Tales from the Road: My Road Crew experience thus far

[cthulhudarren]

Mightyeroc,
I hope you can make it up to the Tampa Bay area sometime. It is kind of a barren wasteland for DCC RPG. I'm still working on trying to get my 3.5ed group to take up DCC RPG. When it is my turn to GM I am definitely going to shift it to DCC RPG.

[Netherstorm]

I had my first "less than 100% positive" event.

The problem surfaced a couple days later when I received an email from the Halfling player; he said that though I might not have been aware (I wasn't), he was "livid" when I killed his character. He said he had 50+ hours invested the "campaign" (these have been a series of one-shots that I very loosely tried to tie in to each other) & the character, and I was wrong not to "weaken its damage output" (the Skull) & heavily insinuated that I fudged the die roll when I determined who it attacked because I didn't roll it out in the open -- which I usually do, but I slip & forget sometimes.

He also all but called out the Cleric's player as cheating since he used his phone (w/ the Crawler Companion app) to make his rolls.

Finally he said he thought i was a good GM but he still thought he had to get all that off his chest.

----

Oh, well. We'll see what he has to say, or if he returns. All in all, this has been a great ride; just a bit of a "bump in the Road" Crew experience for me.

Rick, I ran D&D 4E (and about 10 sessions of DCC RPG) in a game store twice a week for four years straight. I'm afraid you may run into this issue over and over. Some players HATE dying. They get mad, they complain, they throw around blame (and boy do they get mad when their dice roll low). Your best bet whenever you have a new player is to immediately tell them that this is a game where you will probably die. Condition them for it as best you can.

I would say 30% of the players I played with couldn't handle the death or misfortune of a PC. I don't know why this is.... used to video games? A general "it's not fair" attitude?? But unfortunately it's there.

You handled it very well! Good luck to you!

[Caffiend]

I created two different Awards to hand out to players. The first is the "Certificate of Horrendous Death" printed on red cardstock. This one is given to a player that loses all of his zero level peasants, I had 3 winners of this one. The second is the "Brave, brave Sir Robin Award" anyone who had at least one original zero level PC survive was given one of these. Appropriately printed on yellow cardstock.

Clever - I like those!

[Caffiend]

2013 Road Crew / Session Report #1 (better late than never)

http://redstripeypants.blogspot.com/201 ... 42013.html

[Rick]

I'm putting together my take on those award certificates (and yeah, great idea, themightyeroc!) for tomorrow; I'm running Portal Under the Stars.

I'm calling them the Appendix eNnies

[themightyeroc]

Hey-Ho! I'm just reporting that my second World Tour session is complete. This was my second one at Florida Super Comics in Davie Fl.

I ran the "Imperishable Sorceress" with the Pre-gens. I had one player return from the Zero Funnel I ran there a few weeks ago. We leveled his zero Noble up to a 1st level Squire (Warrior). It looked like it was about to be a bust as only the previous player and my daughter were ready to play, but the Three Fates saw fit to heed my Invoke Patron spell and sent me three more players who showed up to play a board game. One of them noticed the DCC rule book and exclaimed..

"Are you guys playing DCC? can we play?"

So the three fellows joined us and soon our party consisted of the following:

Sir reginald the Noble, Warrior squire lvl. 1
LARGE the small, the tallest short Dwarf Agent lvl. 1
Derf the beggar-thief lvl.1
Walter the Astrologist and keeper of the secrets of the Stars lvl. 1
Skrump the Wandering Halfling gypsy lvl. 1

Walter nearly died in the first attack wave of savages, (he knocked down to 1hp) he survived by "casting" feign death, which was really him lying on the ground wetting himself!! When things would go well, Walter would proclaim that his magics were aiding the party for the STARS were Aligned!!! etc. etc. The Wizard player told me after the game, that since he owned this module as well he let the others take the lead and really added humor to the adventure with his actions! I applaud him for this and he really did a great job playing up all inadequate dice rolls he made! "We're in a cave, I can't see the Stars!!"

LARGE the small, was an awesome dwarf. He told me that (Brad) his GM our Wizard Walter, had yet to have any of them survive a funnel, so this was his first chance to see/play an actual 1st level character!!!

Derf, gave in to temptation and used the Chaotic Runesword, unfortunately the Demon killed him in the first round of combat with a gore attack!!!! He did make a Recover the Body roll at the conclusion, though!

Great time! My third Session is coming up next week in West Palm Beach Fl.

[themightyeroc]

I'm putting together my take on those award certificates (and yeah, great idea, themightyeroc!) for tomorrow; I'm running Portal Under the Stars.

I'm calling them the Appendix eNnies

NICE! I love it!

