Of course you know, This Means War !
Winter War, that is! The long delayed Winter War post.
I tried to get caught up on sleep and get everything organized before Winter War. I was mostly successful, and wasn't quite so frantic on Friday morning. The weather was OK, roads fine, traffic a bit heavy through the suburbs, but we got to the hotel in Champaign with enough time to spare to register for the con, check in to the hotel room, get slightly settled (big room), and get some lunch at Friday's.
My goal for the convention was to catch up on all the regional Verbobonc modules that I'd fallen behind on because I had no time to do zeroes before Stuffed COWS. I was playing through the whole weekend as Aelorin, my sixth-level law-enforcement tank (Paladin 3/Fighter 2/Outcast Champion 1).
Slot 1: VER 7-05: "The Lion and the Dragon". I played this with Ryan, and I was appointed "commander" of the table due to the greater number of regional mods I'd played with my character, plus it was perfectly in-character for him to take command. The problem - one person didn't follow orders. I could chalk it up to the barbarian playing "wild" and thus in-character, or I could chalk it up to a bad choice by the player. Either way, we got our asses kicked, and barely escaped without any fatalities among our group. If the one guy had followed orders -- we still would have gotten our asses kicked. It's a good mod, but it kicked our asses.
Slot 2: VER 7-06: "The Swan and the Crow". Played with Matt and Ryan. We were frustrated by much of this module, but I think that's the way it's written. It took way to long to get to the meat of the story. When we got there, the story was good, and we did everything we needed to do -- but there was soooo much frustrating crap before that. Also, the judge didn't facilitate us getting past our frustration.
Slot 3: VER 7-07: "A Bitter Pill". Played with Matt and Ryan. A good story, decent amount of stuff going on, and the judge kept this moving so we we're feeling too hard the fact that we played this from midnight to 3am.
3am - Hit the bed hard. Alarm set for 8am for a quick shower before the next slot.
Slot 4: Saturday morning - Matt, Ryan and I were split three ways as I was judging VER 7-08 "Race the Spirit's Lightning". My favorite current mod to run, even though it runs too long to be contained in a four-hour slot. In this case, we had a long break between slots due to the auction, so I had time to run get some lunch from McDonald's.
Slot 5: VER 8-01 "Mediation". Not "Meditation", as it read in one spot, which would be entirely different. There were a couple of "Whoa" spots in the mod, but for some reason I don't remember other parts as well as I should. Again, I played this with Matt and Ryan along with three other people who only came for that one slot. It was a very good table to play with, though.
Slot 6: VERI 8-01 "Investiture" - again, played with Matt and Ryan along with a couple other people I like playing with - Suzanne Wills and her daughter, with Brandy judging. I got to play about half of it with this crew, then I got dragged away for the Mounted Borderers special mission (all four of us playing Mounted Borderers). Both the Mounted Borderers and the table I left behind were successful, which was NOT true at a lot of other tables. The resulting bloodbath, and the investiture of the new viscount, will probably get rolled into the end of "Mediation" for the general release, since this interactive is not going to be replayed (it doesn't lend itself to replay at all).
That was Saturday, and my head hit the bed about 1am, again leading to the 8am wakeup.
Slot 7: I was judging again - I managed to volunteer for all the morning, short-sleep slots. I judged the module that was originally the Cienega Valley special mission, that I played earlier with Joe, my ranger-scout/resident of the town of Cienega Valley. In this case, there were no Cienega Valley resident at the table, and no Pelor worshippers, so the mission didn't have the personal attachment. However, it was a table full of people I really like judging for, folks that I have fun playing with. And they did a good job with the module and I challenged them pretty well with the real "boss-fight". They just walked through one encounter that was supposed to be tough, though, as one guy was perfectly suited to do a ton of damage in one round and then be done for the day. In that fight, his big smack-down was all they needed.
Slot 8, and final: VER 7-09 "Jinxed". A fun mod, as I would expect from the author. I played with Matt and Ryan again, and we had an easier time with it than the judge had anticipated. It didn't help that we broke the mod a bit by killing someone who was supposed to get away. By this time in the convention, Aelorin was just in the mood to smack on bad things, and this mod provided the bad things.
We got done, finished packing up, grabbed something to eat, and got out of Champaign and on the road to Aurora, so I could get to bed and be on the road again the next day. But that's another story, that I've already told.
