[New Magic Item] Bag of Bags

Sorry for the lack of posting. I'm not going to bore everyone with personal junk. Instead I will just dive into blogging again and hope for the best.

Over Christmas vacation last week, I got inspired for this new magic item. And given that it's a container, that means it belongs in the hallowed halls of...

Bag of Bags

This canvas satchel measures 12" long by 2" wide by 12" deep with a shoulder strap for easy carrying. Opening the bag reveals that it is filled to the completely with neatly folded burlap that appears to be sewn into the bag itself. No other items can be placed in the bag of bags. However, when the command word, a burlap sack may be withdrawn from the bag of bags.

The user determines the capacity of the sack when it is withdrawn (in cubic feet), but each bag of bags is limited to a total of 10d10 cubic feet of bags. The sacks themselves are very durable, but cannot carry more than 50 lbs per cubic foot of volume and possess no other magical properties.

Burlap sacks withdrawn from the bag of bags may be returned to it provided that there is at least 1 cubic foot of sack still within the satchel. Once the bag of bags is completely emptied, it becomes a non-magical canvas satchel with a carrying capacity of 10 lbs.

GaryCon V Recap Post- Part III: The Weekend

Ladies and gentlemen, sorry about the delay. This is Michael here, and I kinda agreed a while back to write up my last two days of GaryCon to get the lead-in to Dave's last two days. Sadly, I've been having a host of issues, so I've kept things delayed... a few months. I really need to finish this up. SO! Where were we?

Saturday started pretty well honestly. It was the one day Dave and I were going to be sharing two games, and the first game was Mutant Future. Or to be more accurate, using the Mutant Future setting to play out an episode of THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN! Ah, nostalgia and kids' shows. And the GM honestly rocked. ( +Tim Snider of The Savage Afterworld- Dave) I won't go too heavy into details, god knows Dave might want to, but this was a GREAT game, with the GM playing up the motif with the opening credits played on his laptop, as well as a commercial break. Lots of fun, imaginative playing of the setting, and honestly we really abused some of the opportunities we got. Great game and great start. I think we kinda beat it a bit early, got handed free settings books for if we wanted to do Thundarr ourselves, and went off to eat some before our next game. (Long story short, I managed to quadruplicate Ookla to defeat the enemy. -Dave)

Again, that was intended to be our first game, and I was looking forward to my second as well. See, the followup was a game of Dungeon! I really love that game, and I do need to get a copy of it myself. (I got one! -Dave) Wizards of the Coast did a reprint of the game so if you like board games, pick it up. Again, it was hosted by the creator of the game, who's name escapes me, Dave will probably correct it in. (David Megarry -Dave) And he told again the story of the game, showing the first edition and the tables it was originally played on. Very cool stuff. Sadly, I got to feeling unwell by the time the history was told, and had to excuse myself. So I got to miss out on the actual game itself. Went back to my room and rested most of Saturday away, using my laptop to keep in contact with people online and post some in forums. Even sick, I did some role-playing. Shush.

And that takes me to Sunday, and the last game on my list. The one I'd been looking forward to all con. Call of Cthulhu. Honestly, I'd never played it and I'd wanted to for SO LONG. I love the Lovecraftian setting and I really had been looking forward to it. By the time I got there, there were about five other players waiting, and more showing up as we settled in to talk and chat. Friends and people I'd met from prior cons, I was really looking forward to the game!

And the GM never showed up. Nobody knew what happened to him, where he was. Talked to the con staff, they had no idea what was going on. Table was bleeding players as people went to try and see if there were openings in second pick games when yet again the awesome con staff came through. There was someone with some experience in Call who was willing to GM for us. Great man, I REALLY wish I could remember his name (I am HORRIBLE with names) (Don't ask me, I was playing Traveler at the time- Dave) who more or less ran us through a condensed form of one of his basic sessions. Dave came along during the game, his own game plans kinda shot, and he sat to watch a good deal of the fun as we tried to investigate through a mysterious death and tragic murder. (No, my game went pretty well actually -Dave) All of it looked to lead up to an occult conspiracy and a plan to summon an elder god, and two of our impromptu group got captured by cultists and held in a prison under their base. The rest of us came in, not knowing they were trapped, and confronted the leader of the cult...

