lurkerwithout: (gaming)
2017-08-07 06:34 am

Maricopa-Con '17

Went on the roommate's extra guest membership again this year, the I only managed one of the days.  On Sunday I was just exhausted and fell back asleep in the morning.  A small pity, as I'd signed up for a session of Kobolds Ate My Baby! and to try out the board game Abyss.  But Saturday was good.  Played in the GURPS: Trollhunters ongoing again.  This time I was chipper, fanatical priestess of the God of Resurections.  I kind of picture her in a Mormon suit, biking around from dungeon to dungeon, knocking on doors.  Anyway, our group went to the ruins and encountered a band of orcs, led by a troll.  A sizable portion of the orcs were downed by the groups specialized archer, until she got knocked out by a more heavily armored orc.  In preparing for the approaching troll I attempted to boost the health of the dwarf barbarian only to suffer a critical miscast.  Which turned them into a giant naked dwarf.  They gamely tried to wrestle the troll but ended up at -66 hit points.  Still alive and walking at the end of the battle, but yeesh.  Despite several near deaths (including my priestess) the group was victorious and the characters will advance to whoever runs them next.

Later in the evening I got to play the Red Dragon Inn card game.  In that the players are adventurers relaxing at a tavern, spending their loot on booze.  Each player has an adventurer deck, i was Zot the Wizard.  Another player picked Pooky the Bunny, my familiar.  The goal is to force the other players out, either by making them pass out from a combination of damage and drunkeness or by losing all your money.  I managed to help push out the enchantress, the drunken monk, the time wizard, the fighter AND my familiar.  But the shaman managed to block several turns of my attacks on him while right on the edge and come from behind to win.
lurkerwithout: (Cat Jedi)
2014-08-04 06:35 pm

Maricopa-Con

The roommate had Kickstarter-ed this small (probably somewhere between 100-200 participants) 2-day gaming convention.  And he had an extra pass and I have bunches of vacation hours to burn off before year's end.  Played a few card games;For Sale, Pick that Dog and Sentinels of the Multiverse; in between longer gaming sessions.  I'd played For Sale before but had forgotten, its a bidding game centered around flipping real estate.  Sentinels was a pretty cool non-collectable card game of super-hero battles...

Mostly we played in three different rpgs.  "Trollhunter" was a GURPS: Fantasy game with the pre-gens carrying over and leveling from session to session.  Fairly fun and I always want a chance to try out more GURPS in the hope of one day running my ideas for a modern horror or GURPS: X-Com campaign.  Then Ken St. Andre ran a group of us thru a Tunnels & Trolls scenario.  Mostly fun, though it would have been if Ken understood concepts like play balance so it wouldn't have been several of us running freshly rolled characters as essentially lackeys for the guy with the 5th level dwarf warrior.  And T&T leveling seems to be some kind of exponential thing.  And lastly was a 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons loosely based around the "Magnificent Seven".  And also run loosely around the concept of using the rules for the system.  Plus I don't understand why he'd make some of the bandits ogres or trolls and then just treat them like basic 2-HD at best mooks...

Old man grognards and their bitterness towards all things later edition and their creaky terrible jokes.  Still I had fun and had a weekend not going to work.  Which is always good...
lurkerwithout: (Borg cat)
2010-05-29 08:56 pm

Phoenix Comicon: Day 3

Decided to use the light rail today, as a $3.5 all day pass makes for a much better deal then the $12 or more for parking downtown. Took about a 1/2 hour to go from the park&ride lot to the stop next to the convention...

Killed some time watching some short movies, with the live-action version of the first part of Street Angel standing out. Captured the cleverness and humor of the comic well. Then I hit the dealer's room again and found a dealer with a 50% off all trades offer and so grabbed a couple books there...

After that I met up with [profile] kafeixuesheng at the John Scalzi panel. Scalzi read one of his short pieces then did Q&A on writing and dealing with Hollywood. Then we went out and grabbed something to eat before hitting the James Marsters' Q&A. I had no idea he had a theater background before landing the role of Spike. I liked his story about how Anthony Head used to yell at him about his ridiculous his accent was. And what it was like to make-out with John Barrowman on Torchwood...

Not much after that, [profile] kafeixuesheng got all his Scalzi books autographed and we tried to find some open gaming. Sadly the best would have been waiting an hour or more for a 4e demo so I called it a day...

All in all I had a good time. And the various 1/2 off books meant I saved at least what I paid for the con registration. Of course it was all topped off by me getting a flat on the drive home. So even though I hadn't planned on going for the partial Sunday events, I'm definitely not now that I have to find a tire place that is open tomorrow. I think Discount should be. Stupid tire...
lurkerwithout: (Borg cat)
2010-05-28 09:23 pm
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Phoenix Comicon: Day 2

So today I ended up at the Comic Book Trivia panel and made it the finals, winning many crappy free comics in the process. I didn't get the Frazetta drawn book since I could only remember three colors of kryptonite and their properties (Green, Red and Gold). But one of those free comics is the first issue of the Samuel L. Jackson as a space something as Presented by Samuel L. Jackson...

Then I sat in on the Steampunk/Urban Fantasy panel. Amusingly the four authors who were on it were 1)YA modern fantasy 2)Victorian gothic fantasy 3)epic fantasy 4)YA modern fantasy and 5)supernatural mystery. Still they had plenty of good advice on world building vs. characters in writing and how to do research. And the first guy was fairly funny too...

