My first day at GenCon 2011 (and also my first day at GenCon, ever) has drawn to a close. Sadly I missed the actual first day of the convention, but there was still plenty of fun to be had on Friday.

The day started with me getting up at 3:30am to catch my flight; I was dropped off at the wrong terminal, went through security, found out that I was at the wrong terminal, went to the right terminal, went through security again, and managed to get on the plane. Once I got to Indianapolis things got better, though.

The hotel wasn’t ready for me, as I had gotten there at 9am (I really hadn’t expected it to be). I dropped my stuff off, loaded my backpack up, and headed to the convention center.

The Will Call line was short, consisting of just me, so I got my badge and tickets in short order. I exchanged a few tickets for generics and started wandering, not really knowing what to do with myself. I wound up in the dealers’ floor, which was a great place to start.

The dealers’ floor is like the world’s largest game store, with tons of people offering you demos and freebies. I plan to spend more time there tomorrow. I got my copy of Bulldogs! while I was there, and also scored a copy of Mortal Coil and How to Host a Dungeon (which I can’t wait to try). Oh, and some really badass Fudge dice, which I used later in the con.

I also stopped in and saw the people at the This Just In From GenCon podcast, and they did a brief interview with me (as a first-timer) that’ll go on their site.

My first real gaming experience at GenCon was Conquest of Nerath, which lasted about four hours. We had to call it at the end because of time constraints; it could easily have gone on for another two hours.

I’m not generally that perturbed by long games; I like Akrham Horror just fine, for example. But there are two things that can ruin a long game for me: over-reliance on luck, and lots of down time. Nerath, unfortunately, has both. Strategies can be laid waste by lucky die rolls and good card draws, and in a four-player game I waited easily 15-20 minutes between turns. When I was doing something, it was fun; most of the time I wasn’t doing anything, though. Probably won’t be buying it, though I wouldn’t be averse to playing it again, maybe in a two-player game.

Then I headed off to the Ennies reception where I mingled with the likes of Fred Hicks, which was cool; also, a lot of people had great things to say about Bulldogs!, which was even cooler.

Speaking of Bulldogs!, my next appointment was to run a session at Games on Demand, which I did. I had four players (one of whom had to drop out at 10pm; the game went until about 11pm), and it was an absolute blast. I used my new Fudge dice, and I have to say I think I killed it in there. It helped that I had some really great, super-enthusiastic players at my table.

And that’s my first day. Tomorrow I hope to spend some time doing demos on the dealers’ floor, and maybe get some games in at Games on Demand; I’d also like to try the new Legend of Drizzt board game. Until tomorrow. Or, later today I guess. Or something. God I’m tired.

I’ve posted this before, but changes have been made, so I thought I’d post my revised GenCon schedule. I think that, initially, I made the rookie mistake of booking too many games, so I’m going to drop a couple of them. This leaves me with only two games scheduled, and plenty of time to do other things, like see the dealers’ floor, go to panels, and horn in on other games with generic tickets.

What it also leaves time for me to do is run some games of Bulldogs! at Games on Demand. I don’t have firm times scheduled yet, but I’m putting some tentative scheduling in below. If you want to play Bulldogs! with me, keep an eye on my Twitter account (@Zelgadas); I’ll be posting info there periodically.

Finally, I would not be completely adverse to running an after-hours game for someone, provided we could get a good-sized group together (four to six is what I’d want). Tweeting at me is probably the best way to organize something like that, though you could also email me at engard at gmail dot com.

• Friday, 1pm: Conquest of Nerath
• Friday, sometime after 6pm: Bulldogs! at Games on Demand
• Saturday, 2pm: Games on Demand (I’ll be playing, not running)
• Saturday, sometime after 6pm: Bulldogs! at Games on Demand

See you in Indy!

I’m going to be documenting a couple of big upcoming events in my life over the next couple of months.

If you’re a gamer, you’ll be more interested in the first: I’m going to GenCon in a couple of weeks. I’ll bring a laptop with me so I can blog about my experiences, and I’ll also be updating my Twitter feed (@Zelgadas) with my experiences as well. I’ll be playing some D&D, some indie games (probably a lot of them), playing Conquest of Nerath and Pillars of the Earth, and I’ll be running some >Bulldogs! sessions. In between all of that, I’ll be doing other nerd things, which I’ll probably share.

The second is actually a much bigger deal for me, though I’ll understand if it’s of less interest to the general public: my wife is going bionic. That is, she’s getting her hip replaced in September. She’s young for it (we’re in our early 30s), but she’s got a degenerative hip condition that has resulted in 70% or so of her hip being necrotic. So, it has to go. The surgery is going to be an interesting experience to say the least, and it promises to improve her (and, by extension, my) quality of life considerably. I’ll be documenting this throughout the process, with pictures even. She’ll also be sharing her thoughts, which I’ll post here.

