GaryCon VII.0

Day 0....Wednesday.

For me, Wednesday at GaryCon has a certain pattern to it. Things just sort of fall into place. My family and I have done this enough that even when slight changes come up, things still flow reasonably well.

As background, it might be helpful to know that I live very close to Lake Geneva, relatively speaking. Prior to last year, GaryCon seemed to fall just before the kids' Spring Break - that is the first Friday of GaryCon fell on their last day of school before a week-long vacation. Even though GaryCon's VI and VII have occurred during Spring Break, a kind of tradition built up around those earlier years when the kids were still in school...or were at least supposed to be.

Tuesday night I start to get...well...I suppose, giddy. I start smiling more. This year I actually clapped like a little kid getting ready for a Disney trip, "GaryCon is tomorrow!" But Tuesday night is still work - only it's the kind that I know will be worth it in just a few short hours. So things get put on lists, organized, packed, and crossed off lists.

Then Wednesday comes, and though officially we are all on vacation, there is work to be done...this pattern doesn't happen by accident.

First we put the final touches on the packing, check lists, and make sure the car is properly loaded. Then comes one of the little traditions from earlier years when my kids were still in school at the start of the convention. In years past, we drove up without the kids because, well, we didn't let them take Wednesday through Friday off - usually because there were tests aligned with the end of term. Often my wife and kids would come up Thursday night; Friday was a free-for-all at school due to cabin fever and the impending vacation. For GaryCon VI and VII, while out of school, they are old enough to be alone for a few hours and to clean and get the house ready for our return at convention's end. My wife and I head north, get checked-in as early as possible, and get everything unloaded. Then my wife returns home to pick-up the kids and take the dog to her sister's house to be cared-for in our absence. I remain and get the room settled - put all of the clothes away, stow all the snacks and drinks we bring, etc.

When the room is set, and after I steal a quick nap, I head down to the lobby and, depending on timing, pick up my badges - plural as I get the kids' badges as well. It's usually about this time that David Temporado, diaglo to some (and apparently tempo to others), arrives and we share a meal together. During this meal we catch up - as we usually haven't seen each other face-to-face in a year, sometimes longer - and solve all of the world's problems. All through this phase, old friends are well met with handshakes and hugs, and new friends are made.

By 6 PM, latest 8 PM, on Wednesday - the night before the convention has officially started, I'm in a game. One year that was, if I recall correctly, one of the very early play-tests of Dungeon Crawl Classics. The past two years, GaryCon V and VI, it was a Gamma World game run by Michael Curtis. This year it was a Lankhmar game using Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea run by my friend Rich Franks. This included a scene wherein an attempt to hide in the shrubs around Grain Merchants Guild resulted in an unintended distraction, complete with a John-Belushi-trying-to-cross-campus-at-night-unnoticed imitation.

My wife returned with kids in tow, and they were immediately in the pool - another tradition wherein they forgo first-night gaming to enjoy the amenities of the resort. I spent the rest of the evening partaking of a few cocktails and running from the guards of the aforementioned Guild, while the kids spent the rest of the evening swimming in the indoor pool.

I think I finally stumbled in around 1 AM. The convention was only beginning...

GaryCon VII - Thanks

This is a bit late, as GaryConCrud felled me for a bit...

One should, nay must, begin any discussion of GaryCon with an appropriate demonstration of appreciation for all of the people that make it, still, the best convention and by far my favorite. Unfortunately, there is almost no way, with mere words, to do so. Regardless, I will endeavor to try.

First, thanks to Dale Leonard and Luke Gygax for all of the hassle they must put up with and all of the effort they expend to continue this tradition. I know they face many challenges each and every year, and every year by convention's end all of it is, to most that attend, clearly worth it. The future holds an abundance of opportunities and challenges, but I would, and have, placed my trust in them to navigate these sometimes-stormy waters.

