CON REPORT: ReaperCon 2024 Day 3 & 4

 

The last days of the convention were a little bit of a blur as the later nights and DMing started running me low on energy (Day 1 & Day 2)

MINIATURE PAINTING

In lieu of gaming, I did another painting class on the very basics of miniature painting: priming, base coat, wash, and dry brushing. It was a good class run by a gentleman, Vutpakdi, I took last year that covered the basic tools you need to start painting minis. He's really good at breaking down things to the basics and he hands out an information packet at the end. I love a good packet!

Miranda Elkins' NIGHTWICK ABBEY Session #3

This session was run on Saturday night during the miniature awards ceremony and was notable because the DM* who ran the classic Moathouse adventure on Day 1 was excited to join a BX game- especially for the froglings.

For this adventure, we had Percy the Cleric, Cledus the Fighter, Bruce the Fighter, Craig the Dwarf, Chris Angel the Magician, and Croaky the Frogling. I must confess writing these sessions 10+ days later makes them a little hazy:

• This time the party is quick to get the jump on the berserkers and release the "man-sheep thing", but as an argument ensued if they should kill the former victim and "Bleeder" slipped away
• The party searches the bodies of the berserker they kill to find find a clear vial with a small fish swimming in it- Croaky knows that this fish is usually a large river bass the size of a frog's chest and its bizarre to find it so small (It was a vial diminution)
• PCs discover the secret room both the "Dragon Room" and "The Book": Experimenting with the book leads to Cledus bleeding himself to feed the book in return for knowledge (I had the player write down "sin" in an equipment slot); the cleric Percy vehemently objects to feeding this blasphemous object and burns the book with a torch (I had this player draw a star on their sheet as a boon); Cledus is also able to open another secret door but in the process ends up transforming his hand into a dragon claw (Another "sin" in the equipment slot, but they player loved it).
• After a fight with the Blind Dead in which Cleric Percy performed a big turning, the PCs eventually make it to the kitchen splitting into two groups: one to save the vicar and one to fight the Butcher
• The fight was pretty brutal, but the shocking move was Croaky leaped to apply the gonne directly to the Butcher's face--- I made a save throw for the Butcher-- Nat 20! The gonne misfires and Croaky is gone the next!
• Amazingly the vicar was saved but with great cost so Total: Forces of Law 2 vs Nightwick 1

Miranda Elkins' NIGHTWICK ABBEY Session #4

The last game that I ran for ReaperCon at 10:00 AM on Saturday. I was anticipating that this would be a slog given that I was getting pretty exhausted by the end of the con. But I grabbed a tall iced coffee and headed to my table because I was determined to not let this last group down!

The final PC group was Dorf the Dwarf, Bellmullet the Fighter, Azure the Fighter, Mudd the Frogling, Teaks the Changling, Grim the Fighter. This was the first group to go a slightly different route.

• The party doesn't discover the secret doors this time and instead makes quick investigation of the cries coming from the west door-- they quietly open the door and get the drop on figures covered in bloody leather; Grim is quick to kill the poor sheep-thing just to put it out of misery
• PCs turn south into a chamber with two baptismal fonts- Grim tries the west one- only to vomit up blood which attracts a swarm of sickly crow-headed rat-things that-- the terrible things start pecking at their eyes!
• Mudd grabs one and attempts to drown it in the font only to watch in horror as it grows almost to the size of a rotwhiller! (DM NOTE: Ha! That was a fun moment)
• Eventually, the party heads south and barely prevents Dorf from being pulled into the clutches of Blind Dead.
• They find themselves in the long hallway leading to the kitchen where they organize themselves into two groups- initially, they do well, but then the fight takes a terrible turn and half the party ends up dead- but the vicar is once again freed from the Abbey! But given how many died in the process I'll give 0.5 to the Abbey:
  
  Final Score Forces of Law 3 vs Nightwick 1.5

And that was my ReaperCon 2024! Its really nice to help participate at local cons. I think one day the others will simply be too big to have fun at-- GenCon already seems this way-- and what I'd love to is continue to encourage play. And hopefully, inspire new DMs to step up.

CON REPORT: ReaperCon 2024 Day 2

 

ReaperCon mascot Sophie

DUNGEON DWELLERS Session #3

Back at it again with the ReaperCon homebrew system. This time I play the elf fighter and played around with the cleave and "overkill" actions where you could continue to move to attack another target provided you killed your previous target. We where back on the hunt for a cousin of our wizard who was suffering from a curse.

