GenCon Flashbacks...

The most surreal/cool moment at GenCon happened as I was standing in the middle of the aisle looking at the copies of WEGS 101 sitting on a shelf just waiting to be sucked up by the GenCon hordes. Suddenly my wife poked me and pointed to a woman standing in the booth to the right. She noted "Doesn't that woman look like Donna?" - and it was!

Donna was a friend who we had lost touch with for easily seven years now. She was part of WEGS at its inception, when we made the jump from Warhammer to WEGS 99. We had no clue that Donna was still involved in gaming, or for that matter attending GenCon assisting a vendor!

We had just been talking about her the week before as we regaled ourselves with memories from the games of yore. The campaign Donna was a part of (as a Dwarf Warrior who was constantly sharpening her axe blade) was the greatest campaign we ever ran. It ran for at least six months straight, mostly bi-weekly, and at its apex involved 20 players in what could be considered a mid-season finale.

Actually, the really cool thing about this game was that it started as two different games that I ran simultaneously in weekly rotation with two different groups of players. Both groups however shared the same plot trajectory and ended up at the same location for one big game that we called The Night Of Chaos. In addition to these two original parties, I introduced a third party of gamers as the enemies set to destroy both parties. It was one of the best games that we ever ran and has some of the greatest post-game imagery burned into our heads. There were so many cool things about this campaign, I could rant for hours - but for those of you who are just checking out this blog, the excitement of it all would be lost. And the point of this thread wasn't about a campaign we ran over seven years ago...

The point is that there, right next to the GenCon premiere of WEGS 101, was a friend I hadn't seen in years who witnessed the first WEGS baby steps. Neither of us knew what the other was up to and, yet, we converged at the perfect moment in time. We all talked excitedly about what we had been up to. I pointed to WEGS 101 a few feet away. We joked about getting the old group back together or just getting together once we got back to NJ.

Of all the things that happened at GenCon, seeing an old friend in happy circumstances unexpectedly trumps all.

7

As I was wrestling with the fact that we sold a mere 7 books at GenCon, I started to laugh. Yes, it is a pathetic number of sales, but it also is the most important number in Craps. On the come out roll, I would have just won - and been paid a matching amount to my initial bet (assuming I had my money on the pass line...). Now it's just a matter of me finding the pit boss and getting paid...

I've been telling folks that this trip to GenCon was like a vacation to Vegas where I lost all my money, but never actually got a chance to gamble or sit by the pool drinking rum runners. So, it was a Vegas vacation without the vacation. From airfare to hotels to shipping, a trip to GenCon is an expensive proposition.

Inauspicious beginnings aside, 7 has been associated with this game from the start. Heck, we finished the book on 07/07/07! I'm no sayer of sooths but if I had thought about it, I could've predicted the GenCon sales... and that wouldn't have stopped my from going to the con.

The game is on, folks!

'Twas The Best Of Cons...

'Twas the worst of cons... Back from GenCon for three days now. Still bleary-eyed. Here's my top three best/worst, as I recall...

The 3 Best
The official launch of WEGS 101!
Folks showing up for games with copies of WEGS 101!
Some WEGS games were canceled due to no attendance. (Yes, this was actually a good thing. We scheduled an aggressive 18 events - we welcomed the break big time!)

The 3 Worst
A modest 7 copies of WEGS 101 were sold (no way to sugar coat that!).
The expense of it all (con fees, food, hotel, taxi, travel).
Some WEGS games were canceled due to no attendance.

Still trying to make sense of it all. From the highs to the lows, it was a non-stop endurance test, much worse than any opening week for a theatre production (aka hell week) all jammed into four days.

Would I do it again?

Heck, yeah!

More details to follow...

WEGS 101 Old Skool Cover...

Here's the front cover, folks!

And the system ain't half-bad either...

The cover art and interior illustrations are by Kennon James - an amazing artist with a knack for nailing the old skool spirit. Wait until you see some of his interiors - there's this one spread for "The Five Strengths" that just blows me away. Lots of cool art awaits! Visit the man who drew it all at his blog:

http://kennonjames.blogspot.com/

or

http://www.kennonjames.com/

He'll also be at GenCon, pay him a vist on Artists Row. He rocks!

