Tag Archives: UCON

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UCon 2019 Post-Con Post

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UCon 2019 ended on Sunday, November 24 and I am finally writing about what happened. I mentioned what was on my schedule in my last post.

Pick Up Games

Brendan LaSalle, Clayton Williams, Laura Pirkola

I met up with friends Thursday night and we had a pick up game of my card game. Laura Pirkola and Clayton Williams invited me to join in a pick up DCC [Affiliate Link] game with Brendan LaSalle. It had a hard start time so we didn’t get through the full card game as we had many interruptions. The most important of which was ordering a pizza. This was critical as I got so busy with packing and so forth before the two hour drive, that I didn’t have lunch.

Brendan describing the situation.

The DCC scenario was play testing something that should be appearing as a new module sometime in the future. I don’t recall if there was a specific time frame or not. We ended up playing two characters each, until we were joined by another husband and wife who joined in at the halfway point. It was a great time, as always with Brendan.

I stayed up way too late visiting with friends in the lounge. I didn’t get to my room until 2:30 AM, and took forever to fall asleep. Then I kept waking up. Part of the issue was being dehydrated as I hadn’t had enough water during the day, then had a tall glass in the bar, after a short glass during DCC and pizza.

Hommlet

My copy of Village of Hommlet

I slept as long as I could before going down for breakfast before my morning game, where I ran Village of Hommlet [Affiliate Link]. I realized I had forgotten to grab my 1e DM screen when I packed up all my table copies of the Player’s Handbook. It seems I no longer had the PDF of the DMG [Affiliate Link] on my Dropbox nor my I got on my Google Drive. So I got on my DriveThruRPG account, since I purchased the PDF, I can just download it again…. NOT.

For some reason, I could not find it in my library. Next, I tried pulling up the PDF on its listing. Turns out I found a bug in the mobile site. On the desktop version of the website, you can click on the product listing for something you’ve already purchased, and it gives a link labeled, “Click to get it.” I got on Discord and mentioned it to the DriveThruDiscord and they said to report the issue, it’s probably a bug. [Which reminds me, I need to report it if it is still an issue after I finish this post.]

I only needed it for the combat charts. I then looked up the Target 20 System mechanic. When we were at the table, one of the players had the DMG on their tablet, so I used that to track combat, turning undead, etc. I planned on 8 players, but one person really wanted in, so we squeezed in nine players plus me around the table.

My PHB I got for Christmas the year it was released.

All of my other preparations were in place. I had five table copies of the Players Handbook [Affiliate Link] for players, plus my copy. I had them all sign my copy. This is the original, well-worn copy I got for Christmas back in the day. I’ve also gotten it signed by several TSR notables from back in the day. Sadly, not Gary or Dave.

Players in the Hommlet game.

I also have 18 AD&D Characters I created. I have form-fillable PDF character sheets for each one, and I update their information for each level. So I always have a stock of characters for whatever AD&D adventure I run at a con.

The players had a great time. I started them at the gate house instead of making them start at the edge of town and figure out where to go. Most of my rolls were in the party’s favor. Things such as surprise, finding secret doors, etc. While they did not manage to find the big bad and his minions, they did find the ghouls and it was a near fought thing. The best fighters were getting paralyzed and they were just not hitting the ghouls. In the end, they bested the ghouls and we were out of time.

In the various instances of combat, some had been knocked down and I used the -10 HP is death in AD&D. They were stabilized and clerics were able to give them enough HP to have positive HP. I handle negative HP as serious and the player is unconscious for one hour per point of negative. This forces characters to be encumbered with an unconscious character, if they push on, or having to find a place to rest in relative safety. They were all experienced players and chose to hole up and rest each time players were incapacitated.

During the ghoul fight, several characters went into negative HP. They were pretty chewed up, but had find some nice treasure. I didn’t keep track, but I don’t think it would have been enough XP for 9 characters to level.

Boot Hill

Boot Hill sequel to last year’s game. The two in the middle played last year.

