outset that the "Shields Shall Be Splintered!" house-rule was in effect.  In theory, at least one of those early deaths could have been averted by invocation of this rule, had the key players been aware of it.  However, we improvised a new rule about reinforcements, saying that new PCs could be substituted in for dead ones, but that they had to come from the nearby village of Kerkymer Hill, thirty minutes distant. This system for reinforcements worked out well, and might be the way I'll go in future convention scenarios, perhaps in lieu of allowing Shields to be Splintered.

- All in all, I thing the group had a blast playing this scenario -- I know I certainly did.  The session was melee-heavy, but perhaps that is to be expected for a convention module.  I admit that The Tower of Death is densely stocked, but this is because there is a clearly defined goal (or, more accurately, a set of four interrelated goals) and a (real-world) time limit placed upon the PCs' ability to succeed.  Thus I wanted the scenario to feel deadly and bursting with danger and to be somewhat bloody and fast-paced.  Of course, there are some features that reward good dungeoneering and exploration skills, as my playtesters found in the second half of the session, once they discovered a key locale using such skills. 

- My playtesters had just under four hours of actual play time, and were able to achieve two of the four major objectives in the scenario.  I rate that as a successful performance.  It has been my aim as I designed The Tower of Death to make all four objectives achievable in that real-life four-hour window, but I do not know if I have accomplished that or not.  It is hard to gauge such things with precision.  My players achieved their successes with cunning, and did not waste any time, but they also were not quite as methodical or thorough as some parties might be, so it is hard for me to say what the "average" expectation for party success should be for the scenario.

- That said, I intend there to be a sliding scale of success for The Tower of Death.  For OSRCon play, I plan to reward standard xp bonuses for monsters defeated and treasure found, plus an additional +3000 xp bonus for each of the four main objectives achieved.  Rated according to this scoring system, my playtest team earned 16,165 xp + 6000 bonus xp = 22,165 points!  I guess that is now the gold standard to beat, so look out OSRCon players! 

- To conclude, I want to commend and thank my playtesters for their great game play at this fun session.  We got to explore multiple areas of the dungeon and I learned a lot about how the stocking density affects the pace and the deadliness of the adventure.  I also saw that the primary scenario goals are at least partially achievable during a four-hour time-frame.  Thanks!

Oubliette #6 pdf Free Through August!

Click on the picture to download the Issue for free!

Regular readers know that I am a big fan of Oubliette Magazine -- see my previous reviews of the publication here and here.

Right now, for a limited time only ('till the end of August), Oubliette's Editor in Chief, Peter Regan, is making the latest issue of Oubliette, Issue #6, available for free as a downloadable pdf. So if I haven't convinced you already via my glowing reviews, take the time now to check out this awesome resource for Labyrinth Lord and other early-edition D&D games -- FOR FREE no less.

Rock on, Peter and all the fine staffers at Oubliette Magazine.

d30 Table of Random Text Scraps

From the bowels of Hell, thine Spawn of Endra wails forth:

I'm packing up for a move to the east, and so I'm clearing out stuff, running across lost and forgotten items, and the usual. In one pile of papers I found my 2010 calendar that has random thoughts written throughout. Before I put this into the recycling, it looks like there's enough to make a d30 table that you might use for when there's a scrap of parchment in a room, or you need the title or subject of a book or a painting, response from an oracle, or you just want a random concept. Here you go:

D30 Table of Random Text Scraps

1. The '00s --> The Actually Decade - as the last faint recognition of the routine loss of reality. (1/5)
2. Yes, sex is destructive by nature. Leave it for your least elaborate castles made of sand. (1/8)
3. ABP: Ambient Bovine Parliament. (1/15)
4. Secretary of the Inferior. (1/19)
5. Oh, the frequency of thine reprehensible repast. (1/26)
6. By dreaming as deeply as we do of the West, we dispossess you of your land. (2/3)
7. Earthcake. (2/4)
8. Every person I met was less a person than those people. (2/7)
9. Aspiring towards a more VAST archaeology. (2/10)
10. Turn Corned Beef. (2/26)
11. Hector Littlepants National Holiday. (2/27)
12. Les McCann, Eddie Harris and Baudrillard: Tryin' to make it hyper-real compared to hyper-what? (3/2)
13. Oh great. Another overbearing white male I'm not getting sex from. (3/5)
14. How are you going to run the midget circus this year? (3/6)
15. Austrian City Limits (3/13)
16. Corned Beef Cured. (3/14)
17. Jesus Priced! (3/25)
18. You are leaning on the industrious class. Why? (4/2)
19. Yes, I am in complete agreement with Cat Ideology. But there is no Cat State. (4/9)
20. Sarmandira, an ancient princess. (7/6)
21. Gleefully drawn into a world of aggression by an inadequate aggressor. (7/25)
22. Hillbilly God, Uncle Norton's Camp. (8/7)
23. A PhD in the Archaeology of Sexuality seems the obvious next step, but granting it to anyone under 50 years of age is insane. (8/14)
24. Just because no one is listening to you doesn't make you a voice crying in the wilderness. You might just be a dipshit. (8/15)
25. Long distance relationships are difficult. For me it's the distance between fantasy and reality. (10/16)
26. A useful definition: Dysphoria is the opposite of Euphoria. (11/17)
27. The Sweet Hubris of the Autodidact (11/21)
28. Vulvateen Heterodyne. (11/22)
29. I come from the land where folks complain about too many public works projects. (12/11)
30. Oi fink it's tot-ullee de-fucking-skusting. (12/13)

Rock the d30!