Sound Some Trumpets Or Something...

WEGS officially was being printed this morning. The books will be shipped directly from the printer to GenCon; and unless something goes seriously wrong, WEGS will be officially released at GenCon next week. I signed off on the printer's proof earlier this week. It was the fourth proof from them in the course of the last month. Since announcing WEGS was finished on July 7, we've been through three more revisions/proofs. Every time we got a new proof back, we found changes that we needed to make. This culminated in a final proofreading which generated even more changes. It was a process that could have probably gone on forever. It's just my style to keep working and working and working on something until the final possible moment. I think I'm the type of person who can finish the 90% without a problem, but the final 10% kills me...

For the first time in three years, I'm walking around without a proof or draft of WEGS in my bag. It's a very strange feeling, but there are so many other tasks associated with getting this book published that I haven't allowed myself to enjoy this new found freedom. It'll all catch up to me post-GenCon when the book has finally be launched.

Besides, I need to start to put the finishing touches on WEGS Copper...

No sleep for the wicked...

Ark Triumphant!

Historicon was a WEGS highpoint for so many reasons. One of which was a player named Robin who attended our first session and stayed right through until the final die roll on Sunday. There were many players who did the same, but Robin made it a point of pushing his Ark (character) to levels no other player heretofore has achieved. By the end of the con, Delvis (his Dwarven Warrior Elvis) had a Prowess that broke the 90 mark. This is the first time an Ark could command top of the inning no matter what Minion level was placed on the table. (Ok! Ok! This is all bordering on incomprehensible game lingo for those of you out there who have yet to dive into the system...) Delvis learned the hard way that with great power comes great responsibility. He became a Minion Magnet by the last game, where it became Will The 2nd's job to destroy the Ark Triumphant. It took FIVE* 88's to do it, but Delvis was sent Off To The Spheres by the end of the con. (Yeah, yeah, that's whole bunch of game lingo, too...)

We all joked how there was no way we could let that Ark leave the con alive. You just can't unleash that much power into the unsuspecting WEGS world. All in all, it was a great test of the Ark advancement rules and players got a taste of where WEGS is going. It's not a system about petty skills and experience points. It's about heroics, spoints and dice!

Thanks to all the players at Historicon who made this game rock!

* There's some confusion here. The number of 88s might have been as high as seven! Willy The 2nd was stacking all sorts of minion levels towards the end of the game!

Delvis has left the building... for now.

The Players Assembled...

A Saturday Game at Historicon

Dingbitt's Dunge O' Doom

A total of nine players I believe, encountering their first onslaught of minions (all three of 'em). Various elements of WEGS can be seen - poker chips, playing cards, skill cards, Ark kards, miniatures, battlemat, pencils, dice and lots of arms obviously...

The game was packed and the action was non-stop (after the players managed to eliminate the first three minions...).

Photo courtesy of littleleadheroes.com

To-Gash! To-Gash! To-Gash!

To-Gash was released in minion form earlier this month at Origins in a little scenario called Pigskab's Skewl 4 Wizzerds (our little anti-Potter jaunt). To-Gash is a hulking brute (part-Orge, part-Dragonian) who serves as the skewl's head chef. He is the one responsible for keeping the maggots off the meat of the headmaster. Though the meals served to the students are one step away from rotting, there's never a peep of a complaint due to the cleaver that hangs on To-Gash's belt (right next to the scalp of a former student named Holiver...).

The name To-Gash comes from a wound one of the Wegshogs received from some sort of swimming accident earlier this summer. It is also a nod to all things Belushi...

To-gash!

To-gash!

To-gash!

Yawlamoooooo!

Historicon was super for me and the Wegshogs this past weekend. Talk about non-stop table action! All games were played at or over capacity. System ran full throttle. The Yawlamoo ended up being a great scenario that kept us on our hooves the entire time... This is another sure fire crowd pleaser now! The Alamo meets Helms Deep with carnivorous cows cluttering the field of battle... More details to follow, but this pic should sum it up for now!

