Tuesday, June 7, 2011

NTRPG 2011 Report

[tldr; you should have gone]

Some other people's reports on NTRPG 2011

Yeehaw! That was a blast. Over sooooo fast I couldn't believe it was already Sunday.  2nd time attending and will definitely be back next year.   Nice to see more of the Austin Region Crew.  Will try harder to convince more of them to go next year.  It's a fun con, run by great guys, at a really nice and convenient hotel.  But, for me at least, (even though I'm not a celeb chaser or signature collector) I get one hell of a kick out of being DM'd by and playing with people who wrote the games, modules, and magazines that thrilled me so much as a teenager it started a life long hobby.  I healed the guy who wrote the original Druid class.  That's bad ass in my book.


Thursday morning I was too excited I couldn't sleep so I headed north around 3:30 am, only took a few hours and had to spend the morning dozing in my car until I could check in.  That night Ben Burns ran my very first game ever of Paranoia.  A game that I've been curious about since first seeing ads in Dragon Magazine.  My communist mutant only lost two clones and succeeded in recruiting two comrades. Power to the Infrareds, down with the computer! 

Friday I returned to Matt Finch's Mythrus Tower.   An ongoing convention S&W campaign.  Father John (my character from last year) and party futz around on 1st level for a while before plunging to the 3rd level and totally p0wning some ghouls.  Early edition clerics turn undead is darn powerful.  Later on I played in Bill Web's Mythrus game which was wilderness adventure.  I died.  Fortunately I had made a pact with another cleric to use my raise dead scroll if I died.  Oh, death by Giant Coral snake bite, 1pt of damage save or die vs poison.  Over all this con was costly for Father John.  He expended all three potions of heal he had, a scroll of raise dead. Otoh, he gained a+1 mace, several thousands of  gold ;), and a level. Now 5th and able to cast 3rd level spells, woot!

That evening Dennis Sustare ran me and several others through his great module (written for NTRPG Con 2011) "Tourist Traps".  Emphasis on the plural in traps.  Swords & Wizardy rules.  Fun and different module where characters are at a resort town, Fort Charles, for some rest and relaxation.   Fun, funny and filled with "references" such as my favorite two crows Munin and Hugin.  I liked playing in this module so much I bought a copy and I'm not much of a module purchaser.   Btw Grognardia's interview with Dennis.

Saturday was the before mentioned Mythrus Wilderness, the auction in which I bought lots of art (more on that later).  After dinner I and several other brave Millenians plundered the Tomb of Amemnes, a Basic/Expert Hollow World adventure written and DM'd by Steve Winter for NTRPG 2011.  Travis was one of the funniest thieves I've every gamed with.  Several other good role-players eliminated the potential tedium of exploring trap infested tombs.  The well written module helped there as well.  Short, but varied and interesting.  I actually won a copy of this module in the raffle.  Pretty darn cool.

Sunday, wow already. It came fast but 3 days of junk food and 9am till midnight gaming was wearing heavy on me.  I lasted for a few more hours in which I explored a too small portion of Castle of the Mad Archmage DM'd by Jon Hershberger.  AD&D.  I'm very proud that my Paladin was able to topple the blasphemous rat god temple before I left early to drive home before I passed out.

See ya next year.




7 comments:

  1. "I healed the guy who wrote the original Druid class."

    Best line.

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  2. Sounds like you had fun. Now I just gotta figure out who the heck you were. :) It doesn't sound like we were in any games together, but if you saw a guy with a ten year old boy - that would be me.

    - Ark

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  3. "I healed the guy who wrote the original Druid class."

    Agree great line. That sums up one of the hard-to-describe elements of the Con right there.

    Good to see you again at any rate.

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  4. Arkhein - remember more than one guy with shorter copy running around. But, I think I know which pair was you. I'm Norman Harman, big and round. I don't think we were in any games together. We'll bump heads next year, eh?

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  5. It was a pleasure meeting you and playing in Tomb of Ammenes together! Like you say, being the thief has a lot of potential for inflicting tedium - "I'm going to go have some thiefy fun again, you guys might as well start checking your email" - so I tried to play up the cowardice that would give the fighty types a frequent chance to take over, and to be entertaining during the times I hogged the spotlight. Glad to see it worked OK, although I note that the one time we really did face a trap I didn't check for it and lucked out by randomly turning right instead of left. This is why my New York Red Box thieves never reach 7th level!

    Arkhein, was it your son who was the funniest radiaton-eyed mutant I've ever played with? In the other Metamorphosis Alpha session there were no kids, so things were much more cerebral and talky without someone hilariously wanting to atomic torch something every five minutes. That was hella fun.
    - Tavis

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  6. Great to see you again, Norman. I'm going to meet you guys down in Austin sometime soon for some Saturday pick up gaming. And I hope you have a spare WALL at your pad for all that art you purchased!!!

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  7. Yes, the Tomb of Amemnes was a blast. Tavis’ thief is one of the top stories from the con that my gf & I have been telling along with that final battle. And the regular goo-ing of hirelings.

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