As you can probably tell by my paucity of posts, life has been very, very busy. Particularly with my day job because, well, screw Trump and his lack of actual economic and diplomatic policy. Tariffs are taking a stupid toll on those of us who work in procurement and supply chain. Yeah.
Despite all the intentional chaos our unhinged government is creating, I was able to get to Garycon this spring. Now, not all cons are absolutely amazing. And this Garycon was only amazing because I was able to see an old friend I haven't seen since high school. 38 years later, we were able to get together and hang out a little bit. Man, that felt good. I don't have a ton of contact with people I went to high school with, both because I am avoiding most social media and because I graduated from a small Department of Defense school in England. Upon graduating, we all spread to the four winds. So, the best part of Garycon was seeing my old friend. He'll be coming back next year, too, for which I am very, very grateful.
But this Garycon was . . . well, it was fine. But nothing spectacular. Of course, I had a great time and played in some great games, but outside of one particularly great DCC game (thank you, Julian Bernick), the games were . . . alright. Nevertheless, I'm trying to make it a habit to show the many faces I wore as a player, so here we go.
First off, you'll notice that two of my characters have the same name: Dweezel Space Jesus. I think that's going to be my default name for any DCC/MCC character I play at conventions. It fits the mood of DCC and it's easy to remember. Of the two Dweezel Space Jesii that I played, the elven sage in the lower left hand corner of the photo above was my favorite. This was the one I played in Julian Bernick's outstanding adventure "Expedition to Yuggoth," which is just what the label says, a 4th level DCC adventure to Yuggoth, home of Mi-Go, gigantic automata, and other nasties whose names Chaosium has copyrighted (they'll probably sue me for using the terms "Yuggoth" and "Mi-Go," but whatevs). As is usual with one of Julian's adventures, all descended into chaos rather quickly, which is just what I had hoped for. I think Julian exhudes some kind of spiritual force field that drives players insane in his presence. It's a wonderful gift, and I enjoyed it, especially the part where the party cleric was able to charm some Mi-Go into going back and killing off a party of mercenary lizard men who tried to rip us off as we were busy stealing - uh, I mean "transporting" - some . . . goods from the planet. We had trapped them in a building so we could off with the goods, and encountering the Mi-Go and being able to charm them just as we were getting ready to jump off-planet was a godsend. And by "God" I mean the Elder Gods, of course.
Here's our intrepid party of adventurers. Notice the lady in the back trying to sneak up on us and backstab:
Speaking of Chaosium, I played in two Call of Cthulhu games, one put on by the awesome guys at You Too Can Cthulhu, and another put on by the awesome guys at Court of Cthulhu. Both were great, mysteries were had, people died in grisly ways or sold their souls for their own personal gain. Call of Cthulhu always brings out the best in people.
I also played in a Traveller game where we had to infiltrate a red zone planet and find a Zhodani spy. Good times were had by all except the Zhodani spy and one of our party members who, if I remember correctly, lost a good chunk of their face. Important safety note: If you get in combat in Traveller, you've made a grave error. That system is deadly.
Last of all on the roleplaying front, I played the newest incarnation of a Conan RPG, Conan: The Hyborian Age. It's an interesting system with additive dice rolls and well-differentiated classes. I always like to play at least one game I've never played before at a con, and this was it this time. Good game. I'd play it again.
With every con, I try to get into at least one miniatures game, as well. I can't afford to buy all the minis in the world, so I pay good money to rent them at cons. This year, I played Legions of the Petal Throne for the third year in a row. I splurged and bought the rulebook, as well. It's way out of print and bloody expensive, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet.
Here's a little chunk of my army ready to charge, then in the midst of the final battle. Yon Koryani won. This felt like vindication after the horrific loss I suffered last year!
And this year, I played in two miniatures games. The second was Pulp Alley: The Lost World of Lemuria. It was a little more complex than I like in my mini games, but it was fun, nonetheless. Here are a few of my thugs in action:
So, good times had, as usual. Not quite as spectacular as, say, Gameholecon last year (where I played in one of the coolest adventures I've ever played in, to be honest). But going to Garycon is always great. I'll be there as long as I'm on two feet and breathing.
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