Although I won’t be liveblogging it, I’d also like to mention that, this weekend, I’ll finally be seeking therapy for whatever emotional/anxiety disorder I happen to suffer from. I’ve spoken about this before, but it’s finally happening this weekend. I’ll likely share my thoughts on the process, but in a less formal way.

At any rate, that’s what’s coming up next month and the following. I’ve got some other posts in the hopper (by which I mean “in my head”) that I plan on posting whenever I get around to it. Also, you can expect to hear more about The Demolished Ones as months progress.

A little while ago, I was contacted by Steve Russell of Rite Publishing to work on a project for him. After speaking to him about it, it sounded like the kind of thing I’d really enjoy working on, so I agreed. I’d like to share a couple of things about this project with you.

First, this project uses FATE 3.0. The rules are available for free online, so we won’t be reprinting them (the page count isn’t high enough to warrant that). I will, however, be making some modifications to core FATE to accommodate some of the story elements within the game. I don’t want to get into specifics, but I’m going to be playing around with how characters are created, and how aspects are handled.

Second, this is a patronage project. This means that we’ll be soliciting patrons at some point in the near future, asking people to contribute funds to the project. What you get in exchange for your contribution is creative control. I will be soliciting feedback from patrons at various points along development, and I will be incorporating patron feedback into the final product. If you decide that it sounds like the kind of project that you’re interested in, support it. Supporting it gets you input, and helps ensure that the final product sees the light of day. It’s a win-win!

Third, this being a patronage project, it’s not yet green-lit. As I’ve said, we’ll be soliciting patrons soon, and trying to hit a specific goal that we need to hit in order to publish. Until we hit that goal, the project is not green-lit. I really hope that it becomes green-lit, because I think this thing’s going to be awesome.

Finally, I’d like to leave you guys with a little teaser, something to get you interested. This teaser doesn’t necessarily represent the final product, but it’s the direction that I’m going in at the moment. We’re not soliciting patrons yet, but keep your eye on this blog; I’ll let you know when we are, and point you in the right direction.

Tom awoke on a cold floor, the taste of cotton in the back of his mouth. His tongue felt heavy, thick; his arms refused to push him up. He floundered for a few minutes there, trying to get his bearings, trying to gain stability, control. He took a breath and was hit with something metallic mixed with the scent of sweat and fear. He opened his eyes, cautiously, and pushed himself up.

The room was small, bare concrete walls and hard stone floor. That was the first thing he saw; the second was the body. It lay in the center of the room, face-down, sprawled, a crimson pool congealed around it. The man was dressed in formal attire, though the clothes were shabby and worn. His hair was dark, mussed, matted with blood.

Tom pushed himself back, away from the corpse, and looked around the room wildly, alert for danger. That was when he saw the others. Four of them, two men and two women, all around the room. Three were unconscious, prone, as he had been, unceremoniously left on the floor to wake. The Fourth, one of the women, was huddled in the corner, her eyes shut tight, rocking gently and muttering to herself.

Who were these people? Was one of them the killer? Were they all potential victims? What was this place, and why was he here?

Tome searched his memory for the answers, but found nothing. Nothing at all. That struck him as slightly odd at first, but the more he searched the more terrified he became. He knew his name. He knew how old he was. The more he searched, though, the more he became aware that nothing else was there. He could remember nothing of his life, nothing of the events that had led him here.

Something was very wrong.

Lately, I’ve been playing a couple of games on Steam.

The first, and arguably the better of the two, is Magic: The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012. I played the first Duels game and liked it quite a bit. The second surpasses the first in just about every way. There are more decks available (and some of them are just plain awesome), lots of unlocks to get, and three separate campaigns to play. One of them, the Revenge campaign, is just a harder version of the main campaign, where your enemies have better cards available. The third, though, is the Archenemy campaign, which allows you to play with a whole new, cooperative style of Magic. In addition to the campaigns, you can also play custom games. I haven’t experimented with that yet, but I would imagine that’s where a lot of my time will go once I’m done with the campaigns. If you like M:TG, I highly recommend this game; it’s only $10.

The second is Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale, an awkward name if ever there was one. This is not what I’d call a particularly good game. The graphics are ugly, the gameplay is repetitive, there are a number of bugs and balance issues (the most glaring of which is that the rogue kills more stuff and therefore levels up faster than anyone else), there’s no real voice work to speak of (the NPCs talk with text boxes accompanied by grunts). Despite all this, I’m having a great time playing it with my friend Mike, and I’m enjoying it for what it is: stupid, cheap fun. So, while I can’t really recommend the game, if you have friends keen on playing it, there are worse ways to spend $15.