And, yeah, we had the worst painted miniatures in the place...

Summer Sucks For Blogging...

With con season, going to print with my first game and the leisurely repose of summer, my blog average has fallen... Oh, well. That's the gaming life, I suppose....

Historicon...

Well, me and the Hogs are off to Historicon this weekend.

That's the third con this month: Origins, Dexcon, Historicon.

This one is gonna be combat heavy, my friends...

Can't wait to return with some war stories!

Ganakagok...

There were a few brilliant moments at Dexcon, and one of them was sitting in (as an observer) on a session of Bill White's Ganakagok game. Usually at cons I don't have time to look left or right - but Dexcon being what it was for WEGS, I found myself with lots o' downtime. I had read a little bit about Ganakagok via the Indie Game Explosion postings on Dexcon. I knew that it was an indie rpg story game that had something to do with Eskimos. Not something that would peak my interest particularly, especially as I've hit a dry spell with interest in story games. I just don't play them well, but that's another story...

I was chatting with Bill's brother Mel, who invited me to sit in on the game. In a brief conversation, he had explained the premise and some of the mechanics which sounded cool. Mel explained that it was a fantasy game, not historic (which I had assumed due to the presence of Eskimos). Players create members of a tribe who roamed a fantastic iceberg nation. Pre-game, the tribe forever lived in darkness under the brilliant stars above. However, for the first time, dawn approaches. This is the story mechanic the drives the game. The players come to terms with the coming of the dawn, what it means mystically and the changes it brings to their tribe.

Mel called it Eskimo Punk which peaked my interest further and sold me - though I'm not sure if this term is appropriate. I think The Clash when I think punk. Bill then came over and gave me a quick overview of the character generation and story-telling mechanics which use a deck of Tarot-like cards (Eskimo themed). The cards are used in several ways to build the setting and guide the story. Really cool concepts.

The game got even cooler as I observed it. From the start, the cards are used to guide folks to mythic character themes and key character branding (literally with a stat called Scars). The game quickly ramped up as each player stepped up to outline two huge sheets of paper hanging on the wall. One sheet was the map of their nation and each player filled in places of interest - so they had a hand in creating the world setting. The other sheet contained a map of the character's relationships with the other members of the tribe, their loves, their hates. This instantly established starting points in the story and history. Before the game itself begins, folks are connected on so many levels. Really cool. No - really cool. And the game got cooler from there. From the seating of the players at the table in character age order (from youngest to oldest), the story proceeded clockwise around the table with plenty of little tricks using the cards to generate the story. There's some beautiful things going on in this game. For me, it's the structure of the game that defines why I like it. That and the fact there's a balancing act in the game with Good Medicine and Bad Medicine, a very similar concept to the Good Kharma / Bad Kharma in WEGS.

The title? Well... It's a tough one to pronounce, but it does fall trippingly off the tongue once you're used to it!

Ganakagok

Say it. Love it.

I bought myself a copy at the con and can't wait to run it for some of my crew. It is one of the two trophys I walked away with from a less than successful WEGS con. The other trophy was a book called "Baby's First Cthulhu" or something like that. That was an impulse buy though.

Ganakagok made the trip worth my while.

The Dexcon Dunge O' Doom...

Well, Dexcon has come and gone. Not too sure what to make of it as we only ran 2 of the 8 games we had on the con schedule. Players were few and far between, but we were lucky enough to get a full compliment of excellent players for our Friday midnite special - Dingbitt's Dunge O' Doom! The arks/players were:

Gnobbit Warrior - Will
Elf Ranger - Ken
Goblin Warrior - Jeff
Dwarf Sage - Bill
Humnz Mage - Dave
Humnz Mage - Mel

I ran the game solo, letting Will jump into the game (despite the protests of the players who thought he would be more of a handicap!). Gameplay was fast and furious. After testing the waters on Level 1 where the group of adventurers encountered a demented Dwarf witch and her guards, the group jumped down to Level 5 where they received quite a beating from a Hobgoblin battalion. Taking a moment to heal the wounded and rethink their downward venturing, they decided to retreat up to Level 4 where they handily dispatched a three-headed tentacled horror. For their final encounter, they plunged down to Level 6 where they found the Chamber of the Golden Cow. It was here that all hell broke loose in one final fantastic frenzy.