Last year, I ran a Boot Hill 2e [Affiliate Link] game, A Posse For The School Marm. All of the players asked for a sequel for next year. So I brought a sequel, Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch , that we played Friday night at the same table as Hommlet that morning.

Two of the players from last year made it, and brought their character sheets. The group played smart and rolled well. The rules for Boot Hill 2e [Affiliate Link] are very light. I realized I was not using an option that would have made the gunfights last longer. I made the big bad tough, but not fast enough. The players grabbed the pregens that had the fastest characters, which I forgot I rolled some really nice scores for the pregens. (Why can’t I roll that well for my own characters?)

We had a lot of fun and there were requests for another sequel, so I will have to scratch my head on that one. I didn’t have a ready made scenario like I did after last year.

I ended the day in the bar, but went to bed earlier. I was able to sleep in as I didn’t have my first scheduled game until 8:00 PM Saturday.

Macchiato Monsters

I slept in Saturday and got in on a game of Macchiato Monsters [Affiliate Link] ran by Brett Slocum. I had a play games all weekend pass, which makes it easy to slip into games with openings.

I had never played Macchiato Monsters [Affiliate Link] , but it is described as a cross between Black Hack [Affiliate Link] and White Hack. I’ve played Black Hack and have both 1st and 2nd edition. I’ve never seen nor played White Hack.

It has a great deal of freedom in character creation and requires players to be creative, as one chooses a self-defined character within the parameters set by character creation.

It was a fun time and a full table. We all played as a team and ended with a whirlwind wrap up by the GM, as there was more module than time would allow, but we got a feel for the rules. It is much more reliant on role play but dice do come into play. Creativity and an open mind are key. I’m definitely intrigued and will look into picking up both Macchiato Monsters [Affiliate Link] and White Hack.

NOTE: White Hack is only available on Lulu and does not have a PDF.

Playtesting The Card Game

Ready and waiting for the players.

While I have had lots of playtesting of the card game at two game stores, two Gary Cons, two Marmalade Dogs, and now two UCons, this was the first time I had a playtest on the official schedule at a con. This was also the first time I had played in the board game area. I had strolled through it just to see what was going on in prior years.

I had one person pre-registered, and two other players for the first round of playtesting. One player, the youngest, in his 20’s left before the first hand was played. He went to join a game one of his friends was running. I had one person walking by who we invited to join the second game.

The consensus was that they all liked it, but felt it needs something more. The big thing is the game lasted nearly an hour. This is because the end condition for the game is dependent on how long it takes for a control card to come up twice. In this case, it was very late in both halves of the game.

While I understand the suggestions, it runs the risk of either breaking something that works, or making a very simple game more complex. It is interesting that about half the players who have played it, likes the rules as is, and the other half want something more.

I have some ideas for how to have two ways to play, a simple rules default and a full rules option.

In the current rules, each card does one thing. That is the strength of the rules. The challenge is to have additional rules and options for some cards that will not break the game or make it overly complicated.

I also honed my elevator pitch for the card game: Each player is building their own army in the midst of challenges. The player with the largest army (most points) wins.

All in all, I had great feedback from people who play a lot of games, and one of them also designs his own games. He had a WWII war in the Pacific naval simulation that I and another player from the playtest played after the time was up. It was a lot of fun and while it needs a bit of polish, I look forward to seeing it again next year.

The game developer player’s game partner stopped by midway through the WWII game and they are working on a space combat game that they have been playtesting at conventions for several years, including Gencon. They had a game slated for the next morning and invited me to join. I was very intrigued by their description.

[Earlier today I got the first piece of complete line art in preparation for the coming Kickstarter. I’ve got concept sketches for over a dozen cards, and hope to have many more soon.]

Space Combat Game

Setting up for the battle.

The name of the game is Star Blast. This was the last play test prior to publishing. Their plan it to put the rules on DriveThruRPG to get it out there, then do a Kickstarter to make a board game out of it.

They use Excel to make the ship sheets. Each ship has sensors, power, shields, weapons, etc. This very loosely reminds me of the original Star Fleet Battles from the mid 80s. I played a lot of Star Fleet Battles with my brother, Robert, and our friend Darryl.

