Genghis Con XXXIV Sunday Morning DCC

[Black Dougal]

So, it was another first for me. Not only did I die as usual in one of Harley Stroh's games, my PC died twice.

I was playing a Demonologist (Chaotic) who had heard of a secret ritual of great power. I teamed up with a Cleric (Lawful) to find the place where the ritual was taking place. The Cleric wanted to stop the ritual, I wanted to gain from it. So, we hired several Warriors and Thieves to help us. Naturally we were both aware that we were working across purposes. When we got to the place of the ritual I helped complete the ritual by completing a stack of dolls before an altar. The dolls were made to look like the party. When I revealed my plans to the rest of the party, they took offense at my "treachery" and killed me. They dumped my body into a pit where the effects of the ritual were taking place. Somehow this managed to resurrect me and removed my taint. It also gave me a bit of temporary amnesia. Thus restored to an impressionable state, the rest of the party fought valiantly to protect me from invading Chaos and also tried to convince me to turn to the side of Law. However, the forces of Chaos managed to lure me away and remind me of my past ways. When the party showed up to rescue me, I turned on them and after managing to kill three of them was slain again.

This is the third time in Con games that Harley has let me play what really amounts to an NPC. The characters drove the plot, and I (for the second time) ended up being the BBEG at the end. I really had a blast and the fight at the end was thrilling.

It has been a while (almost a year) since I last played in a game run by Harley. I really enjoy his games, and hope to be able to sit in on a few more of his games this year.

Thanks Harley. I hope the rest of the players had as much fun as I did.

[Black Dougal]

Here is Harley's recap of events.

http://choosedeath.blogspot.com/2013/02 ... esome.html

That is me on the right side of the last picture with the purple brimmed baseball cap.

[Harley Stroh]

Genghis Con was a blast this year. I had a nice mix of returning players (folks who actually have the core book!) and new players, testing the DCC waters for the first time. And we had folks with ipads running the Purple Sorcerer Crawler's Companion app, too!

My trip over the Rocky Mountains was stymied by a blizzard Friday night and I didn't get in until 10:30pm. But after that it was go time for the DCC games. I ran a playlets session of The Black Manse Saturday morning. Hellbent on recovering their company's warbanner, the PCs tracked some former companions to a ruined manor house set at the edge of a swamp. Inside the PCs unearthed the remnants of a rite that (quite literally) raised Hell. The events of the night culminated in a masked ball with a guest and his very special request:  "Render unto to me my winsome bride." Somehow the PCs made it out, returning the manse to reality … of sorts.

However, since so many of the players from the first game had also signed up for the afternoon game, we ruled that they weren't returned to their home plane, but instead were sent to…

The Purple Planet of Peril (dun dun dun duhhhhhhh). The PCs found themselves atop a great floating shard, facing a similar group of heroes (the session's new players). After giving strong consideration to wholesale party-on-party PvP, the sides opted for a hastily-wrought truce. Using two artifacts from each party's previous adventure, they set about trying to puzzle out how to pilot the alien technology.

Now, previous to the adventure I had put together a collection of 12 alien symbols, assigning a meaning and action to each. And, for no good reason that I can explain just yet, the aliens included a self destruct button on their control pad. But it was a 1-in-12 chance, right? What are the odds?

…

The PCs, of course, chose the self-destruct button as the *very first button to try* because (wait for it) it looked like waffles. Subsequent choices were relegated to the symbol that looked like "pancakes."

My favorite quote of the session: "This is madness! What sort of alien race would assign self-destruct to the symbol that looks like delicious, tasty waffles?!"

I think the table decided that the aliens were gluten-free or something.

Things went south, but the PCs managed to escape nigh-certain doom, parlay with the locals, and figure out a way to get off planet. There were some strange moments involving tied up octopus men (how do you secure all the tentacles, again?), aboriginal tattoos, and the octopi-man speak (courtesy of Thomas), but the PCs persevered, made it to another shard, avoided battling its monstrous crew (held in stasis) and made it back off planet to their home worlds.

(If I had been more on my game I would have had the shard appear above Waterdeep and have the PCs duke it out with a hyper-paranoid Elminster and friends.)

My Sunday game was an improv bit. Two of the players from the previous sessions showed up for another go; rather than put them through an adventure they had already played, I worked up something on the spot. It ran fairly well and had a dramatic finale, played on the grass outside the hotel thanks to a fire alarm. The players, though, were phenomenal – and really, you don't need much more than that. It is always fascinating to see just how much the DCC RPG and / or Chaos favors the bold. The PCs that hung back made it out just fine, but the PCs that hurled themselves at ganger soared. Some of this is due to the nature of the convention one-shot adventure, when everyone can burn Luck with wild abandon, but equal measure is due to the DCC design: those that would risk much, can win it all.

Then it was back up the mountain, with less snow, but considerably less sleep. The con called out some important revisions to both adventures. I'm looking forward to running them again (with new revisions) at the next convention.

Thank you for everyone that took the time to play! I sincerely appreciate it. Special thanks to those folks returning for more DCC action, and for taking the time to help along the newer players.

See you next con!

//H

[cthulhudarren]

It sounds like "THe Black Manse" will be an awesome module!