[themightyeroc]

Mightyeroc,
I hope you can make it up to the Tampa Bay area sometime. It is kind of a barren wasteland for DCC RPG. I'm still working on trying to get my 3.5ed group to take up DCC RPG. When it is my turn to GM I am definitely going to shift it to DCC RPG.

Tampa Bay!!! A bit out of the way for me!!! If I could make money GMing I come to you! I suggest you do what I did to my 3.5ed group. Run a funnel module next game night, at the conclusion see if they want to continue. It has been almost a solid year now since I pulled that trick on my guys and they haven't looked back.

Good Luck!

[Caffiend]

Today's Road Crew adventure was supposed to be a convention-style one-shot, but I actually had a player REQUEST a funnel. I just happen to travel with pre-gens, so...sure! 5 of 20 PCs died in The Portal Under the Stars. The players were so enthusiastic about leveling their favorite survivors, and more people were interested in trying out DCC, so the FLGS asked if I'd be able to accommodate. I pulled out The Treacherous Cobtraps and recruited a returning lvl-3 cleric from a previous game, and a different lineup whisked their way through it.

Bonus adventure = unexpected notch on the belt for the Road Crew. And ... The FLGS asked if I'd consider making the commute on a weekly basis. WOOT.

[Hrevelax]

Finished running three games at this year's San Diego Gam3rcon! All games and players were exceptional and people really were interested in trying a more "old school, simplified, deadlier" version of D&D's modern iterations. The biggest reactions at the table were at the Wizard's miscasting, resulting in growing an extra face and having his arms melt a little.

Stephen Newton of Thickskull games showed and up and had some copies of his Attack of the Frawgs to give away to survivors (there weren't many ).

Overall, I had a blast and have been exhausted since. I'm eagerly waiting for that shirt. Now that I've got three games under my belt, I think I can go for the belt buckle and that secret prize!

[ThickSkullAdv]

A longer write-up about the Gam3rCon session with Judge "Hrevelax" is up on my blog. I linked to some of the pix

[themightyeroc]

My third World Tour session at Past Present Future Comics in West Palm Beach Fl.

I ran "Attack of the Frawgs!

At the End we had a few survivors and lots of casualties!!


Session four coming soon!!

[cthulhudarren]

I just want to say Baal bless you folks running these games at game stores and cons! I personally don't feel comfortable even playing in games at gamestores, but the game must get out there!

[Raven_Crowking]

I was in Toronto's Casa Loma last week, and I am considering renting a room to run a public game there. $200 + HST is about the minimum cost.....but.....DCC in Casa Loma!

[Caffiend]

I was in Toronto's Casa Loma last week, and I am considering renting a room to run a public game there. $200 + HST is about the minimum cost.....but.....DCC in Casa Loma!

GAH. Yes. DCC mini-con? Hell of a drive from FL, but I'm in!

[themightyeroc]

Just finished my fourth Session at Past Present Future in West Palm Beach Fla.

Tour shirt in the House!
My daughter had to help me by being my official Dice roller for all monsters! She said she enjoyed inflicting death upon helpless characters, and she didn't feel bad when the monsters were slain!

10 players! My second biggest turn out!

They all bravely fought their way through the Imperishable Sorceress, lots of recover body rolls, loss of stamina, one fatal death.

The wizard rolled a major corruption result of weight gain, I decided to have it effect a specific body part, she rolled Head. So the wizard ran through 50% of the adventure with a 46 pound cranium!!! The party took to calling her "bobble" the wizard!

[ThickSkullAdv]

My third World Tour session at Past Present Future Comics in West Palm Beach Fl.

I ran "Attack of the Frawgs!"
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... t=1&ref=nf



At the End we had a few survivors and lots of casualties!!

Hey there! Thanks for running Frawgs! Always pleased to hear when it makes the rounds. Hope everyone had a good time.

[themightyeroc]

Fifth and Sixth sessions for the World Tour are complete! We played at Palm Con at the West Palm Beach Convention Center!
Here we are in the midst of playing through the Tower out of Time!


We also played through the Zero level funnel The Witch of Wydfield!

Everyone had a great time and a lot of people asked what game was being played. DCC is gaining street cred in South Florida!

[Hrevelax]

Finished games 4-6 and am psyched to get my next prize. I am going to get that buckle and secret prize!!

Game Empire in Clairemont, San Diego, CA!

The games went really well and there was some really heroic moments that left the players really excited and talking about it afterwards.

I ran Tower Out of Time and Thickskull Games' Attack of the Frawgs. Folks from the OSR meetup group dropped by along with newcomers. Thanks to everyone!

[Caffiend]

I've been lax in posting recaps & pics here... All of my Road Crew adventures are over here!

