Milwaukee: the city Laverne and Shirley made famous.
Saturday 07/10
| After an excellent breakfast in the hotel restaurant (Midwesterners can cook breakfast, lemme tell you what), I headed over to the convention center to find out what was going on. |
Milwaukee: the city Laverne and Shirley made famous. |
|
Our pimps 'n hoes are in peril! |
I passed a table where they were setting up a game of Mars Attacks!, a wargame
based on, you guessed it, Mars Attacks! I snapped a photo of the city in peril,
complete with Martian war-walker, army tanks, pimps and hoes, but alas as soon
as I'd decided to settle in, the vendor area was opened and Gary Gygax took his
place. I made a quick apology and walked over to get an autograph or four. |
| Gary was congenial, and seemed to me to be in pretty good spirits. I availed myself of an empty chair at his "table" and listened to a few war stories he and Rob Kuntz swapped around. About 2:00 or so, a group consisting of myself and the Troll Lords gathered at the table and Rob and Gary ran us through a portion of Castle Greyh...erm, Zagyg...using the Castles and Crusades rules. |
Never trust a smiling Dungeon Master. Particularly when it's THIS Dungeon Master. |
Bad party tactics (and hilarity) ensued.
The party consisted of myself, using a 6th-level magic user (Arglebargle the
Younger, scion of the deceased magic-user from the previous evening), a fighter,
a ranger, a barbarian, a thief and a druid. No clerics were present - yay us.
We were looking to solve the mystery surrounding an abandoned goldmine that had
been first mined by dwarves, all of whom mysteriously disappeared some time ago.
Then gnomes took it over, and they
disappeared. Afterward, human miners took it over and
they vanished. The mine took on an
ominous reputation, and it was up to our party to find out if something more
than bad luck was befalling miners and if so, put a stop to it!
Our party marched up to the opening of the mine and was met with a hail of
crossbow bolts, two of which I collected in my chest. The party scattered, I
cast shield and dared the unseen
'bolters to try that again. They did, but fortunately my spell kept me from
getting perforated again.
Comedy ensued as I and the thief looked for cover. As we dove to the sides of
the mine opening to gain some shelter from the rain of crossbow bolts, we plowed
in to each other full tilt. Fortunately for us the Dwarves didn't take advantage
of the comedy outside the caves...!
The barbarian and ranger moved in to melee and made short work of the villains -
gray dwarves. The dwarves melted away (literally) after being slain so we knew
something was amiss! The party strung itself out in a line and continued on, but
not after a little confusion: Rob asked me what I was doing, and I said "I'm
endeavoring to persevere." to which he reacted by rolling two dice and saying
"You succeed."
Since the thief was hanging back in the rear ranks with me, I made him my
unofficial linkboy and handed him my lantern to keep my hands free as we
marched.
There was some debate as to what direction to take in the caverns when we came
to a split passage, but it was finally decided on that we'd head to the right.
We came in to a large common area with two fireplaces, and a group of gray
dwarves. Melee ensued, and one of the dwarves cast
hold person on our druid. I stepped to
the front and threw a lightning bolt down the column of enemies, but before I
could step back, a Salamander sprang from the fireplace and began to melee the
party, knocking me down to just a few hits.
Gary had a talk to give on the state of Pen and Paper RPGs, so we broke and I
headed off to hear his talk, along with Mike and Liz Stewart.
Photographs
