The maximum number of players for Do is five and we had six players. We decided to try it out. Realizing that we might lose out on stone, I stated the following house rule: If a player cannot draw three stones from the bag then we check for the ending result. Luckily, we did not need to invoke that rule. We got a parade ending.

We selected the letter from Sil da goblin who needed help with adventurers and they stolen money. There were 20 goal words in this letter. A fun letter to end a pilgrimage before going back to D&D.

The pilgrims involved were:

• Pilgrim Hoarder Tiger (played by Jeff) who was previously Pilgrim Hoarder Telescope;
• Pilgrim Shiny Crayon who was previously Shiny Diamond;
• Pilgrim Loud Explosives who was previously Random Explosives;
• Pilgrim Generous Singer (played by myself) who was previously Pilgrim Generous Runner;
• Pilgrim Tasty Whistle who was previously Pilgrim Tasty Blanket;
• Pilgrim Ornate Plant who was previously Pilgrim Green Plant.

The story was fun and action packed. The player of Pilgrim Shiny Crayon noted we developed a testosterone and violence heavy story. I agreed with her. This wasn’t a light story and heavily relied on power and combat. We managed a better pacing of the story. If we continued to play, I can see further improvements. At the parade section of the story, the player of Pilgrim Loud Explosives initially introduced elements to the story which hadn’t appeared and weren’t connected to the narrative. Several players mentioned it to him and he changed his contribution to something which worked with the narrative.

I enjoy Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple. I bought the supplement, Do: The Book of Letters, and I would play it again if given the chance. I love the creation of the narrative as a group. Several folks gave elements to build up the story. I haven’t experienced a pitchfork ending yet.

Here’s the last story. What do you think of it?

Pilgrim Hoarder Tiger enters the dungeon with the rest of the pilgrims and orders Sergei the tiger to sniff out Sil da goblin. While following Sergei, Pilgrim Hoarder Tiger finds a trail of copper pieces which he collects bringing him away from the group and lost. Pilgrim Generous Singer encounters Grob da ork who is miserable and hungry, so  Pilgrim Generous Singer teaches him a happy song to take Grob’s mind off things. While Grob da ork hums his newly learned tune,  Pilgrim Generous Singer gives the hungry ork all of the food not leaving enough for the rest of the group. Pilgrim Ornate Plant pulls a branch from a cave tree and forms a new “magic stick.” Pilgrim Ornate Plant tries to teach Sil da Goblin to become as new shaman with the magic stick but the details go over Sil’s head. Pilgrim Shiny Crayon decides to take on the role of character artist and works with the goblins to create wanted posters of the murderous elf and dwarf adventurers.  Pilgrim Shiny Crayon makes a beautiful rendering of the male elf and his beauty makes her question going against the adventurers. Pilgrim Loud Explosives takes a wrong turn and cries for help to find his way back but attracts the attention of the hungry troll instead. Realizing that some of his friends had gone missing, Pilgrim Tasty Whistle blew three times on his whistle to help pilgrims Hoarder Tiger and Pilgrim Loud Explosives find their way back to the group, and hopefully clear Pilgrim Shiny Crayon and Sil da goblin’s minds.

Pilgrim Hoarder Tiger hears a loud blast from a whistle three times and realizes that he lost the rest of the group, so he follows the whistle’s sound.  Pilgrim Generous Singer comes up with the idea to give Grob da ork the title of chief, but this causes a riot between the goblins.  Pilgrim Ornate Plant adds a flower to the magic stick that lets the user know how to use it and not require explanation.  Pilgrim Shiny Crayon wanders off in search of the pretty elf, finds him and leads the adventurers back to the dungeon. Pilgrim Loud Explosives  sees the troll and runs away screaming towards the group, leading the salivating troll towards the delicious-looking Sil da Goblin.  Pilgrim Tasty Whistle procures the copper pieces from Pilgrim Hoarder Tiger’s pockets, discovers they are chocolate and starts eating the treasure in front of the troll’s eyes.

A fight between Pilgrim Tasty Whistle and Pilgrim Hoarder Tiger breaks out over the chocolate copper pieces. Seeing that the goblins were angry about their newly found chief,  Pilgrim Generous Singer decides to give all the goblins the title chief causing a political storm.  Pilgrim Ornate Plant devises a complex political system which splits the goblin chiefs and causes a civil war.  Pilgrim Shiny Crayon and the adventurers arrive amidst the chaos, entering the fray, she gets distracted by the dwarf’s moves and gets hit by the hammer. Caught up in the excitement, Pilgrim Loud Explosives calls out Grob da ork and challenges him to a duel. Searching around frantically for MORE! CHOCOLATE!,  Pilgrim Tasty Whistle’s eyes locked onto the dwarf’s sack of stolen coins; grabbing the sack and pulling it away, he causes the dwarf to trip and fall in front of the troll and the coins scattered amongst the crowd.

