This year marks the third time I will have been to Origins. Yeah, that's right, Internets. I brought out the future perfect tense. Anyway, I'm really excited. I get 4 days of doing what I enjoy with people that understand! I'm signed up on a Heroes Game (4-5 hours), a 3.5 game, and my favorites: Wings of War and Birds of Prey (WWII and modern day dogfighting games respectively). Anyone else heading out?

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RIP Snaggler

Gah!  I wish!  I've never been to a proper gaming convention.  I went to a thing called "Games University" with some friends a few years ago, and it was neat, but that is the only gaming convention to which I have EVER been.  Sad really.  I should definitely make an effort to get to GenCon sometime at the very least.

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"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos

"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB

[dice type=fudge]3dF[/dice]

I have one request to all convention-goers. Please in the name of all that's good, take a shower. Some people really stink there, cus they don't take the 10 minutes to wash themselves. Is it really that difficult? I hate to have my RPG fun interrupted by some nasty stench.

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Proud creator of the only stickied thread on these forums.

I always make sure to take a shower each day before I go the convention. It's just courtesy. :D

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RIP Snaggler

I just got back from Origins. I played so many games and yet I wish I could play more. I also had my worse D&D session ever, so I'm not sure if I'll ever play that there again.

I'm tired, I'm in pain, and I feel like my mind's in a blender. And yet, I was sad to leave. I can't wait for next year!

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RIP Snaggler

What was wrong with your D&D session?  Who ran it, how it was run?

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

Well, the blurb promised a horror game with premade characters.  So I'm thinking "Ravenloft" or something like it. Something where you have to think and be tough.
*sigh*
I had a few alarm bells go off when I sat down: 1) The Fighter was a two-weapon spec, 2) my Master of Many Forms had 2 +1 ring of Protections, and 3) The Barbarian didn't have a magic weapon at lvl 13. My normal group is really rules heavy, so I just decided that maybe it's a little more free-form and I should just go with it. Then he dropped the bomb:
"I'm just winging it tonight. I'm not going to lie."
...crud nuggets
So we go through the backstory: There's an unnamed town that's overrun with undead. Thinking that this isn't good, some unknown benefactor put a bubble around the town to keep the undead in there. Should we clear it out, we'll get the town. We all recieved a letter explaining this. The letter also gives us access to go through the bubble. We all arrive by carriage and we're standing outside the town.

We go in and the first thing we notice is dust is moving around with no wind. Promising. We go through the town, suddenly we're attacked by Bleakborns. The cleric puts up a field of blades so they can't enter. It also prevents the Fighter, Paladin, and Barbarian from moving in. I cast Call Lightning but my spell is not nearly as powerful as a full Druid, but that's okay. We manage to fight them off, the cleric using his Greater Turning. As soon as they're done, two more clouds gather around mine. They then attack me. So everyone else runs, I change into a crow and start flying, looking for the caster. I see more moving dust. I get a knowledge check and figure these must be swarm-shifters. I tell the others to start attacking the swarm clouds. This is when the Fighter realizes she's completely useless. After several rounds of full atacks, nothing gets through. She had a fire weapon and frost weapon. I asked the DM, "So....nothing gets though?"
"Nope."
"Not even the fire? Swarms take energy damage normally."
"Nope. Nothing."
"...."
One of them runs right before it dies and I go after it. It starts burrowing as a swarm of scarabs, so I use my power to turn into black pudding and go after it. I manage to kill it and as I'm climbing, I get attacked by a Dream visage. As I'm completely screwed, I try to run. I make it two feet before I'm dusted. So the Archer who also got a letter shows up. But then the dream visage attacks the Paladin. And he's dusted. The DM pulls out the book, leafed trough it and said "Yeah, that one." So we get attacked by the Dream visage and an Enthropic Reaper. And the Barbarian gets dusted. The Fighter goes after the reaper thinking she can finally kill something. Except she has two swords that don't do much damage. She can't get through it's damage reduction. She gets fed up and says she's just going to attack the bubble until she gets out.

I can't remember much after that. There was an argument about attacks of opportunities, we beat everything and we win.

Maybe it's just me, but I think I prefer adventures with more planning than this.

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RIP Snaggler

Sigh....  That does sound horrible.  I would feel horrible if I setup a game at a convention and wasn't prepared, didn't have an understanding of the rules (as it sounds like), etc. 

Play any new cool games?

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

At least the game ran, last year when I went to origins on of my games never happend, but we found a cool game instead, wound up buying something from there booth later on. Too bad me and my Dad are the only ones that like that game (Some roller coast game illistrated by Nodwick) also Killer Bunnies is a game no one else likes....I love it and he likes it, and I've got like 4 expansion packs (Local game store went under so he bought all of the ones they had) and no one to play it with....I wish I had a way to play online....

That was the con we tolk the strange name track (We created out own track): Chickens in the Mist (Modern Horror game- if you like horror try out some stuff by 12-to-Midnight), Curse of the Vampire Cow (A living style game with a uniqe setting), Killer Bunnies, Venus Needs Men....fun con. Avoid Monty Python Illuminati, its not as good as it sounds.

Anyway I'd suggest anyone who likes renissance-modern mix settings with medium magic check out the Starmage Prophcies living campaign, or the Blackmoor if you like traditional D&D. There at least a written modual and both times I went a decent DM. Also both mods I played where OK, Curse of the Vampire Cow was in fact a very good adventure (we did not in fact meet the vampire cow, though it is in the mod.... if you follow some obviusly bad advice the "vampire cow" can be met and will kill you as its a vampiric minotar...with some other stuff.

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-Nova

IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies. --The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Noam Chomsky. The New York Review of Books, February 23, 1967.

My best one was the horror Hero game. I played a metal character named Ironclad. I gave him a Russian accent and had fun with his love of reality shows. I played a board game called Bootleggers that was a ton of fun. Last was a game called Battleground which is a mixture of Magic and Warhammer. Last thing I got was a program called Hero Lab. It allows me to make d20 characters and keep tabs on them.

The Vampire Cow game sounds awesome. Who makes it?

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RIP Snaggler

Its part of a "living" campain called "The Starmage Prophecies" It was living dragonstar until the company that ran that went under and the new guys told them they couldn't use any of the old stuff. So they blew up that galaxy and set this in a neighboring galaxy. Now this world is being invaded by aliens. It has a fair bit of magic, but so do the aliens. The aliens also have very advanced tech. To remedy this fact the most powerful clerics are bringing back the souls of people from the neighboring galaxy at random, as the destruction of that galaxy was so tramatic they have not moved on. And as they bring these people back they help build up the tech basis. This also allows Living Dragonstar characters to be imported sans gear. See http://www.starmage.info/

 Its like Living Greyhawk but with more RP and less combat. On the downside it uses d20 modern rules witch means lower magic, and less healing, while guns do more damage (flintlock rifle is something like 2d6, basic modern handgun is 2d6....base class HP is 6-8+con or so....do the math becuse WoTC didn't)

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-Nova

IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies. --The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Noam Chomsky. The New York Review of Books, February 23, 1967.