Another TCTC Con...

Last weekend I was at Terminal City convention, hosting some Lamentations of the Flame Princess games. 

Tried out Becami's adventure, The Black Chamber, which turned out deadly but not before I unleashed some creative spellcasting violence. The Referee, Austin, wrote a bit about this year's game and a bit about last year's game that I ran, you can read it at WatcherDM. And maybe buy some stuff while you're at it, "Dragons&Dragons" sounds like a good title. 

I ran my murder-investigation LotFP adventure, and it seemed to work fine, different from the playtesting but still enjoyable. 

Also I got to use The Collection and Generator. The players used the Snake Mantle to talk to the Nagadusa, and were so not ready for the snake poetry slam that followed (and smart enough not to challenge the Nagadusa to a staring contest, unlike some people I used to know), but rolled high and thus succeeded. And they killed a horrible creature that possibly was inspired by Donald Trump. 

That's it with the advertisements for the week, let's get back to work. The Convulsium will not write itself. More on that later.

Thoughts about Terminal City Con

There were a hundred and three games at Terminal City. Three of those were Lamentations of the Flame Princess. 

Why? LotFP is fun. The rules are free. There's a lot - a whole lot - of quality content. Almost everything, even that one adventure about the dogs, can be bought as PDFs. Some of the stuff, especially that one adventure about the dogs, is pay-what-you-want (so you can get it for free, and no one will judge you, you greedy tight-fisted miser). And there's even more stuff that's LotFP-compatible. 

Is it because LotFP has no warehouse in Canada, and there are no physical books at local game stores? Printed books are something that sets Lamentations aside from many others, they look absolutely gorgeous. 

There were a hundred and three games at Terminal City, and the three Lamentations games that were barely advertised were all full. (One person had to cancel but there was one extra at the next game, so it evened out). 

Some were players with LotFP-related experience, and it was a pleasure watching them use every skill and trick in their arsenal. Some were people who never played an LotFP game before, or never played a tabletop RPG, period. 

Everyone contributed, everyone did something cool. 

Maybe we should play more LotFP games at cons and show more people how great it can be and make James Raggi rich and famous so that he publishes more games that we will play at cons, you know what I'm saying? 

Anyways, it was fun. I want to thank everyone who came, or wanted to come but couldn't, or didn't plan to come but something came up so they just sat at my table and played. And Becami, Jeff and Zak, who gave some very sound advice on being a Referee at a con game. And James for making Lamentations and publishing the two adventures that I used, and once again Zak for writing the two adventures that I used. And Austin, because it was nice to see a familiar face and know that someone at the table is resourceful enough to deal with anything that will go weird and pear-shaped. And the organizers and moderators of Terminal City, because it was a really cool and friendly event. 

It was a pleasure.

Terminal City is fun, wish you were here...

 How I use the Random Encounter table... 

Roll. 

No, can't use this, this looks more interesting than the rest of the adventure. 

Roll. 

Meh, that's kind of too tough. 

Roll. 

2d4 Orc Knights on horses, okay, that sounds good. 

"So, from behind the trees, you see eight goblin scouts riding baboons..." 

They also killed the xortoise. They sure rolled a lot of natural 19's. Maybe the dice were loaded. I brought the dice. Why did I give them loaded dice? 

"So you brought me... an old bald man, two birds, a monkey, and a - to be frank - seriously impressive giant half-goat, half-scorpion. That is supposed to be the superweapon that will save my kingdom?" 

"Ah, your majesty, let me explain how this bird is actually a weapon of mass destruction". 

Goat-demon is invulnerable to normal weapons. But not to the cunning of the magic-user who promised him a whole lot of killing and violence. 

Note: always bring a pencil sharpener AND a knife to a game. Luckily, I did. 

"So... these girls in the pool were not the octopus's handpuppets?" 

"No, they were real girls who just liked to hang out with a giant octopus". 

"I know girls like that". 

Step 1. Forbid to bring food/drinks to the building. 

Step 2. Charge $4.50 for a can of Pepsi. 

Step 3, obviously, world domination. 

I cannot see how this plot could possibly fail.