Without giving too much away for those of you who might encounter such a chamber in your ventures, the game ended with the 2 Warriors and the Ranger pitted against the 2 Mages and the Sage. Yes - the game ended in a grand player-vs-player showdown. Fighters versus Spellcasters! Spoints were flying and Phew points were popping! When things turned really bad for the spellslingers, Dave the Humnz Mage used the spell Jumpin' Jazzophat to jump off the game board, leaving the two other spellcasters scurrying toward the edge. Unfortunately, the edge of the board was too far for Bill's Sage (who was plum out of spell points and Phew!) - the Sage was the first to bite the dust. Mel's Mage made a valiant dash for the exit, but was cut down just two squares away from escape!

There was great character play from beginning to end and it was tremendous fun to see the party unravel so quickly in the final encounter... The game wrapped up around 3:30 a.m. This was the high point for WEGS at the con - from there it was all downhill unfortunately... Players seemed few and far between at this con. I guess most decided to skip this con to stay home and read Harry Potter...

Ya live, ya learn...

Shaun Of The Wegs...

(Here’s a long story from Origins to keep y’all sated for the next few days…)

One of the funniest moments at Origins was also one of the most austere – and it wasn’t gaming based. In the movie Shaun of the Dead, Shaun and his group of hapless zombie-fearing heroes are cutting through backyards making their way to the safety of the Winchester (a local pub). As they round a corner, they come face to face with one of Shaun’s friends, who is also leading a troop of zombie-fearing heroes to another safe haven. Shaun and his friend compare their plans (of which Shaun’s is the lesser), and then both groups depart their separate ways. The brilliance of the scene is that as they depart, they pass each other single file – for every member of Shaun’s party, there is an exact same member in the other party. There’s the fat guy double, the girl with the artsy hat double, the Harry Potter dweeb double and the Mom double. It’s just brilliant…

Anyhow, it was the end of the convention, Sunday afternoon and we needed drinks and eats and drinks badly. So, me and the Wegshogs were taking a shortcut through this deserted elevated walkway. Destination, Max and Erma’s. We had taken this same walkway a couple nights prior at midnight and it was a creepy place. The enclosed overpass is a long, crooked corridor with lots of nooks. Its tinted windows give the hallway some kind of grey un-light. The various exits are hidden and you can walk right past them unaware. If this was NYC, the place would be a haven for the various urchins and a convenient urinal for the walking drunks post-last call… In fact, if this was in NYC, the walkway would be closed after sun-down. Growing up in the NYC area, you come to assess things this way. But this was Columbus, OH – there was naught to fear.

Until we rounded a corner and came face to face with a couple of gamers who popped up from a concealed flight of stairs. Instantly I recognized the two as our WittCon comrades – of all the places to meet folks you know! We quickly hailed each other and then compared our plans. Lionel and troop were heading back into the convention center to take one last look around, and we were heading to the pub for one last beer. As Lionel and his friend talked with me and Will, Sue and Bob had taken a step back against a wall. Suddenly, the wall opened and Bob let out a wee-girly scream. Ends up they were standing in front of some concealed elevator doors. Inside were the other two members of the WittCon party – Andy and Julia.

We all quickly exchanged greetings, talked excitedly about the con, wished each other well, and then went our separate ways. Me and the Weghogs went down the stairs to street level and the pub. Lionel and troop went onward to the convention hall. As me and Will hopped down the stairs, I turned to him and said, “You know that was the scene from Shaun of the Dead we just lived, right?”

From behind we could hear Sue laughing at Bob for his little elevator scream…

We laughed at the absurdity of it all. What were the odds of coming face to face with folks you know well in a city flooded with gamers? Especially in that deserted area? Just something that was meant to be… It was great seeing those folks one last time and saying farewell in person.

Perfect way to end the con.

From One Con To The Next...

