WID - Days 2 to 4
During Weekend in Dyvers I actually managed to play a sum total of 5 games, and judge 1. I told you about the first I got to play in my post WID - Day 1. I got to play a module on day 2, 2 modules on day 3, and 1 module between days 3 and 4. Day 4 was the day I got to judge.
The second was on Day 2, and was a module called “Unrequited Love” from “Legend of the Five Rings” (L5R) the RPG. It’s a d10 dicepool system based on the Asian world introduced in the card game by the same name. My character is a Water Shugenja from the Mantis Clan named Yorimoto Ping. A Sugenja is someone who interacts with and calls upon the “Kami” or nature spirits/gods in order to cast spells. A water Sugenga is one who’s power is strongest within the “Ring” or element of water. The Mantis clan is one of the Major Clans, but only recently became so compared to the other great clans. The Mantis, as the masters of the sea, are called pirates by some, and in truth some of their number did actually take this role.
I was released from my duties at the snack bar as we had several people available, and it would help to make a table. This was especially generous as I showed up to the con a bit late after I slept in, having set my alarm to the wrong half of the day.
I read most of the interactive ahead of time, but unfortunately, didn’t get it all done in time. Thankfully, we actually had extra judges, and I was also able to help with setup to help things move along more smoothly for the interactive. I wore myself ragged on day 2, trying to make up for showing up late, and was grateful to be able to drop into bed by the end. But to answer the only comment on the last post, yes, the con was fun.
I even got to eat at Famous Daves for lunch that day, and had pizza for dinner. For those that don’t know, Famous daves is a fairly expensive Barbecue restaurant chain in the Mid-west.
On day 3, I helped with setup, and manned the slot during the first slot, but during the slow parts, I began painting a free orc figurine using sample paint. I also bought some new gaming gear at the con. I got “Complete Scoundrel” a supplement for skill-based characters in D&D version 3.5. I also bought 5 “mount” chips, which are basically poker chips with creatures on one side of the center insert, and their stats on the other side. They’re just the right side to take up the space of a large creature on a map, and you can place your character’s figure in the center, so you can actually easily represent your character with only one figure, and have a single mount add on for all of your characters that use that mount type, and be able to keep track of their mount location when they aren’t mounted, rather than mixing and matching mounted/unmounted figures. I also got a “flaming sphere” figure for one of the area-occupying spells that is the one my druid character most commonly casts. I also got figures for some of my other characters.
During the second slot, I was excused to play a slot of L5R. The module’s name was Legacy of my Ancestors. It was a module set in my character’s lands, and I pretty much failed most of what I tried to do through out the module due to some very bad dice rolls.
During the last slot of the day, one of the players for our con wound up not being able to play anything because he found out he had actually played the game he was registered for that slot. As is usual fashion, we managed to make a table for him. Unfortunately, the gm, and 2 of the players were people that were helping out with the snack bar. Luckily, we weren’t needed except for the rushes, due to other people being on hand to help out, so it went fairly well.
That night I attended a slot of “Midnight Madness”, which is essentially a slot you play while others sleep. It’s not an officially scheduled section of the convention, but you can play any module that is slotted for the convention, so long as you can find both players and a DM willing to run the slot. I played my Cleric of Pelor, Brodi McDune, and for the first time in a very long time, I managed to find myself with other clerics of Pelor, in fact, I found myself with two clerics of Pelor, a healer, and some warriors. Taking into account that it was an introductory module (one of the few designed to be survivable for first level characters), and the fact that it had no traps (thus no need for rogues), we smashed through the module quite well.
On day 4, I manned the snack table up until I found out that a table wasn’t forming because the GM had unfortunately had to run and grab some additional soda for the snack bar (Gamers - caffeine = revolt), and since I had actually already played the module, and was able to get released, I agreed to run it for them. I was tired, and we were running in a limited time slot, so I had one of the players keep track of the initiative count, and another one looked up the monster for me in the Monster Manual, but we actually got through sooner than most other tables did, and I think everyone had at least somewhat of a good time.
By the end of the convention, I had a lot of fun, and re-connected with a group of friends I had to neglect for a while.