And I will admit part of this was my just being kinda tired and feeling ready to head home, but... When the cult leader asked us if there was anything he could say to get us on his side? I sold everyone out, kinda. I'd been hired, NOT paid, and had been working this nonsense without any hope of recompense. I think it rather tickled the GM that I was more than happy to be paid off, and my detective left the rest of them behind to cash his check and get on the first ship he could find to France, get as FAR away from all that nonsense as he could. Honestly? Great end to my last day.

Dave and I had already packed up the car so, we left. Got lunch at a nice out of the way place with... Crap. Dave, tell the rest of the story, my brain is pudding for names.

Afterwards we hung out with +Christopher Stogdill, +Carolyn Stogdill, +Paul Raasch and +Scott Schwartz at Hogs & Kisses in Lake Geneva for lunch before heading home. Overall, it was a great time.

In related news, GaryCon VI has officially been announced for March 27-30, 2014. For more information go to garycon.com

The GaryCon V Recap Post- Part II: Friday

[This is a continuation of the belated recap of GaryCon V that took place in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin last month. This recap also features my brother Michael as a guest blogger.

Also, I need to get this done so I can move on and blog about other things.]

Friday

One of the things I told myself I was going to do Thursday was to get everything together for the Shootout. That didn't happen, so for the second year in a row I was scrambling to get building models assembled and paper minis cut out. The glue sticks I purchased for the models didn't work at all, so I had to run back to Wal-Mart to buy tape. As for the minis, it turns out that I didn't have them with me when I left upstate New York. And my attempts to print out copies from the hotel's printer failed spectacularly as they didn't have any PDF viewers on their office computer. I decided to make do with the fantasy minis I used the day before and continued on. My only interruption being when Michael came back from his 9am game earlier than expected. I'll let him explain.

24 Days Till GaryCon! Writing a One-Shot

Out of the three games I'm running at GaryCon, only one is self-written. Writing a one-shot adventure isn't really that hard. It's just a matter of keeping a few things in mind.

Have a clear goal presented
Sandbox games work great for your home game. But for a one-shot game, having a plot of "You good. Monster bad. Save princess." is okay. Just make sure that you spell it out for the players as soon as possible so things get on track. At a con, you usually don't have to worry about people trying to derail your game.

Lose the random encounters
Again, another home game device that adds little to the convention game. Random encounters just slow the game down when you're doing a one-shot. Don't put an encounter in that isn't directly applicable to the plot, and your players won't feel that they're wasting their time.

Don't rely on any special abilities or skills to resolve things
Players can be funny in what they choose. As a result it's hard to predict whether or not they'll choose an ability or skill needed to complete the task you set out for them. If the players roll up their own characters, they may be out of luck come the finale. If you're using pregens, then you risk making the final encounter dependent on one individual. Keep your resolution dependent on the actions of the group and not an individual. That way you make it easier for everyone to have fun.

27 Days Till GaryCon! Memories of GaryCon IV: Day Two

I've decided to use the vlog from last year for Day Two as that is the day that gets covered the most in video.

 

29 Days Till GaryCon! Dragonstrike.

It's weird having there be less than thirty days until something, but still being more than a month away from it. Damn February.

