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Thank you for setting the record straight. Yes, only three members of the party got killed. The two sorceresses and I were able to hold out for several rounds against Charvion, but when the sorceresses were knock down to, um, something like negative 40 HP each, old Slithy knew it was time to regroup. (For one thing, I can't flank by myself for the sneak damage.) I went back and revived the paladin who was unconscious on the roof, but when we returned, Charvion was nowhere to be found.Just to clarify something here: Only three players died during the Special event, and all three were at the only Tier 10-11 table. They had an unfortunate encounter with something black and huge knocked that down two of their party, one of which was their only healer. The remaining three left them for dead and used dimension door to escape... right into Charvion's room.
See? It wasn't that bad! The rest of the Society rallied together and saved the day, even after the tier 10-11 table left them behind at the gates. ;-)
After thinking about it, I wish I would have quickly conferenced with Kyle about the consequences of the Tier 10-11 group being driven away by Chavion. I think when Slithy completed his tactical withdrawl, I should have gone over to Bob's table and waited for Chavion's next turn then informed Bob to now run the Tier 10-11 version of Charvion against the Tier 8-9s. By that time I think Code White had been called. It would have been more worthy of an Interactive...
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I feel like I could just cut and paste my "Thank You Everyone!" post from Origins. It felt like an Origins reunion because I had so many of my saviors from Columbus make the trip to Ann Arbor to pitch in and help me out again. I owe all the success at the con once again to my GMs. I am grateful for their willingness to set aside their lives for three days and entertain the barbarian horde who invaded the Michigan Union.
I would like to recognize the volunteer GMs here on the boards. I am going to list them in order of distance traveled to get to the con, although credit certainly can't be judged from distance alone.
Wes Nicholson (Australia)
Glen Shackleton (Ontario)
VC Neil "Not-Craig" Shackleton (Ontario)
Thea Peters (Iowa)
Robert Jonquet (Illinois)
Swiftbrook (Location Classified)
Kevin Wixon (Kalamazoo, MI)
Mike Elliott
Ted Fletcher
Kyle Baird [Overseer GM for "Year of the Shadow Lodge" Special Event]
Jeff Stop
Pete Cooney
Roger Kernsmith
Adam Pont
Frank Pont
Mike CombsIf I forgot anyone, please forgive me! Thank you all for your support and for making me look good here & at the convention!!
And also a big thanks to all the players who attended and enabled us to set a record number of Special tables (outside of GenCon).
I had a lot of fun at U-Con. Thanks Doug for allowing me to get my feet wet as a GM. Though having two master GMs at my first table, was a bit intimidating.
I enjoyed most of the games I play and everyone I played with. GM's were great and Year of the Shadow Lodge was really special!
Also, I renewed many old acquaintances and made some new friends!
-Swiftbrook
Just My Thoughts
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After thinking about it, I wish I would have quickly conferenced with Kyle about the consequences of the Tier 10-11 group being driven away by Chavion. I think when Slithy completed his tactical withdrawl, I should have gone over to Bob's table and waited for Chavion's next turn then informed Bob to now run the Tier 10-11 version of Charvion against the Tier 8-9s. By that time I think Code White had been called. It would have been more worthy of an Interactive...
That would have been awesome. By the code white, he was getting smoked by my players. Describing the high-tier group fleeing the battlefield and leaving the 8-9 to take on the more powerful version would have upped the tension and probably scared the cr@p out of them. Definitely a tactic we should add to the scenario should it be run again in the future.
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After thinking about it, I wish I would have quickly conferenced with Kyle about the consequences of the Tier 10-11 group being driven away by Chavion. I think when Slithy completed his tactical withdrawl, I should have gone over to Bob's table and waited for Chavion's next turn then informed Bob to now run the Tier 10-11 version of Charvion against the Tier 8-9s. By that time I think Code White had been called. It would have been more worthy of an Interactive...Thank you for setting the record straight. Yes, only three members of the party got killed. The two sorceresses and I were able to hold out for several rounds against Charvion, but when the sorceresses were knock down to, um, something like negative 40 HP each, old Slithy knew it was time to regroup. (For one thing, I can't flank by myself for the sneak damage.) I went back and revived the paladin who was unconscious on the roof, but when we returned, Charvion was nowhere to be found.Just to clarify something here: Only three players died during the Special event, and all three were at the only Tier 10-11 table. They had an unfortunate encounter with something black and huge knocked that down two of their party, one of which was their only healer. The remaining three left them for dead and used dimension door to escape... right into Charvion's room.
