DunDraCon XXXII - Feb 15th - Feb 18th - You going?

[grodog]

I was in CA again for work this past week, and was able to stay through the weekend to attend DunDraCon on Satuday. I had a great time

Run down of the day:

• 9am arrive @ DDC, hit the flea market, score a bunch of old issues of The Dragon and Strategic Review including TD#s 3 and 4, for $2 each (most have some wear, but many in excellent or even NM- condition!)
• 9:30am register finally (badge printer was down), then wander dealer hall; I missed the only copy of Rappan Athuk Reloaded in the hall by about 10 minutes, it seems....
• 11am: Tadashi Ehara and I find one another, then wander around looking for games; we bump into a guy in Open Gaming who's going to be running Cosmic Encounter at 1pm, and arrange to join his game
• Noon: Tadashi and I meet up with Larry "Masks of Nyarlathotep" DiTillio for lunch, and have fun eating some Mexican nearby, catching up (Tadashi)/meeting Larry (me)
• 1pm: All three of us return for Cosmic Encounter; we play for about 4 1/2 hours, about 6 games or so, and have a great time. I'd never played CE before and it was awesome! (We played EON's version with all of the expansions).
• 5:30: We head to dinner with three other friends of Larry's, and eat at a good Indian restaurant nearby.
• 7pm or so: back to DDC for more gaming! We played Incan Gold about three times (card game; and this was excellent too and should still be in print since it was released in 2006 by Funagain One; designed by Alan Moon and Bruno Faidutti), then Groo the Game about four or five times (dice/cards combo; also fun). Tadashi leaves after he wins a Groo game, but I stick around for a few more.
• 10:00pm: I head off to locate my hotel (it's nearby, I didn't snag a room in the con hotel, alas, though I did find a great parking spot, which was very nice), but get Larry to sign my Masks 1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions, as well as Terror Australis before I leave
• 10:30: I'm pretty much settled into the hotel, and begin to re-arrange my luggage for my return on Sunday morning (including the snagged-from-work stationary box for the additional books and game stuff I picked up on the trip).

Much fun was had by all, and I found at least two new games to try to pick up!

 

[coyote6]

9am arrive @ DDC, hit the flea market, score a bunch of old issues of The Dragon and Strategic Review including TD#s 3 and 4, for $2 each (most have some wear, but many in excellent or even NM- condition!)

I think I almost bumped into you in the Buyer's Bazaar; I saw "Allan Grohe" on a nametag, and didn't realize why the name was familiar until a couple of minutes later (and then you were gone, and I had a game I wanted to try to get into).

 

[Wycen]

Saturday rolled around and I met up with my friends, some of who I played with Friday night. Wondered around a little and met other friends who had their own groups to hang out with. Talked about scheduling and watched some board gaming.

I knew from the Dark Heresy game that there was a Mage: Ascension (is that right? whatever the new system is called) being run by one of our convention friends. Conventions friends being people you only get to see during conventions but they would probably be people you'd hang out with away from the con.

Last year I acted like a prop (thug standing behind the boss repeating everything the boss said) for Matt's Mage game so this year I decided to give it a try. I crashed his game, but then again so did my other 2 friends, plus 6 other people. He had a full 10 people sign up and only 2 or 3 showed up so we had plenty of space. Matt's narrative style is the best I think I can remember, which made his Dark Heresy game fun, despite my hesitance about the system and background.

Word to the unwise. At Dundracon, showing up to a game to see if you can get in, whether or not you've signed up, whether or not the system alloted your badge number to the game, is the BEST way to get in a game.

Anyway, we saved the wild west from the tainted essence borax and saved the day. This was only the 2nd "western" themed game I can remember playing (I may have done more but only 2 stand out in my mind) and it was a blast.

After this I met with my other friends and did some board gaming. Finally dinner time was approaching and I was adamant about dragging somebody along with me to the Hopyard Alehouse and Grill. I had found the place last year while looking to get gas before I drove home. So, finally managed to convince them to come with me, (I had to pull my car around to park in their spot so we could take the minivan and they wouldn't lose their parking spot-jeez!).

While Chris was getting his shoes on he suggested I mosy down the hall and see if some of our friends would like to tag along. I wasn't expecting the next thing.

I was summoned into the room with our friend on the phone and I could hear moaning coming from the bed...

Behind the bed on the floor was his girlfriend moaning in pain. My con flashed before my eyes. He asked me to conform her while he spoke to the advice nurse on his cell phone. Some questions later and assurances that help was a phone call away I left with the intent to buy him some food while he waited for her to recover. He said she took too much medication and apparently the advice nurse said call an ambulance if she started having trouble breathing.

Marched down the corridor and grabbed a buddy and we went downstairs and bought a bunch of the hotel food and brought it back up. He was back on the phone trying to decypher her prescriptions.

We get ready to leave and find an ambulance downstairs and sure enough they wheel the stretcher into their room.

At this point we go to the Hopyard and hope all is well. The Hopyard's choice of on tap beverages is pretty good and we have a few pints with a nice burger.

We head back and split up. They want to play some Munchkin and I want to hang out with my board gaming friends before my main Saturday/Sunday event. Eventually I end up waiting way too long to get back because the key I borrow to get into their room (to retrieve my rum and coke and more importantly my jacket with keys) wont work properly so I have to wait, and adjucate some Munchkin rules. The blended 4 decks together so some of the cards they couldn't rule amongst themselves.

Eventually there were accusations of cheating and the guy with key that works abandons the game to go to bed, (past midnight at this point) and I finally get my drink and jacket.

My board game friends and I play Elasund until 3 am and I go back to my room with a hoarse voice and sleep.

Oh, I forgot about the Dawning Star false start. I'll cover that next.

 

[Wycen]

The one thing I had scheduled time for was a Dawning Star game I found in the con's game schedule, running from midnight Saturday to 8 AM Sunday, which I know is a crappy time slot but I wanted to spread a little DS love.

I signed up and came back later to discover I had got in, so I was excited about that. Sometime later in the evening I went back to make sure it wasn't moved to another room or cancelled.

It was cancelled! Cassandra, whoever you are, I hope I didn't scare you off if you recognized my name! It wasn't my intent to tell you you were doing something wrong or screw with your game, I just wanted to meet some DS fans! Of course, it was probably the midnight slot that really flushed the game. Oh well. There's always Gencon.

Sunday was kinda subdued for me. Got up and mostly hung out watching, wandering or playing board games.

My friends bought an interesting game called Magnetix. A glass board is the playing field and your objective is to place about 24 magnets on the board without knocking any off or causing any to be attracted to each other. I thought I had the game wrapped up until I scooped about 7 stones off in 1 bad move.

It was good seeing my friend and his girlfriend back and well from their trip to the hospital. Eventually we decided to get some dinner at the Hopyard again, this time with some different friends.

If you are a Tekumel fan, you may have heard of Carl Brodt and Tita's House of Games. I used to hang out at their store and Carl was at DDC this year. Last year he and a friend had talked about doing a Tekumel LARP, but the plot hadn't been finished. So they talked again about doing it. Some sort of banquet with actual food being served and in the presence of the Perfect One. I'm not familiar enough with the setting but he's certainly the best person I know to pull it off.

After that I had enough time to run a quick playtest of a new Dawning Star critter with some friends and then I was headed home, since I worked Monday.

 

[grodog]

I think I almost bumped into you in the Buyer's Bazaar; I saw "Allan Grohe" on a nametag, and didn't realize why the name was familiar until a couple of minutes later (and then you were gone, and I had a game I wanted to try to get into).

Ah, perhaps next time