• We defended a bar from what turned out to be clay rats. Since the owner left out of fear, we decided that we owned this terrible bar. The NPC minutes used were also all painted in black with white highlights so our table kept joking that it was a Goth bar.
• Then we traveled to the farmstead where the cousin was located and defended it from clay spiders which let us learn about the location of a clay pit to the north
• The climatic fight at the claypit, where we observe crystals falling into the water and clay creatures arising. Looking up, there were crystals of all sizes in the ceiling. 
• In what was a nice old-school play, I asked the wizard to web the largest crystal in the ceiling to prevent it from falling in the water.

Miranda Elkins' NIGHTWICK ABBEY Session #2

A fresh band of brave (and conscripted) adventurers looking to save a poor lost vicar (and clear their own previous misdeeds) descended into the mouth of hell once again! The party composition: Kevinson the Grave Robber (a Nightwick "half-class"), Ironfist the Dwarf, Astrid the Fighter, "Stringy" Jack the Changling plus Sven & Percival.

• This time players quickly found the secret door in the West Tower because they were brave about touching things
• Once through the secret door, the player find a mysterious book that speaks to them asking for blood in return for answering a question-- that draws a very negative reaction, so they cut the book off its neck-like stand
• Heading south they find a potential secret door that just requires someone to stick their fingers into an image of bowl of communion wafers held by a devilman-- "Stringy" Jack decides to use the fried frogling fingers found earlier to punch the holes-- and opened a secret door to a room full of the dead!
• After holding off the corpse congregation, the players made it to the kitchen to find the tied up vicar; after a few rounds the battle did not go well for the PCs-- Kevinson and Percival took off after Sven was killed, a couple of more PCs dropped but landed heavy hits at the Butcher
• In the end, the PCs agreed to the Butcher's bargain to leave the vicar and keep their lives!
  
  Total: Forces of Law 1 vs Nightwick 1

Quick DM notes on running convention games:

• In addition to pre-gens, rolling 3-4 random encounters prior the to the game and giving them objectives really helps streamline and speed up the experience
• Also not the OSR way, but I might consider an alternative to the Death & Dismemberment table because again, you only have 3 hours to be 2 hours in and have a character die and have to mentally reset might not be what players want (in my home game, I am very much "If he dies, he dies)

PAINTING CLASS: Fun And Simple Weathering

Weathering is a great way to add character to scenery so I thought this would be a good class to take especially since I have a few pieces of dungeon terrain I'd like to give some weathering too. The class was really quite good and my big take away was (1) when applying rust, thing about how water pools on an object; (2) using a sponge to help streak slime; (3) how to apply small highlights for both.

This door is stuck...

PAINTING FUN: Sophie Says

Good times! Try and paint a miniature with a "cutie mark" while wearing oven mitts, using a paintbrush attached to a plastic axe, and while wearing 3D glasses. Or whatever else Sophie Says.

CON REPORT: ReaperCon 2024 Day 1

I might clean this up at a later date with more detail

 Back in action at one of the most steady con in Texas. I brought two ribbons to the con. The first was for my Nightwick Abbey game and the second is one of the nerdiest references I could think of which is the true nature of the "purple worm" in D&D.

I love this part of the con-
great tradition!

DUNGEON DWELLERS Session #1

This is a house system by Reaper Miniatures. It feels to me like an offshoot of 3.5 with some Swords & Wizardry twists thrown in. In the first session, I played a halfling thief who. with my companions, was in charge of guarding a caravan which included the very suspicious Wagon 13. 

• We were awoken in the night by the screams of guards due to orc's breaking through the treeline. As we mounted a defense, my halfling, Gulivan,  got off the first bow shot and an instant kill (I rolled a 22 to-hit and 8 dmg).
• Our wizard managed to "upcast" grease and start laying huge swaths of it in front of the circled wagons while our elf and fighter used cleave to carve up the orcs at a distance
• Worg riders posed our biggest trouble as they learned from the previous line of orcs to leap up on the wagons and avoid the oil. A good fight was had in which we were victorious.
• Orcs made off with the contents of Wagon 13-- total time for this one combat was ~2 hours

Miranda Elkins' NIGHTWICK ABBEY Session #1

After a short break, its on to Nightwick! Alright for this con game the players are tasked with finding the vicar. Down in the Abbey the PCs go. Pre-gen PCs: 4,5,10,13,17, grog,

• In interrogating the surviving alter boy, the players get a map of the first room and once in, they discover a secret door leading to a room awash in dried blood. They decide not to go any further-- because of copious amounts of dried blood
• A little while later they rescue a mixture of man and animal from a group of profane humans wearing the flesh of other men and experimenting on the poor creature: "I'm Bleeder. Because I bleed."
• A little while later after that, the "poor creature" attempts to lead the party into an ambush. Killing Bleeder quickly, they cower the remaining creatures--- who then direct them into another trap...
• After avoiding patrols of the dead, the PCs make it to the kitchen, where they find the vicar tied up like a roasted pig. They successfully turn the ravenous dead about to eat the poor foolish man and square off against the Butcher. In a hail of frogling gonne fire (roll max damage!) and a volly of arrows the PC fight off the Butchera and run out of the Abbey with the rancid butter-covered vicar and make it back!

