Post CONjuration 2017 Report

Post CONjuration 2017 Report

Another fantastic convention in the books and a great time was had by all. Great panels, cool performers and amazing cosplay were on display through out the convention. Time was well spent with friends old and new. The staff of the convention was amazing as they are every year. Special thanks to Convention Founder Chris & Angela and Darrin the Professor for putting up with our shenanigans.

This will have been our fourth year as attendees and our third year as panelists and game hosts. We upped our number of games from last year and put on six games this year. We ran a gamut of D&D 5^th Ed, AD&D 2^nd Ed, and Swords & Wizardry games.

Every year I get the pre-con jitters, and fret something awful.  

Would I suck as a DM? Would our games suck?Would there be conflicts with other panels?  Would we have enough players? Did we forget anything?   

Then the convention started and there was literally no time to think.

The turnout was amazing as all most all of our games were full and some cases overfull.  The average game size was about 10 people per game. We had players who returned year after year to play in our games and we always see new faces coming to the table.

I ran the Sword & Wizardry games and it was a blast. All of my games were full with my first game having 14 players and my second having 10. I had the largest number of first time players who had never played ANY type of roleplaying game before. S&W is really great for this, especially when I streamlined it for Con-Play. 

I did not use any pre-written adventures like I did last year. I wrote all of the adventures I ran myself this year using inspiration drawn from Spencer, Tall Tales of the Wee Folk, Harry Potter and Labyrinth. I even made mock-ups of D&D Modules for the programming guide for the Convention.

My favorite one ended up being my Groundhog Day adventure where the players were struck in a time loop and kept dying until they could prevent the assassination of the Queen of Summer.

The highlight of the games was when two of the youngest players at my table (both 13 yrs. old girls) came to me after the game. They had never played before and had such a great time they wanted to keep playing.  They asked me how they could get their hands on the stuff I used for my game. I was floored to be honest. These are the moments you live for as a Dungeon Master.

Needless to say Swords & Wizardry has an embarrassment of riches for people who want to learn to play and much of it is free. I hooked them up with the S&W Intro Rules, S&W Core (Free Version), and several of the S&W Quick Play Adventures.

One other player reached out to me since the CON and as if I could get her a copy of the adventures that I ran so she could run them for her gaming group. That was another first for me.

We are already started the planning for next year and hope to host even more games and branch out to other game systems and genres.

CONjuration 2017

It is that time again! CON Time!!

https://www.conjurationcon.com/

My Group the Crimson Blades will be running Table-Top RPGs again this year.

We will be running the following games:

Friday, November 3rd, 2017

Game Title: Into the Wicked Wood
System: 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeon Master: Clark H.
Henchman: Louis H.
Time: 3:00:00 PM - 6:00:00 PM

Game: In the Name of the King
System: 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons
Game Master: Paul A
Henchman: Joey C.
Time: 7:00:00 PM - 11:00:00PM


Saturday, November 4th, 2017

Game: The Queens of Summer & Winter: Winter’s Hard Heart
System:    1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons (Sword & Wizardry Complete)
Game Master: Eli K.
Henchman: Joey C.
Start Time    10:00:00 AM - 1:00:00 PM

Game Title: To Hell and Back
System: 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeon Master: Paul A
Henchman: Louis H.
Time: 7:00:00 PM - 11:00:00PM

Sunday, November 5th 2017

Game: The Queens of Summer & Winter: Summer’s Warm Embrace
System: 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons (Sword & Wizardry Complete)
Game Master: Eli K
Henchwoman: Janie D.
Time: 9:00:00 AM – 12:00:00 PM

Game: The Bastion of Sorrow
System: 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons
Game Master: Clark H.
Henchman: Louis H.
Time: 12:00:00 PM - 3:00:00 PM

Review of Swords & Wizardry Continual Light

I have been a big fan of Swords & Wizardry for a while now. I used S&W Complete to run my Barrowmaze Campaign and I use it for my convention games.

Recently a new version has come out called Swords & Wizardry Continual Light.

It is intended as a even more rules lite version of S&W, but more than S&W Light.

This is something as S&W is already pretty rules lite.

 http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2017/02/what-is-swords-wizardry-continual-light.html

After reading, I can see the differences pretty clearly between the different rule sets.

My overall consensus is that this is a neat little rule set and would appeal to new players and crusty grognards alike. 

Good Stuff

• I like the adventure/level dynamic that replaces experience points.
• It is very bare bones and doesn't waste time with tons of descriptive verbiage which is refreshing
• Good Proofreading, I did not see any obvious typos, spelling errors, or grammar issues in my first pass.
• Great Cover
• Fun Artwork, Page 11 especially

Bad Stuff

• Inconsistent Movement - NPC & Monsters have movement of 9,12,18 but PC's have movement of 90' 120' etc
• The layout is subpar, several blank pages for no obvious reasons, lack of page numbers
• Text in some of the sections is smashed together but more evenly spaced in others.
• Too much artwork for no apparent reason
• The style & ascetic of the cover is not evident in the interior
• The character sheet in the back is pretty generic and uninspiring.

Other Stuff

• Descending/ Ascending AC, wish they would have just picked one and have the other in a different section as optional rules 
• Missed opportunity to try a different format. Could have tried a LBB style or something different
• If using a standard letter sized page, with they would have included page numbers and consider using columns on some of the sections
• The entire document looks like it was cobbled together from different source materials. It could have used some smoothing.
• For a rules lite system, it still holds on to some of the clunkier aspects of old D&D. Turning Tables and Thief abilities. Wish they would have made the turn undead a simple roll with a target number modified by the monsters HD. Condense all rogue abilities into just two skills: Thievery & Stealth

The Painting Bench

With the help of new contacts and some reading glasses, I can once again start painting.

Huzzah.

