Failed to get a nap yesterday afternoon, so I decided to hope I would just caffeine up and push through as late as I could and let myself sleep as late as I wanted this morning. Clearly it worked, as here it is past 9:00 as I’m just finally awake enough to post this.
Last night was a lot of fun. I played in a second of Tim’s games, and it was yet another TPK. This was entirely our own fault. We had the goal in hand with still over an hour of game time left, but rather than go home we decided to explore further and investigate things we knew could only be extremely unhealthy for us.
We had some trouble gathering enough people for the game, I’m afraid to say. We had 5 players, which Tim felt was really not enough for his game, and two of us ended up running extra characters. I really hope this is just because it was Friday, and that things will pick up today. I’d really like to run the stuff I spent so much energy last week putting together. Knowing that if I don’t get turnout that there’s always room in Tim and Frank’s games definitely takes the sting off though.
After the game I actually sat with Tim and two of the other players and chatted about gaming and whatnot. It was really cool. Tim confirmed for me that Silence 15′ Radius was indeed originally only intended as a stealth producing spell, and that it’s use as an anti-wizard spell grew out of their encouragement of player’s using spells inventively. It sounds like back then there was at least some sentiment of “the player’s are doing X a lot, so let’s get X into the rules.”
And at 11 on Friday TotalCon holds a “DM Social” where they bring in some food and give all the DMs a chance to unwind and just socialize with each other. I actually really enjoyed this, it was exactly what I needed at the time. I bumped into my coworker again and we talked a bit, and then I just stayed and chatted with a few guys about various D&D editions. Everyone was really civil and rather than becoming an edition war I think we had a pretty insightful discussion. It’s amazing how much better these things can be when done in person instead of on-line.
I think what I’ve really been missing at this con is the chance to relax and just talk to people between games. That’s the trouble with coming to one of these alone. I think you need that kind of break between games or the transitions between playing a social game and then being left entirely alone is just much too jarring.
Anyway, I’m off to breakfast now, and to find out what to do with my ticket to this 8:00 am game that I’ve clearly missed. Maybe I can trade it in for a generic and find out if there are any 10-12 games I can land in.