Realizing that this fight was going no where, Sergei pulls Pilgrim Hoarder Tiger away by grabbing his collar with his jaws. Following  Pilgrim Tasty Whistle’s lead,  Pilgrim Hoarder Tiger starts looking through the dwarf’s backpack, taking whatever looks interesting and grabbing the angry dwarf’s attention. Pilgrim Generous Singer distributed the treasure to everyone who love the ability to buy food in the future or a quick chocolatey snack. Pilgrim Ornate Plant’s political system first caused chaos but quickly brought a strong leader for the goblin tribe. Waking to a scene infinitely  more peaceful,  Pilgrim Shiny Crayon completes her portrait of the elf and hangs it in the temple, where the elf will now be living, like it or not! The goblins show their gratitude by putting on a firework show. Curious,  Pilgrim Tasty Whistle waved the original magic stick that he found in the dwarf’s sack at the troll and flowers bloomed all over him; realizing that trolls belong in the “fruits and vegetables” part of the food pyramid, the hungry goblins prepared a salad and named it the “Whistle Salad” in Pilgrim Tasty Whistle’s honour. Avoiding the dwarf’s punches aimed at  Pilgrim Hoarder Tiger’s face, he calls out for help from Sergei. Sergei chomps down on the dwarf and eats him,  Pilgrim Hoarder Tiger keeps all the dwarf’s stuff.

Pilgrim Manipulative Singer returns to the temple teaching songs to help and find stuff. Pilgrim Mural Plant departed from the temple, traveling the worlds to ensure harmony across their residents. Pilgrim Colourful Explosives leaves the temple and opens a fireworks shop. Pilgrim Tasty Whistle, having broken his addiction to sugar, became Pilgrim Sleepy Whistle (due to his lack of energy), and traveled the world as a health food advocate and professional troll pruner. After experiencing the rash violence of too many males in one room, Pilgrim Shiny Crayon became Pilgrim Cuddly Crayon and took up residence as the temple artist, designing adventure brochures and advocating for love to bring even more beauty to the world. Pilgrim Hoarder Librarian opens a museum in the temple, teaching new pilgrims about the world. Every thing that  Pilgrim Hoarder Librarian collected or stole is proudly displayed. He and Sergei live happily ever after.

Every year, Cangames, the longest running gaming convention in Canada (since 1977), has a theme. For Cangames 2013 the theme is “Armageddon Missed!”, a celebration of surviving the end of the Mayan calendar. I try to run a game inspired by the theme.

At Cangames 2012, the theme was “Flames Across the Border”. I ran a D&D 4^th edition game where devils were trying to breach the border the material world and the Shadowfell to release an imprisoned general. There were lots of fire and brimstone with undead guardians mixed in beneath a cemetery.

For this year, I had this idea of exploring memory in relation to the apocalypse. The premise is aliens invade Earth and force humanity to escape to a safe area. While the aliens are attempting to destroy the world, humanity sends some individuals to stop the aliens or a means to have humanity survive. The game would be exploring the memories of those individuals who went this ordeal and thus learn through the game, was the Earth saved or did humanity just survive. I asked on twitter for a recommendation of a game. I was suggested “A Penny for My Thoughts” by Paul Tevis. I bought a copy at my local gaming store.

A Penny for My Thoughts is a cool improvisational game. You play amnesiacs who help each remember the events which lead to your loss of memory. There are three scenarios provided in the book: a modern age normal amnesia following a traumatic experience; a covert operative hired to assassinate a target but lost their memory; a Cthulhu mythos based scenario. I used the guidelines and modifier the questionnaires to create my own scenario: 11th hour memories. I created a Facts & Reassurances sheet and a Questionnaire. I wanted to try the game out before submitting to Cangames.

On Saturday, January 19^th, I tried out my scenario with 3 friends. We are a creative bunch. We play playing games like Fiasco, Once Upon a Time, etc. I expected my friends to be reasonably good at the game. When you explore a person’s memory, you get a memory trigger which is a key word or phrase. The other players who are guides ask leading questions which the active player answers with “yes, and” and adds a detail. For ex: when I got the question “Were you on vacation?” my answer was “Yes, and I didn’t expect the aliens to find me there.” After you get a number of questions equal to the number of players, you tell the story of the event until you get to a decision point. At the decision point, you turn to two guides who give two different outcomes which you choose to continue the story. There is a gathering and exchange of pennies which is a pacing mechanic for the game. At the end, you decide if your character wants to remember what happened or not.

As I expected, my friends were a creative bunch. Here is what we produced: penny characters. It took about a third of the game for them to start getting it but only mildly. One player started with the idea it would be a serious game and she was not enjoying it. She realized it and made the game her own and she started enjoying it. She told me after the game that sometimes she would have liked saying “No, but…” to the guided questions. When I was a kid, I learnt improvisation theatre and was comfortable with the “Yes, and…” answers. The group was not comfortable with all the rituals in the game. When you grab a penny from the pool, the rule says you must say “A penny for my thoughts”. I understand the importance to immerse yourself in the situation. I told the players about the instructions but didn’t enforce it. Some of the players said the line some of the time. We didn’t get the importance of the pennies you get in the end once you’ve finished getting your final memory.

