2 Game Convention After Action Reports for the price of one!

[collwen]

Council of Five Nations XXX After Action Report
Council of Five Nations
Friday October 5 - Sunday October 7, 2007
Proctor's Theater and Conference Center
Schenectady, NY

This was my first ever Council, and I was looking forward to it. Really, the only problems that I had was that I didn't get a chance to see much beyond the basement and the Muddy Cup.

Such is the life of an RPGA judge where there's a full track of RPGA/Living Greyhawk events.

I jumped right in on the Friday evening slot and ran 4ish hour sessions of sanctioned LG D&D games for the rest of the time that the convention was open. And similar to other conventions where I've gone as a judge- the games that I signed up to run are not necessarily the same as the ones I end up actually running.

This is actually a result of how the RPGA and Living Greyhawk campaign work. Most RPG DMs at a con are running their own game, or a story that they got from a friend. LG has writers from all over the world and the scenarios/modules (mods) are requested from centralized contacts. If you've played the mod and are a Herald level GM per the RPGA, then you can run that mod. (One can also run a mod without having played it- it's usually referred to as "eating" or "burning" the mod.)

So, with a pool of GMs it's possible that the person who was originally set to run a particular mod gets switched to doing something else (normally running a different mod) depending on the number of players, judges, and what mods the players are eligible to play in.

It can also get a little complicated.

Overall, I liked the location- I had places nearby to run (some times literally) to get food and a good coffee shop. At most cons that I've been to I'm at the mercy of the hotel's coffee and it usually tastes like dirt. Granted, Proctor's is a bit of a maze, it got *very* noisy downstairs, and the lighting wasn't the greatest. But these are things that can be approved upon for next year between a new convention center growing and

But the people were good, my modules went smoothly, and I got next to no sleep.

Sounds like a perfect con to me.



MEPACON Fall 2007 After Action Report
MEPACON
Friday November 2 - Sunday November 4, 2007
Holiday Inn
Dunmore, PA

Having now been to my first Council, I can see a lot of similarities between these two conventions. There's a room for the vendors. There's rooms and tables for the board games, the strategy games, the marathon roleplay game sessions. There's an auction. There's people that I see there that I've now seen at Council (Besides tetsujinnooni and chickipu_no_oni there was a group of gamers from the Connecticut area who I've seen everywhere).

There's also a number of differences between the two conventions.

Part of it is because this was in a hotel- so there was a pool that I didn't get a chance to use, a bar that I did use, and a bed a few hundred feet from where I was playing. But there are other events as well that set this convention apart.

First of all, one of these MEPACONs I'm going to get to the Paint-n-Take. I'm not exactly sure how it's set up (because I'm usually running mods at the same time), but they have tables set aside where you pick a mini and start painting, then you take the mini home. This is a deal that they've worked out with one of the vendors- they provide the mini and the paint. They also have a miniature painting contest. A friend of mine at the con usually does really well at it, particularly in a new category for Warhammer Squads (which I think he won, but I'd have to check).

Besides the auction (where the money from a good portion of the items is donated to a charity), they also have a raffle and a Dice Guess. For the raffle, they have a table of prizes and as each number is called the winner gets to pick from the remaining prizes. The Dice Guess is a big jar of dice and other pieces (like pencil sharpeners) and whoever buys a ticket and is closest to the number of *dice* in the jar wins the jar and it's contents. In the raffle I won once and chose a book of Cuthulu mythos short stories (the D&D stuff had already been picked over by the time my ticket was drawn).

MEPACon also has other random giveaways during the weekend. Usually once a slot someone will win a pack of random rpg books (usually including some d20 printed mods booklets, a hardcover random game book, and a pack of a card based game). The RPGA room had it's own raffle for "Greyhawk Pride Day" (which was set up as a show of solidarity since WOTC is ending the Greyhawk Campaign on us), which I ended up winning. I know I got the new (and so soon to be out of date with D&D 4.0 release) Exemplars of Evil supplement, a copy of Geek Wars: Battle for the Con- Deck 1 RPG Gamer, the Book of Templates: Deluxe Edition (not so be confused with the one by Silverthorne Games supplement with the same name) and a few other random module booklets.

I also know that there were a couple of LARPS going on. I didn't get a chance to check them out because I spent most of my con in the RPGA room. Which shouldn't be a shock- most of my rpg playing since January 2006 has been based in the Living Greyhawk campaign, especially since the home Ars Magica game went on prolonged hiatus.

I ran a few mods and played a few. I actually played more than I had expected to because I had signed up to judge all but one slot. I ended up playing 4 games, three of which were LG games. I managed to get COR7-08: Sins of the Father, KEO6-04: Old Sins Cast Long Shadows, and KEO7-06: A Bright Scaled Horror under my various

characters' belts.

The one non-LG game I played was on Saturday morning with a completely different system. The game is called Witch Hunter: The Invisible World, and they have their own version of a living campaign with Witch Hunter: Dark Providence. Witch Hunter is from Paradigm Concepts which has supported the Living Arcanis campagin since it split from the RPGA back in March 2007. The people running the game were also at Council, so I was glad that I actually got a chance to check them out.

Witch Hunter is a good game, and I enjoyed myself immensely, but like any new game it has some kinks to work out (like there's equipment listed like a medical kit that has no stats listed anywhere so we can tell what effect it has on a person's healing attempt roll). This looks like it is their first game from scratch (Living Arcanis is based on the d20 Open Gaming License), and while everyone was learning rules the person running the game was making notes to go back to the publisher with (he knows them).

Lastly, while not gaming news, I got a chance to get a new batch of books with CJ Henderson stories- I've gotten to be something of a fan. If you like reading pulp fiction, Cuthulu mythos stories, and the like he's a good author to check out.

LJ note: it was great to see rombarro and mea_bold's husband, and I missed seeing auntiero who was lost to NANOWRIMO.