DUNGEON DWELLERS Session #2

In a surprise, the Ruined Moathouse exterior is drawn on a vynal map to scale! So new "old-school system" and a classic adventure which was new to several members of the group.

• We faced off against 6 giant frogs
• Lassoed some of the rubble and claimed up into the lower right tower, webbed a giant adder, and dipped our weapons in its blood--- after almost poisoning ourselves in the process
• We F.A.R.T'ed on the doors (Find And Remove Traps; new to me), filled the upper right bandit hold with fog, and set the bandit therein on fire! Back to the hell pits of Orcus with you.
• Rounded things off by facing down more giant animals like we were in an early Ray Harryhausen file then called it a night-- all 250gp richer and at least my halfing having split a cache of magic arrows +1

The upper Moathouse to me is one of the best RPG adventuring sites made, especially for cons. The reason is because it first requires the PCs to break into the structure which is great for creating discussion and interplay between, broadly, fighters, magic-users, and thieves. The giant frogs outside are fun creatures to fight. And the bandits inside are generic enough to be anything or have any story attached to them. Even the giant lizard and spider have trust up people which could be conventions goals.

In all a good Day One!

CON JOB: Brief Reflections On Convention D&D

A last reflection on my con experience a few months back. Never hit post so thought I'd get it up later than "never".

CON Games are an interesting species of game to me because they feel like a sorta "exhibition one-shot". Maybe I put too much pressure on myself to rep BX D&D, ensure people have a good time, and ensure folks don't think I suck at DMing. For ReaperCon 2022 and 2023 I ran Through Ultan's Door and Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier.

I wanted to give people a micro experience with BX from rolling characters to dungeon delving. Rolling characters to showcase the speed of old-school D&D and dungeon crawling to showcase player-driven adventuring, instead of laying out signs painted with arrows toward the end.

The point of rolling characters is it showcases the speed with which characters can be created in BX. For both of my games, 6 players were about to roll complete characters with equipment and small backgrounds in ~25 min.

My two con games were four hours. But I really wish I had planned them for 3. First, because playing for 3 hours means you generally give folks a 1-hour "break" for them to do other things before the next slot starts. And second, it helps not to go overly long if it turns out it is not something folks are really into.

To me, the most difficult thing about con games is sticking the "landing" particularly when using dungeons which are more geared toward a more methodic 3-5 game session. By sticking a landing, you give the player the feeling of a completed arch and a sorta sense of accomplishment. For the Ultan's players that was getting the mark after a fight with the priests and follows of a rival god. For the Tomb Robbers players that was releasing then pledging loyalty to the Red Queen- a short narration gave them a sense of what that choice meant.

I can't decide if it is better to run something between a large battle map or a much smaller modular dungeon like the one Frank Mentzer supposedly ran in public games (redrawn here by Dyson Logos). 

And next year I will try and ask folks two things they liked and one thing they would want more of in a game just to better understand what folks want from a convention game.

REAPERCON2023 MICROBLOGGING: THU to SAT

REAPERCON 2023: Great fun! This was my second time going and I had an even better time than in 2022. If you found me and chatted, you got this ribbon: Moldvay Basic 1981

Classes I Took: ReaperCon has several classes on just about every aspect of miniature painting you could want and at all skill levels. I took two classes. The first was about the basic materials you need to get started patining and why. Most of the material was stuff you could find in your kitchen. The second was a class on basic painting techniques which really is understanding your mini needs just 3 colors: a base, a darker, thiner wash, and a dry brushed highlight color. Reaper sells triads for this and also ~5 color kits for different types of mini "ecosystems" like goblinods, undead, or adventurers.

Paint & Take: ReaperCon also has a large area where you can practice these skills. You just sit down at a table. Grab a random mini from the large pile on the table and start painting. Its really neat.

Games I Played: 

Dungeon Dwellers feels like if someone "5e'd" OD&D (check out the link). We investigated a puzzle involving the flashing of sewer fireflies and glowing tiles. We fought giant rats, dire rats, and rat-people. I never hit once as a fighter despite a +7 to-hit but yelled insults at those rats as if I did.