[themightyeroc]

Seventh Session is now complete!

The Brass Belt Buckle shall now be mine!

I ran Frozen in Time as a Zero Funnel!!! Total Blast! I had eight players and we proceed to slaughter just over 24 primitive tribesmen!

As usual I completely forgot to take a picture, I get so wrapped up in GMing that it slips my mind. I need to nominate a player as the official Photographer next time. I did get a couple of the guys to download the Crawlers Companion though!!!

We all love DCC!

Oh yeah, no one survived the climax of the module!!!!

[themightyeroc]

Session #8 is live!

I will be running "Tower of the Black Pearl" for zero and 1st level PC's.

When: Sunday November 10th from 2-6pm

Where: Past Present Future Comics & Games in West Palm Beach Florida!
1387 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach, Florida 33409
561-697-2554

Updates to follow.

[josemasaga]

And yet another World Tour game in Madrid (Spain)!

This time, it took place in the midst of a small Con, and the DCC RPG game was the most popular by far (seven people)!
We played the adventure from the Free RPG day 2013, The imperishable sorceress. There was a PC form each class, and only one of them (the wizard) met its end on the black floor of Ivrian's laboratory.


Meeting Ivrian's ghost

Everybody on the table agreed that it was a great adventure; in the end, they recovered the gem from the demon's clutches and helped Ivrian to inhabit her imperishable body, unleashing in the process a great evil...


A group shot

As usual, a great group of players and a very enjoyable evening.

[WoozleWozzle]

I can never remember to blog games or bring cameras, so here's my road crew experience, Jan 2013-Jan 2014


Jan 2013 - The Thing in the Chimney
Over 4 weekly sessions in January, I ran the Christmas mod at Dicehead Games for a mix of DCC newbies and guys who had gone through Portal the previous year. It was very well received.

Feb 2013
writing

March 2013 - Con Nooga
I helped organize Con Nooga and ran my Con Special Character Funnel - Secrets Dark & Dungeons Deep I'd written over the last month or so utilizing some ideas that have been in my head a while. Much fun was had by all and I got several "best adventure at the con" accolades that I was not expecting. I forgot the camera again, but a player in my game that ran a few of his own there nabbed few shots:





April 2013
There was much post-con sleeping.

May 2013 - Hound of Hirot
I came back to the store to run a mix of new and old players through a version of Hound modified to fit into my campaign setting for several weekly sessions. Steve didn't appreciate drowning in a puddle. (Joseph if you reading this, he was the guy you killed 10 or so times in that Portal run during the playtest at Dicehead.)

Summer 2013
I got really busy, but I also met another DM, who ran his own funnel for us at Dicehead then started a campaign that ran through the summer. Good fun!

By request I ran my con special again at Free RPG Day. More fun!

Fall 2013
Then I spent most of Fall almost, not quite, then finally moving to a new place.


Jan 2014 - Save vs. Hunger
Unpacked and ready to play, I was setting up a home campaign [that will start this weekend] in the world of my Con Special. That's when Aaron Wampler contacted me about the D&D 40th Anniversary and an idea he's had for a while about a charity food drive/one-day con. And so Save vs. Hunger was founded, the event was organized, staffed, and filled with players in a week and a half, and I dusted off the con special to run one last time as an intro for players coming to Con Nooga this year or joining my campaign this weekend.

There was a 5 dollar or 5 non-perishable food items entry fee plus raffles for AD&D1 and 2 books, a chainmail dicebag, a bunch of DCC swag I threw in, and some other goodies. We had a hopeful goal of raising $250 in cash and food for Second Harvest Food Bank of East TN, which we SMASHED with a total of $860 and 160 lbs. of food for needy families this winter!

I really want to take a moment to genuinely thank everyone again for coming out and helping. And I look forward to judging DCC at the next Save vs Hunger event as well!

Also, I actually remembered to both bring the camera AND use it!

Here are the frowny commoners a few encounters in:
(Boom goes the halfling.)





And here they are having (somewhat) survived the perils of Madam Bamford's expedition:




I got another "best character funnel I've ever played" from a veteran player I've never met before and another guy talked to me the next day saying he "still can't stop thinking about that adventure." Maybe I should transfer this thing from cocktail napkin to pdf?



And now I go into deep hibernation to finish up the two adventures I'll be running at Con Nooga this year. Check the link in my sig!

[lancer]

Okay guys and gals,
We here at the Durango Gamespace really enjoy the DCC experience (pun intended).
Here is a shot of us this week... A DCC conversion of the keep on the borderlands by Gary Gygax!
I will attempt to get an adventure log of events as I go on from here.
Good Gaming!
Tom Lindgren