Things have been nutzo getting WEGS 101 to print in betwixt con adventures. With Origins still fresh in the memory, El Willy and the Wegshogs dash off for more non-stop gaming this weekend at DexCon (a big NJ con). So, you might not hear much from us the next couple of days. I know, I know... I sill haven't even begun to post my post-Origins musings... All 6 of you who read this blog must be dying of suspense! Technically, there's 9 of you out there, but 3 of you were with me at Origins. That leaves 6 of you waiting for the tales wegziotic...

Hang in there...

7... 11...

07 / 11

WEGS 101 is done.

Sweetness, indeed.

Should be back from printer by month's end - unless something goes awry with the final proof.

In craps, 7 and 11 pay the line...

How poetic...

Countdown To GenCon...

Despite the fact that the last thing I wanted to do today was anything WEGS related (after doing it non-stop for the last five days at Origins), I hesitantly pulled down the online GenCon schedule to see how it would compare to what I just went through.

(I'll be honest - there were times between Origins games that I just wanted to crawl into a corner and sleep. If it weren't for the Weghogs juice-ing me up with Dr. Pepper, that just might have happened...)

According to the latest GenCon pre-registrations, 9 of my games are sold out. Out of the 99 total seats available at the WEGS table, 33 remain to be filled. 20 of those remaining seats are for our three Sunday afternoon games (which tend to be dead slots due to the fact that the con is at it's end and folks try to use that time for their final shopping spree in the exhibit halls). With the exception of those three Sunday games, all other games have folks in them.

Despite the fact that the only thing I want to do right now is sleep, I'm pumped for this next WEGS onslaught. Between now and GenCon, I have two other cons with equally aggressive game schedules - but I wouldn't want it any other way.

The summer of WEGS rocks!

Back From The O...

Me and the Wegshogs did Origins this past weekend. It rocked! I'm still trying to recover from the sheer exhaustion of it all. Don't quite know where to begin, but methinks it's going to be one looooong chain of posts.

The best part of the con for me was seeing folks return from cons where we previously have run WEGS the last couple of years. We had folks drop in from prior Origins, WittCon, Ubercon, and GenCon. I usually recognize them on site - and while I don't know some of their names, we instantly connect once we remember what scenario they previously played in.

I'm honoured to see folks return to the WEGS table.

It's one of the perks of face-to-face gaming.

101 Arks Await...

With Origins but three days away, El Willy's been a busy packing and printing. Hot off the printer is a neat stack of 101 Ark Kards ready to be consumed by the throngs of gamers set to descend on Columbus, Ohio this week. I figured I'd print 101, just 'cause it jives with the title of the game.

Hopefully, we'll use them all - but chances are we'll only burn through half of them. That is unless the Yawlamoo ends up being particullarly brutal on the players...

Origins details will be posted next week.

Yup.

The Midnite Quicky, Part 2....

We had our first Midnite Quicky at Ubercon VII in Feb 2006. The games we ran were:

Friday - Dwarf Walks Into A Bar

Saturday - Tomb Raid!

Both sessions were scheduled from midnight until 2 a.m. These games were meant to get folks in and out of their first WEGS adventure in a jiff. Even the descriptions were brief:

"In Tomb Raid, a rag-tag assortment of Dwarves, Elves, Goblins, Gnobbits and Humnz stand at the entrance to a long-shunned Goblin Chieftain’s tomb wherein fabulous wealth awaits to be plundered. Sure, there’s a local rumour that things are heard slithering and thumping within, but that’s just a ruse to keep the children away... Scenario will take about an hour and a half to play – or shorter if your Ark decides to just “run off screaming”…

That was it - short and to the point. It was as simple an adventure as could be - go into a king's tomb, try to plunder as much booty as possible, set of some traps, awaken the tomb guard, die or run away... Well, it was anything but quick. The nature of sending players into a perilous tomb is the rub. Ever since TSR's infamous Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventure Tomb Of Horrors, rpg players know to tread lightly in tombs... The fact that I designed the tomb with several obvious traps waiting to be triggered didn't help. Everywhere we have run this scenario (Ubercon, Origins, WittCon, GenCon) the results are the same - the game is slow and cautious. That is until the traps are sprung... Once folks set off one trap it generally leads to another and another. It's like a domino effect and it causes the last hour of play to be rapidly wild. It's a scenario that builds slowly, but then pays off in spades.

