Nexus and Eternia 2016

Hey hey! Time for some convention gaming pics!

This post is a little late since Nexus Game Fair 2016 happened almost three weeks ago, but I have a very good reason for the delay, and that's because of [INSERT EXCUSES HERE].

Now that that's out of the way, I want to talk a little about the games I ran at Nexus. I once again ran Shadows Over Eternia: He-Man vs. the Cthulhu Mythos at Nexus, and it was again a ton of fun. I always worry about getting a problem player at my table for convention games, but thus far every time I run Shadows the players have been great and its gone smooth as silk. I don't know if that's because the subject matter (He-Man/Cthulhu cartoon-horror mashup) attracts the more fun-loving and considerate players at a Con, or because the presence of so many miniatures and terrain makes people less apt to act like jerks at the table, or just because my self-involved narcissistic DMing style means I don't actually remember anyone being a problem as I was just so wrapped up in patting myself on the back due to how well I feel I pulled off the Mordak and Mer-Man impressions. In any case, I'm going to go ahead and confirm it as being a really fun time.

He-Man vs. Cthulhu at Nexus Game Fair 2016!

Its May of 2016 already, and you know what that means... Nexus Game Fair in lovely downtown Milwaukee this Memorial Day weekend!

This year I'll once again be running Shadows Over Eternia: He-Man vs. the Cthulhu Mythos (5e D&D). Only I'll actually be running two sessions of it, at 10am-4pm on Friday and 10am-4pm on Saturday (with breaks for lunch, of course).

He-Man and his friends must team up with Skeletor and his minions to fend off the forces of the Great Old Ones from taking over Eternia! You can check out the 5e character pre-gens on the Vorpal Chainsword Campaign Resources page.

I've run this He-Man game for two years now and its been a lot of fun, but I think this'll probably be the last time I run it at a Con. I've got other mash-up games I want to polish up and run at Nexus next year, and mentally closing shop on He-Man will force me to get back to work on the other ones. And after all, even He-Man can only take so much Sanity damage!

So if you are intrigued by the idea of He-Man battling snake-worshiping Servants of Yig and mind-shattering cultists of Hastur then I recommend you take this one last opportunity to sign up for:

Shadows Over Eternia - He-Man vs. the Cthulhu Mythos at Nexus Game Fair 2016!

A pic of He-Man riding a T-rex from the game at Nexus 2015. Yeah, things got pretty epic.

PS: I'll also be running a few sessions of Tower of Gygax at Nexus as well. I'm super happy they're bringing it back, and if you're a lover of all things deadly and AD&D, make sure you also check out Tower of Gygax!

He-Man vs. Cthulhu 5e Playtest Video in the GameHole

Just finished running Shadows Over Eternia: He-Man vs. the Cthulhu Mythos 5th edition game at Nexus Game Fair. As always it was great fun, a couple of highlights being He-Man taming a T-Rex against all odds and turning it into his new "Battle-Rex," and Trapjaw escaping alone back to Eternia (after Skeletor and Evil-Lyn had been killed by Cthulhu) and leaving He-Man, Man-At-Arms, and Teela in R'yleh to rot! If you are one of those players reading this, thanks for a great game at Nexus!

But a couple weeks ago I wanted to playtest the 5th edition update to this game (it previously was 3.5e), so I wouldn't be all thumbs as far as the 5e updates go at the actual convention game at Nexus. As luck would have it, I got permission to playtest the updated game at the actual Gamehole in Madison, WI!

Since I was going to be playing in such a shrine to gaming, I figured I'd ask the players coming to the playtest to feel free to use their smartphones and cameras to record little bits of the game whenever they went to take a picture or if they felt like it. Also, the official Vorpal Chainsword photographer, ShadowGolem, brought along a camera and tripod and set it up above the table, so we could get a time-lapse picture set of the whole game! Everyone sent me all their pictures and video snippets they happened to take and I put together a simple little 9-minute video showcasing the 6-hour game.

If you like 80's cartoons, D&D, Miniatures, and Cthulhu, then you might get a kick out of it.