Another player and I were space pirates out for resources. The other team represented the system with the resources. We had a railgun battle cruiser and a torpedo cruiser and a beam cruiser. They had a carrier with two fighter squadrons and a frigate. Our ships outclassed theirs.

We won almost all of the rolls to determine turn order. The first turn we elected to let the other team go first, so we could react to them. We then tried to move in and find a clear shot. There were lots of asteroids and gas clouds that limited the effectiveness of long shots.

I commanded the torpedo cruiser and beam cruiser. I moved to intercept and fired on their frigate and got a long range hit. Their carrier moved to a certain range and released fighters, then it got behind a gas cloud. The fighters and the frigate did some damage to one of the light cruisers, but damage control repaired it.

Our side focused on the fighters before they could get back to the carrier to get more torpedoes. We managed to hurt them a bit. Another few shots on the frigate and it had “fires”. Since a fire in space could easily be put out, it was explained that fire was shorthand for cascading system failures.

The damage control rules required a certain roll on a d6 to repair. One either failed to repair, or the roll revealed that damage control discovered the system was irreparable. The problem with fires is if you don’t put them out, there is a chance they spread.

That is what too out the frigate. It had a huge number of fires and eventually it fell apart.

My torpedo cruiser took a few hits as it went in to help the battle cruiser against the carrier and the fighters. The battle cruiser just couldn’t line up a killing shot on the carrier. We managed to shrink one fighter squadron, but the weapon on the carrier plus the speed and torpedoes of the fighters started fires on the torpedo cruiser and those fires multiplied until it was weakened enough that it basically fell apart.

We reduced the fighters some more, but time ran out before we could line up fatal blows to the carrier. The pirates won the scenario as we had the most ships remaining.

The frigate was no match for our ships and was better suited to screening the carrier than trying to face us. The fighters with their speed and torpedoes were killer if the carrier was in a safe position to launch and able to recover them for re-arming with their tough weapons. Fighter also had beams, but had to be in close.

I had a lot of fun, and had not played any sort of miniatures battle since the early 90’s. I am looking forward to seeing this released. When I know more, I will be sure to mention it hear and on the podcast.

Final turn of the battle before one of my ships was destroyed.

Farewells

I said my goodbyes to those who left before I did. I joined friends in the lounge to chat for a couple hours before I decided I better head home before dark. I really didn’t want to leave. I’m looking forward to next year.

You can hear the companion podcast here.

RPGs

UCon 2019

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I will be at UCon 2019 in Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor, Michigan this weekend (November 22-24). I leave today and will enjoy the pre-con catch up with friends and pick-up games. Here’s a link to the PDF of the Con Book.

Friday morning, I will be running the AD&D [Affiliate Link] module, Village of Hommlet T-1 [Affiliate Link] . This is an homage as this was the first thing I ever ran as a DM/GM at a convention. That was at Marmalade Dog, here in Kalamazoo, a few years ago. I am now much better at running convention games. Since I put in the time to learn this module all those years ago, I wanted to give it a go and do a better job. I know I can do a lot better than when I ran it the first few times at Marmalade Dog. [You can see all my posts that mention Hommlet here.]

Friday evening, I will run a follow up scenario to last year’s Boot Hill 2e [Affiliate Link] adventure, “A Posse For The School Marm.” At the conclusion of the game, all the players asked for a sequel. I just had to oblige them. I hope I do it justice. [You can see all my posts about Boot Hill here.]

Saturday evening, I’m scheduled for 4 hours to have play testing of my card game. I will also be available for pick up games for those who are interested. The art is not moving as fast as I want it to, so I’m trying not to get ahead of myself.

As always, I look forward to some me time out of the house and away from work. Visiting with friends, making new friends, and playing games is a great mini vacation. If you’ll be there and we haven’t met, I’m the one with the black Follow Me, And Die! T-Shirt. I have several of them so I can wear one each day.