I love the fact that I promoted it as:

"Scenario will take about an hour and a half to play – or shorter if your Ark decides to just “run off screaming”… "

Doing a tomb an hour...

What was I thinking?!?

To be continued...

WEGS-A-Q...

This past Sunday was the pre-con WEGS-A-Q with the Wegshogs - Bob, Will, Don and Chris. If you've played in one of our con games, chances are you've met this lot. We cracked out the WEGS table (took three of us to move it), cleared off the patio so it could fit, filled the cooler with beer and turned the grill on. Weather was perfect for a mano-y-mano WEGS smackdown.

This is the second time we've done this type of pre-con rules refresher and scenario run-through. We did it at the beginning of summer last year to get ready for Origins and GenCon. This year we have twice as many cons to prep for - though we rotate the scenarios we run at each. This season we have three new offerings amidst our returning adventures: Pigskab's Skewl 4 Wizzerds, Reservoir Dwoirves and The Yawlamoo. The con introductions for these can be found here:

http://www.gamewick.com/CONSCENARIOS.html

We ran Pigskab's first - and, without giving too much away, players are in for a wild ride. From the start, they venture forth from their third-rate wizard's school to clear the surrounding hedge of any infestations. Due to special rules during Arkreation, these Arks are designed to be the most inept group of multi-class spellcasters to be imagined. This scenario is wild. It's everything Harry Potter isn't and borders on being Pratchett.

Next, we did a high level overview of Reservoir Dwoirves. As this is a heavy role-play scenario, we only discussed plot points and resolution mechanics. Key to this scenario is the Mexican stand-off ending. And we have some wicked, wicked minions just waiting in the wings...

Finally, we ran The Yawlamoo, which is just one big brawl fest. My wife jumped on board for this final game as we needed players - the more the merrier here. Thank god she's a part-time gamer chick! Basic concept is that hoards of minions surround the players. Via the WEGS Deal-A-Minion deck (standard playing card deck), each player gets an opponent assigned. Ultimate victory is to play through the entire deck (though that would take hours). As players perish, they create new Arks and enter the battle - this also triggers a card from the D-A-M deck. This scenario is scheduled for epic Sunday games at each con.

All in all, a great Sunday of gaming.

And, oh yeah, we're ready to kick some serious butt at the cons...

The Midnite Quicky..., Part 1

Way, way back in 2006, I had the brilliant idea to start doing special WEGS convention games that started at midnite. That's the perfect time to begin a game, right? I thought so - but then again I was a midnight movie cultist back in my high school and college days. From Eraserhead to Pink Flamingos to RHPS to Romero's Zombie Trilogy (Night, Day, Dawn) to Bloodsucking Freaks (yeah, regretably) to 1960 3D fests. Nothing beat the midnite movies.

In my mind midnite was the perfect time to do a two hour quick-hit game of WEGS. Since the game has a cinematic punch with easily digestable plotlines, it would be the ultimate night cap. What I failed to factor in was the fact that this would be at the end of a day where I did nothing but demo-ed WEGS, taught WEGS, ate WEGS and played WEGS. It would be like going to a midnite movie after watching them all day while standing on your feet...

Yeah, the first couple rocked. The games went according to plan and had the exact ambiance that a midnite game should have. They had that secret vibrant glow that only starts in the dark of a new day with the only threat being dawn... Or something like that. But the problem... The problem was that they were anything but quick... The games were supposed to be two hour quick fixes - but they went on for three hours at least. Sometimes four hours. The games were awesome, but the plan was flawed.

Careful the things you wish for, my friends...

To be continued...

Mushpot Amongst The Giants...

Since I posted on Mushpot yesterday, thought I'd follow up with a pic today. Here he is in all his glory amongst the literary giants of our time (Hemingway, Melville, Hawthorne, Python, Huxley). Notice the small Dwarf Lord game piece at his feet.

