SWIM !
It was a long weekend at StuffedCOWS, and I added a bit to my sleep deficit. But, a fun time seemed to be had by all.
More? ...
StuffedCOWS is a D&D convention held at College of DuPage, so about 15 minutes away from home. There were probably a good 100 - 120 players there all weekend, and I'd signed up to judge all weekend.
I managed to play one game on Friday morning. The module that I was supposed to judge only had 2 people sign up for pre-registration, and they either didn't show up for the first slot or got into a different game figuring that there wouldn't be enough to play the gmod I was judging. That was fine, as I could play one game I didn't get to zero. Kalen judged for my table, and Ryan also played there, so we had all three of us at one table -- the only time that happened over the weekend.
The rest of Friday I judged two modules ("The Ties that Bind" and "Minions of Shadow and Fire"), both of which ran pretty short. Kalen, Ryan, and I got out to IHOP for lunch (I was craving pancakes for some reason), and even had time to run home for leftover turkey, etc., for dinner. Oh, and as a judge reward they had a number of things to pick from, and I picked up a straight cone template set from SteelSqwire.
Saturday the games Kalen and I ran all went a bit longer. I ran "Fools Gold", "The Ties that Bind" again, and finally "Sign of the Black Orchid". I wasn't supposed to run that last mod, I was slotted for something different, but there was a big influx of players into that mod for some reason, and since I'd run it before I could shift over. Not as much time between slots this day, but Kalen and I did get out at lunch to copy the mod that we needed for Sunday and still grab stuff at Panera, while at dinner Kalen had no time and I had only a bit, so I ran out to get us both stuff at Taco Bell.
Saturday then also had the drawing for a dragon raffle. A local gamer (who I don't think I ever met) had passed away earlier this fall, leaving his wife and three young children. So the raffle was to benefit a college fund for the kids. I believe that they announced, by the end of everything, that the con had raised over $1500 for the fund, which was far more than I'd expected so that was terrific. Anyway, they raffled off about 10 or 12 dragon miniatures, including the new colossal and gargantuan ones (major pieces of plastic, those). Alas, none of my tickets were winners, nor were Kalen's or Ryan's, but ah well, all for a good cause.
Sunday, I ran a LONG game of "Crewel Intentions". The module is supposed to be two rounds, but should only run about 1.5 rounds or less (I played in last winter -- we started at 8pm and finished about 1:30am). Anyway, on Sunday I'd grabbed a group of guys that I knew I enjoyed playing with and said I'd judge for them. What I didn't know is that they were playing a bit above the level actually supported by the module (they were APL 10, but the module only got up to APL 8). So, most of the combats were easy, but since they were a higher level table they had a number of options available to them that weren't really written up in the module, so I had to vamp, make up stuff, and finally say "OK, you've gone as far as you can with that because it's just getting us way away from the mod, so we'll get back on track this way ...". At the end, one of the characters decided to swim through a long tunnel (with some magical assist from one of the other party members), got through the tunnel just at the end of his breath, and then realized that he'd cut himself off from the rest of his party with no way back (since the magic had worn off). He was in a village, though, so he had to try to find someone to give him an assist to get back. Meanwhile his party realized he wasn't returning right away and so they had to use other magic to get through the tunnel to find him. Finally, reunited but not at all where they needed to be, they scrounged up yet more magic so they could get back through the tunnel and finish there quest. They then found that their quest couldn't be completed, and they wonnd up swimming through that tunnel again(!) to get home more easily. None of which was really necessary or planned for in the module, but they did it basically because they could!
We wound up finishing just before 5 pm, having started about 8:30am. Kalen ran the same module, but got done MUCH earlier and even had time to run one other module (not on her schedule) and finish it before I got done.
I came home, made a bit of dinner, and crashed hard early.
Nothing too exciting at work today. Just catching up on things after the long weekend, and trying to herd a few cats there as I'm the delegate for my boss this week (since she took three weeks vacation).
More? ...
StuffedCOWS is a D&D convention held at College of DuPage, so about 15 minutes away from home. There were probably a good 100 - 120 players there all weekend, and I'd signed up to judge all weekend.
I managed to play one game on Friday morning. The module that I was supposed to judge only had 2 people sign up for pre-registration, and they either didn't show up for the first slot or got into a different game figuring that there wouldn't be enough to play the gmod I was judging. That was fine, as I could play one game I didn't get to zero. Kalen judged for my table, and Ryan also played there, so we had all three of us at one table -- the only time that happened over the weekend.
The rest of Friday I judged two modules ("The Ties that Bind" and "Minions of Shadow and Fire"), both of which ran pretty short. Kalen, Ryan, and I got out to IHOP for lunch (I was craving pancakes for some reason), and even had time to run home for leftover turkey, etc., for dinner. Oh, and as a judge reward they had a number of things to pick from, and I picked up a straight cone template set from SteelSqwire.
