Sunday, April 06, 2008

WEGS-vangelizing at Glory-Con, and More! So much more!

So, Wright State held their annual Glory-Con this weekend, and the Witt-Weggers were out in-force to sell some of the Wright State folks on the indy-game sensation...

Ebbs and I put together a scenario that was briefly called "Return to the Escape to Castle Von FitzYummenSteinoVich--Part VII, the Revengenationing! (A Prequel). Basic premise of the scenario? The citizens of the nearby village have been traveling in secret to the High Castle on the Hill and returning with delectable sweets, the likes of which you've never seen. The only problem being? The castle is guarded by the spirit of the one of the ancient candy-making elves, the Princess Khee-Blar!

Ebbs' major idea with this one was to create a draw by using various types of candies as minis. While our headliner didn't actually appear--a massive chocolate rabbit, riding a racecar--the battlemap was full of marshmallow peeps, gummi bears and dinosaurs, and Swedish "moat monsters".

Here are the pics!

First, here's the castle itself. Since we didn't have El Willy's Copper Pot to use, we had to make do with his bastard half-cousin, the Crystal Pot!



Here's the Princess, in action during our first session.



So, one of the more complicated elements of WEGS is the "Cold Roll". To make a Cold Roll, you start by rolling 2d6. This is to represent your target number, for a following percentage roll. The highest value on the 2d6 becomes the tens place, the other number becomes the ones place.
Typically, in WEGS, a roll of 00 is a complete and utter failure. However, on a Cold Roll, this is replaced by 'boxcars', or two sixes. A critical success is typically an 01, or in the case of a Cold Roll, snake eyes (two ones).

Given that, I present to you, courtesy of Eric Ebbs....Schroedinger's Cold Roll!



My favorite picture from GloryCon--truly sums up the dice-rolling mayhem of WEGS!




All told, I was fairly pleased with GloryCon, though there's a lot of improvement to be made. Wright State's Adventurer's Guild is really an organization in a rebuilding stage, after a major fiasco several years ago which really killed their funding and their attendance.

That said, there were many fundamental flaws with the con itself. Advertising was incredibly sparse, and the rooms used seemed cavernous and not very well suited to the audience. The biggest difficulty, though, was the lack of a schedule. Every con I've ever been at always has at least some kind of schedule, telling you what events will be held when. it gives patrons something to expect, and something they can rely on.

This really wasn't the case at Glory Con. It was difficult to get things organized, and to get players, so as not to interfere with other events. While our second session had many more players than the first one, it still left some to be desired.

All said, I'm really jazzed about Origins this year. We have 7 Witt-Weggers rocking out in Columbus this year, and will be just in time for the premier of D&D 4th edition. While I'm personally excited about D&D's new incarnation, I'm actually a little burned out on D&D. Needless to say, that's kind of odd for me, as it's my typical game of choice. Our current game group, in fact, has somewhat given up on D&D for a tick--naturally, Pirates of the Underdark is on hiatus--in lieu of a series of one-shots. While we're off next week, as my parents are in town to discuss wedding plans, I'm planning a Dark Heresy game right now, using the new Black Industries/Fantasy Flight rules.

Oh yes, this game makes me happy. Never have I seen a book that so seamlessly blends its crunch and fluff so well. Yes, there are flaws with the book--most notably the utter weakness of starting characters--but those are easily fixed...the God-Emperor commands it!

4 comments:

  1. I think I spent part of yesterday in a diabetic coma because of Glory Con. A lot of candy, rich food, a half pack of smokes, some booze and lack of sleep does not make for a happy body the next day. Blech.

    As a player I don't care so much about 4E. I haven't really even been paying attention the various announcements and sneak peeks. As a designer if the final produce resembles what they did with the Saga Edition of Star Wars it will be worth a look, simply because it should be much more streamlined than the current incarnation of d20.

    The character squishiness in Dark Heresy is generally regarded as a feature rather than a bug. It's a carryover from WFRP. It's interesting in that it's an example of the rules supporting a specific feel of play, which the majority of rpgs never actually manage to pull off, though to date I remain dubious of its effectiveness if this particular case.

    In other news I'm thinking of breaking out Noumenon sometime in the near future (perhaps at TopaCon). It's a domino based system about amnesic, super-powered bugs making their way through an extra-dimensional existentialist mansion.

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  2. are you the God Emperor?

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  3. I'm not cool enough to be the God-Emperor. Though, being an Arbites Arbitrator would rock hardcore...I'm itching to play a duel-fisted character that's half Philip Marlowe and half Dwight from "Sin City".

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  4. Thanks for running some WEGS! That scenario looks pretty sweeeet (ba-dump-bump)... Love Schroedinger's Cold Roll (though if you roll snake-eyes on the 2d6, you don't have to roll the percentiles...). Lots of folks roll all CR% their dice at once. That really is an implosive result!!! Cool stuff!

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