See? It wasn't that bad! The rest of the Society rallied together and saved the day, even after the tier 10-11 table left them behind at the gates. ;-)
All I needed was another dragon scale lol and I think I would have made it .. but lesson learned for people .. never let the Gnome Sorceress who have been imbibing cider decide the tactic to go up against a black winged thing cause really they just wanna touch it
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I think that U-Con was my best gaming convention experience to date. Doug and others did a great job of making us all feel welcome and appreciated. There were a wide variety of scenarios on offer so I got a chance to play in some really fun games run by Thea, Kyle and Doug. My only regret is that I did not actually get to coerce the monkey into wearing a pink negligee. There is always next time. ;-).
Glen they should all be purple ... just saying
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I would like to recognize the volunteer GMs here on the boards. I am going to list them in order of distance traveled to get to the con, although credit certainly can't be judged from distance alone.Wes Nicholson (Australia)
Glen Shackleton (Ontario)
VC Neil "Not-Craig" Shackleton (Ontario)
Thea Peters (Iowa)
Robert Jonquet (Illinois)
...
I think I need to acknowledge that Thea may have traveled further than Neil in order to reach U-Con. The accomplishments of women are constantly overlooked by stoopid men...[sigh]...Sorry Thea!
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I think I need to acknowledge that Thea may have traveled further than Neil in order to reach U-Con. The accomplishments of women are constantly overlooked by stoopid men...[sigh]...Sorry Thea!
I would like to recognize the volunteer GMs here on the boards. I am going to list them in order of distance traveled to get to the con, although credit certainly can't be judged from distance alone.Wes Nicholson (Australia)
Glen Shackleton (Ontario)
VC Neil "Not-Craig" Shackleton (Ontario)
Thea Peters (Iowa)
Robert Jonquet (Illinois)
...
Technically speaking I came from Kentucky to GM at U-Con. :-)
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I think I need to acknowledge that Thea may have traveled further than Neil in order to reach U-Con. The accomplishments of women are constantly overlooked by stoopid men...[sigh]...Sorry Thea!
I would like to recognize the volunteer GMs here on the boards. I am going to list them in order of distance traveled to get to the con, although credit certainly can't be judged from distance alone.Wes Nicholson (Australia)
Glen Shackleton (Ontario)
VC Neil "Not-Craig" Shackleton (Ontario)
Thea Peters (Iowa)
Robert Jonquet (Illinois)
...
Lol .. men are truly never all that stoopid... merely misinformed by other men
But all shall be overlooked with tier 1 Gm status at Origins... and a chariot... pulled by the male GMs
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I was going to point out Doug's error, but he ran me thru 3 sessions in one day without killing my character, and I didn't want to bring down the wrath of Massacre Miles.
I wouldn't advise it Neil... My little sorceress has felt the wrath and while liking part of it is now a bit dragon shy... until she sees the next one then she'll want to touch it again hehe
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I even bought a few awesome boardgames (Smallworld, Arkham Horror and Dominion) at half the price I would have paid in Ottawa.Did you claim those at the border? ;-)
Actually I did. They were super polite Canadian border guards and thanked me for spending money in the USA, as we like to help out our neighbours. ;-) We can bring back up to $400 worth of goods if we are out of the country for more than 48 hours. I guess that's how we roll.
Actual conversation with border guard on entry to the US:
"So you are going to... a game convention?" (in sarcastic voice)- Customs
"Yes" - Neil
"You are travelling to... a convention... to play games?" - Customs
"That is correct. They have board games, role playing games and all kinds of different games" - Neil
"So you are playing... games. (longer pause) Do you win money or something?" - Customs
"Nope we just play games for fun." - Neil
"It's like a geek convention!- me leaning across and chiming in.
-She seemed to feel that this was the most implausible thing she had ever been told by someone entering her country. I feel we came within about 3 seconds from being sent for a body cavity search.
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I even bought a few awesome boardgames (Smallworld, Arkham Horror and Dominion) at half the price I would have paid in Ottawa.Did you claim those at the border? ;-)Actually I did. They were super polite Canadian border guards and thanked me for spending money in the USA, as we like to help out our neighbours. ;-) We can bring back up to $400 worth of goods if we are out of the country for more than 48 hours. I guess that's how we roll.
Actual conversation with border guard on entry to the US:
"So you are going to... a game convention?" (in sarcastic voice)- Customs
"Yes" - Neil
"You are travelling to... a convention... to play games?" - Customs
"That is correct. They have board games, role playing games and all kinds of different games" - Neil
"So you are playing... games. (longer pause) Do you win money or something?" - Customs
"Nope we just play games for fun." - Neil
"It's like a geek convention!- me leaning across and chiming in.-She seemed to feel that this was the most implausible thing she had ever been told by someone entering her country. I feel we came within about 3 seconds from being sent for a body cavity search.