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UCon 2018 Recap

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I talked about my Ucon 2018 experience on my podcast. But I want to share pictures, so here’s a blog article. I did share pictures to various social media, but I wanted to have them all in one place so they are found more easily. I also have some pics I didn’t get shared to social media.

While the lobby restaurant/bar was not as packed as years past, the con itself was well attended. There were three other cons this weekend, the two closest were Gamehole Con in Madison, WI and Con On The Cob in Ohio, and the Mace convention in North Carolina [EDIT 13 Dec 2022 – URL no longer exists & not in the Internet Archive]. On the podcast, I incorrectly said it was Pax Unplugged in PA. PAX Unplugged is the last week of November.

I got busy and didn’t sign up for games before the con. I got an all access pass, so any game with an opening, I could drop in and play.

I saw several old friends, and met some new friends face to face, and made more friends.

Thursday night, I ran into a couple of friends and made a new friend, and the four of us played my card game. They liked it, and had some suggestions for the two player game. I also played a two player game Friday night with one of the 3 players who played in the first two games at Gary Con 10 in the spring. Since the last rough edge was knocked out in the third game, he hadn’t played it in it’s current form. He really liked the change, as it dealt with the one issue I hadn’t worked out yet.

Thursday night play test of the card game at the bar.

I ran my Gamma World [Affiliate Link] scenario, Vault of the Ancients at 9 am Friday morning I had a sold out table of 8 players, and one of them didn’t show. Last year in that time slot, I was going to run Metamorphosis Alpha and had one player, who decided to go to another game rather than attempt a solo game. I forgot to get a picture of the table during play. We had a blast and lots of laughs.

1st session of my DCC funnel.

Friday Afternoon, I ran my DCC [Affiliate Link] funnel, Amongst the Fungus, with 6 players and they all had a blast and liked the weirdness of it. I had calls to publish it, which I am considering, but need a lot of writing, polishing, and play testing.

Saturday morning, I slept in and took my time to review things for my evening Boot Hill game, since I hadn’t played it in at least 35 years.

2nd session of my DCC funnel.

Saturday Afternoon, I ran my DCC [Affiliate Link] funnel, Amongst the Fungus with 5 players and they also enjoyed it. I love how the play test on Roll20 ended one way, and each con game was also a different game. For both games, I used a table of 200 items from Doug Kovacs, that Doug and Adam Muszkiewicz, and some other DCC game masters use. It’s up to the players to decide what those items do and can be used for. For some, it’s just a role playing device, for others, they might help advance the adventure, or solve problems. It’s all up to the players to be creative and use their imaginations.

My Boot Hill 2e session.

Saturday Evening, I ran my Boot Hill 2e [Affiliate Link] game, A Posse For the School Marm. The 6 players were ready for the game. All but one, a young woman, had played before. The young woman I think her name was Laura was so excited to play that she bought the PDF, printed it off, read the rules, and generated a character. She had read the rules and understood them, and was so eager she was looking up things as part of our prep before I could get to them. I had pregens, but gave her the choice to use a pregen or her self made character, and she chose her self made character. The players accomplished their goals and ended up with a lot of money and decided to pool it and buy a ranch. They has so much fun that they asked if I could run a game next year to find out what happens to their cattle ranch. I’ve always had players like the games I run, but this is the first time that any have asked for a sequel! I am pumped and am definitely starting to think how that might work.

Sunday Morning, I finally played in an RPG session at UCon. I played my first game in the Contessa track.

Stacy Delorfano was the UCon special guest two years ago, and I was there Thursday night and was asked to help give guests a ride to the guest welcome dinner, since I’m friends with a couple of the con staff, and my youngest son was with me and we gave Stacy a ride. So she remembered me when we ran into each other either Friday or Saturday night this year between games.

She played in the game ran by Emily Danvers, in a game they are working on. I found out that Contessa plans to open a publishing arm and will help those who are marginalized get their name on a published item, to give them a leg up with larger publishers.

