Thursday
I slept poorly. I was nervous, excited, and filled with new ideas. There was much to do before 8am:
- get food and coffee (our hotel had a McDonalds nearby and I have something of a love affair with their coffee).
- set up the room: the banner, the book table, make sure everyone was ready.
- set up to run my own game
- get the badges (we arrived in Indy too late to pick them up on Wednesday)
- calm down and give a short prayer
It is always nerve-wracking waiting for the players to show up. Not only that, but would they like what we offered? Were the adventures good? Were they too niche/ complex/ difficult? Would they want to come back for additional slots? How many people would not show up?
For the first slot, I ran the Akhamet adventure: Burned and Cooked which is an interesting investigation that exposes elements of the setting.
One worry I had, was that Randy who was to GM the second slot but he had to run from one place to the other and may be late. But he was got to the game on-time and was ready to roll when the players arrived. Yay!
For the second slot, I ran Border Aflame, an Olympia adventure that is the most combat intensive of the two.
Then came the first of three special adventures: Digging in the Dirt. I worked on this one, then jumped to the Olympia ones, then came back to this one. Here, I thought of having the adventure location as the BBEG rather than having a monster. This made the story different and advanced the overall plot I wanted. Now the biggest issue we had: Randy runs fast, I run slow and we had a touch point where the PCs could meet each other.
The final part of the adventure involved the PCs searching a palace for any magical item. Now the place was not immense, and it had numerous rooms, challenges, and magic items to find. I'll provide more information about what was found.
Well in spite of that snag, we got it off pretty well and the players enjoyed the adventure and hated the city (hands wringing).
Then it was a quick drive back to the hotel to sleep.
Friday
I slept better as the pre-con jitters passed some. Many people talked about playing more FOE games and were excited about it. I was looking forward to a new day of adventure!
In the morning, I ran a slot of Lovers' Dawn, a story of love, betrayal, and Kreon. I had fun running this adventure inspired by watching too much Maury Povich Show.
For the afternoon, I hoped to catch a game of something OR serve as backup. Since I was not needed, I got to run across the ICC to play some Heroes of Rokugan.
I ran like a madman first to get a ticket, next to reach the HoR location... Only to find that I was one hour too early for their slot! So I visited the vendor hall. Not really wanting anything more than some Chessex dice, I wandered around. This cavernous hall was cutsmaller
No worries, I just stood around and talked to people. Especially my friend Bill-M. So we talked about our characters, and I told him a few of the secrets of mine (he's usually a GM, so that's fine). Fun chat, you know. Two old gamers talking about their characters...
Came game time, I sat at a table with... BILL AS GM! And to make things more interesting... Bill ran a very interesting game in which he used the information I told him against me in the adventure, adding an extra personalized touch. I really enjoyed the adventure and it felt special to my character. Thanks Bill!
My playing slot over, I ran back to the Marriott to get ready for the second special, The Spartian Queen.
Matt and Will held the fort like champs and we spent a few moments going over the adventure, making a few last-minute tweaks. This one again, Will ran fast, I ran slow, and Matt was in the middle. But we nonetheless got through it all, and the appearance of Zeus and Hera at the end added some weight and gravitas to the adventure.
If you are worried about me being mask-less, don't worry, I pulled it down, took the pic, and brought it right back up.
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