Second, my thanks to all of the Gygax siblings and their families who allow us - really support us by their very presence - to honor their father. Grief is all too often a solitary thing. By allowing those of us who make the pilgrimage every March to congregate and share in the legacy their father left, that grief is turned into joy. Peruse the images from this convention posted across the Internet and witness the happiness. This is a living, breathing, smiling, laughing celebration of more than a life well-played; it is a legacy that reminds us that when we gather to play games, it isn't just about the games - it's about friends and family and laughter and joy.

Third, my thanks to the "Old Guard" - too many names to list them all. These folks continue to remind me, each and every year, that there is a heart and soul that goes beyond what Rule is in Paragraph 3 on Page 37 of Book 4 of Game System X. These men and women gave, and in many cases continue to give, of themselves to create and/or support hobbies that we enjoy - and we should thank them for it every time we see them.

Fourth, my great appreciation for those folks that give of themselves by running games and/or seminars, both on the grid and off. For me and my progeny, that would be:

• Rich Franks
• David Baity
• Jen Brinkman
• Guy Fullerton
• Bruce Heard
• Jim Wampler
• Edwin Stahlnecker
• Reid San Filippo
• Britainney Petrie
• Mike Reese
• Terry Kuntz
• Brendan LaSalle
• Michael Curtis
• James Smith
• Roy Snyder
• John Bobek

You all spent hours and hours and hours of your time to give myself and my kids hours and hours and hours of fun. I can't thank you enough.

Fifth, the unsung heroes of GaryCon - The Volunteers. All of you that do all of the things that make the convention run smoothly. From registration to passing out the judges' snacks to helping run the charity auction to a thousand and one other things I'm forgetting or never see - these are the things that make the convention happen. Without you, we all don't get to celebrate.

And finally, on the personal side, to my awesome wife - who puts up with this craziness every year and supports me, and now our kids, in pursuing this passion. You are the Sun, the Moon, the Starlit Sky; without you, I dwell in Darkness.

The Death & Dismemberment Table

The inestimable Harley Stroh asked that I post my Death & Dismemberment table. Not that he was implying that it was, but I wanted to clarify that while I call it mine, I do not consider it anything less than a complete rip-off. So before I post what I started to test for a game a few years back, I wanted to give a shout out to the folks who gave it to me.

Back in 2010, fresh from GaryCon II, I was searching for ways to think differently about damage - I wanted a setting with little-to-no clerical healing and I wasn't sure how to pull that off. In stepped Aos of Metal Earth. This sent me down the path of seeing "Hit" Points as everything but significant physical damage. That path, it turns out, led back through an older Trollsmyth blog post (2008) to a post by one Robert Fisher (which might be even earlier - there's no date on that post). It might lead even further back, but that's as far as I investigated.

So those are my sources. On to the explanation...

There are a few fundamental pieces to the puzzle:

• "Hit" Points represent Stamina, Skill, and Luck.
• "Damage" from attacks reduces "hit" points as normal.
• When an attack reduces a character's "hit" points to 0, and for every successful attack while the character's "hit" points are at 0, the player makes a saving throw. If the saving throw is unsuccessful, the character rolls on the Death & Dismemberment table.
• Because "hit" points do not represent physical damage they are replenished very quickly after combat - roll the hit die type for the class of the character each turn after combat.
• Miraculous Healing, if it takes place, addresses injuries received on the Death & Dismemberment table.

The Death & Dismemberment table:

This was under development, hence the percentages and such. It is also missing the long term effects of letting some of the wounds heal naturally.

In my eyes, the benefits are:

• Avoidance of confusion with respect to the link between "hit" points and physical damage.
• Healing is more miraculous.
• Interesting lasting effects (we had characters with limps who moved more slowly, one blind in one eye, etc.)
• Deadly.
• Clerics, if even used, are not simply medics.

While the drawbacks might be:

• Complexity.
• Deadly.
• Reduces Role of Cleric.

What I'm not sure about it if this addresses Harley's original query. I think from the perspective of regaining "hit" points it does because after a battle you regain them so quickly. However, you are faced with the same issue only someone gets a wound and an attempt to miraculously repair it fails...I think...