I don't know too much about this strange statuette. Found it at a garage sale a couple of years ago. Weird thing is that I stumbled upon a piece of art that he was based on. Seems he is a Bauer troll.

http://runeberg.org/jbauer/

Mushpot can be seen in the top pic (he's the giant on the right). There's something very Tolkien about Bauer (or vice versa). I think my next quest will be to find statuettes of the other trolls in the picture.

They gotta exist, right?

Mushpot The Great

The Minion o' the Month for June has arrived!

Mushpot is a big ol' angry giant with a taste for Gnobbit meat. He normally appears as the hired hand for nefarious parties (such as Quolmort or One Eye Gleebag) and has been encountered in the scenarios Hobgoblin Lunchbox, Spittrakk's Tower and A Giant Mess. He fashions himself a king among true giants and ridicules the everyday giant that you'd find in other adventure games.

Generally, Mushpot stands between the adventurer's and their exit, wielding one mighty big club (tree). At conventions we use a ceramic statue that I found at garage sale years ago. He is probably 20 times larger than the other playing pieces on the table and so brings a sense of shock and awe to the players when he appears...

Mushpot has been with us since the first con that we WEGS playtested. I'd make him a part of the pre-game set-up, surrounded by a host of miniatures and poker chips and dice. He was kinda the WEGS poster child... It was a great gimmick to catch the eye of the odd passerby. You just don't see things like that incorporated in games.

"This game has giants and poker chips?!? Dang, beam me up, Scotty!!!"

Of late, we've retired Mushpot from cons as he's kinda fragile despite mighty big size (he's ceramic afterall). He'll be on display at the WEGS Museum someday...

The Big 7...

Last week flew by - not a lot of free time to keep you all entertained with my mindless ramblings. As the cons get closer, the free time vanishes - plus the fact that the summer is upon us doesn't make weekend time go quite as far...

Last week was a major push week for the final layout/design of WEGS 101. The book needs to be under wraps asap so we have it ready for this summer's release. Don't worry, we're in great shape for a GenCon release. I was hoping to 'ave 'er done by Origins - but that ain't gonna happen.

About this time last year, I had the same stuff going on with WEGS Copper (the book that never got released...). I was still hopeful to hit the GenCon release date, but by mid-July that was out the window. T'aint happening again...

So, what is the Big 7? It's my weekly listing of the things I need to get done to stay on course. I don't know why I elevate 7 items - craps probably. Last week's list was:

1. Finalize art for WEGS 101
2. Finalize layout/design WEGS 101
3. Finalize Ark Kard for posting on website
4. Print new Skill Kards for conventions
5. Finalize printing contracts / pricing
6. Promo plan
7. Convention logistics plan

The Big 7 is also a section on the WEGS 101 Ark Kard that details the seven main player options: Ready, Attack, Aim, Fire, Cast, Blast, Move.

Life imitates craps???

The Lyrd Of The Roses...

A Week Without Epics...

OK, last week's seven part saga was a little excessive.

I'll try not to do one of those for a while...

This week I'm going to do short non-sequitars as time allows.

However, this is not short:

http://www.gamewick.com/CON2007RECESS.html

It's a recap of a couple of games I ran yesterday.

Warning - it's heavy with WEGS jargon...

Lay Of The Land, Part 7...

Maybe it was the art... Like those crazy moon and sun symbols. Or the wacky Mona Lisa marching into war. Or the Halfling jamming a hot dog in his mouth on page 221... Or maybe it was the fact that the game had only 4 character classes: Warrior, Ranger, Rouge, Academic... Or maybe it was the career options for the characters: Gambler, Muleskinner, Pit Fighter, Rat Catcher... Or maybe it was the Tolkien-esque map of faux/fantasy Europe... Or the fact that the game was percentile based... Or that it used something called Insanity Points...

Whatever it was, Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play was quick to become my favorite system for so many different reasons. It was exactly what I was looking for in a game - and it seemed the next perfect step in gaming maturity. I mean it was so much like Dungeons & Dragons and, yet it had some Call of Cthulhu flavoring. It was H. P. Tolkien with a bad attitude!

