Looking Forward to Ghengiscon

It is not completely solid, but all indications are I will be attending Ghengiscon this February in Denver. Over Valentine’s Day no less. Most likely the only convention I go to all year (lets hope not). The price to be paid for this running on Valentine's Day I imagine a few grumps and grumbles in the cabin.

The two games I offered have been accepted so I will be running FGU’s Space Opera on Friday and Saturday run my current OSR release, an adventure module for PCs 2-4.

Space Opera needs prep while AA03 not really. For the OSR adventure I hope participants bring their own characters. Put some real money in the game. No one is going to do that though. Players are cautious, paranoid lot. I have been twisting up layout machine to make an original, comprehensible character sheet for SO and is working out well. Unless you are willing to draw one up,like James V. West, I find software creation to be clunky and hard to fine tune. Fortunately sci-fi character sheets lend themselves to structured layouts, clean text and picture frames. 

Character sheets and monster stats! The adventure takes place in a hostile jungle so a variety of critters to encounter should be drawn up into its own monster section. Like an appendix or “New Monster” section you can find in traditional modules. Having a few pages with all the monsters to be encountered in the adventure, with stats, is a must for me when writing dungeons. Detailing and tricking out the flying ATV which will be used in the adventure. In a one-shot adventure players don’t have much to hang their hat on, so useful items and gear begin to define their capabilities. Having depth to the information about the rig will help the players come up with ways to use it and escape danger!

Traversing the canopy below by flying is hazardous, there are large raptors which are attracted to anything they can see in the sky. Having your Air Raft break down deep in the jungle is when you need to call for a lift, and fast. Once I have something worth playing at when the PCs arrive at the “Forbidden City” the rest of the content will be much easier to write.

I’m not sure what kind of presence RPG’s have at Ghengiscon, but I know Savage Worlds is played more than any other thing, followed next by 5e? I think.

There are some luminaries of the OSR-o-Sphere living on the front range so there is always the chance I see someone I’m a fan of. Toughest thing about the con is the drive over the continental divide. It is always a crap shoot. There is no guarantee you  will get where you are going once your on I-70 in the high country.