This morning I headed over to the old school RPG room, where I expect to spend most of the con. This is smallish ballroom with a total of 4 tables in it. OK, there are 6 tables, but two pairs have been pushed together into larger tables. All of Frank’s games are one of the big tables, all of Tim’s games are at the other one, and all of my games are at one of the smaller tables. I grabbed a seat at my table and set up all my stuff and waited.
And waited. Nobody came. Not to my game anyway, nor did anyone come to the game of the guy at the other table. Five guys showed up for Tim’s game, and Frank doesn’t do early morning games. So the other DM and I both abandoned our empty tables and joined Tim’s game. Not what I expected this morning, but having a fallback of playing OD&D with Tim Kask is still a pretty good morning in my book.
The game started a bit slow. There’s a long wilderness hike in the beginning and Tim had clearly not read his own notes on this one in some time. Eventually he decided to just bull through it and get us to the dungeon, a wise choice in my opinion. Then it got good. There was some very fun old school dungeon delving, then we robbed a very expensive looking statue of an evil god off an alter, and then we got jumped by a very nasty demon (or avatar of the god) that killed us to the last man. OK, no, not the last man, the wizard teleported out of there when he saw which way the wind was blowing.
Tim’s a pretty good DM. He’s a little prone to rhapsodize and with the group here I suspect there’s quite a bit of preaching to the choir. Most of the guys I’ve played with (and there were quite a few repeats between the two games I’ve played so far) are already well versed and sold on the whole old school concept. No need to tell us about why it’s better Tim, we get it, let’s just play.
When he’s on though, Tim is just the kind of DM I like to play with. He plays fast and loose with the rules, and takes a fair bit of delight in watching the party succeed or fail. In his words: “I don’t kill players, I just give them the opportunity to kill themselves.”
My fellow players so far have been for the most part very good. Unfortunately Mr. Jokey from last year showed up again this morning. I suspect he’ll be a regular fixture for me to scowl at this year, and likely future years to come. But on the other side there’s another guy who so far has been really cool to play with, and it turns out he lives very close by. He asked me to include him in my regular campaign, and I gave him my card, but with an uncomfortable smile. Even if he turns out to be a great player, the fact is that my home game is already pretty full, and there are folks at work who have expressed a desire to join in. I suppose it’s pretty nice to be in the position where my game is popular enough that I’m never at a want for players, but I always feel terrible telling someone they can’t join. Not only is it just an uncomfortable thing to have to say, but I can’t help but think of the lean times when I haven’t been able to find enough players. I really do wish I could say yes to everyone that wants to play, but it’s just not feasible.
Anyway, I may be a bit rambly this afternoon. I got maybe 4 hours of sleep last night, and I’m starting to feel it. I’m thinking some lunch and then a nap is in order.
Aww, that sucks that no one showed up! Slackers. I’m glad you got to play in something, at least.
Yeah, I’m really not that distressed about it. I’m running two more games, and my Sunday morning game is the exact same game. I was already thinking that running 3 games might have been too many, so I really didn’t mind getting to play in another instead.
I’m hoping that it’s just because it was early in the morning on Friday, and maybe the actual weekend will draw more people. We shall see. I will be annoyed if I don’t get anyone for my game tomorrow afternoon.
Yeah, I bet the fact that it was 8am on a weekday was the problem – I’m guessing that more people will be around for the weekend, rather than having taken a day off of work for the con. So I bet your game tomorrow ill be full!
Anecdote: Once wandered into a January 8am trigonometry class and had zero students in the room. I actually started writing on the board like usual. As they trickled in, they had to catch up. Ha! But uncomfortable during the what-do-I-do? waiting part.
Wow, a class? I can see flaking out on a D&D game, but everyone being late for a class sounds pretty bad. Good for you for pressing on without them. Might be difficult to do the same at a D&D game.