I tried to get caught up on sleep and get everything organized before Winter War. I was mostly successful, and wasn't quite so frantic on Friday morning. The weather was OK, roads fine, traffic a bit heavy through the suburbs, but we got to the hotel in Champaign with enough time to spare to register for the con, check in to the hotel room, get slightly settled (big room), and get some lunch at Friday's.
My goal for the convention was to catch up on all the regional Verbobonc modules that I'd fallen behind on because I had no time to do zeroes before Stuffed COWS. I was playing through the whole weekend as Aelorin, my sixth-level law-enforcement tank (Paladin 3/Fighter 2/Outcast Champion 1).
Slot 1: VER 7-05: "The Lion and the Dragon". I played this with Ryan, and I was appointed "commander" of the table due to the greater number of regional mods I'd played with my character, plus it was perfectly in-character for him to take command. The problem - one person didn't follow orders. I could chalk it up to the barbarian playing "wild" and thus in-character, or I could chalk it up to a bad choice by the player. Either way, we got our asses kicked, and barely escaped without any fatalities among our group. If the one guy had followed orders -- we still would have gotten our asses kicked. It's a good mod, but it kicked our asses.
Slot 2: VER 7-06: "The Swan and the Crow". Played with Matt and Ryan. We were frustrated by much of this module, but I think that's the way it's written. It took way to long to get to the meat of the story. When we got there, the story was good, and we did everything we needed to do -- but there was soooo much frustrating crap before that. Also, the judge didn't facilitate us getting past our frustration.
Slot 3: VER 7-07: "A Bitter Pill". Played with Matt and Ryan. A good story, decent amount of stuff going on, and the judge kept this moving so we we're feeling too hard the fact that we played this from midnight to 3am.
3am - Hit the bed hard. Alarm set for 8am for a quick shower before the next slot.
Slot 4: Saturday morning - Matt, Ryan and I were split three ways as I was judging VER 7-08 "Race the Spirit's Lightning". My favorite current mod to run, even though it runs too long to be contained in a four-hour slot. In this case, we had a long break between slots due to the auction, so I had time to run get some lunch from McDonald's.
Slot 5: VER 8-01 "Mediation". Not "Meditation", as it read in one spot, which would be entirely different. There were a couple of "Whoa" spots in the mod, but for some reason I don't remember other parts as well as I should. Again, I played this with Matt and Ryan along with three other people who only came for that one slot. It was a very good table to play with, though.
Slot 6: VERI 8-01 "Investiture" - again, played with Matt and Ryan along with a couple other people I like playing with - Suzanne Wills and her daughter, with Brandy judging. I got to play about half of it with this crew, then I got dragged away for the Mounted Borderers special mission (all four of us playing Mounted Borderers). Both the Mounted Borderers and the table I left behind were successful, which was NOT true at a lot of other tables. The resulting bloodbath, and the investiture of the new viscount, will probably get rolled into the end of "Mediation" for the general release, since this interactive is not going to be replayed (it doesn't lend itself to replay at all).
That was Saturday, and my head hit the bed about 1am, again leading to the 8am wakeup.
Slot 7: I was judging again - I managed to volunteer for all the morning, short-sleep slots. I judged the module that was originally the Cienega Valley special mission, that I played earlier with Joe, my ranger-scout/resident of the town of Cienega Valley. In this case, there were no Cienega Valley resident at the table, and no Pelor worshippers, so the mission didn't have the personal attachment. However, it was a table full of people I really like judging for, folks that I have fun playing with. And they did a good job with the module and I challenged them pretty well with the real "boss-fight". They just walked through one encounter that was supposed to be tough, though, as one guy was perfectly suited to do a ton of damage in one round and then be done for the day. In that fight, his big smack-down was all they needed.
Slot 8, and final: VER 7-09 "Jinxed". A fun mod, as I would expect from the author. I played with Matt and Ryan again, and we had an easier time with it than the judge had anticipated. It didn't help that we broke the mod a bit by killing someone who was supposed to get away. By this time in the convention, Aelorin was just in the mood to smack on bad things, and this mod provided the bad things.
We got done, finished packing up, grabbed something to eat, and got out of Champaign and on the road to Aurora, so I could get to bed and be on the road again the next day. But that's another story, that I've already told.
posted by TT at
2/25/2008 04:00:00 PM
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