He-Man in the Gamehole

Something about that blogpost title doesn't sit quite right...but I'm not going to dwell too much on it. That's because what that title is referring to is that yesterday I got to run Shadows Over Eternia: He-Man vs. the Cthulhu Mythos at the actual Gamehole!


It was a playtest of the new and improved 5th edition version (updated from 3.5e) of my He-man/Cthulhu convention one-shot game in preparation for running it at Nexus Game Fair in two weeks. See, I needed to practice toting all the figures, terrain, props, and whatnot from the Vorpal Chainsword Game Workshop(tm) to another gaming location and time the setup/session/teardown to make sure it fell within my alotted game time for Nexus. I realized this would be a great excuse to ask Alex if I could run it in the Gamehole, and he was kind enough to let me use the space to practice. Not only that, but all the players chipped in with recording snippets of the game on their phones and cameras and whatnot and we got some pretty sweet video and pics of the session. I'll see if I can sort through it all to find the interesting bits and  make up a quick (and concise) video showing all the cool stuff from the game, which I'll post up on the Vorpal Chainsword website when complete.

The Jungles outside of Snake Mountain are filled with vicious Eternian Laser Raptors!

In the meantime, here's a sneak peek (and minor spoiler) of some raw video taken after the players solved the first of the laser puzzles inside Castle Greyskull!

GameHole Con 2014! - Shadows Over Eternia pics

Just got back from the last day of GameHole Con and have been up way too late for too many nights for an old man like me. Its Sunday afternoon which means its time to put the books and minis away and get things ready for the work week, but I figured I'd throw up a few pics from my game of Shadows Over Eternia: He-Man vs. the Cthulhu Mythos that I ran on Friday. It went incredibly well, thanks to some great players and plenty of Zip-fizz in my water bottle. And for me this game was only the beginning of an awesome weekend, because after running this I got to speak with the real Elminster in a game run by Ed Greenwood himself, died horribly in the Tower of Akbaba run by Luke Gygax, and even won one of the two open spots to play the Dungeon Bastard's World's Worst Dungeon Crawl!

Simply put, I can't wait for next year.

Beastman's jungle ambush!

Skeletor killed Beastman's pet T-rex, Evil-Lyn re-animated it, and then had it devour Beastman.

GameHole Con II is less than a week away!

That's right! It snuck up on all of us, but the second annual GameHole Con is just around the corner. This Friday, November 7th, the best public games convention in Madison will be back! I have a group of friends coming down to Wisconsin from around the U.S. for it, because the opportunity to meet and play games with some of the TSR alumni is just too good to pass up.

As previously mentioned, I'll be running my He-Man vs. the Cthulhu Mythos game (3.5e): Shadows Over Eternia at 10am on Friday morning. There are still a couple tickets left in the 6-person game, so come on down and help Man-at-Arms blast Deep Ones with his Eternian Freeze Ray. Yes its a Friday so one has to take Friday off to play a game on the first day of GameHole Con, but will people at work really miss you that much on just another Friday? Miss you more than the amount you'll kick yourself for missing the chance to meet Ernie Gygax, The Dungeon Bastard, or the creator of the Forgotten Realms himself: Ed Greenwood?

Ed Greenwood says that those TPS reports can wait until Monday.

Game On!

Shadows Over Eternia at GameHole Con 2014

Listen up gamers of the Midwest!

Last year a new gaming convention threw its hat into the ring. Right here in Madison, Wisconsin (the best of the Madisons), back in the Year of Our Lord Two-Thousand and Thirteen (by Dale Reckoning), GameHole Con was born. And if you're familiar with my intermittently-updated blog, which I know you are, you know that this con blasted the asses off of any pants-wearing gamers who attended.

But this post isn't about how GameHole Con is most radical game convention this side of the Time of Troubles. Or how it has the freshest games, the dopest guests, or the baddest roller-derby ladies. No, this post is a teaser about the game I'm going to run at GameHole Con 2014. Not just any game, but the game you've been waiting for your whole life...

He-man

Vs.

Cthulhu!