[9:20:59 PM] David Lawson: Got a question for you.
[9:21:17 PM] Michael Lawson: Yes?
[9:21:31 PM] David Lawson: What else should we bring to GaryCon, game-wise.
[9:22:12 PM] Michael Lawson: We haven't used the board games, so I'm gonna leave them at home. Definately Gimme the Brain... You have any ideas?
[9:22:57 PM] David Lawson: I'm bringing Give Me The Brain. Planning on running a few rounds of it the day before the con and on Sunday.
[9:23:27 PM] David Lawson: I was hoping you could bring DragonStrike or Dragonlance.
[9:23:40 PM] Michael Lawson: I'll bring Dragonstrike then.
[9:23:50 PM] Michael Lawson: Easier to play.
[9:24:17 PM] David Lawson: Who wears the black turtleneck?
[9:27:07 PM] Michael Lawson: Never knew his name, won't be me. :P
[9:28:59 PM] David Lawson: John Boyle.
[9:33:07 PM] David Lawson: At least that's what IMDB says.
[9:35:25 PM] Michael Lawson: Huh

Feeling brave tonight?

Dragon Strike was one of TSR's later attempts to create a gateway game to D&D. It was a cross between a board game and an RPG. Like a board game it had boards (duh), dice and figures that the players moved around. Like a role-playing game, the boards were maps of dungeons, the figures came with profiles featuring various stats and spells from D&D. The "Dragon Master" was the GM of the game running various pre-written scenarios included in the game. But the 'hook' of the game was the VHS cassette that came with it that served as part instruction manual and part television show. The cassette was 'hosted' by the disembodied head of actor John Boyle, who served to run a group of unseen players through the game (we do see their characters) while explaining the rules to the viewers.

How brave? Brave enough to do battle with hideous monsters? Hmm?

Boyle's character appropriately hams it up in every scene that he is in. He reminds me of my high school friend Jake that used to insert huge amounts of minutiae in his descriptions of events in an attempt to make them more real. Though for some reason, everything smelled like ozone.

The cassette is pretty much the main thing anyone remembers about the game. But the game itself is worth playing at least once. It's really just a basic D&D game with pregens, pre-printed maps and plastic miniatures. I don't know how well it works as a 'gateway' game to actual role-playing games, since we got our copy years into playing AD&D. But if you're looking for a nice one-shot game to play with friends, you wouldn't be disappointed in Dragon Strike.

34 Days Till GaryCon! Memories of GaryCon IV: Part II

So Thursday started off with something new. Me sitting at a desk in my underwear desperately trying to get about nine paper building assembled in time for the shootout. I managed to convince Michael to help me ans soon we had our buildings done and I got some pants on. Things were looking up.

After a quick bite we went downstairs to find our table and get set up. I was a bit disappointed to see that we were at a small table shoved in the back room of the convention center. It wasn't until well into the game that we were actually given three tables and had that entire room to ourselves. Players began to line up, the majority from the Kenzer boards. Though I never took an actual count, I would say that we had at least a dozen players going. And despite having around twelve people gathered around the table, for some reason everyone seemed to be drawn towards the bathhouse for their starting position. It even got named the "Bathhouse of Blood" for all the kills that occurred around it. One of the highlights of the game when +Barbara Blackburn joined in, said "Take that you man-varmint!" and shot another character in the butt.

The game went for about three and a half hours before everyone had their fill and there was one player left standing. Since I didn't have much in the way of prizes to hand out, I had to settle for giving the winner the cheap paper model of the bathhouse as a reward.

After that I went to the Kenzer booth where I managed to get +Jolly Blackburn, +Barbara Blackburn, and +Steven Johansson to sign my special upside-down bound Hacklopedia of Beasts. Michael and I had ourselves some dinner and around eight o'clock we were back downstairs for some more gaming. This time I was playing HackMaster instead of GMing it. Our GM was +George Fields, the Ironman of HackMaster GMs. George runs more HackMaster games than the freaking Kenzer D-Team!

One thing that I like about making the switch from game master to player is that not only do I get a chance to get out from behind the screen, I also feel that by playing under other GMs makes me a better GM. It's nice to take a look at how other people interpret the rules and handle players. Even if you don't agree with how another GM makes a call, it does give you insight into aspects of the game you may have overlooked.

George's game wrapped close to midnight, and I was spent. Michael went on to do some more gaming that evening. Within two years he went from the timid guy unsure about even going to the convention, to socializing with strangers at a moments notice. I, on the other hand, went to bed for a much needed rest. After all, there were still three days of gaming to go.

