The Spleen of LokiCon - Saturday Morning

I shot up at 7:42 AM....I'm pretty sure on the time because I immediately picked up my phone to check. The sun was streaming in through the wall of windows that make up the back of the cabin.So I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, threw some clothes on, and made my way downstairs. Within a few minutes, pretty much the entire house was up and about. Breakfast was in process, our gracious host making bacon and eggs by the bushel.

But what really woke me up was the view that slapped me upside the head when I ventured out onto the deck.

So...yeah...not bad, eh?

Now, I need to back up and explain that of the 16 folks who attended this shindig, two couples stayed at a nearby "chalet". Every day those folks would come over about 9 AM and this would signal Game Time.

So on this first day, the gaming started fast and furious. Being a bit slow on the uptake, I missed out on the first two games out of the gate, Battlestar Galactica and Dungeon Lords:

I've played Battlestar Galactica one time at GenCon. It was a blast. Some players are secretly Cylons and are attempting to sabotage things to kill off the humans. Humans are trying to survive and figure out which of the other players are Cylons. All the time the clock is ticking.

Dungeon Lords, however, was new to me.

In this game, each player has a dungeon tableau. Each attempts to use various resources - food, gold, etc. - to build a dungeon and battle adventurers that are attempting to thwart the Dungeon Lords' plans. I checked in a few times and it seemed pretty complex but, at the same time fun and interesting. I know when I checked in at the end all of the folks who had played said they enjoyed it immensely.

So I gathered up the rest of the folks and we decided to play the re-release of Dungeon. I had never played the original, so I was interested not only in playing this new version, but in getting some sense of how it differed from the original. I was fortunate to be playing with a couple of folks who had played the original...so yay!

This second picture provides a sense of the board. It's a series of rooms connected by hallways. The players move their characters around the board and "encounter" rooms. Each room has a monster, determined by drawing from a pile of monster cards. Each monster card indicates what each character class needs to hit/defeat the monster (rolling on 2d6).The character attacks first and, if successful, defeats the monster and gains a treasure. If the character does not succeed, the monster gets a shot, rolling 2d6. The results run the spectrum from a miss to death. In most cases the character is forced to drop a treasure in the room - often for someone else to come and get, if possible! The rooms are color coded to level and each character class has different chances based on those levels. So, for example, the Thief is best in rooms of level 1-3 while the wizard does the best in the deadly levels of 4-6. Once a character gets to a certain threshold of gold (the number is based on class), he or she needs to head back to the Entry Hall to win. The game was straightforward, relatively simple, and fun. I'm definitely looking for this for a possible Christmas gift for the family.

After Dungeon, I socialized a bit, and then took a quick ride into town to get some things. On that trip, I started to get light-headed and the previous day's adventures in finding the cabin seemed to close in on me. So upon returning I laid down to get my bearings...and woke up almost two hours later...