As I'm writing this and reviewing things I did almost 5 years ago, I'm already thinking of clarifications, additions, changes, etc. For example, this table doesn't clarify how long the effects of the injury last. I think I assumed it was until healed. Also, I'd adjust the fourth column - the effects of multiples - to have more of a pattern. For example, 2 Fatal Wounds moves to Instant Death; 3 Major Wounds moves to a Fatal Wound, and so on up the line. I'd change from Fatal Wounds to Mortal Wounds.

Finally, you might have noticed Deadly shows up on both the pro and con lists. This is because for some folks it might be too deadly, others not deadly enough. When we started using this approach, we used 2d6 and a result of 12 was Instant Death. It ended up at 3d6 after some discussion about how deadly we wanted the campaign to be.. But even while remembering this, I thought about how the dice chain might be applied and how you could use that to shift the deadliness within the campaign. For example, some folks might feel that it's more devastating to lose a high level character - after all, a lot of time has gone into getting that character to achieve a high level, especially in a game like DCC. So perhaps the dice used could change and/or allow different tables for classes and levels making Mortal Wounds/Instant Death less likely.

Either way...there it is...lifted from a bunch of sources and it is to this day a work in progress...

GenCon 2014 - Part I, Prelude

It's been almost a week since our exhausted return from the Nerdvana that is GenCon. It was a long, strange trip this year from the Monday prior right through to Sunday evening.

For those that don't know, on the Monday before GenCon, riding my bicycle home from my son's football practice, I slammed on my brakes to avoid a situation. My front brakes worked wonderfully. Unfortunately, my rear brakes failed completely. This sent me over the handle bars and on to the pavement. For my troubles, I ended up in the emergency room with a mild concussion and a jacked up right hand, wrist, and shoulder.

I was lucky in that I did not break anything - just a lot of soft tissue damage and pain. Unfortunately, there was no way I could drive from our abode in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago to the Indianapolis.  Heck, I didn't even know how I was going to get all of our stuff in the van now that I was in a sling. But I have an awesome wife who, despite hating driving in that kind of traffic, took on the pilot role.  I'm not sure who was more anxious...

But  with the kids' help and my wife's will, we made it down to Indy...only to be standing on the street with nowhere to sleep. I'm not getting into details, but I am fortunate to be able to stay in a condo just up the street from the convention. Problem was, the keys to that lair were in a closed UPS store just of Monument Circle. Apparently the delay in our departure (due in no small part to the slow packing because of my injury) and the one hour time difference placed us outside the UPS store 55 minutes after it closed.

Now, we were fortunate in that we had a spare key for the condo itself. Problem was we could not get into the building. The security system into which one can punch a code and gain access was in the process of being repaired; a fact we found out later. all we faced is a sign that read something like "Temporary - Access only through garage 8/13-8/14" Now the only way in was using a special key fob and going through the parking garage...a key fob we did not have because it was on the key chain sitting in the UPS store.

After waiting around a while (with part of the contents of our vehicle on the curb) to see if someone would come out or go in (thus opening the door to the building) a worker from the restaurant  in the adjoining building - which uses the same lobby/basement - took pity on us and used his access to allow us to gain entry. Finally we were in! We then had to play a kind of relay game to unload the vehicle - with me playing the part of door stop, for which I'm eminently qualified...and not just because my injury limited my carrying capacity.

We had expected to arrive at about 2:00 PM, relax for a while, eat some dinner, then go to a party that is a Wednesday night tradition. Instead, we arrived at 8:00 PM (local time), scrambled to get ready, then headed to the party sans children; if we all went, we wouldn't be able to get back in the building!

We were already pretty exhausted...and the  convention hadn't even started yet...

Injunctivitis

Well, to be honest, this was one of my fears about funding The Great Kingdom.

If you try to find the project on Kickstarter...ya know, just to see how things are going..you'll get this message. You can send a message to the project creator, but given the situation, I'm not even sure how they can respond.