36 Days Till GaryCon! What Is A Shootout?

Aces & Eights is one of those games I own but almost never play. I suppose my interest in it is due to the fact that the engine for A&8s was used as the base for HackMaster once the license for the AD&D 1e engine expired. I played in a beta of HackMaster "5th" at GaryCon I, and that piqued my interest in its Wild West predecessor. I especially like the move from a turn-based combat system to a count-based one that had a more dynamic feel to it.

I purchased the softcover version of Aces & Eights at Games Plus a few years back. And right away I found myself in the position of owning a game that no one else played, and therefore had no one else to teach me how to play. Fortunately the game comes with two sets of rules; Basic and Advanced. And it's with the Basic rules that the shootout comes into play.

The Basic Rules of Aces & Eights consists of the simplest things one needs to play the game: an Attack Modifier, a Speed modifier and Hit Points. Those are the only stats one needs for combat outside of weapon range and damage. The Advanced game has more in-depth stats fora typical RPG. But with the Basic Rules comes the opportunity for a "bigger" game as far as number of players goes. And that is where the Shootout comes in.

A Shootout is simply a big ol' gunfight like you would see in an old Western. Since the Basic Rules are all that is needed, character creation takes less than 20 seconds. From there you place your gunfighter on the board and go from there. My game on Friday, "Last Varmint Standing" is an everyone for themselves battle. Your characters move between buildings in the town and attempt to take out everyone else that is playing. And since character creation is so easy, a person that gets taken out and roll up a new character and re-enter the game in no time. The last player standing is declared the winner.

One of the buildings used in the shootout last year

Last year's game (which I will get into Friday) was a lot of fun and had a larger turnout than I expected. And it was really easy to get people who never played before into the game without slowing things down. I'm hoping for a similar turnout this year, and maybe a few more people joining in for a while. In the end, it will be guaranteed to an unpredictable but fun game.

53 Days Till GaryCon! Priorities.

This was from a Skype conversation with my brother this afternoon.

[12:12:17 PM] Michael Lawson: Remind me, if Monsters doesn't get many signups for it, I'm gonna sign in. I know the thing yes but at least it helps to have someone more there jic.

[12:17:00 PM] Michael Lawson: but, and this is terrible, I hope I don't have to because the Dead Game society is running a DC universe game in that morning. xO

[12:18:00 PM] David Lawson: Play your game. My game is the first RPG of the entire con. At the very worst I might need a co-GM for chargen. Just show up for Last Varmint Standing.

[12:18:18 PM] Michael Lawson: kk. And... ****. Can't sign in till the 27th anyway.

[12:18:21 PM] Michael Lawson: XO

[12:18:26 PM] Michael Lawson: I wanna buy seats now!

[12:18:47 PM] David Lawson: Me too. I'm playing Thundarr on Saturday.

[12:19:04 PM] Michael Lawson: I'm going to the noon seminar on Gary Gygax and TSR.

[12:19:11 PM] Michael Lawson: Because DAMN that's something I wanna hear.

[12:19:21 PM] Michael Lawson: I'm a huge nerd.

Heh. We all are Michael, we all are.

[12:47:38 PM] Michael Lawson: Blaaaah. That first day has too many good events.

[12:47:41 PM] Michael Lawson: I must look away.

Have strength baby bro.

58 Days Till GaryCon! Swag of Conventions Past

This one is going to be a short photoblog. Here in a nutshell is all the free stuff, or swag, that I have picked up from GaryCons II-IV.

Click for a larger picture

Front and center is a Hyperborea lithograph by Ian Baggley from GaryCon II. Going back and to the left (no JFK jokes please) are the other GaryCon II items: two issues of Knights of the Dinner Table that I already had and the Kingdoms of Kalamar Campaign Setting and Atlas for D&D 3.5. The Campaign Setting is actually maybe 5%-10% rule specific, the rest if mostly descriptive text with plenty of adventure hooks for the clever GM.

