What are the odds of getting a good GM at Gencon?

[Dextolen]

Just curious to see if we participated in any of the same events...

I was involved in three D&D/d20 events:

1. The Sorceror's Citadel - Thursday night. This was the best D&D session all weekend. The group was great, the DM knew d20 and kept it moving. He also knew the adventure and the NPCs very well.

2. In Pursuit of Magic - Friday late morning - A nice DM, he didn't use miniatures or graphical representation, so any abilities or feats involving placement were out the door. It was like playing 1st ed. all over again. He was a decent storyteller so it made up for it.

3. Mysterious Lights, Missing Time and Mutilated Cattle - Saturday Afternoon - I thought this was going to be a d20 X files/CoC type game. WRONG! It turned out to be comedic fantasy with a scifi twist. The DM did not know the d20 system, in fact the world rules set were originally meant for another system. The story was funny (we were Mages in Blue, MIB - who keep extraplanar creatures from causing too much of a stir on our world). I enjoyed myself dispite the d20 nerd in me. The DM reminded me of the type of DM I had when I first started playing back in 6th grade. He never cracked a rulebook and made decisions on the fly, never read boxed text, etc. It's like he knew the world back and forth and could roleplay it on memory alone. I respect that.

 

[UniversalMonster]

I did the open this year!

I really had a good time GMing the Open.

The adventure for the Open was admittedly not the best. The remainders of my home gaming group went through it (not with me as the GM or anything) and they made it to round two and got the module author as their GM for the second round. When the encounter was undead, one of the guys cast "Invisibility to Undead" and the author guy didn't seem to accept this. I wasn't there so I didn't hear the whole story.

I was kind of sad to hear this. In the rounds I ran I got trumped by clever players 2 out of 3 times and I thought they were quite resourceful! In one round the main villian was a demon. Everything gears up to this big demon encounter at the very end of the adventure. During the adventure the players hit every point just right. They lured the enemy army away from camp, infiltrated the tower, confront the demon. Okay. Things are going really well. We're at the big fight at the end.

Initiative: My demon (a Vrock) comes up second in the initiative order. The one that comes up first is the cleric, Ament Bassmen.

He casts Dismissal.

I fail my save.

Adventure over!

They win. And really- I applauded them. That was clever as heck.

Something similar happened in the third round I ran- the main villian harasses the players all along the way and teleports or otherwise esacapes using magic. So I played it up. I ambushed the players. I dumped rocks on them. I gave them hell.

Finally- the guy playing the wizard flies up, avoiding my rockfall trap and casts 'dimensional anchor' on my Shade... nullifying my ability to escape. They follow up with dispel magic, then faery fire.. it was a climactic battle that came three encounters too early- but I was anchored. I couldn't just teleport away. They mobbed me!

Another round to the players! And well done, I say.

We had a good time though, and everyone rated me highly. I wonder if I had any of you guys in my group?

RPGA module-writing pays. I think it's $50 per round, or maybe $100 per round. I can't remember which. I am working on something for the open myself. If my figures are correct, the author of the Open would have been paid at least $350 (and possibly double that). There was a round 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, 1e, 2 and 3.

I also ran City of the Spider Queen Prologue- and it suffered from some confusion with the characters. Originally it was "bring your own 7th level guy and play" but then they decided to use the goofy characters from Short People's Tree. Except no cleric was provided so they pulled the cleric sheet from the Open (Ament Bassmen again). None of the backgrounds matched the module-- and the module was this kind of really dark and violent dungeon thing. In addition, the Short-People's Tree PC's were *riddled* with 2nd edition mistakes and mis-titled spells. We spent 45 minutes just fixing up character sheets before I ran it.

But I have to say that GMing for the RPGA was a great experience and I felt like I made a useful contribution. I plan on doing it a lot in the future, and even submitting some adventures. Whether they are accepted or not, I'll be particpating and supporting the community, so it's all good!

Peter Seckler

 

[Mark]

Peter - You rolled with the punches, made the best of what you had, and made sure to have fun the whole time. Your attitude simply rocks, brother!

 

[Hand of Evil]

I have had good and I have had bad, the good out number the bad. Some samples, DM saying light spell went through walls, doors and floors. DM saying "Oh, no I screwed up, we need to go back to room 2".

I have also been in parties that had some horrid players and guess what, the whole group played at their level! The whole game was no fun. But to be in a great group, this is a treat and really amazing.