Loz Con 2016 summary

So "Loz Con 2016" took place over the weekend of August 12th—14th. The generous host, Lawrence Whitaker, summed up the grand event in the following Design Mechanism post:

LozCon 2016 was a lot of fun. With 7 attendees, it had grown by over 25% on 2015's venture, and the variety of games was, as ever, eclectic. 

1. Cthulhu 7 - in which an intrepid band of Irish hoodlums investigated a strange tenement in Arkham. Lots of madness ensued. 

2. Into the Odd - in which an intrepid band of semi-Undead residents of Necrocarcerus went for a fun day out in the theme park of the demon Muurl. Lots of madness ensued. 

3. Bridge Over Troubled Parallels - in which an intrepid band of Valhalla agents ventured to an alternative Edinburgh, encountered an alternative Billy Connolly, an alternative Sean Connery, some alternative killpanzees, and almost died in very horrible ways. Most controversial scenario of the con, and madness ensued. 

4. The One Ring - in which a hand-picked fellowship (chosen by Elrond himself) escorted a twitchy Ranger to his ancestral home, that appeared to be in the hands of bandits and a creature known as 'The Eye'. Fighting ensued, and the madness was confined to the 'Ranger'... 

My thanks to the marvellous attendees (Blain, Chris, Jude, John, Sean and Erich) and compliments to the chef (me)...

One quick correction regarding Loz's comment on the Mythras/RQ6 'Arkwright' game ("Bridge Over Troubled Parallels"): "in which an intrepid band of Valhalla agents ... almost died in very horrible ways." One agent — my character, the Scottish revolutionary hero Duncan Barr — did die in a very horrible way. He was shot to death by machine-gun wielding chimpanzees. I guess I should've expected that that would happen, as we were in Edinburgh after all. Still, it was an ignoble way to go. Indeed, the entire adventure went pear-shaped over a period of five hours (red herrings pursued, mission failed, parallels destroyed, one character killed, multiple characters near death, etc.). Ah well...

I ran the Call of Cthulhu 7th edition game. The scenario I used was "Missed Dues" from the 7e Keeper Pack. It worked quite well as a 'one shot' adventure. It also was quite effective at introducing some new players to the CoC universe. However, given the adventure's hook — all the characters are gangsters who owe the local 'boss' a favour, and thus agree to try to track down a burglar behind in his 'dues' — it probably would not fit within a regular 1920s campaign. But if one did want to run a campaign in which all of the characters were criminals, this adventure would work well with the other one in the Keeper's Pack, "Blackwater Creek." (The latter adventure can be run either for a group of bootleggers or a group affiliated with Miskatonic University. When I ran the adventure last year, I used the latter hook, as one of the characters was a professor at MU. [I plan to write more about my sporadic, but still ongoing, CoC 7e campaign here in the near-ish future.])

Finally, I enjoyed The One Ring role-playing game a lot more this time around than I did the few sessions I played of it a few years ago. I had a small issue with the way the 'madness' mechanic worked, but other than that I thought that the game did a rather good job in capturing the feel of late Third Age Middle-earth. Consequently, I would be happy to try TOR again, and am considering picking up the new hardcover version for my collection.

This is the second Loz Con I have had be pleasure of attending. My thanks again to Lawrence for hosting. I hope to attend again in 2017!

Old School Con 5.5: Featuring VIPs Loz and the Grognardia Guy

If you live in Toronto or are within easy travelling distance, and feel like playing some ‘old school’ role-playing games for a day, consider attending OSCon (5.5) on Saturday, January 16th, 2016.  There will be a number of different games available, including Call of Cthulhu, Dungeons and Dragons (various editions), Labyrinth Lord, and RuneQuest 6.

