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 them. We had a pleasant meal while discussing gaming, ancient history, and great con artists.
After dinner we set up for a "King" round. This was a good demonstration of the realm management rules. We each had our own domain to run as we dealt with a coming threat of invasion. The real rules worked well, and they worked fast. We got to task our minions to run different missions and investigate leads. What was cool about this was that the characters we were asking to do these missions were characters of the "Adventurer" and "Conqueror" levels.
In the final session we split up. Some of us played "Adventurer" level characters on the missions we had assigned them, while others played "King" level characters in a giant mass combat. I took part in the "Adventurer" group, run by Tavis, and played a sexy bard with crazy charm skills. We invaded an underground lair and I charmed my way through some wererats. Hijinks ensued during our escape, and overall the game was a blast.
After our session we all got back together and learned what the other group had been up to. It turns out that during the mass combat, one of the players had ridden the disk and killed a green dragon with a magic sword. Let's put this another way, he killed a green dragon with a lightsaber while riding a hoverboard.
In all I played ACKs for almost 11 hours on Saturday, a marathon session to do my high school years proud. This was the best day of gaming I have ever had a convention. The game was great, and seemed aimed at recreating those great, lost days from my youth. I hope to play ACKs again at another con, I live in MD which is halfway in-between the NY and NC locations of the creators. This has to be possible.
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 them. We had a pleasant meal while discussing gaming, ancient history, and great con artists.
After dinner we set up for a "King" round. This was a good demonstration of the realm management rules. We each had our own domain to run as we dealt with a coming threat of invasion. The real rules worked well, and they worked fast. We got to task our minions to run different missions and investigate leads. What was cool about this was that the characters we were asking to do these missions were characters of the "Adventurer" and "Conqueror" levels.
In the final session we split up. Some of us played "Adventurer" level characters on the missions we had assigned them, while others played "King" level characters in a giant mass combat. I took part in the "Adventurer" group, run by Tavis, and played a sexy bard with crazy charm skills. We invaded an underground lair and I charmed my way through some wererats. Hijinks ensued during our escape, and overall the game was a blast.
After our session we all got back together and learned what the other group had been up to. It turns out that during the mass combat, one of the players had ridden the disk and killed a green dragon with a magic sword. Let's put this another way, he killed a green dragon with a lightsaber while riding a hoverboard.
In all I played ACKs for almost 11 hours on Saturday, a marathon session to do my high school years proud. This was the best day of gaming I have ever had a convention. The game was great, and seemed aimed at recreating those great, lost days from my youth. I hope to play ACKs again at another con, I live in MD which is halfway in-between the NY and NC locations of the creators. This has to be possible.
Sounds incredible! I would love to take a look at ACK! So, you have an advance copy of the game? I would love to see that if you get a chance to come up again soon. Thanks for this post!
ReplyDeleteAlso, how does ACK stand up to C&C? Can you give a comparison between the two?
ReplyDeleteI'll bring it with me the next time I am up at the store. Maybe I will run an ACK game if we can get a group together for a long game.
ReplyDeleteFrom a rules perspective ACK is closer to traditional D&D than C&C is, but there are some pretty innovative changes.