GaryCon III swag includes The Random Exotic Creature Generator by James Raggi IV, and The Cabal King by Jason M Cook and Jon Johnson; a tournament module that was supposed to be run at GaryCon II, but events conspired to keep it from being run.

For GaryCon IV, I have the commemorative GaryCon d4 (on the copy of The Cabal King) and the Castles and Crusades module Dwarven Glory by Stephen Chenault. Having never played C&C, it was an interesting read and has piqued my interest in the system.

While the main purpose if GaryCon is to play games and make friends, getting free stuff doesn't hurt either.

61 Days Till GaryCon! I Want To Play... Gamma World

It was the late eighties at Grandma's house. Knowing that there would be a few stretches with nothing else to do, I brought my copy of the Dungeon Master's Guide with me to read. As I was flipping through the pages, I came upon a section about converting AD&D characters to another game produced by TSR called Gamma World. I had never heard of the game before and wondered what it was about. From what I could gather it was a game set in a post-apocalyptic world that used similar mechanics to D&D. Having grown up on shows like Thundercats and Max Headroom, the idea of playing in a that kind of setting intrigued me. Sadly, I could never find the game at any of my local game stores.

In recent times the closest I have come to Gamma World is downloading the PDF of Mutant Future. But since GaryCon is the home of old-school RPGs, I'm hoping to fit a game into my schedule and cross another title off my role-playing game bucket list.

62 Days Till GaryCon! Memories of GaryCon III: Part II

Friday started with two things, sleeping in and rushing to get the store and back before noon. This was the first year we did a Wal-Mart run while staying at the con. It was necessary for two reasons. First, prices for food at a convention are always pretty high. And second, GaryCon always falls during Lent and as a practicing Catholic, I don't eat meat (except for fish/seafood) on Fridays during Lent. Since the hotel's dining selections consisted of burgers and hot dogs, I would have to go elsewhere for a decent Friday meal. The nice thing about this trip was that we were joined by +Derek White and +Emanuel Nordrum who also needed to hit the store.

Getting back before noon was also an issue because that was when my first game was. Unfortunately, a misprinting in the catalog meant that unless you pre-registered for the event, you didn't know that it existed. That meant only two people showed up for the event. Emmanuel and Paul, a person I knew from the Kenzerco forums. Michael graciously filled the third spot even though he had played the scenario before. This time I had pregens available and a balanced party quickly arose. The game went fairly well as I had made a few tweaks from the previous year. I almost has a TPK going but the players wisely retreated and regrouped to win the day.

Later that night, I traded my GM hat for my less-used player one and played in a HackMaster game. Everyone from my earlier game was there, which allowed me to get better acquainted with people. The game was run by the same guy that ran the Aces & Eights game I played in last year. I have to say that despite the 4 hours we were given, it felt short. While there was a bit of role-playing, the majority of the game was taken up by two combats that I guess ran longer than I thought they would. It did give me an idea of what to expect from higher level encounters in HackMaster.

Afterwards we hit the bar for a little bit. But sleep quickly tapped me on the shoulder and told me to call it a night. Michael, on the other hand, headed for a game of Are You A Werewolf. By the time he got back to the room I was asleep, getting much needed rest before my game on Saturday.

Next week: Top Secret!

64 Days Till GaryCon! You Gotta Be Kidding Me.

Two games that I am big fans of are Engines & Empires and Retro Phaze by John Higgins. I've had the privilege to play both with the creator when I lived in Indiana.

I've talked about both games in the past and I highly recommend picking up the free PDF versions of the games at the very least. I actually own a hardcopy version of Engines & Empires that I have gone so far as to tab so I can get to certain sections quickly. The print versions are relatively cheap compared to similar books. About $10 + S&H for Engines & Empires and around $7 + S&H for Retro Phaze.

So can someone tell me why Noble Knight is selling the print version of Retro Phaze for $30? And why are they listing it as out of print? It's not out of print, it's print-on-demand! I would hate to think that someone would see that and get the impression that Retro Phaze was not available or too expensive and give it a pass.