Part One Part Two Part Three

The Story

The next day, PJ, Percy, Debra, and Boop-Boop all met in Bartram Gardens, Boop-Boop’s home. They each discussed what they had learned and compared notes, all coming to the same terrifying conclusion: that the Black Court vampires had to be stopped, and that they would have to do it. They needed help, though.

PJ called the nightclub Babylon and set up a meeting for that night with Gerhardt von Manschafft, the leader of the city’s White court vampires. Gerhardt was influential and often had valuable information, and PJ had a good working relationship with him.

The group decided that they’d leave and wait for the meeting time, then they’d all meet at Babylon. As they were leaving the Gardens, though, they were confronted by five men with guns in the parking lot. The men were a mis-matched lot; some wore business attire, others casual clothing, and one looked like a homeless man. They all, however, had expressions of vacant, incoherent rage on their faces, and they moved to attack.

Percy reacted quickly, darting for the car in the hopes of getting it closer to the group, so they could escape. PJ, wanting to protect Debra, ran for one of the thugs, wrested the gun from his hand, and knocked him out with the but of the gun. Debra followed Percy’s lead and ran for the car, running to the driver’s seat; she was the better driver of the two.

While this was happening, the thugs fired off a few rounds at Debra and PJ; both were grazed, but not seriously injured. Boop-Boop reacted by casting faerie magic, surrounding two of the thugs in an airless bubble that caused them to pass out.

PJ, enraged by the thug who had shot at Debra, turned and fired his newly acquired gun, killing the man. Debra and Percy, in the car, drove straight at the remaining thug, colliding with him and knocking him out cold.

The group started investigating their fallen foes, finding that most of them had identification and money, but that there didn’t seem to be any link between the two. They took the guns, bound the thugs, and dropped one of them in the trunk for later questioning. Then they got in the car and sped off as sirens approached.

The group split up after that. Debra went back to campus, accompanied by Boop-Boop, to get medical attention for her bullet graze. Percy and PJ drove the car to a warehouse owned by Maximillian so that they could question the thug.

In the warehouse, they discovered that the thug was unlikely to talk to them. He screamed in rage, but said nothing; it was likely that he was a Renfield, a thrall of the Black Court whose mind had been shattered so utterly that he was no longer capable of coherent thought. Percy put the man out of his misery, then asked Maximillian to dispose of the body. Maximillian agreed, telling Percy that he would owe a favor for it.

That night, the group went to Babylon to speak to Gerhardt. Gerhardt was very forthcoming and helpful, which was somewhat worrying to the group. He confirmed their theories about the Black Court, and told them how to disrupt the ritual that the vampires would no doubt be performing on midnight on Halloween. He also offered to lend the assistance of two of his associates, a pair of White Court twins, to help manage the Black Court’s mortal muscle.

In return, though, he asked the group for a favor. Papa Leroy, a houngan information broker working out of a bar called Wormdaddy’s, was manipulating the biker gang known as the Warlocks into taking territory from the Pagans motorcycle gang. This territory happened to have a high concentration of out-of-order phone booths, used to access random magical information. If the group could convince Leroy to back off of the turf war, Gerhardt would help them.

Having few options, the group agreed.

The Game

We had our first fight toward the end of the session, and it was educating. FATE combat is pretty fast-paced, and doesn’t take a long time; that fight took maybe ten minutes of real time to adjudicate. It is, however, potentially very deadly; guns are no joke in this game.

We also discovered that the magic system takes a little getting used to. Once we’ve used it a fair bit, I’m sure it’ll be come second nature; however, at the moment, it requires a lot of referring to charts and slowing the action down, which is unfortunate.

All in all, this session was a rousing success. It was fun for everyone, and required very little prep work on my part. I’m a big fan of DFRPG, and FATE in general.

Games, whether you’re talking about electronic games, role-playing games, or tabletop games, are generally thought of as products. That is, a boxed product or book is put on a shelf, you buy it, and that’s more or less the end of it. There are indications within some of these industries, though, that things are shifting toward a service-based model rather than a product-based model.

Wizards of the Coast has already partially converted to this system with D&D Insider, a system whereby you pay a monthly (or yearly) fee and gain access to new content on a regular (and frequent) basis, as well as online tools and updates for the physical products they sell. Similarly, Valve has shown leanings toward this model with many of their games; games like Team Fortress 2 or Left 4 Dead are discreet products, but once you buy them you become the recipient of various content updates throughout the life of the product that keep you coming back, and keep you happy with your purchase (Valve provides these mostly free of charge, which is nice).