Because this apparently just happened. And according to that court document - go on, read it, it's pretty interesting:

"IT IS ORDERED that Defendants (the producers of The Great Kingdom) are hereby enjoined from having any contact , for any purpose, with any of the parties or persons who were previously involved in the D&D Production film and from in any manner advertising the film The Great Kingdom or making efforts to solicit funding for such film or any film on the subject of Dungeons and Dragons pending further order of this court."

I'll preface the rest of this by pointing out I am not a lawyer...so take the rest with a boulder of salt. The threshold to allow for this kind of order is not overwhelmingly difficult. Like most things in the court system, in this preliminary stage you just kind of have to show that there is even a possibility that something the defendant did might cause harm to the plaintiff. But if the accusations in that order are born out..well, what an ugly situation.

I do so hope that Kickstarter funds are not now going to be used to defend against this court action.

You can commence with berating and condescending pointing of digits in my general direction. I told you so's will have to wait a bit...

NOTE: Hat Tip to Zachary Houghton for the news.

The Great Kingdom: I Give In

I won't bury the headline. After much consternation, I've decided to give to the Kickstarter for The Great Kingdom. It was not an easy decision. I've tried for a few weeks to get answers to various questions and I still feel like I'm left wanting. But in the end, I want to see both movies get made. So I'll dig into what little money I have and see what pittance I can provide.

And even though I do so with a twinge of...regret isn't the right word...dissatisfaction? Nope, that's not right either. I guess I'm still searching and it appears the only way I'll get the answer I'm truly looking for will be to get this thing funded and completed. So I suggest all twelve of you who read this go and given them a buck or two and get it over the finish line. It's late in the process, and as I write this they are just over half funded. Let's see if we can get it over the finish line successfully.

What do I think will help, other than an all out media blitz? Differentiation. What do I mean by that? Well, it is the answer I've been looking for from the beginning I suppose. Tell me...hell, tell everyone, how this movie is so different. The Q&A linked to in the comments of the previous post was a good start...but it's just a start and it was 8 days before the end of the Kickstarter. More! Use your updates on Facebook, Kickstarter, etc. to tell us more about this incredible story at which you keep hinting. Do it now!

Those not directly invovled in the production may want to get this thing spread outside the normal geek channels. For example, I'm going to talk to my brother about giving some money and spreading the word in his circles. He's a geek as well, but not a gamer. So the rest of you need to think of people that might be interested and get them involved.

Reticence? Yeah...maybe that's the word...

Why are you still here reading? Go. Now. Do.

D&D: A Documentary versus The Great Kingdom: Update 2

I’ve had some further communications on the subject. Nothing serious or earth shattering by any means (wow…talk about reeling in the readers, eh?), but a few items I feel I can pass on.

First, I’ve been assured there is no animosity even though I’ve been asking a few, how shall we say, uncomfortable, questions. That is a relief, and I’m not being sarcastic about that. One thing I did not want to do was make people upset; I’m just looking for some answers…and a hard copy of the new movie.

Second, I’m afraid we’re not going to get many answers because it is clear by both the complaint and the emails that this is really going to be a lawyers’ battle. Nobody wants to make any claims or say anything because now IT MATTERS.

Third, I’m not adding anything to the completion of either movie. And while that stings a bit, it is true. I’m just an onlooker and the distraction keeps the point of all of this from getting done. This is not to say we can’t or shouldn’t continue to ask questions; however, given point two – that this is now a bona fide legal fight – it’s unlikely we’ll get much but platitudes and obfuscations.

UPDATE:

It appears this thing got some more legs soon after I wrote the first blog post – again “coincidences” heh. First, there was this article in the examiner. Now the inestimable Tenkar’s Tavern has posted about it.

On top of that, one of the folks I’ve known for years online has apparently decided to throw his support behind The Great Kingdom – and looks like he’s been prepped to talk about it.

Now comes the part where this fight that started between three people making a documentary about D&D breaks bad all over the Internet.