Sunday, March 23, 2008

WEGS 'n' WittCon V Wrap-Up

My apologies on the delay, ye loyal few readers--the funeral in Pennsylvania for my grandfather was somewhat delayed, which led to a slight inability to blog. However, the Warlock is back in action and ready to give you the rundown.



Here's our geekdom hero, El Willy, arriving at Krystal Keep. Krystal Keep is the virtual successor to Wexford Hills Hobbies (boo! hiss!), which is a great improvement over the earlier incarnation. El Willy arrived with his resident Minion Master, Willy the 2 (known here, and in the Tale Wegziotic as Wt2), but neither had any readiness for the chaos we were about to inflict upon them...

...mainly because the vast majority of our gaming group came out for the festivities! While El Willy and his compadre were more used to running game for 5-6 people, we started the WEGS demo with no less than 9 sitting around the table, with more joining the fray!



The pic above is of the whole group of players at Krystal Keep! Needless to say, a massive amount. Even those who weren't playing got a whole earful of WEGS throughout the night--a great thing for El Willy's publicity and the sales at the Keep.

The game itself was a series of encounters, linked around a "Dungeon-crawling" theme, but ended in a massive PvP fracas. I bowed out approximately half-way through the dungeon-crawl to focus on getting the photos, and to let a newcomer play, taking over my Humz mage. However, this gave me the chance to act as an "assistant Minion Master" with El Willy and Wt2, running a Level 8 Ranger Minion, sniping out poor Will's Warrior, who laid on the ground in Lost Action Phase.




However, that was only the beginning of the festivities as Saturday brought about WittCon V--"Alea Iacta Est". This was an exciting con for me, as it brought about the first chance to premier Dungeon Slam!

While I only had 8 total takers for Dungeon Slam! the players really seemed to catch on fast, and enjoy the game itself. I really got quite a few solid responses, as well as some great ideas to enhance the game from Wt2, who sat in on the second session.




Here's a picture of the full-game set-up, as it is now:




While I did not end up running the Cthulhu Dark Ages game I had originally planned, this gave me the chance to partake of some extra WEGS-ing!
El Willy, Ebbs, and Wt2 teamed up, using the "Fist Full o' Boomstick!" varient WEGS-rules to provide us with a Cthulified WEGS scenario. With their creative genius on the run, we faced down the horrors of the Column-Golem, and then a massive creature bearing a significant resemblance to a certain tentacled horror-from-beyond...



All told, this year's WittCon left me a little conflicted. While we had a ton of great events----the debuts of both Dungeon Slam! and MOE--The Boardgame, the arrival of El Willy and full slate of WEGS games, a Reaper-Minis paint-and-take event, The Light Trading Company selling dice----attendance was pitifully low. Very few Guilders came out, and much of the Con was made up of community members and people running events. Needless to say, this is frustrating, particularly when even the president of the guild was only in attendance for an incredibly short time. One hopes that this is a fluke, but it is particularly worrisome.

That said, life goes on, and the games go with it. Currently, Ebbs and I are getting ready to evangelize some WEGS over at Wright State's "Glory Con" two weekends hence.

Hell, we even have our own nickname: the Witt-Weggers!

I'm sure I'm missing a whole lot in terms of the Con, but that's life. If you'd like to see more pictures--I have nearly 100!--drop a line in the comments and let me know!

4 comments:

  1. Part of the issue with attendance I think is just going to boil down to advertising. I only happened to hear about it because I decided to check the Wittenberg page that morning, and on a random impulse grabbed the camera and my last few pennies and hit the road. I did call one person and urge him to show up; I probably should have tried to call more since he didn't bother coming along.

    Of course I freely admit that advertising can be one of those tricky things to get right. Of course nothing beats the Clark State theatre department approach: hang the same poster every four #$##!#$ feet in every hallway, because apparently... actually I really have no idea why the hell he keeps doing that.

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  2. where are the dang pictures lol

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  3. Thanks for posting those photos from KK. I look like a sour-oussed disembodied spirit floating in the background in the group shot! I was talking to two other folks behind y'all (though they are strangely missing in pic!).

    Had a rocking time! I tell you, the layout of Dungeon Slam looks great. It just looks like a fun game to jump into. We need to chat some more, and I need to play some! Looks like a blast and Wt2 had fun with it.

    Act Fast!!!!

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  4. Whew! I'm actually getting site traffic! This is news, to sy the least!

    Josh--Glad you were able to come, like I said, but advertising I don't think was the issue. We had the site up for nearly 6 months, and had posters in every major game store in the tri-county area. The problem we had was one of communication within the Guild itself, which rests on the current president's head. There's not much more we can do with her right now--she'll probably be a lame duck president--but I think she's starting to get exactly how upset us Guild Illuminati are with her.

    Nick, there are more pictures in the new post. If you want to see more, ask me on Friday.

    El Willy--Thanks again for coming out, man. It really means a lot to us WittFolk. Sorry that things were kind of rapid-fire, but if it's one thing I've learned about cons, it's that they're non-stop. Madness indeed.
    And trust me, I'm aching to run some DS for you. Will seemed to really like the way things were rolling, and I think you'll enjoy it.

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