The game is an OSR based system, using the standard 6 abilities, but wisdom was renamed to Spirit. The game is a werewolf theme, where the players are all werewolves in addition to having classes. Character generation was easy. We each got a note card that had the name of our class, and only the abilities that had positive bonuses. Abilities not listed were +0. Each class also had a couple of skills they could use, like hacking, healing, combat, and one skill that could be used to give a player advantage. There was also a Rage track where if you failed something miserably, you had to roll a DC to see if you lost control and became a wolf. To start the DC is 2, and each time you check it goes up. Some particularly challenging things cause the DC to go up before you roll the check. We also got to pick from a group of cards a personality trait and two background cards. My character was a spiritualist with an anxious personality and was a conspiracy theorist and had a spiritualist background. A spiritualist can identify paranormal, non-human things and communicate with the magical overlay on the WWW.

We had a good time with lots of laughter. One round of play, everyone was rolling 1’s and failing miserably. I rolled a 1 on my Rage check and became a wolf, and chomped onto a chain of a possessed whirly theme park ride and was struggling like a dog you can pick up on the end of a rope in tug of war. I may have been the only straight guy there, I guess the term is cis, and was definitely the oldest. I think the ones who didn’t know me were a little skeptical of my presence until they got to know me.

This was the first time I had ever played in a game that used the X card. I understand it better, but not enough to explain it properly. 

I caught up with several friends, I’ve lost track of what days I spoke with each of them.

Donn Stroud author of Dead Planet [Affiliate Link] for the Mothership game
[Affiliate Link]is a friend I knew online. UCon is his local con as he only lives a few miles away. I bought Mothership [Affiliate Link] and Dead Planet 
[Affiliate Link]. Then he signed them. I have yet to find time to read them. Donn is working on more adventures for Mothership [Affiliate Link]. Donn flattered me by telling me he had my PDFs from DriveThruRPG and liked them!

Adam & Katie Muszkiewicz and Stanley made it and Adam & Donn talked a bit. They have several episodes recorded of Drink, Spin, Run, and may release them. Life gets in the way, so they haven’t recorded new episodes.

My schedule didn’t match up with Brendan LaSalle’s until Sunday afternoon, but he was running the scenario he ran at UCon two years ago, so I didn’t get to play, but we did catch up a bit between games.

I also saw BJ Hensley and got to talk with her briefly, She was another special guest. I met her at Gary Con 10 earlier this year.

One of the vendors, whom I know, John Reyst of D20PFSRD had something come up and had to cancel last minute, so the small room full of vendors was a bit less crowded than in years past.

I had a great time. I’m tired and thinking about what is next, which is submitting games for Marmalade Dog before December 31, and getting my Gary Con submissions in.

If you’ve never been to a convention, I recommend it. Keep in mind that a small local convention may not be an example of a great convention, but they are more affordable and give you an opportunity to play with new people and new GMs and new game systems. If you like board games, you can get your fill of them at cons.

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Locating A Convention

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I’m always advocating attendance at game conventions, especially the ones in your home state, or even in the town where you live.

Today’s podcast talks about UCon and Gamehole Con, and shares links to websites that list known conventions. I include the past two posts on the blog, plus one new to me site. If you know about a convention listing site not listed below, please let me know.

My most recent prior post on this is Where Can I Find A Gaming Convention? and Gaming Convention Clearing House.

List of Sites

Here’s the list of sites, so you don’t have to pick them out of the above blog posts:

I also talk about conventions on today’s Podcast.

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UCon 2016 in Ann Arbor, MI

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This weekend is my second con – Ucon, after Gamehole Con last weekend.

After my failed attempt to blog each day of Gamehole Con, I won’t attempt it at UCon. I’m also running four games and my youngest son, Zach, is coming with me for his first con. He is 19 and not sure what he is getting into. I’m sure he will have fun seeing his dad in a different environment.

I’m looking forward to catching up with friends I haven’t seen for awhile, and some of the same ones I just saw at Gamehole last week. I will also me online friends in real life, and of course, make new friends.

I have most things packed and ready to load in the car.

