If so, then I'll probably grab a seat in the Sunday session. Makes it easier for me to schedule my own sessions and grab games the rest of the days without worrying about a conflict.Ancalagon wrote: ↑July 30th, 2022, 9:48 pm Got my SILVER so I'm in.
I'll have to remember to pack the vaccination card!
I'm thinking of running a session of Into the Mines of Moria on Sunday like you did with Solomon Kane. With a lot of people leaving on Sunday, the reduced noise in the game play areas was really nice.
GaryCon XV; March 23-26, 2023
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“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
- Ancalagon
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Since I intend to reduce players per session to 4 from 8, I'm thinking of possibly running 3 sessions. Maybe a Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Nothing set in stone just yet, of course. 

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- Ancalagon
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Now considering Friday 1000 - 1400, Saturday 1000 - 1400 or 1200 - 1600, and Sunday 1200 - 1600.....
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Updated info from the GC folks:
Grand Geneva Room Reservations Date Changed
After discussing this with the hotel management, we decided to change the date we open room reservations to Monday, September 19th at 10 AM Central. This will allow for more staff to handle incoming reservations and result in an improved customer experience. In past years the hotel rooms have sold out very quickly, so it may be best to click or call at 10 AM on the 19th. You can find important dates for Gary Con® XV here: https://play.garycon.com.
Please know that there are other hotels nearby if you don’t get a room at the Grand Geneva. Remember the HICV (Holiday Inn Club Vacations) booking link is already open and they are just on the other side of the parking lot from the Grand. The Comfort Suites has a shuttle to the Grand operating all day and the Fairfield Inn is only 3 miles from the Grand. And if you are willing to drive in there are well over a dozen options within 15 minutes. You can find more information on our website at https://garycon.com/travel-hotel/
Update to the COVID-19 Policy
After a review of the policy by Gary Con® leadership and recent changes in CDC guidance, we've refined the vaccination requirement language to more closely align with current guidance and industry best practices, as well as added a Medical Exemption clause which was alluded to, but it wasn't in the official policy. In summary, you will need to have your initial COVID-19 vaccination (1 or 2 doses, depending on type), but boosters, while we strongly recommended them, are not required. Additionally, while we won't take a doctor's note at the door, if you buy a badge and then send in a doctor's note to customerservice@garycon.com, you may be able to get a Medical Exemption. If we don't issue an exception, your badge will be refunded. Be sure to go to our policy page to see all the details and deadlines. The link is: https://garycon.com/policies/
That's all the Gary Con® XV news for now. We will be posting further updates via the TTE site (https://play.garycon.com) so if you have a badge you can count on being kept up-to-date. We will also post to the Gary Con Website , Discord server ,as well as on our FB Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/garycon). As mentioned earlier, send customerservice@garycon.com a note to be added to email, as well.
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
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Hotel rooms open up Monday, Sep 19th, 10AM CST. Gonna be at the ready to try and snag one.
I've submitted one event, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, for Advanced Fighting Fantasy. Not (A)D&D, but just as old-school and it's a dungeon crawl so it should be simple and fun. Set for Thursday evening, 6pm-11pm.
I've submitted one event, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, for Advanced Fighting Fantasy. Not (A)D&D, but just as old-school and it's a dungeon crawl so it should be simple and fun. Set for Thursday evening, 6pm-11pm.
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
- Ancalagon
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Good luck!
Coolness.
Makes me think about gong ahead and at least scheduling my Sunday game. Will go with a start time of either 1100 or 1200 and we play until finished.
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I've added two more small sessions to the the line up, not RPGs though, these two are board games.
The first one is called Paupers' Ladder, designed and produced by a guy over in the UK named Paul Stapleton. I first learned about the game through a group on Facebook for Adventure Board Games. It's not available in the US from any distributor, only available for direct sale from Paul, via his company, Bedsit Games. I emailed Paul asking him about the game and eventually was able to put in an order for the base game, the expansion called The Moon Towers, which was still in production at the time, along with a few extra goodies like an adventure game book he wrote. It came in back in the late spring, early summer and I've not yet had a chance to play so I thought, what the heck, why not offer it for some folks at GaryCon.
The game is very reminiscent of Fantasy Flight Games, Runebound, in that players control competing characters that travels across a map of the realm called Brighthelm, completing quests, fighting monsters, solving puzzles, and collecting items and gems. The first player who's character gains three Virtues wins. Virtues can be collected through a variety of means such as collecting a specified number of gems and then discarding them properly, acquiring a specified number of Trophy points, by defeating different monsters, or gaining a number of Recipes (i.e. skills/professions) by collecting the required components per each recipe, or completing a number of quests given from the cities on the map.
Characters are not "heroes" though, no warriors, no wizards; characters are Paupers, lowly nobodies that strive to rise through the ranks of society, hence their adventuring and gaining of Virtues. All in all, it's a great overland, adventure game that plays in about 1-2 hours.
My session for Paupers' Ladder will be Friday morning, 9am-11am.
The second board game session will be Alien: Fate of the Nostromo. In this game, players take on the roles of the remaining crew members of the Nostromo from the original Alien movie. Players attempt to complete various tasks before completing a final, overall task, which then wins them the game. During their tasks though, the players have a chance to run into the Alien, causing them to lose morale. A morale track decreases as the players take on more and more morale, eventually running out at zero. If the track reaches zero or an incident sets off the ships detonation before the final task is complete, the players lose the game. While completing tasks, players can collect scrap that can be ultimately used to craft items which help them out. All in all, even though it's not tactical and combat oriented like other "Alien" systems, it's a really cool, cooperative game. A typical game runs 45min to 1 hour.