If you are looking for a new twist on Dungeons & Dragons, please give Engines & Empires a try. If you are interested in a game that simulates the old 8-bit console RPGs like Final Fantasy, take a look at Retro Phaze. And check out John's blog Playing Dice with the Universe and give him some feedback. John's a very creative guy and a real asset to the hobby. And I really want to see more from him. Maybe a little encouragement would help.

76 Days Till GaryCon! Memories of GaryCon II- Part 2

So Friday morning started with my Learn to Hack game and the table was packed. I had about 8 people signed up and all of them showed. Since this was the first time I was demoing a game for people, I was concerned that I wouldn't have enough time. Back then you registered in four hour blocks, and I was sure I needed at least six hours to get things done. So I signed up for two sessions with the plan to take as long as was needed.

The session went really well as far as the players went. The thief was a combat machine taking out kobolds left and right while the dwarven mage struggled to keep up with the rest of the party. By the end of the session, my voice was almost gone and I retired to my room for a few hours before returning to the floor to chat some more with +Derek White, +David Kenzer and +Jolly Blackburn. At the end of the day, we hit the bar where a bluegrass band was playing. We took in the sounds and enjoyed a few adult beverages before calling it a night.

The next day started very slow. Originally, I had anticipated needing to work that morning as at the time I had a part-time teaching job. But since the class I was supposed to teach was cancelled, I had my morning free. So I set out for the Chicago suburbs to drag my brother kicking and screaming to GaryCon.

This is the face of a man who wanted to sleep in on Saturday.

Michael was quickly introduced to the Geekpreacher. Michael quickly apologized for not talking much as he described himself as "socially awkward". To his credit, Derek pointed out that the fact that showing up for the convention meant that he wasn't really socially awkward. He elaborated further that since gaming is a social activity, no one at GaryCon could truly be socially awkward. This improved Michael's mood considerably as we coined the new phrase "awkwardly social" to describe your typical gamer.

My brother had brought his copy of Mertwig's Maze with him to the convention in case anyone wanted to play. It didn't take long for him to find out that the game's creator, Tom Wham, was at GaryCon. So with that in mind, he spent the afternoon working up the courage to ask for an autograph. Meanwhile, I prepared for the game I was playing later that night. At about 9pm, in the middle of a tension-packed game of Aces & Eights, Michael came to my table to let me know that not only did he get the game signed, he also got to sit down and talk to Jean Wells for about ten minutes. "I had to go back to the room and geek out," was his reply afterwards.

The Aces & Eights game ended early due to an impromptu shootout on the train. So my brother and I grabbed the Geekpreacher and his buddy Redd and headed to the bar to play Give Me The Brain and The Red Dragon Inn. The next morning we took part in The Lodge's breakfast buffet before heading for home. On the ride home my brother, who not more than 24 hours earlier was peeved at the thought of going to Lake Geneva, turned to me and said, "Next year, I'm taking time off so I can attend the entire convention."

And thus a family tradition began.

(EDIT- "Awkwardly social" is the term we came up with. Not 'socially awkward' which already exists.)

81 Days Till GaryCon: More Pre-Gen Prep

Despite spending the entire morning hopping from airport to airport and battling a head cold that waited until the day I went on vacation, I managed to get the start on two more pre-gens for my D&D game at GaryCon. This time I am adding a cleric and a magic-user to the mix. Both are based on 120,000 XP, so the magic-user is only 7th level compared to the 8th level PCs we have seen.

82 Days Till GaryCon: I Want To Play... Shadowrun.

So, how did that End of the World thing treat you yesterday?

Yeah, truth be told the Mayans used the word world as a synonym for era. So while the Fifth World came to an end yesterday, the Sixth World began today. It is the dawning of a new time.

How do I know this? Simple. I played Shadowrun.