“A Penny for My Thoughts” is a fascinating improvisation game. I will need to try it a few more times to determine if it works for Cangames. I might try one of the other scenarios in the book instead of mine. The feedback from my friends informs me the game would work in a specific niche of gamers but not at Cangames. I have my Life-size Kill Doctor Lucky and a game of Dresden Files set in Ottawa which I’ll run this Cangames 2013.

We selected the letter from Professor Culverton Soames who needed help to resolve a political situation and the life of his friend, Haracca. There were 20 goal words in this letter.

The pilgrims involved were:

• Pilgrim Hoard Telescope (played by Jeff) who was previous Pilgrim Hoarder Slingshot;
• Pilgrim Shiny Diamond who was new;
• Pilgrim Random Explosives who was new;
• Pilgrim Generous Runner (played by myself) who was Pilgrim Loving Runner;
• Pilgrim Tasty Blanket who was Pilgrim Tasty Clock.

The letter was more involved and we were close to getting a pitchfork ending. We managed to get a parades ending and it required some pilgrims to get into trouble. Some returning players found a better appreciation to the game and seeing the developing story. I saw an improved in the storytelling but we need to improve how we wrap up the story.

I plan to continue the pilgrimage of my character.

Here’s the new story. What do you think of it?

Pilgrim Hoarder Telescope (played by Jeff) asks Professor Culverton Soames for a document of the Chrelm’s holy law then flips his telescope backwards using it as a magnifying glass examining the document. After analyzing the document, Pilgrim Hoarder Telescope takes the holy law and puts it in his pocket causing sacrilege. Pilgrim Shiny Diamond creates a new performance outfit for Haracca. Losing count on how many sequins she put on the singer’s dress causing it to light up like a supernova disco ball. Pilgrim Random Explosives arrives at Dravosburg with a duck to help but finds out it is a taboo to the Chrelm. Pilgrim Generous Runner (played by myself) runs quickly to Haracca’s dorm to get the sheet of music composed to help. He then mistakenly gives it ton High Priest Acceba. Pilgrim Tasty Blanket walked to the University of Dravosburg and met with Professor Culverton Soames and Haracca; throwing his blanket over their heads, the three left the University so that Dean Harpold could truthfully claim not to be harboring them.

Pilgrim Hoarder Telescope sneaks out of the University by hitching a ride under Pilgrim Tasty Blanket’s blanket. Pilgrim Hoarder Telescope starts stuffing the blanket in his pocket causing the wanted men to be revealed to Union Leader Secha. Pilgrim Shiny Diamond gets carried away with the wonderful sequins. She bedazzles the room which attracts the University of Dravosburg security who have come to taker her away. Pilgrim Random Explosives tries to defend himself but the words used happen to be the lyrics of a Chrelm song used at the wrong time. Pilgrim Generous Runner informs the Chrelm that Acceba has blasphemous writings which he can get rid of obtaining the Chrelm’s help. While running to Professor Culverton Soames, Pilgrim Generous Runner trips, hurts himself and foolishly gives the music sheets to kids to finish the journey. Thinking quickly, Pilgrim Tasty Blanket ties a corner of his magic blanket to each of them, and as the wind filled the blanket, it carried them away, depositing them on the deck of a windship in the middle of the startled windship captains! Professor Culverton Soames notices the meeting’s plates of cultural delicacies and points it out to Pilgrim Tasty Blanket who starts gorging on the culinary delights.

Pilgrim Hoarder Telescope heads towards the coat check gathering a collection of coats to use as disguises. Meanwhile, Pilgrim Shiny Diamond reacts quickly, raising all the window shades; while security is blinded by the reflections, she bolts from the room. Looking back, she was distracted by the shiny and ran headfirst into Dean Harpold. Pilgrim Random Explosives’s duck says “Thanks for the ride” and flies away. Tracking down the kids, Pilgrim Generous Runner finds where they stashed the sheet music. Pilgrim Tasty Blanket shares the delight with Haracca who stuffs himself unable to sing for now…

While Haracca, Professor Culverton Soames and Pilgrim Tasty Blanket put on their disguises, Pilgrim Hoarder Telescope uses his telescope to look out for any trouble, he sees Union Leader Secha marching towards them. While reviewing Professor Culverton Soames’s disguise, Pilgrim Hoarder Telescope takes key items which reveals the professor’s true nature. Dead Harpold brings Pilgrim Shiny Diamond to the Chrelm in the hopes of a future exchange for Haracca, she gets distracted by the beautiful tie clip of the Dean forgetting the dress. Due to Pilgrim Random Explosives’s bad luck, a localized indoor lightning storm shocks High Priest Acceba in front of the faithful who blame  Pilgrim Random Explosives.  Pilgrim Random Explosives sees this as a good time to explode things, make a door and goes home.