I've found the best way to describe it to non-gamers is a gathering of people in a room with coffee --- a conference if you will hehe
hrmm I should stop typing and go to bed soon ... I almost fell asleep at work today lol would have if not for needing to update the Paizo boards every 20 minutes.
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One more thing that I thought worthy of mention:
Thanks to Roger and his class for attending.
When I initially heard that a group was coming as part of their course, I worried about the disruption that could be caused by a bunch of novices who didn't really want to be there.
I was pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm, friendliness, and rules knowledge that the students brought to the table. And I enjoyed talking to them about the experience between sessions.
Thanks to all for making the convention even more fun for me. I hope that you will return next year.
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What a great weekend! So what was the final table count Doug Doug? How did the tables per slot compare to Origins?
I did some fishing ....
Origins GMs, session reporting is up for the 67 tables ran at Origins.
I mean to do a more complete post later today, but I have a lot of work demanding to be addressed this morning. At first blush U-Con ran 53 tables of Pathfinder Society events this weekend. Saturday night we had 8 tables of the Special go off. It was a blast. More later.
So, 67 at Origins and 53 at U-Con. Wow! I didn't know that Origins was so much smaller than GenCon (with like 200+ tables). I also thought that U-Con was a little con, no so. Great job Doug!
-Swiftbrook
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Part of the difference is Paizo did not support PFS at Origins at even a fraction of the scale they did at GenCon. There were no Paizo staff at Origins this year. There was no Paizo booth in the vendor hall. Origins attendance has been sliding downward for years and Paizo (accurately) projected they would lose money if they put any significant resources into the convention. Josh asked me to organize events there because he wasn't going to attend. I'm sure a lot of the draw at GenCon is from the industry rockstars like Jason Bulmahn, Erik Mona and Lisa Stevens. There was the Special event "Year of the Shadow Lodge" at GenCon also. Now after the success we had at Origins this year, we might sway Lisa into supporting it in 2011. It will never approach the scale of GenCon but I'm sure we can capitalize on the momentum we built and run even more tables next year. Having a few Venture Captains there won't hurt either. And I'm sure I can count on the Assistant to the Regional Coordinator, Kyle Baird, to be there as well ;)
As far as U-Con goes, 53 tables didn't come close to what we used to run when it was the 3.5 Living Campaigns. U-Con is big for a local convention, but that's what it is at heart--a local convention. Next year the survival of the convention is in doubt because the NCAA recently went and added a home game to the University of Michigan football schedule. It has created a situation where there will be a home game on the same weekend as U-Con. Bad news for parking, hotels, etc. The convention organizers have to book the Michigan Union a couple years in advance and all the other away game weekends are booked up already. It means they will either move locations or try and compete with Big Ten football fans.
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What a great weekend! So what was the final table count Doug Doug? How did the tables per slot compare to Origins?I did some fishing ....
Origins GMs, session reporting is up for the 67 tables ran at Origins.I mean to do a more complete post later today, but I have a lot of work demanding to be addressed this morning. At first blush U-Con ran 53 tables of Pathfinder Society events this weekend. Saturday night we had 8 tables of the Special go off. It was a blast. More later.So, 67 at Origins and 53 at U-Con. Wow! I didn't know that Origins was so much smaller than GenCon (with like 200+ tables). I also thought that U-Con was a little con, no so. Great job Doug!
-Swiftbrook
Actually, Origins is 10 slots. That's 6.7 tables/slot.
U-Con was 8 slots. For a total of 6.625 tables/slot. That's pretty incredible when you consider the size of Origins vs. U-Con.
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U-Con was a blast, great job putting it all together Doug, cant wait to do it again. I never GMed so much before (Only GMed once before U-con) so its nice to get five more games under my belt.
The special was great, Kyle, you did good, despite the fact you ordered my GM to kill my character, got to love rebel GMs.
I think we could take the football fans next year, they may have the numbers, the ferocity, and tailgating, but we have the d20s!
-adam
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It's Wednesday and the tables haven't been reported yet? Bad Doug Doug! Bad!
I started reporting the Friday sessions last night but I got swept up in Dancing With the Stars--shaah, right! Well, let me burst your bubble right now. They won't be reported tonight (Master of the Fallen Fortress) or tomorrow (Among the Living), but they might be done by Friday.
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It's Wednesday and the tables haven't been reported yet? Bad Doug Doug! Bad!I started reporting the Friday sessions last night but I got swept up in Dancing With the Stars--shaah, right! Well, let me burst your bubble right now. They won't be reported tonight (Master of the Fallen Fortress) or tomorrow (Among the Living), but they might be done by Friday.