While I started with D&D and Marvel and currently play HackMaster, the majority of my gaming time was devoted to running a Shadowrun campaign for my brother and his friends that lasted a lot longer than most gaming groups do. We ran the gamut of all character archetypes and mission scenarios, and throughout it all, it never got boring.

Shadowrun is a cyberpunk meets urban fantasy role-playing game that was originally put out by FASA and has changed hands a few times since I stopped running it after the change from 3rd to 4th edition. The main setting is a dystopian future of the mid-to-late 21st Century. A series of disastrous events at the start of the century result in a radical reshaping of the world, especially North America.

Also, for reasons that few can understand, magic has returned to the world. This coincides with people changing into dwarves, elves, orks and trolls. By the time things 'settle down', magic and cybernetic implants are commonplace. Almost all computer work is done via virtual reality. And most importantly, the largest corporations in the world exist as micronations within the countries that they do business.

That's where the players come in. These 'megacorps' are in such violent competition that they hire mercenaries to perform covert operations, or 'shadowruns'. And that is where the players come in.

This was the first game I played where you really weren't encouraged to be the good guy. Granted games like D&D and Palladium gave you the options to be evil. But Shadowrun's premise is that nine out of ten times, your character is kind of a scumbag. You are willing to work under the table for large faceless corporations as a criminal with the knowledge that of all goes wrong, your employer and your target have no problem killing you. And on top of that you usually don't have the desire or the ability to be a respectable member of society. You do your job, buy your gear on the black market and dodge the cops every step of the way.

Now, my players did tend to veer towards the moral side of the moral/amoral/immoral spectrum. But just as often, they caused mayhem for everyone around them. Near the end of the campaign, they were basically setting themselves up as a small army with a 'legitimate' business as a cover. A criminal enterprise in the making, paid for with theft, destruction and death.

And it was a lot of fun.

89 Days to GaryCon! I Want to Play... Marvel Super Heroes

While Dungeons & Dragons was the game that got me started in role-playing, most of my younger days was spent playing a different game. Being a young geek, I was very much a comic book fan, particularly of Marvel Comics and their flagship hero Spider-Man. So when I was that TSR had created a role-playing game based on Marvel, I made sure to grab it right away.

It has been a while since the classic Marvel Super Heroes RPG (lovingly called FASERIP by fans based on the acronym for the characters stats) has been in print. But after playing it and a few other supers RPGs, it is clearly the best one out of all on them. The main reason is that while other games tried to find ways of simulating the powers and abilities of super heroes, Marvel Super Heroes set out to simulate the feel of being in a comic book environment. And that is a major difference.

For example, let's say you have a super-hero that can generate ice blasts. In other games, you buy the power 'Ice Blast'. The 'Ice Blast' power lets you do a certain amount of damage at a certain range. Now let's say you are facing a group of foes, and you want to freeze the ground beneath them to skip them up. They do it in the comics all the time, so you feel you should be able to do it as well. The problem is that according to the rules your 'Ice Blast' is only good for doing damage at range, and that's it. If you want to do your ice slick trick, you need to buy that power separately or you don't get it at all.

Compare this to FASERIP where you want to try the same thing using your Ice Generation power. The Judge considers all the variables: the area of effect, the range of your power, the level of your power and maybe a few other factors (like if the ground was wet or there's a fire surrounding you), and determines just how effective such a stunt would be. In fact, stunt is an appropriate word because that's how the game defines such a task. Using the Power Stunt system the character can pull off tricks like freezing the ground with an ice blast even though by default the power just does ice damage at a given range.

In fact, such stunts not only allowed but encouraged, since there is a limit to the number of actual powers a character can have. I remember my brother playing a hero whose only powers were the ability to turn into a nigh-invulnerable strong man with the ability to make great leaps in the air. He came up with the idea of using his hero's leaping power as an attack, using his highly-developed leg muscles to do more damage than he would do with a punch. It's that kind of creativity that the system allows that lets a player exceed what would normally be a limitation of the system. And it's what made Marvel Super Heroes a great game.