TMNT & Other Strangeness is a nostalgic classic for me as it was the first RPG I ever learned. The GM handed out 6 sheets with pre-defined character personalities (I got "neurotic" with a knife affinity) and then we had to roll our mutated animal. Sparrows. We ended up spending our mutant points on one more size of height, hull articulated hands and arms, and gliding ability. We fought rednecks, encounter Disneyland controlled by a 6ft tall mouse who hated commies, and liberated DJ Fuzzybutt in order to fix our own AI "parent".

Games I Ran:

Through Ultan's Door vol 1: Once again players are acolytes of the CULT OF THE SLUMBERING GOD (says the silver & blue ribbon) trying to get their "chosen one" through the titular door, avoid forces of opposing gods, and be anointed by the Weaver of Shadows. Unlike last year's players who died fighting the white swine, this year's party traveled by the sewers and then cut their way to the spider daemon to receive the mark-- after making a small sacrifice of their lone hiring gained in the mini-game we played before. As the DM I missed with all my attacks save for a single one where I nat 20'd the thief into an early grave- well the Death & Dismemberment table put them into a bleed-out state.

Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier: Back to a crystal-infected frontier! This years TOMB ROBBERS (as per my ribbon for the game) chose to first find Merkvy and boy they did. But they decide to quickly cut a deal with him and even acquiesce to his choice of loyalty oath (Tell me what's in the well to the south). This ends in their almost death so back for revenge they vicious cut the ill-fated former tomb robber down. And encouraged by finding his treasure and eventually find themselves in the same spot as last year's group in front of the "Red Queen". However, unlike last year's group, this group released the Queen and vowed allegiance to her. Scarlett Town wasn't the same. The players seemed impressed that was an actual written outcome.

Nightwick Abbey: I had an opportunity to run the hell-haunted Abbey "after-hours". The party's cleric was in search of Nightwick Village's vicar who was thought lost to the Abbey. The party's magic-user was in search of a fabled gold skull of wisdom. And the party's two fighters were in it for the gold. They were tricked by floating mad monks, interrupted a silent dance, turned that same hoard of skeletons (seriously rolled 9 then 12), blacked out and awoke in a columned hallway, were hunted by deermen, stalked by the mirror image of one of their hirelings (You know what you did in the woods Kevin!), gave offerings to the Abbey, and finally half of the party was tricked into crossing a pit-trap by "manimals". At that point, I found an "Escape the Dungeon Table" and the only person to make it out was the other hireling. Good job hireling Micheal✤.

While I am biased, Nightwick is still one of the easiest dungeons to use and run as a DM. All of the information you need for each room is laid right out in front of you. All the above was done in over a ~2 hour period.

People I Chatted With: Nice to get the opportunity to sit down and chat with the team from Swordfish Islands. I've run into them for several different cons now since PAXSouth (RIP). It always fascinates me to hear how the books get made and all the various steps to that. They also encouraged me to look towards ZineQuest as a potential place for the "Wine Dungeon".

✤ Here is a pretty workable hireling rules for con games. If you are randomly assigning equipment, players can offer up 1 piece of armor (min AC 12) & weapon (min 1d6 dmg) to earn a roll on whatever hireling table you are using. A shield or better armor/weapon gains a max +1 on that roll.

REAPERCON2023 MICROBLOGGING: WED

Attending REAPERCON 2023; since the dissolution of PAX South, this and NTRPGCON are my nearest gatherings of nerdom. Here are just some quick thoughts:

• While being part of the spectacle of is its own fun, I do think small cons are where it at. REAPERCON focuses a big part on miniature painting in addition to a pretty good stable of games
  
  
• The hotel bar staff is pumped as they all have gotten into the ribbon getting and have produced 9 specialty cocktails for the event (will try to post those)-- a lot of thought has gone into them
  
  
• A big thing about REAPERCON is the getting of badge ribbons. You can even get a ribbon for accidentally dipping your ribbon line in the toilet or if it touches the ground you get "DRAGON DIRT"
• I found a tiny duck hidden in the con and got the WHAT THE DUCK! ribbon
• Also quoted The Princess Bride to get another ribbon
• Pick a free set of dice for DICE FROM DANI
• HIGH LEVEL from playing some classic arcade cabinets they have here
• I've brought two ribbons for players in my games and one that's just MOLDVAY BASIC: 1981- gotta rep my fav ruleset.
  
  
• Also chatted with some of the pro painters
• One does just basic techniques with basic Reaper models in online classes which is cool and he his dad was into Nepolionics.
• The woman that I spoke with got into painting because she found her then-boyfriend-now-husband's box of old D&D stuff in the attic of his mom's house; she remarked on the very panicked look on his face initially; she's always loved small things and so got into painting
• Met a Swedish guy at the bar who was fascinated by all the goings on and thought a very good documentary could be made about it

"REAPERCON Necktie"