Circle of Dar Janix

This year at GenCon, I had the pleasure of spending almost an entire day playing Adventurer Conqueror King. I picked up the game at the OSR booth when I got my copy of Cheers, Gary. When I picked up ACKs I was given a flyer for a demo game during the con. A little after noon on Saturday I showed up hoping to see what made the game so special. I played in an afternoon session that highlighted the "Conqueror" level of the game. We were exploring the depths of Alex's megadungeon, when we happened on an odd room with a strange metal disk. After some experimenting we determined that the disk was a levitation device and we figured out how to control it. As we ventured further into the dungeon we found a strange magical sword made only of light. We were ambushed by a mind flayer and almost killed, we managed to defeat him and escape. Sadly one of our number lost his genitalia in the fight. After the session the Autarch guys were nice enough to let some of us come eat dinner with...

What would make me buy a new version of LotFP? Recently Raggi mentioned that the level system might be on the chopping block if there was a third edition of LotFP. This got me thinking about what changes to the game would make me interested in buying a new version. I think removing, or changing, the level system would be a change that would get me interested. I would like to see changes that support the style of play found in Raggi's modules and that he describes in LotFP. I hope he will either remove levels or drastically change the way they work. The D&D power curve does not really fit with the overall tone of Raggi's stuff. While the original LotFP addresses this to some extent (only fighters advance at fighting), I'd like to see him go further. I would also like to see Demi-humans removed. While they are part of the original game that LotFP is evolved from, they just don't seem to fit with the overall tone. Maybe they could be replaced with nonstandard races. R...

That's right, I am going to do a GenCon post in mid-November. This year's GenCon was my favorite yet. As always the best part of the convention was the people I room with, The Podgecast guys. If Adam/David did not set up the rooms I would never be able to go. This year was the first time I ever played a deck building game, I played Ascension and Thunderstone. I found Thunderstone to be a far superior game, it offered far more interesting choices during the game. Ascension was far more dependent on what cards were drawn, and we did not draw good ones. We drew only one type of card for the entire first half of the game, and another type for the second half. We got lots of items, but for the first half there was nothing to use them against. The other players assured me that this was rare and it only happened due to our proximity to Eric, but honestly, the fact that this happened shows a weakness in the game to me. Another first for me this year was surviving a game of WEGS . WEGS ...

This year was a first for me. I ran a game, in a gaming store, without knowing any of the players before I started. In fact, for the first few weeks I had only one player. The opportunity to run this game came out of Troll Con East. This was a convention put on by Troll Lord Games at All Things Fun , a gaming store in Berlin, NJ. Steve and Tim from Troll Lord came down and ran Castles and Crusades. At the end of the con I volunteered to run a Castles and Crusades game at the store. I have never run a pick up game at a store before. I have always had at least one known player before starting a game. I spent some time thinking about what I wanted from the game, and what would work in the conditions I had to work with. I have always wanted to run a game in the City State of the Invincible Overlord. Not just a game that used the City State as a home base, or visited every once and a while, but a game that never left. A game in a game store where I might have players dropping in and out al...

Hello, I don't know if anybody is still out there but I am finally clear of law school, bar study, and my trip to Viet Nam. I am settled in at a regular 9 to 5 (actually 7 to 4) job again as a lawyer for the U.S. Government in MD. Working for the Federal Government was my goal entering law school, so it is Mission Accomplished over here. I enjoy law, but money is a horrible motivator for me, knowing I am helping my fellow citizens makes me eager to get in every day. From a blogging standpoint this is also good news. I know my postings have been pretty slim around here for the last year or so, but I have built up a good backlog of posts so you should be seeing a lot more, even if I have busy periods. While things have been bleak on the blogging front, they have been great on the gaming front. For a period of time over the last year I had three regular games going at once: an OSRIC game in Stonehell (DM), a Pathfinder game (Player), and a Castle and Crusades game set in the City Stat...