Design Mechanism’s Lawrence Whitaker (‘Loz’) – author of numerous RPG books over the years, and co-author of RuneQuest 6 – will be there, running a couple of RQ6 games: a Luther Arkwright adventure in the morning, and a Mythic Britain adventure in the evening.  I highly recommend playing in one of Lawrence’s games if you have the chance, as he is a superb Game Master.  I know this from experience, having played in a couple of his campaigns (one set in the Young Kingdoms and one set in Mythic Britain) over the years, as well as few shorter adventures from time to time.

Also running a few games of Empire of the Petal Throne is James Maliszewski, the fellow who used to write the Grognardia blog.  I have to confess that I’m a bit surprised to see Maliszewski as one of the Con’s VIPs, given how his ‘Dwimmermount’ kickstarter turned out.  I was not interested in, and hence did not back, ‘Dwimmermount.’  And I only casually followed the massive disaster that it became.  But my impression is that there were, and presumably still are, many within the ‘old school’ community who feel that they were badly burned by his abandonment of that project.  Perhaps, though, all that is water under the bridge now?  (I have no idea.)

In any case, OSCon should be good fun.  I took part in the second one (summer of 2012, I believe), during which I ran a Call of Cthulhu game.  I won’t be running a game this time around, but I look forward to playing in a couple.

OSR Con III in Toronto August 3-4

OSR Con III will be held on August 3-4 in Toronto.

Ed Greenwood will be returning as one of the guests of honour, and will be joined this time by Frank Mentzer.

I had a great time at last year's OSR Con II, and very much regret that it is unlikely that I will be able attend this summer.  However, if you can make it to Toronto for that weekend, I very much urge you to go!  It's a wonderful 'little' con.

I believe that my friend Lawrence Whitaker (co-author of RuneQuest 6 and many other RPG books) will be there.  If you have a chance to play in one of Lawrence's games, I recommend that you take it, as he's a superb GM.

OSR Con II Report

I made it to OSR Con II last Saturday.  

In the morning I played in Lawrence Whitaker’s RuneQuest 6 game.  It was great to have Lawrence as a GM again, an experience I haven’t had the opportunity to enjoy since the conclusion of our Young Kingdoms campaign almost a year ago.  (Also at the session was Ken St. Andre, creator of Tunnels & Trolls and co-author of the original Stormbringer RPG.)

[Lawrence holds up his beautiful new baby.] 

After the game and a quick lunch, there was a panel discussion with such RPG luminaries as Ed Greenwood, Ken St. Andre, Lawrence Whitaker, and James Maliszewski (who has posted his own report of OSR Con II).  The discussion was enjoyable and interesting, but went on a bit long, eating into the time that had been allocated for the afternoon’s sessions.   

[The panel (left to right): James M., Lawrence W., Ed G., and Ken St.A.]

During the afternoon (and into the early evening) I ran a Call of Cthulhu game.  There were five players (including Lawrence, and fellow Call of Cthulhu enthusiast Marcus, a.k.a. ‘Nigel Blackthorne’), which is about my limit for a CoC game.  I ran the scenario ‘Ghost Light’ from Chaosium’s fine Terrors from Beyond book.  While I had hoped to prep an original scenario, limited time prevented me from doing so.  In any case, I picked ‘Ghost Light’ because it was nicely suited to a convention (‘one-shot’) game, and it worked out quite well, I think (well, except for the character who was turned into a puddle of fetid black goo!).

[Marcus explains how his character responds to the eldritch horror.]

Kudos to the organizer of OSR Con II, Chris Cunnington, for doing such a great job!  There are some pictures of the con at Chris’s blog here. Kiltedyaksman also has a report at his Discourse and Dragons blog.

I very much hope to attend again next year!

(The above pictures shamelessly stolen from here.)

OSRCon II Thoughts

It looks like I will be able to attend most of OSRCon II this August after all (I previously thought that I would have to miss it this year).

Now to decide whether to run a game!  If so, it would be during the final Saturday afternoon session.