Pilgrim Hoarder Telescope asks the captains to sail his friends and him to international waters, so they can be safe from persecution. The Chrelm are in awe while Pilgrim Shiny Diamond’s dress and many of the females send her off with requests for their own. When Pilgrim Random Explosives got home, the duck was waiting with a sandwich. Pilgrim Generous Runner arrives at the ship in international waters with the sheet music and they have a musical dance number. The windship captains were willing to forgive and forget about their lost pastries when Pilgrim Tasty Blanket offered to show them how he gathers wind into his blanket, so they could improve their sailing speed.

Currently, there is a large break between seasons for the month of January. In order to maintain the momentum, I brought some quick and easy games. On Wednesday, January 9^th, we played Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple by Daniel Solis. It is a fun, whimsical cooperative storytelling game. You play pilgrims of this temple that travels across the cosmos. You get letters asking for help and your characters interfere. Whether you manage to help or hinder depends on your draw of stones and you achieve the goals before the timer runs own.

Character creation is simple. You name your pilgrim and then dissect the name to get how your pilgrim helps people and how your character gets into trouble. For example, my character, Pilgrim Loving Runner gets into trouble by falling in love at the wrong time and helps folks by running quickly to get useful stuff.

Initial set-up means selecting a letter which has a series of goal words. We chose the letter from the quick-start game. You must use all the goal words before a player draws a total of 8 stones or more. If you are successful then you helped and resolved the author of the letter. If you failed then you interfered and get rudely kicked out. The letter from Melanie whose house was swallowed by a whale has 10 goal words.

On your turn, you draw 3 stones from a bag with black and white stones. You keep stones of one colour and thus, you can have from 0 to 3 stones per turn. Based on the number of stones kept and if you are in trouble or not, you may use from 0 to 2 goal words per turn. We were 4 players. For our letter, we had to get all 10 goal words within 9 turns if everyone kept 3 stones per turn. This letter is a game introduction and relatively easy. We succeeded in freeing Melanie’s world from the whale.

We talked about continuing our character’s pilgrimage until the new season of D&D Encounters starts.  I’m going to photocopy some letters from my book and we’ll choose a new letter.

I leave you with our story created by our first game. Each turn is around 1-2 sentences. The story is crude and simplistic but fun. Please let me know what you think of it.

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Pilgrim Loving Runner runs quickly to get the cat some food. Loving Runner fell in love with the cat hugging it so tightly, it broke free from his grip and ran up the tree. Pilgrim Tasty Clock wound the minute hand of his clock to twelve, causing the bird to pop out and entice Melanie’s cat out of the tree. Tasty Clock notices the cookies in the tree, climbs up and gets stuck. Pilgrim Hoarder Slingshot enters the house, grabs a bunch of useful things and then gets stuck in the doorway out. Stuck in the doorway, Hoarder Slingshot hears the roar of the whale and unpacks the silverware in his pockets making it small enough to move through the door. Pilgrim Green Plant grew the other cookie tree and blossomed it which tickled the whale by the indigestible leaves.

Pilgrim Loving Runner quickly enters the house through the window, gets the catnip and gives it to the cat. However, at that very moment, he heard the keening song of the whale and found himself in love… and into a stupor. Unable to resist the chocolate chip bounty before him, Pilgrim Tasty Clock devoured as many cookies as he could, growing in size until the branch he was sitting on broke, and he landed with a bounce. Pilgrim Hoarder Slingshot loads his slingshot with knives, forks and spoons, aiming for the whale’s uvula and taking a shot, opening the whale’s mouth. Hoarder Slingshot gathers all the fallen cookies which angers Melanie because she wanted to share. Due to his inexperience with whales of this size, Pilgrim Green Plant orders the what to eat more than it should and thus stuffing the area. However, the whale decided that it ate too much and expelled the small planet.

Pilgrim Loving Runner gets appreciated by the cuddling and purring of the cat. Grateful for his help getting the cat down from the tree, Melanie gives Pilgrim Tasty Clock a bushel basket of cookies (but just one). Melanie forgives Pilgrim Hoarder Slingshot for taking all her cookies because more will always grow. Pilgrim Green Plant get the thanks of the whale who realized the error of its ways.

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This post was written for the second annual New Year, New Game blog carnival hosted by Gnome Stew as part of the 2013 New Year, New Game challenge.

The town of Whiteoak celebrates the yearly winter festival. It is a festival of endings and transitions. The festival officiates the transfer of power from Sehanine to the Raven Queen. It takes place when autumn turns into winter. Usually, the first few snows has covered most of the blood-red leaves in Skull Forest. The inhabitants of Whiteoak and the area maintain several different traditions during this festival.

The fortune tellers come out in force for the festival. The stars and signs are strongest during this period to tell the fate especially in matters of love. Many couples consult with fortune tellers and learned if they are fated to stay together. Those who discover it wasn’t meant to be participate in the ceremony of endings. Armageddon, daughter of Whiteoak’s Lord Amnon, receives the title of honour as a seer. While terrifying, her visions are accurate.