Things could go further, though, and current trends indicate that they might, at least in some cases. Valve would very much like video games to go service-based, I’m sure. Imagine if, instead of buying Half-Life 3 for $60, you paid $5 or $10 per month for it. This might give you access to the full game, as well as gauranteed content updates for the game throughout its life. It would be a shift, to be sure, but it might be a welcome one. Taking it further, what if you subscribed to a particular developer or publisher, or simply paid a subscription to Steam, in order to get games and game updates on a regular basis. Instead of games being an item that you had to splurge on from time to time, they would become a service you pay for like your cable or your Internet, or Netflix.

I can similarly imagine a future where Wizards of the Coast does away with physical books altogether, instead integrating their Insider service into devices like the iPad, Nook, and other tablets and e-readers. You pay your monthly fee, and any D&D content that comes out that month is yours. Download articles, get access to full books in electronic format, get digital tools; best of all, as long as you keep your subscription current, all of your content remains current, too.

It’s likely that not everyone sees this with the same rose-colored glasses that I view this possible future with. Many people would likely resist such a model, afraid of what would happen when they stopped paying, or if the service ceased to exist at some point. There are ways around these fears, but that’s not really within the scope of this post.

I’d very much like to hear what you think about all of this. Is this a trend that should continue? Is it something you’d be open to? Why or why not?

My wife sent me a link to a little indie game called Desktop Dungeons, and I’ve been obsessed with it since I downloaded it.

Let me back up and explain what it is. Desktop Dungeons is a Rogue-like game, for those of you who know what that is. For those who don’t, the idea is that you pick a race and class and fight your way through a randomly generated dungeon for treasure and XPs. Rogue-likes tend toward the difficult side, and most games will end with your character’s death; also, you can’t save your game. However, completing an entire dungeon takes maybe ten minutes, and it’s pretty easy to get caught up in it and just play a new dungeon once you’ve finished (or been finished by) the current one.

There is a sense of progress in the game, despite the disposable nature of your characters. Whenever you successfully complete a dungeon (which I’ve done exactly once so far), you are rewarded with unlocks in the form of new classes, new races, and new types of dungeons to explore. Stores within the game will also start stocking better items, and different monsters will start showing up.

The game is a turn-based affair, with an almost puzzle-like quality as you decide what order to tackle your opponents in and what parts of the dungeon to explore, and to leave unexplored. That actually brings me to one of the more interesting elements of the game: exploration. The entire dungeon is covered by a fog of war-style darkness that recedes as you progress through it. The interesting thing is that every tile of the dungeon you explore restores some of your health and mana. This leads to an interesting dynamic where you want to explore the dungeon to find monsters you can kill and loot you can pick up, but you want to leave sections of it unexplored dungeon so you can heal and get back mana.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the best part: it’s free. Sort of. You can download the alpha of the game (which is extremely polished and complete, for an alpha) for free, and you’ll always be able to. However, QCFDesign, the people behind Desktop Dungeons, do plan to release this game for pay, on Steam as well as iOS and Android. My suggestion: go download the alpha and give it a whirl. If you like it, buy the game when it comes out (or pay for it now, to help fund the project). That’s my plan, at least.

Apologies for the re-posts, everyone. I just set up the Guild to automatically pull any game-related content from 2d6 Cents (where that stuff is also posted), and I guess it decided to pull it all again as new.

As you were.

I just wanted to talk a little bit about the Bulldogs! kickstarter, which is going really, really well. Brennan Taylor, the primary author of the book, originally set his sites at $3000, the bare minimum he needed to fund publication. Now, because of the generosity and excitement of more than two hundred awesome people, he’s raised more than $9000, and there’s still eleven days left.

That’s just fantastic. If you’re one of the backers on this project, thank you. Seriously, I’m extraordinarily excited to be a part of a project that so many people are enthusiastic enough to give money to, sight unseen. And Brennan has been thanking his backers by providing extra rewards when he hits certain thresholds.

The backers have already earned one reward: an exclusive adventure for hitting $7000. Every backer will get this, and it won’t be seen anywhere else. If the project hits $10,000, another exclusive reward will be given to all of the backers: a supplement containing a new planet and a new playable species, again, not seen anywhere else. That’s pretty awesome, and we’re only about $600 away from that goal.

So, at the risk of turning this blog post into a telethon, I want to suggest something: if you’re planning on picking up the book anyway, back the project. Here’s why. If you contribute $50 to the kickstarter project (I don’t know off hand how much the book will retail for, but I imagine it’ll be somewhere in the $30-$40 range), you get a signed and numbered copy of the book. You also get a PDF of the book, and you’ll be listed in the credits of the book you just funded as an engineer. That’s all in addition to the free adventure, and the free supplement if we hit our next goal. Seems like a pretty darned good deal to me.