Tonight is session 130 of the weekly AD&D game I play in on Roll20. Before last week’s session, I had just over 800 hours on Roll20. Now it says 810, so should be about 814 when we break at midnight. So after tonight, I will have played about 30 hours of various RPGs, and will add 16 hours of running games, and I think another 16 hours of games I play in. Wow, that will be over 60 hours of gaming in a week and a half! It’s been a long time since I’ve played so much in so short a time. Thankfully not the sleep deprived super marathon all weekend sessions we used to do in high school and college.

I’m still dragging from Gamehole Con, so hopefully, my internal clock lets me sleep in a little tomorrow.

I’ve got some articles and other things in the works with Multiverse, after meeting with Jayson Elliot, of the new TSR, at Gamehole Con, so I’m looking forward to that once I’m back from the con and things settle down.

May you all enjoy your weekend and if you’re not at a convention, may you still be able to play!

RPGs

Getting Ready for UCon 2016

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I  just submitted four OSR track games to run at UCon in November.

Two are written and I could run right now, but I hope to play test at the local game store, and eventually the other two, when they are ready.

One is an idea I’ve had for a while, but needs fleshing out.

The fourth is a very loose idea that still needs work.

I am looking forward to this! I haven’t ran a game since Marmalade Dog in February.  I’m in two Roll20 AD&D games, but not running anything at the moment.

I’m forcing order on my life, now that some of the unexpected chaos has settled. This will force me to work on running something either at the FLGS or online.

Here are the systems and the blurbs for the catalog.
Metamorphosis Alpha 

Quest for ARLOK3 [Still in the works]

It has long been a right of passage of the tribe/village for those who have come of age to make the journey to ARLOK3. Those who return are welcomed as fit adults and future leaders of the village.

I have interest for Roll20 play testers for MA. If you are interested, drop me a line. This is one that I still have to work on, so if you’re interested, I’ll let you know when I’m ready.

The Front (Based on Black Hack)

The Kiel Experiment [Ready – needs polish/playtesting]

German scientists in conjunction with the German Navy at Kiel performed an experiment informed by information smuggled out of America about the Philadelphia Experiment.

The experiment was successful in masking the ship, but caused unintended side effect on the crew and opened an inter-dimensional portal that unleashed “something”.

The opening of the portal emitted a signal that was detected by allied scientists in Philadelphia, and its import relayed up the command chain.

White Star

Slim Pickings Or Bountiful Harvest? [Still in the works]

Your band of freelancers has gotten word of a massive space battle that will be over by the time you arrive to salvage what the warring parties left behind.

Delving Deeper 

The Dire Druids of Delver’s Deep [Ready – needs polish/playtesting]

Delver’s Deep is a well known adventure location. In recent months, some mysterious druids have occupied The Deep, as it is known to locals. This order of druids wear black robes, and their tight lips have led to rumors and gossip about their real nature and purpose. It is “common knowledge” that they are an evil cult practicing human sacrifice. Like most villagers, they mind their business, hoping that is enough to protect them; yet are glad to take the coins from selling
supplies to the druids.

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UCON – Day 0

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+Tim Snider of Savage Afterworld uses the nomenclature of Day 0, Day 1, etc when he writes about his attendance at conventions. So in the spirit of the OSR, I’ll use that idea too!

After only going to UCON on Saturday last year and dealing with a nasty storm trying to get there, when I decided that I would go for the entire con this year, I decided to arrive a day early, just in case. As it happens, the weather and roads were good and Thursday.

I got checked in and got my stuff to my room and somewhat settled in, went out for some supper, and returned to the hotel.

Hotel View
Cool Island in the lake.
Cool Island in the lake.