At the local cemetery, the caretaker performs the yearly rituals. She blesses the tombs on the morning of the first day in order to renew the protection against the undead that lasts for a year and a day. The ceremony is attended by the families with lost loved ones. Each family brings a token blessed at the last full moon. The families feel the strength of the protection is influenced by the moon where the goddess Sehanine resides. Lord Amnon brings a shield with the Whiteoak crest to honour all the soldiers that passed away in their duty. Sir Pelaios and Armageddon brings a bouquet of chrysanthemums for their late mother who passed away at Armageddon’s birth.

Traditionally, the winter festival is the occasion where the Ice Queen summons the lord of Whiteoak on his 20th winter. The Ice Queen is a terrifying white dragon who claims all of the north which includes Whiteoak. None of the previously summoned lords return. The stories claim the Ice Queen feasts on their bodies or she has a museum of their frozen bodies. Lord Amnon is celebrating his 19th winter this year and his son, Sir Pelaios, hopes to put forward a plan to end the Ice Queen’s terror with some brave adventurers. On the years with no summons, agents of the Ice Queen take large portion of the harvest to her. Whiteoak adapted by cultivated a larger amount of crops but they struggle when the weather turns foul.

When the harvest is plentiful, Whiteoak celebrates with a large feast where each family brings a signature dish to share with the town. On those years, you see a multitude food competitions. When the harvest is poor, the families hold personal feasts rather than public ones. Lord Amnon holds a feast for his family and invited the less fortunate into his household to partake a good meal.

There are physical activities held during the festival. Caber toss is a popular sport where a large wooden pole is thrown at a far distance. It is a sport started after observing the northern giants toss uprooted trees. The militia equips some folks for friendly games of hockey at the local ice rink. They use the militia’s armours and the blacksmith developed some ice skates. Knights from the surrounding area arrive to Whiteoak to participate in the yearly joust. Sir Pelaios participates in the yearly tournament but he never became champion. The current champion of the past 6 years is Sir Curan of Bloodrock. Unfortunately, Sir Curan did not show up for this year’s Winter Festival and the news claim there is an ominous dark cloud over Bloodrock. Lady Nivory of Applewarren claimed the title of champion this year.

What is the Ottawa Geek Market? It is a flea market dedicated to fantasy, sci-fi, gaming and other pop culture subjects. There were an assortment of vendors from artists to stores selling their wares. The entrance fee was $5 and all proceeds went to the Make a Wish organization of Eastern Ontario. There was several folks in the area in costumes mostly of Star Wars theme due to the presence of the 501st Legion and several Klingons due to the presence of IKCB Dragon Fire.

I bought for myself some good stuff. I bought the two anthology books “When the Hero Comes Home” and “When the Villain Comes Home” edited by Gabrielle Harbowy & Ed Greenwood. I heard of the first anthology on the Jennisodes podcast. Marie Bilodeau, one of the authors, sold the book to me and she signed her story for me. She was nice to meet and talk to and I look forward to read her work.

I bought a copy of the board game, Dixit. I was intrigued by the game even since I saw it on the show Tabletop. It is an intriguing association game where knowing your friends both helps and hinders you. The art on the cards are beautiful and inspiring. You could just use the cards to create a story hook for a rpg adventure.

I got some novelty items like a Zatanna bookmark from Geek Charming and two fake IDs. The fake IDs are by Fun Cards Ottawa. I got the Tournament Knight Permit and Pirates Permit to Plunder.

Brenda got a signed copy of “Alice Hearts Welsh Zombies” by Victoria Dunn. She enjoyed the book when she borrowed it from the library. Victoria Dunn was a nice author to meet with a good sense of humour. Brenda talked to me about the book and I’ll have to read it since the little she told me gave me some ideas for a rpg scenario. Brenda was happy when she found 2 books from “The Kindaichi Case Files” manga series. She loves that series of mystery manga and she is always on the lookout to complete her collection. If you know a place where sells books from that series, please let me know.

Did you attend the Ottawa Geek Market? If so, how was it for you? Do you have a similar event in your area?

Dresden Files rpg is based on the popular urban fantasy books by Jim Butcher. The series is about Harry Dresden, Chicago’s first (and only) wizard P.I. The rpg permits you to play as the characters of the series but its strength is making your own city and characters. The rpg uses the Fate system which permits character centric stories powered through its aspects mechanics. I enjoy the Fate system ever since I read and ran Spirit of the Century.

