International Game Day Was Fun

[cybertalus]

None of the stores in Asheville were participating in the official event, so Steve and Jason from my regular D&D group and I rode up I-26 to Mountain Empire Comics in Johnson City, Tennnessee. It was a beautiful drive, although we were about a week early for peak leaf season.

We arrived a tad late, mostly because Yahoo maps had underestimated the time it would take us to drive, but luckily we weren't so late that the game had started without us. A few minutes before we arrived Steve, who was driving and had reserved our slots, received a phone call from the store to check on us. I thought that was a very classy touch, especially since they knew we were coming from out of town and might've easily gotten lost.

All told there were eleven players, and I unfortunately didn't manage to catch the names of any of them except for Rich, our DM, and the guys I rode up with. They were all great guys though, and very welcoming of us out-of-towners. Our DM in particular seemed to really know what he was doing and managed to keep the game flowing along quite well despite the high number of players.

Rich also worked to get across the flavor of Eberron, so that those of us who knew nothing about Eberron aside from thing we'd read on the Internet would really feel grounded in the world. The adventure itself added to this, as it included some warforged enemies, as well as a sort of tour through the city of Sharn. Although I am not fond of the notion of air ships and trains in D&D, I enjoyed this adventure and really appreciate the work Rich put into grounding it in the setting and creating characters ahead of time for all of us.

We also each received a gift bag of goodies, including an awesome red d20 with large numbers on it, a very nice looking mountain orc minature (complete with stat card), a mechanical pencil with the D&D 30th anniversary logo on it, a Magic card, a pack of Marvel Genio cards, a D&D 30th Anniversary bookmark, a window cling with the D&D logo on it, and the Star Wars Miniatures Rebel Storm poster.

All in all, a lot of fun. I really appreciate the effort put in by everyone involved.

(If anyone who was there is reading this, I was the guy with the long beard and the EN World t-shirt.)

 

[Greylock]

Hmmm, checked out the officially sanctioned shop here in my town to see what was up, and there was one table with four guys playing. There were some kids at another table playing Magic I think. That's what happens when WotC gives the event to a comic book store that rarely even stocks WotC merch or books.

Thought maybe the rival shop across the street would have something going on, as they actually DO stock DnD books, dice, minis etc, but there were just two moms in the back, chatting.

Oh well...

 

[Imhotepthewise]

We had a good day at International Game Day.
If it works, I've added two pictures. The first is the regular adventure which had some new young players. The second was the Eberron adventure with experienced players.
We "experienced" players almost had it handed to us by the beetle swarm.
Got some kewl swag and an enjoyable day.

 

[cybertalus]

That's what happens when WotC gives the event to a comic book store that rarely even stocks WotC merch or books.

I may be wrong, but I think the shop I played in was more of a comics shop than a gaming shop, but it still had quite a turnout. Guess it depends a lot on the local gaming scene. Still, I'd be curious to hear from anyone who played at a Books-A-Million or Border's, just because a lot of the locations that were listed as being desperately in need of DMs were chain stores.

 

[Imhotepthewise]

What I forgot to mention is the location. The Game Day I attended was held at the Time Machine in Manchester CT. I also know that Sarge's Comics in New London CT was planning to hold an event as well.

 

[Greylock]

I may be wrong, but I think the shop I played in was more of a comics shop than a gaming shop, but it still had quite a turnout. Guess it depends a lot on the local gaming scene. Still, I'd be curious to hear from anyone who played at a Books-A-Million or Border's, just because a lot of the locations that were listed as being desperately in need of DMs were chain stores.

None of the shops here are 100% gaming. One, Comics & Collectables, is primarily as it advertises [and makes it's $'s on comics, new and collectable], but it always has the latest D20 stuff, and fully stocks all the major campaign settings, basic DnD, FR, Scarred Lands, Kalamar, and so on. They don't host games though. The next, Eclectica, majors in, of all things, scrap-booking, but it has a major minor in miniature gaming, and tries to stay abreast of the latest WotC products and the more important indies. It is the only place in town to buy mini's or dice. The last, the joint that got the game, is a place called Triple Play. They specialise is sports trinkets, trading cards, card games, and new release comics. Their WotC stock, besides Magic, is old and thin, mostly 3.0 splats. No self-respecting DnD gamer even needs a reason to visit there, unless they want to check out the markdown rack for doomed-from-the-start games. And that visit can be made once a year, at best.

The latter shop got the game.

HTH

 

[talinthas]

Me and my pal RKanodia went to Neutral Ground here in Mountain View/Palo Alto, and had an enjoyable game with a good GM. i'll be honest, i only went for the swag, but it was a good time to be had by all four of us. He started in the premade newbie dungeon, but then slipped us into his own homebrew, and we took the prefab four and were off to the races =)

good times.

 

[Big Jake]

Game Day in Korea

I ran the Eberron table in Seoul, Korea. I ran two groups through, one with seven players, and the next with five, and they both took about four hours to go through the adventure.

We only had about 20 people sign in, but there were plenty of others that kept looking over shoulders, and if we had a second DM, we probably would have doubled the particpation.

The experience of the players was between three months and 30 years. One guy actually had been to GenCon 1. There were a couple of players that had never played 3.5, and one that hadn't played for maybe 8 years or so. She actually sat in the inexperienced table first, then sat in on my second game.

And although we're out here in Korea, it turned out that we had a published game designer at our event... Ed Cha. I met Ed, and we chatted in between my games (he was participating in a D&D Minis tournament, but kept near my table inbetween his matches) and he gave me autographed copies of his two books: The Hamlet of Thumble and The Village of Oester, both part of the World of Whitethorn.

He's a really nice guy with a good head for games. It was fun talking to him.

 

[Southern Oracle]

None of the stores in Asheville were participating in the official event, so Steve and Jason from my regular D&D group and I rode up I-26 to Mountain Empire Comics in Johnson City, Tennnessee. It was a beautiful drive, although we were about a week early for peak leaf season.

Dude! Me and a couple guys from my gaming group were at Dice, Fun and Games for World Game Day, which is on the other side of Johnson City from Mountain Empire. Small world!

I brought my 8-year-old daughter to play in the introductory adventure. She did pretty good as Lidda and even took out one of the kobolds as well as successfully picking the lock on one of the doors. I think she had fun, and the DM's wife let her keep the hand-painted metal female halfling mini she used for the game.

I've had the Eberron book for awhile but my friends had no experience with it, and I think the DM did a good job conveying the feel for the setting as well. Since we had 8 players, he doubled all the encounters, and we got slaughtered! But it was a lot of fun. As a DM for the past 22 years, it's nice to relax and be able to play in a tabletop game once in awhile.
You racked up on more goodies than we did! We just got the dice, mountain orc mini and stat card, and mechanical pencil. Oh, and we got to keep the character sheets from the introductory game.

Overall, a good time. I hope National Game Week takes off and is as enjoyable an experience.