After that I killed some time in the Dealer's Room. Got Essential Tomb of Dracula for 1/2 price and a free sketch (though I tipped him) from Randy Milholland of Something Positive. I asked for one of his supers characters done 90s style and so I've got Extreme Punchline. Complete with crazy shark mouth, exaggerated biceps, lots of pouches and feet hidden off panel...

Then I finished the day with Will Wheaton Presents: The Awesome Hour. Well hour and a half since he was the last one in the ball room. He read a couple of his editorials and then did Q&A. Cool guy...

One thing I won't be doing again. Parking near the convention center. $12 for an all day pass. Saturday I'm finding someplace (maybe work) near where I can catch the light rail...
lurkerwithout: (Borg cat)
2010-05-27 04:57 pm
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Phoenix Comicon Day 1?

So I'm doing the local Comicon this weekend, but after checking tonight's Preview Events I didn't see anything I really was interested in. So I think I'll just enjoy the night off...
lurkerwithout: (Interesting)
2008-07-26 01:52 am
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SDCC

If you're like me then you didn't get to go to San Diego Comic Con this year. Either because of time or money or both. Luckily a little stuffed bull can blog about it for you. Its almost like you were there!
lurkerwithout: (Cat Jedi)
2007-06-15 03:26 pm
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ConGames Day 2

I only lasted an hour today. The one game I wanted was already full. The anime room wasn't showing anything I was interested in. And looking at all the games I thought about signing up for (all boardgames) were ones either I or [profile] spoonyone owned. Which meant I would have been PAYING for the opportunity to play games I could do for free if I just put some effort into setting up a Game Night...

And looking at Saturday all that I see I kind of want to do is a 2 hour Toon game and the Midnight Hentai Dubbing event. Neither is worth the drive down to Mesa really. So I'm just going to call it done. And a waste of $35 (closer to fifty after I factor in fuel costs). I don't think I've been to a decent con in...four years? I think the Hexacon where I got to play Slaughterhouse: Indigo and Complete Mafia with Tony D was four years ago...

Still, just another reason to look forward to moving out come August. Being able to do a Game Night on Fridays before work and not have to kick people out at 10. And having my own place to try and run a Sunday night rpg...
lurkerwithout: (Cat Jedi)
2007-06-14 07:42 pm
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ConGames Day 1

It was Thursday, so not much happened. I sat in on a game of Railroad Tycoon. Then I went looking for food (since the Mesa Convention Centrer doesn't allow any kind of outside food/drink. If you get caught with it, apparantly the con gets fined). Anyway, since there wasn't really anything I was really wanting to do I decided to just call it a day and head home. Hopefully tomorrow will be better...
lurkerwithout: (Default)
2004-08-01 01:47 am
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Hexacon

Well I'm back and done. Technically theres more on Sunday, but I'm not driving all the way back to Tempe for a half-days worth of events. Especially not after getting in after 1AM.

But I mostly had fun. Got to sit in on a couple d20 Mafia demos with Tony DeGileremo, and I'm really looking forward to its release in the Fall. Then I hung out with my friends Noah and Miles for awhile, hitting the video game room and wasting some time on Wario Party or whatever it was called.

Saturday, I ran 1 of the 2 tables for the HackMaster demo tourney. That was great, got to kill two characters fairly and one got offed by the surviving party members. Note to those who play in D&D type games, when you're the CHAOTIC EVIL dark elf mage don't drop flaming oil on the Samurai and the Holy Knight (Squished together Paladin/Cavalier). Still even the people who got killed had fun and some seemed likely to hunt down the book.

Dan's table also seemed to have fun, and some even seemed intrested in getting in touch with him later as possible new group members.

Which will be great provided my Saturday group didn't just go bust.

After the Demo Tourney we got to have Tony run his module, Slaughterhouse: Indigo for several of us. Me, Dan and Jane from my Saturday game and three people I knew from a previous HackMaster group (one of them being Chris Carlso a friend from back in my LARPing days). During the course of the adventure Chris's character fumbles and accidently hits Dan's character with a sling bullet, doing a miserable 2 points of damage to him. Dan responds by ignoring the previous enemies and trying to castrate Chris' character. And things just escalate from there. Rather than watch the party self-destruct in the middle of a VERY deadly module I walked away from the table.

I don't know if Dan will feel insulted I didn't side with him or what. But this isn't the first time I've seen Dan overreact to a fumble injury against another party member. The previous time involved an NPC party member, but Dan's character ended up banished and almost executed over it.

And still Dan will always either play Chaotic Neutral or characters that slide into C.N. All so that he can act without really planning things or thinking of the potential consequences. And for a min/max style character creator type that gets old.

Dan's my friend and I'll keep playing with him for as long as he wants to. But sometimes he just pisses me off.
lurkerwithout: (Default)
2004-07-30 11:17 am
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Con

And we're off...

Paycheck. Bank. Hexacon.

Hopefully this is fun. And not just me spending 25 bucks to help Dan run a tournament. Oh well, get to meet Tony DiGelermo again. Maybe he'll have some copies of d20 Mafia for sale or at least to demo.
lurkerwithout: (green cloak)
2004-07-29 12:48 pm
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Decisions

So. Should I go down to Tempe for the pre-registered day at Hexacon? Or just spend the day on the computer, surfing the Kenzer boards and LJ?

Hmmmm. I've got 8 dollars in my checking account and I'm going to make the Tempe drive at least twice this weekend. And there really aren't any events scheduled for today that truly catch my attention.

Yep, internet followed by EverCrack wins out.