For the demo, Christopher set the game in Ottawa, our home city, and gave us pre-generated characters. To simplify matters even further, we had all the same character. Our high concept was New White Council Warden and our trouble was In over my head! Our skills, stunts, powers, rote spells and focus items were the same. The level of customization that we had were in the 5 other aspects. We were 8 players and determining those 5 aspects permitted to customize 8 different characters. There was Jonathan, the wizard with ADD. On another spectrum we had Andrew, the nervous wizard who preferred to observe and wait before acting. Arianna, the former military officer was our only female character and she enjoyed killing stuff with fire. D-Mac was our Jamaican Canadian wizard. I made Marcel Trépanier, a French-Canadian hockey nut (Go Habs! Go!). Jenkins was a wizard from a long line of butlers. He mentioned about the Butler Council of wizards but we figure it was destroyed in the Butlerian Jihad. I forget the name of the 2 other characters but one was focused wizard who enjoyed puns and the other worked well with others. I think it is a strength of the character creation system where five key phrases determined by the player can provide so much distinction between characters.

Our story started in Major’s Hill Park where a bunch of ghouls were arranging Ottawa University students in a pentagram. As it was raining, D-Mac summoned a localized typhoon over the ghouls and students. It was a wonderful start to the adventure and showed the creative nature of casting spells. The spell became more powerful than he expected which winded him. The group mixed between handling the ghouls, saving the students and figuring out what was going on. Due to the amount of sheer amount of water, I decided to freeze it in order to make an ice rink under the ghouls’ feet and under the students. I channeled my aspect of “Always time for hockey!” to give me sufficient boosts to get all the ice. Andrew gave me a free tag of the ghouls’ aspect “sickly” that he learned through assessment. In hindsight, I could have made the ice rink an obstacle with a threshold to beat to leave the area instead of a scene aspect to tag. After the ghouls left the ice rink, I summoned a powerful wind to slide the students away from the ghouls. My aspect of “He shoots! He scores!” helped in this situation. We managed to defeat the ghouls, save the students and learned that this was part of the pre-zombie walk zombie walk (P-Zwzw?). We called the authorities to take care of the students even though some folks were concerned of alerting the cops.

We did a montage of investigating our clues where symbols were left around the city to store necromantic energy in order to be tapped for later. We modified the symbols by making them store healing energy instead. At the last location near the hostel, there was a van from the pre-zombie walk zombie walk. We stopped the van but the driver ran out and escaped from us. We cast a tracking spell on the van which lead us to an old home past Stitsville. One of the wizards used the sight and saw there were no wards nor thresholds which made us grow suspicious of what happened. D-Mac and Andrew got into an argument about going in now or waiting for later. Jenkins used that opportunity to take out some pizza to speak to local fairies about who was in the house. We learned that only a necromancer lived in the house and no one else was seen by the faeries. That was enough for Arianna and she arranged it to burn the whole house down as she had the aspect “Kill it with fire!” The necromancer did manage to get out of his house but he was so burned up that our Warden’s Sword quickly cut him up in a blow.

This was a fun and short game of Dresden Files. Christopher is a great GM who does a good job mixing descriptive horror with humour. For the demo, he started us with 4 Fate points rather than the 1 Fate point our sheet had. It gave some extra fuel to pull some awesome stunts and reduced the need for compels. I ran Spirit of the Century several times and Dresden Files twice. I find compels are hard to accomplish until you’ve become used to the characters. Christopher asked the players to point out if one of their aspects should be compelled. As this was a demo and we had several players who didn’t know the game, there were some confusion about compels. The player of Andrew tried to apply his aspect of “Wait, watch & learn” as a compel but all his descriptions had no negative aspect or ways to increase the conflict & tension. I think it was a good call for Christopher to start us off with those 4 Fate points.

I would enjoy playing in a campaign of Dresden Files rpg. I’d love to see character and story development.

Wizard of the Coast (WoTC) had a dice set to collect at GenCon. We started our dice hunt on Thursday by visiting the WoTC booth and then went to fold a cute red dragon paper sculpture:

They are cute, right?

We were registered for the D&D Next playtest event which gave 2 dice. There were 2 dice left so we signed up to play those 2 events. First was Dungeon Command demo. It is a fun and quick miniature game. I played it before in Ottawa during the Dungeon Command game day. As I played it before and knew Brenda wasn’t a fan of miniature games, I played against her and provided a fun experience for her. The other event to get the dice was a D&D 4th edition adventure prequel to the season of D&D Encounters “Council of Spiders”. We almost didn’t get to play this fun adventure. We used generic tickets and thus we had to wait until all the registered players got assigned a GM. We waited in line and saw the number of GMs available dwindle. One player right behind us in the line mentioned that he’d willingly GM the encounter if they have enough copies and some other players later in line made the same offer. When the organizer came back and mentioned there are no more available GMs, I asked if there were extra copies of the adventure for volunteer GMs currently in line. There were 2 copies of the adventure. The player right behind us GMed for Brenda and I. He took about 5-10 minutes to review the adventure which gave us time to review our characters. For a two-hour adventure, they have full-page backgrounds, personalities and relationships with other PCs for each of the available characters. This was a rich adventure in story and a decently challenging encounter. We were all playing drow from various factions. Our GM was great even though he had little preparation.