Saturday the games Kalen and I ran all went a bit longer. I ran "Fools Gold", "The Ties that Bind" again, and finally "Sign of the Black Orchid". I wasn't supposed to run that last mod, I was slotted for something different, but there was a big influx of players into that mod for some reason, and since I'd run it before I could shift over. Not as much time between slots this day, but Kalen and I did get out at lunch to copy the mod that we needed for Sunday and still grab stuff at Panera, while at dinner Kalen had no time and I had only a bit, so I ran out to get us both stuff at Taco Bell.
Saturday then also had the drawing for a dragon raffle. A local gamer (who I don't think I ever met) had passed away earlier this fall, leaving his wife and three young children. So the raffle was to benefit a college fund for the kids. I believe that they announced, by the end of everything, that the con had raised over $1500 for the fund, which was far more than I'd expected so that was terrific. Anyway, they raffled off about 10 or 12 dragon miniatures, including the new colossal and gargantuan ones (major pieces of plastic, those). Alas, none of my tickets were winners, nor were Kalen's or Ryan's, but ah well, all for a good cause.
Sunday, I ran a LONG game of "Crewel Intentions". The module is supposed to be two rounds, but should only run about 1.5 rounds or less (I played in last winter -- we started at 8pm and finished about 1:30am). Anyway, on Sunday I'd grabbed a group of guys that I knew I enjoyed playing with and said I'd judge for them. What I didn't know is that they were playing a bit above the level actually supported by the module (they were APL 10, but the module only got up to APL 8). So, most of the combats were easy, but since they were a higher level table they had a number of options available to them that weren't really written up in the module, so I had to vamp, make up stuff, and finally say "OK, you've gone as far as you can with that because it's just getting us way away from the mod, so we'll get back on track this way ...". At the end, one of the characters decided to swim through a long tunnel (with some magical assist from one of the other party members), got through the tunnel just at the end of his breath, and then realized that he'd cut himself off from the rest of his party with no way back (since the magic had worn off). He was in a village, though, so he had to try to find someone to give him an assist to get back. Meanwhile his party realized he wasn't returning right away and so they had to use other magic to get through the tunnel to find him. Finally, reunited but not at all where they needed to be, they scrounged up yet more magic so they could get back through the tunnel and finish there quest. They then found that their quest couldn't be completed, and they wonnd up swimming through that tunnel again(!) to get home more easily. None of which was really necessary or planned for in the module, but they did it basically because they could!
We wound up finishing just before 5 pm, having started about 8:30am. Kalen ran the same module, but got done MUCH earlier and even had time to run one other module (not on her schedule) and finish it before I got done.
I came home, made a bit of dinner, and crashed hard early.
Nothing too exciting at work today. Just catching up on things after the long weekend, and trying to herd a few cats there as I'm the delegate for my boss this week (since she took three weeks vacation).
posted by TT at
11/27/2006 10:19:00 PM
3 Comments:
A full weekend to be sure!
As my attempts at relaxing weekends almost always fail, maybe I should take a page from your book and pack the weekend from top to bottom with activities? It couldn't easily go worse than my current non-plans tend to.
The SteelSqwire link reminds me that I still want to pick up one of those line of sight indicators. It's the sort of thing I'd pick up for a few bucks if I saw it in a store but haven't gone looking for. I'm not inclined to make an online order of a $3 item only to have to pay about as much in postage on top of it, but maybe if I find one that also sells colored ID rings (I have four colors so far, but would like to get two or three others) then it'll be worth it for me.
On a completely separate issue, how've the unmoderated comments been working for you? I sometimes go a few days between checking over here, but it's been a while since I've seen robo-spam posts in your comments. Have they simply cut down or are you routinely deleting them in a late-night/early morning sweep?
By
Mike Norton, at 11/28/2006 9:15 AM
Well, packing the weekend is fine with gaming is a great mental break (I enjoying being a Dungeon Master/judge, especially when I don't have to come up with the adventure). But physically it's draining and there's still stuff at home that needs to be done. I may have taken the day off work yesterday if I weren't my boss's delegate this week. I did take part of today off at home, but that's for my blog.
Blog spam hasn't been an issue. I get one every couple of weeks in a post that's several weeks old. I think they're just burying links to improve Google ranking rather than trolling for customers.
By
TT, at 11/28/2006 7:15 PM
Oh, and what I forgot to mention is that SteelSqwire is a local outfit (far north suburbs of Chicago), so I've talked and gamed with the principal several times. We did a gaming session about 2.5 years ago where he pulled out a prototype of the wire templates, and so I was in an early focus group. I have a near-complete set of their products :-), but not the line of sight indicator.
By
TT, at 11/28/2006 7:20 PM
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