I soon ran into +Tim Snider, and we caught up on things since last year. He bought me a beer, Bell’s Brown Lager. Nothing like driving nearly two hours away from the local brew pub to have one of their beers. It was good! It was also a tall glass. There were two couches in the carpeted area of the bar/restaurant. The couches faced each other, one back to the bar, the other back to the lobby. I sat across from Tim with my back to the bar. We were talking enjoying our beers when some guy came up and said, “We’re playing a game when I get back”, or words to that effect. Tim and I were speculating, and were right when we decided it must be +Bill Webb. When he got back, we moved to an area in the lobby with a table, a couch, chairs, and ottomans. We rolled 3d6 in order, after that, all we needed where a d20 and a d6. Bill used a big d20 and a big d6, those were the only dice he had. It was a fun little adventure. You can read +Tim Snider’s write up here.

Bill Webb in Action.
Bill Webb in Action.

Joining in the game was +Ryan Thompson of Gamers & Grognards, +Adam Muszkiewicz and his adorable sidekick Stan of Dispatches from Kickassistan. (the next day I met Adam’s collaborator and co-host in the +DSR podcast (Drink Spin Run), +Donn Stroud), +Laura Williams and her husband +Clayton Williams, Bill’s daugher and a few others, whose names I don’t recall. +Pete Schwab and a few others showed up to watch our game. We broke about midnight. I had to get to bed, since I was in a 9am game in Friday.

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Near Misses – Thieves

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I had an idea for thieves picking pockets from an experience prior to my last game at UCON. The idea coalesced as I was in that dreamy, glad to be sleeping state before I woke up this morning. (I’m off all week; so I got to sleep in today to recover from both low quantity and quality of sleep the last few days.)

As I have mentioned in at least one other article, my Dad was a locksmith and I was drafted to help from the time I was about 13 until I went off to college. Dad gave me my own basic set of lock picks. I thought it would be fun to plop them down at a game, if I ended up running a thief.

I was getting stuff out of my bag, dice, paper, pen, pencil and other things so I wouldn’t have to keep rummaging in my bag during the game and slow things down. I was wearing many layers, including a jacket sort of like a hoody with out the hood. It has packets inside next to each outer pocket.

I put my picks in my pocket, or so I thought. I felt both sides of my hand feel fabric, so I thought it was in my pocket. I had just placed something else in that pocket and realized that I was about to drop it between my jacket and shirt instead of my pocket, so I corrected. I then checked and my picks weren’t there, so just as I was getting ready to bend down to get them, +Laura Rose Williams says, “Here, Larry, you dropped this,” as she hands it to me.

This morning in my dreamlike pre-wake state, this idea hit me, and I can just see a thief picking someone’s pockets and rolling 1 or 2 under what they need. So from now on, I will rule that a thief doing this, gets what they were after, or at least something, and they “pocket” it. Some kind soul will see them drop it and come up and give it to them in full view of all around. The “FUN!” will then ensue.

I did not play a thief as planned, +Laura Rose Williams wanted me to play a wizard along with her, which I did. So I got out my picks after the game to share what I was prepared to use as a prop.

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Getting Ready For UCon!

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I’m wrapping up things for work so I can eat supper and make final preparations to drive across the state tomorrow and meet up with some fellow OSR folks to get in some pre-con gaming and fellowship.

Adam of Dispatches from Kickassistan & Drink Spin Run and Tim Snider of Savage Afterworld are among them I will see tomorrow. I’m sure others will be in early, the con doesn’t start until Friday AM. I hope to connect with many others I know from the internets.

I set up so I can post here from my phone.

I may not do any posts while at the con, but I wanted the ability. Blippin tiny screens….

Whether you’re at a Con this weekend or not, game on!

RPGs

I Ran My First Game Online

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Friday night, from 8:00 to Midnight, EDT, I ran my first online game using Roll20 and Google Hangouts.

I have played over 330 hours using Roll20 and Hangouts. I have also run games of AD&D 1st Edition, Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, and others. As with anything, the first time you encounter all the things you don’t know and try to make sense of it based on what you already know.

I am very much a visual learner. What is easy to pick up on with body language in a face to face game is lost online. While I used a Google Hangout, it was audio only. This was to minimize the number of windows on which I had to focus. This led to my biggest shortcoming as a GM online, missing the visual queues for player involvement. I realized after one player dropped out that I really need a player turn tracker that is implemented fairly and consistently so that each player has an equal share of time.