This session is set for 90 minutes and runs after my session for Paupers' Ladder on Friday, from 11am to 12:30pm.
The first one is called Paupers' Ladder, designed and produced by a guy over in the UK named Paul Stapleton. I first learned about the game through a group on Facebook for Adventure Board Games. It's not available in the US from any distributor, only available for direct sale from Paul, via his company, Bedsit Games. I emailed Paul asking him about the game and eventually was able to put in an order for the base game, the expansion called The Moon Towers, which was still in production at the time, along with a few extra goodies like an adventure game book he wrote. It came in back in the late spring, early summer and I've not yet had a chance to play so I thought, what the heck, why not offer it for some folks at GaryCon.
The game is very reminiscent of Fantasy Flight Games, Runebound, in that players control competing characters that travels across a map of the realm called Brighthelm, completing quests, fighting monsters, solving puzzles, and collecting items and gems. The first player who's character gains three Virtues wins. Virtues can be collected through a variety of means such as collecting a specified number of gems and then discarding them properly, acquiring a specified number of Trophy points, by defeating different monsters, or gaining a number of Recipes (i.e. skills/professions) by collecting the required components per each recipe, or completing a number of quests given from the cities on the map.
Characters are not "heroes" though, no warriors, no wizards; characters are Paupers, lowly nobodies that strive to rise through the ranks of society, hence their adventuring and gaining of Virtues. All in all, it's a great overland, adventure game that plays in about 1-2 hours.
My session for Paupers' Ladder will be Friday morning, 9am-11am.
The second board game session will be Alien: Fate of the Nostromo. In this game, players take on the roles of the remaining crew members of the Nostromo from the original Alien movie. Players attempt to complete various tasks before completing a final, overall task, which then wins them the game. During their tasks though, the players have a chance to run into the Alien, causing them to lose morale. A morale track decreases as the players take on more and more morale, eventually running out at zero. If the track reaches zero or an incident sets off the ships detonation before the final task is complete, the players lose the game. While completing tasks, players can collect scrap that can be ultimately used to craft items which help them out. All in all, even though it's not tactical and combat oriented like other "Alien" systems, it's a really cool, cooperative game. A typical game runs 45min to 1 hour.
This session is set for 90 minutes and runs after my session for Paupers' Ladder on Friday, from 11am to 12:30pm.
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
- Ancalagon
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Awrighty - pulled the trigger on a Sunday session of Into the Mines of Moria!
Scheduled start time is 1100 with duration of 4 hours but if it goes over... its Sunday! No worries
You read Professor Tolkien’s books. You watched the Bakshi and Jackson films. Now play as members of The Fellowship of the Ring as they seek to pass the Doors of Durin and survive the Chamber of Mazarbul. May the blessing of Elves and Men and Free Folk go with you!
I set it up for 4 players. Pre-gens provided, of course. Each player will run one of the experienced members of the Fellowship (Aragorn, Boromir, Gimli, Legolas) and one of the hobbits (Frodo, Merry, Pippin, Sam) not long departed from the Shire. Playtesting revealed that the hobbits are squishy so pairing up Fellowship members as described keeps a player from exiting crazy early if a hobbit is taken by the Watcher in the Water....
Scheduled start time is 1100 with duration of 4 hours but if it goes over... its Sunday! No worries

You read Professor Tolkien’s books. You watched the Bakshi and Jackson films. Now play as members of The Fellowship of the Ring as they seek to pass the Doors of Durin and survive the Chamber of Mazarbul. May the blessing of Elves and Men and Free Folk go with you!
I set it up for 4 players. Pre-gens provided, of course. Each player will run one of the experienced members of the Fellowship (Aragorn, Boromir, Gimli, Legolas) and one of the hobbits (Frodo, Merry, Pippin, Sam) not long departed from the Shire. Playtesting revealed that the hobbits are squishy so pairing up Fellowship members as described keeps a player from exiting crazy early if a hobbit is taken by the Watcher in the Water....
“Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” - Carl Sagan
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Luke posted this to the GaryCon Facebook group. Not sure what to think of this, I wish there was an option to just extend the convention an extra day, similar to what Origins does with their 5 day convention. Having the con run for 9 days seems serious overkill, not to mention enormous hotel cost if you stayed the entire length. The downside as I see it, is if they do this and people decide to attend the first weekend for however many days, those wanting to show up on say, Wed through the following weekend as usual, may not have the opportunity to get rooms at the location. Even extending it to Monday seems a bit overkill. Five days of gaming is about my limit, then I'm ready to get back and settle back to things until the following year.
Personally, I'd be fine with just adding Wed to the lineup and leave it at that. I guess we'll see what happens after the upcoming convention is over and done.
Personally, I'd be fine with just adding Wed to the lineup and leave it at that. I guess we'll see what happens after the upcoming convention is over and done.
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
- Ancalagon
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The key wording is "bring in more people". More people = more badges. More days = more cost for badges. More badges at greater cost = more money to GC. Expansion = more money to the Grand Geneva. If Luke refuses to move GC to a bigger venue then expanding the number of days is pretty much the only option he has. And, IMO, expansion will further dilute GC even more than has happened since 2015.
“Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” - Carl Sagan