The D&D Next playtest used the iteration of the rules released around GenCon. There was a 30 minute character creation session then an hour session of actual play. As I had read most of the playtest documents on the plane trip to GenCon, I had a decent idea for my character. I made a halfling wizard who ran a mystical circus. In D&D Next technical terms, he is a stout halfling wizard with the charlatan background and magic-user specialty. It took me 15 minutes to transcribe my choices onto a character sheet. For some folks who hadn’t read the rules before, they were not quite done after 30 minutes. I think they need to streamline character creation for convention play and one-shots. Most of the elements provided permit several story opportunities at character creation. I enjoy that. At the actual play, we had several scenario options. The group agreed to a scenario that had around 60% combat and 40% social interaction. We went hunting some kobolds in tunnels. It was hilarious seeing the cleric necromancer, or as he called himself “the giver and taker of life”, hunt down souls to power some of his spells. I memorized a few non-damage spells since I enjoy those. They were fun to play with. We ended the session with the necromancer chasing after a purple worm to capture its soul.

In the early evening, I attended a live recording of the show “Gamer to Gamer” hosted by Tracy Barnett. He interviewed Chris Perkins, the DM to the stars at WoTC. It was a fascinating interview about his gaming experiences. I enjoy “Gamer to Gamer” because its talks about the passion folks have for games. To me, a geek has passion over a subject and shows it. I recommend you listen to the podcast when it shows up but in the meantime, listen to the other episodes of “Gamer to Gamer”.

Later in the evening, Brenda and I attended the d20 Burlesque show. Even though I took a few pictures, their quality were not great due to my distance from the stage. My favourite act was the first one which is the Great Old One Cthulhu. The dance and performance were comical and fun. It was a surreal experience seeing Cthulhu dance enticingly on stage. Other performances included: zombie, pedo-bear, a Mortal Kombat character, an ode to Risk, and Sniper Wolf from Metal Gear video game series. There was an act based on those text-based choose your own adventure computer games. Due to our seat, we couldn’t see what was happening on stage. The line of people wishing to enter a command blocked our line of sight to the stage. Overall, the show was great entertainment and I’m happy that I saw it at least once.

On Sunday, we had an afternoon flight home but we had enough time for one last game. We finally went to the Games on Demand section. We left ourselves open to any game. We played School Daze by Tracy Barnett. It is a role-playing game set in a high school. Our GM was Tracy Barnett. Our table of 6 had five Canadians (Brenda, Chelsea, Lyndsay, Adam and myself) and one American (https://twitter.com/loganbonner). Our high school was a Canadian high school and all our characters were Canadian stereotypes while Logan played an American stereotype as an exchange student. Being the only French-Canadian at the table, I made a French-Canadian student who loves drama and is party of the improv league. The game was in preparation for a pep rally which is strange because they are rare in Canada. I don’t remember in high school ever having a pep rally & it looked like none of the other Canadians at the table ever had one either. We understood the concept and went along with it. The game was a blast. We laughed. It was crazy funny. I highly recommend you try out School Daze.

I had a great time at GenCon. It was a great experience. There is so much to see. You can’t see everything on your first try. I plan to attend future GenCons when my budget allow. I want to try different things. Brenda mentioned that she wants to try True Dungeon and it does intrigue me.

The hosts of the morning seminars were: Wolfgang Baur, Christina Stiles, Ben McFarland and other freelancer who I missed his name (Sorry!). The first seminar was RPG Freelancing 101. I have a small desire to do some rpg freelancing. It is one reason I started this blog to improve my writing and determine how productive I can be. They mentioned that two important steps is to be assertive & confident followed by delivering. I need to work on being assertive and confident. They suggest starting small first and then you’ll get larger projects. It makes perfect sense because large project are lots of investment for a publisher to make on a new freelancer. I do not have a problem with being possessive of my ideas as I love to share my ideas. A pitch to a publisher needs to be short, sold and show the exciting parts. If it’s an adventure then speak of the action not the background. If there’s a secret or mystery then you reveal the mystery to the publisher. You need to play the RPGs that you wish to write for. If you get a project then you don’t drastically destroy or change a part of the setting unless instructed to. You should push your boundaries but respect the limits imposed by the publisher like word count and setting limits. A new freelancer has lots of ability to work on what they want but as you raise up in the freelancer pyramid then you get less choice to what you wish to work on but higher profile projects.

The second seminar was Creating and Improving Your Homebrew RPG Setting. They started with two viewpoints: write only what your players will interact with and write everything because it is fun. They talked more about it and I gathered the general idea is to focus on your immediate needs but when you have time, write what you enjoy. They mentioned to have an overall theme to unite your campaign. I found it a useful reminder of my theme “resurgence of old empires”. They said the goals of the players are important. Please note that player goals can be different from the goals of their character. Ex: A player might want a tragic but heroic sacrifice but the character wishes to live. A good GM notices this simple conflict and provides opportunities in the setting.
They talked about mysteries in your setting. You don’t need to reveal everything to your players or even yourself. Always keep a few mysteries in the setting. Something for the players to wonder and attempt to discover. Mysteries entice the players but the reveal might end it. Don’t pull away the full curtain.
The audience asked about publishing and self-publishing the setting. They said self-publishing is a beast best tackled in its own seminar. They advised to test if there is an audience for your setting through various distributions (i.e. blog, podcast, etc.). You pitch small sections of the campaign to your audience or publishers rather than the whole campaign. A publisher will not have time to read a 500 page setting bible from unpublished individual.
Finally, they advised to rip off fictional characters or real life characters for your homebrew setting. Modify the character for your homebrew setting but use the inspiration.