I'm tempted to run the MERP adventure 'Star Spray' (from an old issue of White Dwarf).  It's a pretty epic adventure, and probably could be completed in 3-4 hours, but I doubt that there would be much interest in a MERP game, even at an 'old school' convention.

I could run a Crypts and Things game.  It would be fun, I think, to expose others to the game.  And the rules certainly would be easy for most OSR gamers to grasp.

Another option, of course, is Call of Cthulhu.  It's been a year since I last ran a CoC game, and I'm itching to do so again soon.  Any suggestions for a fun CoC single-session adventure?

OSRCon II

OSRCon will be taking place again in Toronto this summer, August 10th and 11th.

The schedule looks very promising so far (and no doubt additional games will be added). The special guest this year is Ken St. Andre, along with last year’s guests Ed Greenwood and James Maliszewski.

Much to my chagrin, I missed last year’s con. I was really hoping to make it this year, but, alas, it looks like that will not be happening. The dates conflict with my friend’s bachelor party. (The friend in question, incidentally, played ‘Adralat Na-Keth’ in last year’s Mong-RuneQuest II Young Kingdoms campaign.)

If you live near Toronto, or don’t mind travelling there for a weekend of old school gaming, I recommend checking out OSRCon.

Real Life Ruins Gaming Yet Again

I’ve been really excited about going to OSRCon for a couple months now. However, thanks to an unforeseen ‘real life’ issue (work-related), it turns out that I will not be able to go this Friday and Saturday.

That means that I will not be able run my Swords & Wizardry game, take part in one of the games that James Maliszewski (of ‘Grognardia’ fame) is running, meet Stuart (creator of the ‘Weird West’ RPG), meet some other ‘old school’ Toronto gamers, and enjoy the con events.

I’m grateful to the con organizer, Chris Cunnington, for being so understanding. I really hope that OSRCon is a great success! Hopefully it will happen again next year, when I’ll be back in Toronto.

My Young Kingdoms campaign also has suffered lately, thanks to travel and work (no sooner does one participant get back from Germany than another heads off to France, etc.). We only met once in June and once in July. Hopefully we’ll be able to squeeze in at least two more meetings – including one ‘mega session’ – before the end of August.

By Crom, 'real life' can be so annoying!

OSRCon Toronto: a quick reminder

I'm taking a quick break from my epic journey to post a short reminder of the forthcoming 'old school' conference in Toronto on August 12 and 13: OSRCon - The Old School RPG Weekend!

I'll be running a Swords & Wizardry game on Saturday Afternoon, and playing in a Call of Cthulhu game, and one of Grognardia's 'Dwimmermont' sessions.

Hope to see some Toronto-area bloggers there!

OSRCon Toronto: I’ll be Running a Swords and Wizardry Game

That was quick! Only hours after finding out about OSRCon, I’m signed up to run a Swords and Wizardry game – using my Akratic Wizardry house rules, of course!

Here’s the blurb for my game (to take place the morning of August 13):

Shipwrecked! The characters have washed up on an eldritch shore, and must work together in order to survive. Can a conniving merchant, a savage barbarian, an unscrupulous burglar, a decadent nobleman, and an enigmatic sorcerer overcome their mutual distrust and find a way off this unnatural island? (This is a ‘swords and sorcery’ themed adventure, using the GM’s ‘Akratic Wizardry’ house rules. Characters provided.)

I also will be taking part in a RuneQuest game (not sure which edition) and one of James Maliszewski’s ‘Dwimmermount’ games.

The current schedule of games is here. More likely will be added.

This should be fun! It’s been years since I’ve done any gaming at a con.

If you’ll be in or near Toronto August 12 or 13, try to come by and roll some dice.

OSRCon August 12 and 13

As reported today over at Grognardia, there will be an 'Old School Renaissance' RPG convention this summer, August 12 and 13, in Toronto.

Here is the website for OSRCon. And here is its blog.

I hope to be there, in order to play a couple of games, and possibly run one!