U-Con Day 1: Defining The OSR, Defusing A Nuclear Reactor, And Running Over the Elderly

 

Hi gang, and welcome to Day 1 and the official start of U-Con. My late-night Mutant Future game just ended, and it's around midnight as this post goes live. Today was fun and busy and busy. Ran some games, sold some games, talked about the OSR, and ran over little old ladies in my souped-up Deathmobile. Read on, and this will all make sense:

• Remember when I mention I had been upgraded to the concierge floor? Turns out they had a decent breakfast bar this morning. A plate of free bacon FTW!
• I zipped over to the convention center to get the Goblinoid booth set up, but I was a bit early. So I thumbed through the con book and saw a board game starting in minutes that I've always wanted to try out. Purchased my ticket and ran to the board game room to play...
• Road Kill Rally by Z-Man Games! I sat down with three other players for this demented "Death Race 2000"-themed game of vehicular mayhem. You score points for running others off the road or -- even better -- running over pedestrians littering the roadway. After finding out senior citizens were worth the most points, one of the other players uttered The Quote Of The Game: "It's really advantageous to kill the elderly." After fighting along the track and as the finish line neared, I took my car up to 140 MPH, somehow kept it on the road, passed the other players, and plowed through a crowd of citizens who were stupidly in a crosswalk. I sped over the finish line to win the game! Great game, and I can't wait to play it again at home. (I have an unopened copy I've been wanting to try with the home group.)
• My bloodlust sated, I got the Goblinoid Games/Pacesetter booth set up and business has been brisk. First sale of the con: Starships & Spacemen. And I just had someone pick up a "Mutant Future bundle" consisting of the rulebook, and my three MF supplements!
• Overheard in the dealer's hall, father speaking to his young son. "No, I'm not gonna buy you any more dice. You haven't eaten what you have now." (Yes, that's a verbatim quote.)
• John Buckley of The Knotty Works just stopped by. John's the author of the Going Postal series of Mutant Future supplements, amongst many, many, MANY other products and projects. John did some art for Deviant Database II, in fact, but he never got a print hardcopy. I was happy to present him with one I had on hand. He returned the gift by giving me an incredibly cool set of Mutant Future-based equipment cards. (All four sets!) He's playing in tonight's Mutant Future game as well. Nice to meet you John!
• Tonight I was a guest panelist during a roundtable discussion of "What Is The OSR?" Doug Kovacs, Jim Wampler, Adam Muszkiewicz, and I were asked to share our thoughts and experiences about what makes something "old school." There were some very interesting insights and some great discussion amongst the panelists and audience. But in the end, it was agreed that defining what makes something OSR would be like defining what makes something "art". You know what it is when you see it, but what it *is* will vary from person to person. I wish there had been a video made of the discussion as it was very interesting and a pleasure to be invited.
• After wolfing down a hamburger, I raced off to my late night game of Mutant Future -- "Gimme Shelter III: Down to Earth." The four intrepid scavengers were tasked with investigating a downed space station and to bring back everything that wasn't nailed down. Some highlights: Using an exploding cow to clear out a cave of mutants by driving the bovine into the cave, then hitting it with a slingshot pellet; "Sarge", a mutant human who was still fighting WWII, kept barking orders to "Johnson," a plastic army man he kept in his pocket; the two-headed, four-armed mutant who cobbled together a "laser-proof shield" by duct-taping together about two dozen AOL discs; the malfunctioning android who could only talk in one-syllable words, making him sound like Tarzan when he spoke; and the mutant housefly who charged into a nuclear reactor approaching meltdown who managed to shut it down as he took radiation damage each round, succeeding with only 3 HP left. Awesome job guys!

And now, onto the pictures of today's events...

Check it out. I'm a "special guest" AND a "VIP." I guess that makes me a "very special important guest person."

The registration booth was in full swing at 9 a.m. with the line stretching across the lobby and out the door!

As we take the hairpin curve in Road Kill Rally, I'm in the lead (yellow) and am about to plow through a "target-rich environment". The two red pedestrians are "advantageous elderly."

And my scorecard at the end shows the results. I took out two adults, two seniors, and a kid, as well as the checkered flag, crossing the finish line at 140 MPH!

The Goblinoid Games/Pacesetter booth is now open for business. Sadly, the GG banner on the wall kept falling down, so I had to put it on a stand behind me in the booth.

U-Con Day 0: A Little Snow And A Little Mouse

 

Hey gang,

Your Friendly Neighborhood Snider is on the convention circuit again this week. Today, I'm in frosty-cold Ypsilanti, Michigan, for my first time attending Michigan's U-Con Gaming Convention. I love going to first-time cons as I never know what to expect and am open to anything and everything that may surface during the event. At U-Con, I'll be manning the Goblinoid Games / Pacesetter LTD booth in the Vendor's Hall, as well as running games of Mutant Future and Cryptworld. (And, God willing, I'll find time to chuck some dice on the other side of the screen too!)

As always during these events, I'll be live-blogging from U-Con each day to give you a rundown of what's going on, what I've seen, and what you're missing out on. Today is "Day Zero," which means nothing is really happening tonight (that I know of). But I always like to arrive a day early in case I get lost, bad weather, or Cloverfield attack. (And I can sometimes find a pick-up game amongst other early-arrivers.) So here is today's preliminary post on what's up at U-Con!