In the afternoon, I had a fun Ashes of Athas game. It was my first Ashes of Athas game and it was fun. The DM, Marcy-Alice, was awesome. She enjoyed the story and the interactions. The combat slowed things down and we had to rush to finish it since we went 30 minutes over the time slot. I had fun play Sala, my halfling druid who enjoys transforming into beasts. I learned he is a protector of all life which put him into conflict with certain members of the party.The half-giants in the group lost their tribe to Urikite soldiers. They blamed the Sorcerer-King Hamanu and all his soldiers. Sala believes those Urikite were just following orders and they shouldn’t be killed just for following orders. When he saw the ant lion attacking the Urikite soldiers, he leaped to rescue them. When the half-giants prevents the other Urikite soldiers to escape, Sala scowled at them. We didn’t focus on killing all enemies. Mary-Alice made the goal of the encounters clear and we focused on that. I love organized play events where the goals are clear. A combat encounter doesn’t need to end with one side being destroyed.

In the evening, I participated in the live recording of the Tome Show Episode 201. The hosts were Jeff Greiner and Tracy Hurley. Their guest was Robin D. Laws, acclaimed game designer. I was in the audience. It was great to hear the advice that Robin provided to add story in the D&D game. I asked him for improvisation tips in D&D 4th edition. He provides useful advise that you should listen when the episode gets published.

Our night event was a concert by the Star Trek inspired band, Five Year Mission. Their goal is to create a song based on every single episode of the original Star Trek. They are four song writers and a drummer. The song writers switched instruments and sung the song they wrote.

The drummer got to wear a wonderful fake mustache for a song.

We all know who got the better deal out of this. I felt they should have ended with their song “Shore Leave” but it makes a great play on words but we got a great fight scene between Mike Rittenhouse and a Gorn. I uploaded a video of the epic combat.

I hope they do international tours and come up north to Ottawa.

Brenda & I went to Scotty’s Brewhouse for some thematic food. Brenda ate some Castle Walls and I ate Haunch-o-Nightmare. I asked for the mild version but it was way to spicy for my taste buds. They changed it for BBQ sauce which was much better. Scotty’s Brewhouse has great service. Afterwards, I went to the BYOG organize by Phil Ménard and Dave Chalker of Critical Hits. I met some folk and played Marvel Heroic RPG run by Brian A. Liberge of Stuffer Shack. It was my 3rd time playing Marvel Heroic rpg. Since others were playing X-Men, I chose Wolverine. I find it amazing that the game captures the feel of the characters so well. I met with @wastexgames and laughed that we had met at the airport without knowing that we did.

Thursday

I lost track of days and missed the RPGchat meet-up. Brenda & I observed the opening ceremonies with another new GenCon attendee. There are decent amount of folks who have attended GenCon for decades, including one who attended it for 45 years! Yes, he was there at the first GenCon! After the first official die roll, the Exhibitor’s Hall opened up. We entered the area and visited. We bought the official GenCon dice set. I visited the Wizards of the Coast booth to start our dice hunt. There was statues of Drizz’t and Lolth:

In the board game area, there was a statue of an angel warrior:

In the hallway, we saw a Lego Robo Rally game with remote control robots. It is very cool to see.

I went to the GM’s workshop. It was very instructive and gave me some ideas for my games. I bought the Civil War Essentials Event Book for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and the Leverage RPG. I got both signed by the present designer, editor & art director.

I ended my day with a wonderful Robo Rally game with a beautiful 3D board. Check it out:

. I was Zoom Bot. After 3 rounds, my robot finally became real:

At one point, I had 2 locked registers and in a precarious position.

I lived and found a hiding spot to power down.

I was 2nd out of 5 players to reach the first of 3 flags.

I was 1st to arrive at the 2nd flag.

The DM designed some elevators for the game.
Flour 1:

Floor 2:

Top floor:

I can see the last flag. It is a tough one to get.
Uh oh. What’s this?

Competition to the flag. I better hurry.
Crap. I got pushed out of the way.

Woohoo! I won my place back.

I finally got a move 3 card but I had the wrong turn card. I couldn’t use any of them.

I got pushed out of the way and fell. James Rapinac won the game.
This is the final board position and a picture of the proud winner:

I’m glad that I managed to get up there first. I spent so long up there, waiting for the one card to bring me up. I am glad that I didn’t die the whole game. I enjoyed myself. Congratulations to James!

That was my Thursday. A great first day of GenCon!