Warhammer was the singular game that made me realize that it was possible to create other sword-n-sorcery systems with bravado and beauty. It made me realize that someone out there was taking these types of games seriously. The quality of the WFRP book, with its huge red and yellow title boldly emblazoned on the front cover, made me realize that there were some companies out there wallowing through the muck that flooded the adventure game marketplace when the role-playing game floodgates were thrown open. There were still some folks trying to fight the good fight. I wouldn't have such a feeling again for several years, when I discovered the indie rpg scene and its host of designers who took these same types of games seriously.

And that my friends, (all 9 of you and then some!), is how my gaming life began. It is the basis for everything that led me to creating my own little game system.

Thus concludes this tale of 7 parts...

Lay Of The Land, Part 6...

Part 6?!?

Enough's enough!

When I started this post I said I'd see it through...

Good God!

Part 6....

Let's get to WFRP...

I'll be honest. The first time I picked it off the shelf I was put off. It was the character sheet that scared me - specifically the Armour Points section: the little outline of a man with percent ranges assigned to various parts of the body. Rolling a 01 - 15 meant you hit the head of your opponent. I was at a point in my gaming career where I just didn't need that level of detail. In fact, that was specifically what I was trying to avoid - calculations for every conceivable detail. Plus this book was over 364 pages! This was a lot of material to digest.... Then I saw the Critical Effects table - and became disgusted. Suppose you did hit an opponent in the head, well, they had a secondary table for you to consult for what occured. Rolling a 16 on this secondary table meant "Your opponent's head flies off in a random direction, landing 2D6 feet away"... Tables that reference sub-tables... Good Grief! To make this totally not the game for me there was gunpowder and blunderbus and bomb rules... Totally un-Tolkien! To top it all of there was a Dwarf on the front cover with a punk rock mohawk and tattooed scalp. This game was so wrong for me on so many levels....

I put it back on the shelf and walked away.

For a couple of months at least...

The Lay Of The Land, Part 5...

When I started this thread, my intent was to detail my initial steps forward into the gaming convention scene and my WEGS playtests at conventions. Somehow this thread has become the story of how I became a game geek and my gaming backstory... We're finally at the point where I threw in the towel with D&D and picked up my Warhammer.

By the mid-90s, I had surrounded myself with a bunch of gamer friends who I introduced to basic Dungeons & Dragons. Our group had 10 solid players and 5 "guest" players (folks who didn't have the true enthusiasm for the game but who feigned interest for the sake of hanging out). Good times - but after a year into it, I was bored. I needed a new game. I just so happened to get one for Christmas 1995. Fortunately, it was the wrong one... For some reason, and I still can't figure this one out, my in-laws gave me the D&D boxed world setting Dark Sun (I think that was the name). Of all folks to give me gaming material, my in-laws would be way on the bottom of the list. In-laws just shouldn't go there!

Unlike the Christmas Eve fifteen years prior when I got the D&D blue box, I didn't immediately open this box. I didn't peel off the shrink wrap. I just looked at it, felt the weight of the box and politely said, "Thanks!". A week later I returned it to the store from whence it came. I just couldn't do it. I didn't want to read a whole new world setting by someone who wasn't Tolkien. I guess I was just jaded. I dunno. In my heart, the D&D hobby was dead.

The store would only offer me credit for the game - so that meant I had to buy something. I meandered to the roleplaying game shelves and started to peruse. I knew my money would not go back into D&D - and that's when I spotted that behemoth rulebook known as Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play.

Or, simply, WFRP.

To be continued...

Ark Kard Version 530...

Ark! Ark! Ark!

The last four nights I've been finishing the layout of the new and exciting WEGS 101 Ark Kard. I'm happy to say that this is one of those few remaining design tasks for publication. This kard has been created, re-created, de-created and rehabilitated over its long journey from WEGS Copper to its resting place in WEGS 101.

It's one sweet looking character sheet... 14 chunky boxes for stats. Basic to behold, but, oh, the sheer gaming power it does possess... In a way it pays homage to the original 1980 D&D character sheet (sans the little character sketch area).

Sweetness indeed!

Should be posted as a pdf on the GameWick site later this month...

You may now return to your regularly scheduled game...