DCC RPG Sessions at NTRPGCon

[michaelcurtis]

I've been back a few days, but my internet connection keeps failing its Luck check, so I better get this in while I can.

I had the pleasure of running two session of DCC RPG at NTRPGCon this past weekend. One on Friday morning, the second on Saturday night. Here are the highlights:

Friday was "Emirikol Must Die!", a stripped down version of "Emirikol Was Framed!" designed to fit into the allotted con time slot. Oh how I wished I stripped it down even more! The con website and game grid had the game scheduled at the "correct" time, but the program had is scheduled to begin 2 hours early. When I went down to make a change on the sign, I discovered a table-full of players patiently waiting for me to arrive. OK, game on!

Two more walk-ins showed up as I was handing out pre-gens, bringing our total up to nine. The ages were from around 10 or so up to a grizzled veteran of the hobby in the form of Erol Otus, who had kindly arranged his schedule to play in my game. Only one person had a copy of the game (or any experience with DCC at all), but luckily I was prepared with spellbooks for the casters and printouts of the character classes. After a brief intro, they were off to lay siege to Emirikol's Shifting Tower.

Luckily for them, the gods decided to curse my Zocchis and the high rolls went to players throughout the session. I didn't manage to kill a single one, although one faced a near "death by blueprint". Smart use of spells and sheer luck had them trounce Emirikol in his lair, which due to time constraints, was a whole lot closer to their entrance than is actually written. I had to chuck out the entire middle of the adventure to ensure they actually had a chance at killing Emirikol in a session named "Emirikol Must Die!"

This was by far the most physically challenging session I ran during the entire weekend. I'm not a passive judge by any account and often stand when running a game. This one had me perched on chairs, slinking along walls, peering over a divider, and in one memorable moment, throwing myself onto the floor to demonstrate the effects of a miscast Sleep spell. The players seemed impressed and I got a few kind remarks about my performance during the rest of the weekend.

Saturday's session was "The Fane of St. Toad." Although originally seven seats were filled during pre-registration, the weekend (and the hotel bar) took its toll and only three turned up. Luckily, three more players came in before the session started and asked to join. With six people in hand, it was off the sack and look the temple of the Toad.

Again, crap rolls from yours truly saved the party's skin and even without using some of the goodies I stashed throughout the Fane, they still took on an entire cavern full of giant toads and walked out alive. The party wizard even left with about nine charmed toads hopping gleefully along behind him. High marks have to go to the party's halfling, however, who after being told of that class' Luck ability, decided to turn in his thief and pick the hobbit instead. And boy, did he push his Luck to the limit, choosing to ride the avatar of St. Toad like a bull when he unleashed his "death from above" attack. The party cleric almost ended up as digested toad dinner, but using the Word of Command, he convinced the Avatar to vomit him up rather than digest him. That one, I did not see coming!

The Saturday night group had more familiarity with the game, with five out of six bringing a copy of the DCC RPG rulebook to the table. Buzz about the game was high all weekend long from nearly everyone I ran into, and I think the con sold a fair number of copies over the course of the four days--all limited editions.

[goodmangames]

Great recap Mike! That sounds like fun. Especially the cleric's use of magic to induce vomiting...I have never seen that one either!

[Toric]

My son and I played in the Emirikol session and had an absolute blast! For Michael's reference, we were the two sitting at the far end of the table. My son, who is 13, played a Thief and I had a Dwarf. Neither of us had any experience with the system but picked it up pretty easily mostly due to Michael's excellent explanations of how things worked. There were many memorable parts to our session including one of our Clerics who was clearly pissing his god off, Michael throwing himself to the floor to show the miscast sleep spell effect, Michael perching on his chair like a pterodactyl, and the Elf who managed an incredible roll while invoking his Patron and making the final battle with Emirikol far easier than it would have otherwise been. I cannot stress enough how fantastic a DM Michael is! I would without hesitation sign up for any game he is running at a future Con. Michael, you were a pleasure to talk to and an all-around nice guy. Thanks for signing my DCC RPG book, and copies of Dungeon Alphabet and Stonehell.

I had been eying the copies of the limited edition they had for sale at the Con and finally broke down and bought one on Saturday. I wasn't really in the market for a new set of rules but I'd happily play or run DCC RPG in the future. In fact, I already ran Portal Under the Stars for my kids. Twelve zero level PCs went in and only four came out. It is a very fun game. Kudos to everyone at Goodman Games who worked on it.

Oh, and Michael Curtis should be sent to more conventions in the future to run DCC RPG. He is a great ambassador for the game.

[ragboy]

Can't believe I missed this again. Ug.

Sounds like the DCC portion was incredibly fun. I have to block out this weekend next year.

[michaelcurtis]

My son and I played in the Emirikol session and had an absolute blast! For Michael's reference, we were the two sitting at the far end of the table. My son, who is 13, played a Thief and I had a Dwarf. Neither of us had any experience with the system but picked it up pretty easily mostly due to Michael's excellent explanations of how things worked. There were many memorable parts to our session including one of our Clerics who was clearly pissing his god off, Michael throwing himself to the floor to show the miscast sleep spell effect, Michael perching on his chair like a pterodactyl, and the Elf who managed an incredible roll while invoking his Patron and making the final battle with Emirikol far easier than it would have otherwise been. I cannot stress enough how fantastic a DM Michael is! I would without hesitation sign up for any game he is running at a future Con. Michael, you were a pleasure to talk to and an all-around nice guy. Thanks for signing my DCC RPG book, and copies of Dungeon Alphabet and Stonehell.

I had been eying the copies of the limited edition they had for sale at the Con and finally broke down and bought one on Saturday. I wasn't really in the market for a new set of rules but I'd happily play or run DCC RPG in the future. In fact, I already ran Portal Under the Stars for my kids. Twelve zero level PCs went in and only four came out. It is a very fun game. Kudos to everyone at Goodman Games who worked on it.

Oh, and Michael Curtis should be sent to more conventions in the future to run DCC RPG. He is a great ambassador for the game.

Oh, heck. I can't believe I missed this post for so long. Thank you very much for the kind words, Toric. It was great meeting you and your son and the con, and I'm glad you're getting some DCC RPG time in with the family!