Goodman Games

For those of you participating in the 2007 Xcrawl Tournament - welcome! I'm sure you'll be pleased with the results. It's a grueling, grinding, exciting tournament. We've got an incredible crew of GMs working on the tournament to make this the best tourney experience possible for our players.

I wanted to let all of you know that if you have any questions about the Xcrawl tournament, you can address them to me, Jay Little. I'm the Tourney Director for Xcrawl this year. You can find me at the Goodman Games booth or around the RPG halls helping moderate and manage the tournament.

If you are playing in the tourney, make sure you download and read through the Xcrawl Player Pack, which has key information on the rules and guidelines for the tournament, as well as the character sheets for all six pre-generated player characters you'll be choosing from -- you'll select four PCs from the pool of six available PCs to form your team.

For those eager to get a taste of what's to come, here's the Player Introduction found in the Xcrawl Player Pack.

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

The small, cramped waiting room outside the first challenge smells strongly of fresh paint and plaster, and is uncomfortably warm. Even through the thick walls, you can hear the thrum of a rabid crowd cheering. AVS monitors mounted in the walls pan across the faceless throng of people, all eyes fixed on the door your team is about to enter.

An explosion rocks the room, and the AVS monitors erupt with images of countless fireworks filling the sky above the arena with blazing pyrotechnics. The crowd roars in delight, as fireworks continue to thunder over their heads.

A slender man in business attire and dark glasses stands near the door at the north end of the small room. Next to him, a sweaty-faced man with a headset and clipboard nervously wipes the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. The business man leans over to whisper something to the man with the clipboard, gives a curt nod to the group, then files past you and through the door leading back to the locker room where you geared up and stretched while waiting for your time slot.

“O… okay,” stammers the man with the clipboard. “It’s a… packed house out there tonight. The Xcrawl League officials h… have asked me to run through a brief list of r… reminders about the event.”

You can barely hear the man over the din of the crowd, but could swear you heard him mention something about incineration insurance and a decapitation waiver. Before you can ask him to clarify, a red light starts
flashing above the door leading north, and the AVS monitors blank out.

The roar of the crowd softens to a dull rumble as images of fire crackle across the AVS monitors. A deep voice fills the air, its rich tone holding the crowd enraptured.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am so very pleased you could all attend. To those watching at home, welcome to the First Annual PhoenixCrawl Open.”

A series of fireworks explode overhead, and the crowd roars its approval. After letting the crowd cheer for a few moments, the voice continues.

“Welcome to my domain. I will be your host for the next few hours, or for as long as you manage to survive. You may call me DJ Sizzle. I hope you like things spicy, because I’ve cooked up a hot little number for you
here today. So let’s not waste any more time, shall we? Phoenix – are you ready to burn?”

The crowd cheers even louder than before, whipped to a fever by DJ Sizzle. The red light above the door flashes faster for a few moments then turns off. You hear the click and whir of some mechanism in the walls to either side of the door as it unlocks.

The man with the clipboard looks nervously at you, then steps aside. He flips open a small panel on the wall, revealing a large red switch. “Get ready. And good l… luck. I hope you do better than the last t… team.” With that, he flips the switch. The door slides open, a warm rush of air hitting you in the face.

Let the games begin.

Well I don't know about everyone else, but I had an absolutely AMAZING time helping DJ the Phoenix Crawl Open. It was the most fun I've had running a game at a convention and I can't wait for the next Crawl!

I hope everyone else enjoyed themselves as well

Anyone from my favorite XCrawlers on "They Might Be Dwarves" who are hanging around the forums, please drop me a line!

Cheers,
Stephanie

I just want to say Big Up Thanks to everyone involved -- the players, the GM's and especially Jay. I had a fantastic time and everyone I spoke with said the same.


GOOD CRAWL, Y'ALL!


Brendan

Steph!!!!

You rule!!!!

You did a GREAT job DM'ing and my team and I had a blast in the tournament. Worth every penny of GenCon just to go through the Xcrawl tournament. Thank you again!!! Send me some photos from GenCon at benwax@aol.com and I'll send you mine!

BTW, LOVED the humor and the and the zany puzzles in Xcrawl....can't wait to introduce my players to this in the next few weeks. After running through the crawl, I bought EVERYTHING I could on Xcrawl. It's THAT good!

Take a look if you haven't so far, and I promise you won't be disappointed. And if anyone is wondering if I will be supporting Xcrawl with any mapping on Prester's, the answer is an enthusiastic YES! I plan to start mapping Dungeonbattle Brooklyn within the next few days.

Ben "superfan" Waxman

Many thanks to the xcrawl GMs for running a curse-word spawning, angry-pacing starting, dice damning, awesome sauce covered series of rounds. (double points to Steph who checked up on us during later rounds) Also, major thanks to the other members of "They Might Be Dwarves" for putting up with me. I sat myself in the corner and thought very hard about what I did, and how I plan on doing it all again next year.
Rock on Xcrawl Superstars,
Spell Reaver

Big thanks to all of the crawlers for an fantastic time. I had a blast being a DJ for this tournament. Special thanks to Jay for the DJ spot and the Hooters night out.

Wish we did better, but Fish In A Barrel at least survived for a while with only three members from the start