First however, I needed to get our gaming room in order. This was a tall order because I had basically let things go to seed while I could not paint.

The Mess

So after two weeks of cleaning, organizing, moving and rearranging furniture, the game room is now ready to go as is my paint desk.

WIP

The finished product

So on to stuff I have been working on. I have been primarily focusing on finishing some minis that
I had started over a year ago and working on getting my Frostgrave Warband painted

Stubbs the Zombie

Ranger

Treasure Hunter (Mr Bones Model)

Ranger

Treasure Hunter (Mr Bones Model)

Vornhearst the Necromancer

Stamus Contra Malum: 1013 YE - The Gathering of Heroes

The Hundred Horse Chestnut Tree

Lukos the Forester stoked the embers of the campfire with a stick and threw several more branches onto the fire. He lifted his head and watched the smoke of the fire slowly rise up into the branches of the great chestnut tree. A strong breeze from the west carrying the smell of the sea gently swayed the branches. A chorus of twinkling caused by hundreds of trinkets tied to the branches filled the air.

The Hundred Horse Chestnut, named for the fact that the branches could shelter 100 horses, was a famous landmark in Traladar. Travelers have for centuries made their camp under its shade. Lukos had been here a week and seen many people come and go. After travelling across Traladar looking for recruits he had set-up camp to wait and see who would take him up on his offer.

The first to arrive was a Bladedancer of Ianna, Lozen the Lioness. Lukos was pleased beyond words; to have a Bladedancer in his adventuring party would be a boon. She was young and inexperienced, but showed promise. The next to arrive with a rolling gait was a human named Vilhelmus Hastinov, a swashbuckling sailor with a famous last name. There was some initial tension between Vilhelmus and Lozen

Several hours later two elves walked up to the camp, they were in fact twin brothers, Avery and Carrick. Avery was a Spellblade and his brother was………. Well a bit shady, possibly someone with a criminal background, maybe a Nightblade, Carrick was not very forthcoming.

As the sun began to set, a woman approached the camp. Dressed in elven armor and carrying a shield with a black swan device, the woman introduced herself asIvanova Hastinov and she had come to join Luko’s adventuring party. It quickly became clear that Vilhelmus and Ivanova were cousins and they had history together.

Two Hastinovs, two elven twins and a Bladedancer, this was adventuring party was shaping up to be a interesting one. Lukos explained to the group what his intentions were. They would be travelling to the prefecture of Ourosco and the borderlands. Along the way they would be making a few stops along the way to gather recent information coming out of the borderlands. The group settled in for the night.

The next morning as the group was breaking camp a man came running up. Out of breath, he announced his name was Atticus and he was a teller of tales and singer of songs, he had come to join Luko’s adventuring party. The ever growing group hit the road. They travelled for several hours and soon arrived at the Fane of the Fallen, a temple dedicated to the goddess Calefa, the mother of mourning. Lukos gathered some interesting rumors and the party then heading to the famous fortress of the Black Eagle.

The Black Eagle Fortress

The party arrived in the late afternoon to the outskirts of the town surrounding the Black Eagle Fortress. After settling in, the party spent some time relaxing and gathering information about the borderlands. The next morning the party set off towards the borderlands. There last stop before crossing over into Ourosco.

Travelling along the imperial road they came across a wounded ass who charged pass them. Further up the road, a body lay in the middle of road. A ragged figure was hunched over the body chewing on it, the Vilhelmus and Avery drew weapons and charged the creature. Atticus noticed a crying noise coming from a nearby crofters hut and ran to see if any one needed help. The ghoul was quickly dispatched, but with a thunderous crash Atticus came flying out of the hut and landed with a bone-crunching thud on the imperial road.

Charging out of the hut came a ragged female humanoid. Exhibiting incredible strength and speed, the foul-mouthed creature who called herself Agrippa taunted and terrorized the party. The partys attacked it with weapons and magic but the creature seemed to be only mildly inconvenienced. It was only when Lozan smashed a vial of holy water against Agrippa’s head that it retreated to the safety of the dark woods. Ivanava and Vilhelmus gave chase……….

Whats Happening Now

Sooooo, it has been several months and not a peep.

My Bad

The truth of the matter is that between the demands of my job and everyday life I have not had time to blog anything. I have been running an Adventurer Conquer King Campaign using the Obsidian Portal. This has eated up most of my blogging time. I probably should post some of my adventure logs here on my blog.

Stamus Contra Malum: 1013 YE

Stamus Contra Malum is an old school D&D campaign. The previous campaign we used the 1981 Dungeons And Dragons Basic and Expert Setmore commonly referred to as B/X D&D. For this campaign we are updating things a bit and we will be using the Adventurer, Conqueror, King Rules System or ACK, it is to me the spiritual successor of the 81 Basic/ Expert Rules.

The setting campaign is roughly based on the original D&D settings, The Known World, which was first detailed in the 1981 Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set and the module X1 – The Isle of Dread. Using just the information in these two books I proceeded to personalize it and made liberal changes.

With the update to the ACK Rules System, I took the time to add additional detail and retconned some minor details from the previous campaign using the default setting for ACK, the Auran Empire.

What Happened To All the Miniatures?

When I first started this blog it was going to be about my miniatures and my painting. I have posted any pictures in a long while.

The reason why is I have not been doing a lot of painting. I love painting and it kills me not to be able to. Unfortanutely painting has become almost impossible for me due to the fact my eyesight has deterioated to the point that I have lost depth perception and the ability to paint small detail.

After consulting with an eye specialst I was diagnosed with keratoconus in my left eye. The bad news is that it is irreversible short of a cornea transplant. If I am lucky it will not get any worse.

The good news, with a special contact I will be able to see more clearly and be able to paint again.

So I am looking forward to posting picture of my work again.