Two of my players in this session of six players were new to both RPG’s and online play of RPG’s. I was not as sensitive as I should be to their newness to the hobby and this method of play.

This session was a play test of a scenario that I developed for convention play for Metamorphosis Alpha at UCon in November, as I mentioned a few days ago. While I have pre-gens for the scenario, I did not enter them into Roll20. Instead, I let my players generate their characters to give them a sense of ownership. I had a short session with each player to generate their character, and make sure that the technical aspect of using Roll20 and Google Hangouts were worked out before the game. I think this helped with player buy-in, as well as helped us get a head start on building that initial acquaintance ahead of the session.

I learned from play that I crammed too much into the beginning of my scenario, and need to streamline things for the fast style of play that occurs in a convention game. I took a lot of short notes about different things to keep track of what worked or did not and what needs polish, revision, or removal.

At the end of the game, I solicited feedback, and there is interest in continuing the scenario.  In addition to Roll20, I created a private G+ Community for my Metamorphosis Alpha campaign. After the game, I created a poll, based on initial post game comments, to get an idea of when the group would like to play again. Most said that they would love to play next week. That is a great mood booster!

I had a blast! The players had buy-in to the scenario right away, and were engaged. I had a lot of hooks to get everyone involved from the start, with random rolls to mix things up, so that no two players would have the same story. I won’t go into detail, as I am running a second group through the scenario Saturday night. The second group are part of the gang from the Wednesday night AD&D Roll20 game I play in. It will be fun to interact with them in a different way and to see how our DM is as a player.

I was disappointed in myself for letting a couple of players sit quiet for a long time. It is the DM’s job to make sure each player is engaged. With an online game, it is especially important, since it is all too easy for one player to talk over other’s. It is the limit of the technology. I could set up one computer to display the hangout and watch which icons indicate who is speaking, but I find that I focus so much on the rolls, and my notes and maps, that I can’t even keep up with the chat comments players made.

I don’t feel too bad about missing side chats the players had going in chat right in front of me. It is that way in in-person games, but those more easily grab one’s attention. The solution is a system that allows each player a chance to speak. So whether I go by dexterity order, name order, order they show up on the screen, etc. It needs to be done fairly and consistently.

In addition to the poll for when to play again, I also put up a post on the campaign’s G+ community soliciting constructive criticism of my GMing of the session. I pointed out what I knew I needed to do better and what I felt I did well. I invited each player to contact me privately, if they so desired.

One player wrote publicly in response to my solicitation of feedback, “Well said! I can already tell that you are a GM/DM that I would recommend to anyone looking for a good old-school type of game. :)”

That comment alone is wonderful! I have a feeling of accomplishment.  I can’t help but compare myself to other DM.s/GM’s. There are some that I feel are so good that I feel I can never be that good. But when I actually get to play and get into a zone where things are happening in a good way, I know that I am at least a decent DM. I think I will dare to say I am a good one.

I stress too much on needing to be prepared. It does not take much to have enough for four hours of play. Once players are put in the middle of a situation, they go off in directions one could never anticipate.

I think I set the expectations clearly up front. I pointed out that this was my first time running an RPG online, and that this was the first game of Metamorphosis Alpha that I had ran in over 30 years. I did not mean it as an excuse, just to let them know I had a lot of new going on. In the end, other than the time allotment issues for each player, I think I did very well.

I used the theater of the mind style. I had a map of an area and players placed their tokens to indicate who was where. We also used it for marching order. There was another map I had to show them a big picture of the situation, but I did not use all the bells and whistles of working with maps and tokens that Roll20 has to offer. I am a free user, but if I end up with a regular game, I will definitely come up with the money for a subscription.

Some of my players run games on Roll20 and were able to help me get settings right. That was most appreciated!

I learned a lot about the online tools I chose, my scenario and where it needs improvement, myself and my abilities as a GM, and where I need to focus my energies to improve. I can’t wait for next week when the players and I tune in to see what happens next!