• Was up until 3 this morning putting the finishing touches on my Cryptworld game to run Saturday night. Be sure to sign up, as it'll be a game to "remember." (SUBTLE GAME HINT) But I'm feeling that lack of sleep is starting to drag me under.
• Wonderful. I have to drive from northern Ohio into Michigan the day the area gets its first flakes of snow. Didn't hit anything more than a few flurries, but there were some frightening cloud packs on route.
• The best thing about the McDonald's dual drive-through order speakers? They can screw up your order in half the time!
• Got to the hotel, which is honestly one of the nicer hotels I've stayed at during a convention (yes, including Gen Con). When I checked in, I got a gratis upgrade to the top-floor concierge floor! So I have my own lounge with snacks and beverages and breakfast and hors d'vourves. If I wasn't so exhausted, I'd totally start carting trays of cookies back to my room.
• Ugh, I bought a mini-mouse for my laptop thinking that it might save space or something. This thing is so small, I'm getting frigging hand cramps trying to use it.
• Took a stroll over the convention center around 7 p.m. to see how the set-up was going. Wanted to grab some environmental shots of the banners and what-not. Well, access to the center from the hotel is sealed until tomorrow to keep folks -- like me -- from poking around. So I'll have lots of U-Con photos tomorrow, but tonight, you get shots like these:

MICHIGAN, I AM IN YOU

What the weather looked like as I crossed the Ohio/Michigan border at noon. I encountered one squall, but lucked out as I didn't hit the snow blast I was expecting.

That "mousepad" under my mini-mouse is my friggin' hotel room key.

[Cryptworld] New Thing: Chocolate Vampire

(I meant to post this on Halloween. Sorry, but I couldn't help myself...)

VAMPIRE, CHOCOLATE

STR: 4 (60) --- WPR: 6 (90)
DEX: 4 (60) --- PER: 7 (105)
AGL: 4 (60) --- PCN: 3 (45)
STA: 5 (75) --- NIACIN: 4.5 mg
ATT: 1/68% --- RIBOFLAVIN: 0.4 mg
MV: L 80†

Experience: 500 Proof of Purchase Points

Hiding in plain sight on your supermarket shelves, the Chocolate Vampire is one of the most diabolical things players may encounter in their investigations. Viewed by most as nothing more than a harmless, comical cereal company mascot, the Chocolate Vampire is actually something much more sinister.

The Chocolate Vampire does indeed “feed” on chocolate. The lair of a Chocolate Vampire is often filled to the rafters with horded candies, cocoas, powders, and other chocolate-flavored foodstuffs. It’s said that smell of the Chocolate Vampire’s lair can be detected a 1/2-mile away. To combat this, the Chocolate Vampire will set up his lair in a location where such a smell is undetectable – the basement of a chocolatier, the attic of a bakery, or in the heart of Hershey, Pennsylvania.

However, the Chocolate Vampire’s need for chocolate goes far beyond that of mere candies. The Chocolate Vampire must also feed on human blood as well, just as a normal vampire. But due to its craving for all things chocolate, the Chocolate Vampire has developed an unsettling ability to convert human bone marrow into spongy chocolate-flavored bits. These “marsh-marrows” are often sprinkled over its chocolate-laden foodstuffs – including breakfast cereals. Due to his seemingly innocuous, bumbling demeanor, he lulls his victims into a sense of false safety, luring them into his sweet-smelling lair where he begins his unholy marrow extraction-and-conversion process.

The Chocolate Vampire is often accompanied by two minions -- a strawberry-scented Conglomerate Man and a blueberry-scented Ghost. He used to be served by a cherry-scented Werewolf and a fruit-scented Mummy as well, until public opinion polls revealed these were kind of lame.

Michigan's U-Con Starts Next Week! Are You Game?

 

Hey gang,

Just a reminder that Michigan's U-Con Gaming Convention starts next week and runs November 14-16! I'm really looking forward to my first time at this just-across-the-Ohio-border convention and am looking forward to a rollickin' good time. Got lots on my plate for the convention, including:

• I'll be manning the Goblinoid Games / Pacesetter LTD booth in the Vendor's Hall, so stop by and see what we have for sale! Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future, Cryptworld, Rotworld, and a dozen other titles and supplements will be available for purchase. (Ask nicely and I'll run you through a quick Pacesetter adventure of your choice!)
• Enjoy old-school games? This year's U-Con hosts an OSR track filled with classic games (and games that embrace such gameplay), such as Swords & Wizardry, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future, AD&D 1e, Tekumel, OSRIC, Cryptworld, Stars Without Number, and Mutant Crawl Classics! Come getcher old school on!
• I'll be running two games during the event: Friday at 8 p.m., it'll be Mutant Future, "Gimme Shelter III: Down to Earth" -- NOW HIRING: Barter John needs six scavengers to investigate last month's meteorite impact crater. Rumors of extraterrestrial infestation are to be ignored. Any retrieved artifacts will be split 60-40. And Saturday at 8 p.m., it'll be Cryptworld, "Forget-Me-Not" -- Recent murders are identical to those committed by the "Paul Bunyon Butcher" 40 years ago. However, the original killer remains behind bars. Has a copycat surfaced, or is it something more sinister?
• Kinda unclear on what the OSR is, exactly? Stop by Friday at 6 p.m. for a roundtable discussion titled "What Is This OSR Thing Anyway?" as Doug Kovac, Jim Wampler, Bill Barsh, and I discuss what the OSR means to each of us.

The U-Con Program Guide is now available for download if you'd like to see what's going on...or what you're going to miss! And if you can't make it, stay tuned here at The Savage AfterWorld as I'll be live-blogging from the event each day with news, reviews, tales, and photos!