Hopefully, the event catalog for GaryCon V should be out soon. And I know someone is going to run a game of Marvel Super Heroes, and I'm going to be at that table with my old red and blue mud d10s ready to rock.

On an unrelated note: I've decided that Saturday will be the day I talk about the games I want to play at GaryCon. So if you liked this post, be sure to check in next week for more.

92 Days to GaryCon! Other Stuff

While this series is about me counting down the days until GaryCon, it doesn't mean that everything has to be GaryCon related. At least, not directly that is. I do have a play-by-post game that I have been running for close to eight months now. And I am now playing in another play-by-post game.

The archipelago campaign has started up again with the party being charged to find fresh water on the island after the discovery of orcs being present. The party has managed to get themselves a packbearer in the form of a laborer named Jefel. They also had their first encounter with the human natives of the island, though the unintentionally scared them off. So now they are on their way through a path they have discovered in hopes of finding the native's village and hopefully water and allies as well.

The game is started playing in uses the Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP) system and is set in the "Nightmares of Futures Past" setting from the X-Men comics. My character, Inferno, is a mutant with the ability to control and transform into fire. We only just got started, so nothing has happened yet to really write about. But it will be nice to be a player again since I'm usually on GM duty.

In a way this is related to GaryCon since the entire reason I am going is because I'm a gamer. And since I don't have a group of my own at the moment, it's nice to have something available until March.

96 Days to GaryCon!

As I mentioned three days ago, I am running two games at this year's GaryCon. But I'm debating adding a third game. Specifically running the adventure "Steaks" from AD&D 1e's Adventure Pack I. The only thing that's keeping me from committing is deciding when I would run it. One of the problems I have had at past conventions is trying to fit too much in and burning myself out. So if I do run a third game, it will either be early in the weekend, or early on Sunday when things are dying down. I'm also debating tweaking things a bit and running it using Engines & Empires. But as I said, nothing is decided just yet.

99 Days till GaryCon!

Laserbeak: Prepare to Roll for Initiative!

Prepping for a gaming convention means figuring out what you will and will not be bringing with you on your trip. There are a lot of essentials that one must remember to bring to a convention. And since I have 100+ days to blog about it, I'm going to stretch it out as much as I can. But I guess a good place to start is deciding what books to bring.

As you can see from the above picture, I have a decent collection of game books. This year I am running two games, a HackMaster 'Learn to Hack' session and an Aces & Eights shootout. Now for the shootout, I'll need my Aces & Eights book since I'm not as innately familiar with all of the rules, plus I'll need to verify things from the tables. For HackMaster, I'm running the same adventure I've ran at the last three GaryCons, Monsters in the Barn (which you can get a copy of in HackJournal #39 if you are so interested). Since I know that adventure like the back of my hand, I won't need to bring as much with me as far as needing material to refer to, HackMaster Basic is more than sufficient. However, I will likely be playing in a few games as well, so bringing my Player's Handbook is going to be a priority. I also have a 'unique' version of the Hacklopedia of Beasts that I would like to get signed by the rest of the Kenzer D-Team, so I should bring that too.

As for the other books, I am planning to play in quite a few other games while I am there, otherwise why show up at all? But in a lot of those games, I probably have the rules down pretty well, or I'll be sitting down as a newbie and learning from the other players. At best, I might bring my Rules Cyclopedia or Pathfinder Core Rulebook. But I don't know how much use I'll get out of them.

There's one other book I'll be bringing with me to GaryCon, though it has little to do with gaming.

Since I moved to upstate New York, my only way of getting to GaryCon is by plane. But since there are no direct flights from Elmira to O'Hare, that means a layover in Detroit. I got into the James Bond novels after Casino Royale came out a few years ago. Nowadays, I only seem to read the books when I'm at the airport. I'll probably need to grab The Spy Who Loved Me before I leave since I'm sure I'll be done with Thunderball over Christmas.

Any other game book/reading suggestions? I do have plenty of time before GaryCon to grab a few more.