Escape from Fireball Island! at GameholeCon

Okay, I know I haven't updated in a month, but we were shipping Ravingspire around the world and things were re-donkulously busy! Still, that's no excuse. You want to have a blog? Then update the blog. Them's the facts jack. So now I'm back! And last weekend was glorious Gamehole Con! I completely re-wrote and ran Escape from Fireball Island for the Con for two different groups of players, and it was an absolute blast both times.

The adventure is a 1930's pulp AD&D game I wrote loosely based on the Fireball Island boardgame from 1983.

Amelia Earhart is flying a group of famous figures from Miami to London, but as she crosses the Bermuda Triangle, she is forced to crash land on a mysterious volcanic island. Much dino-battling, lizardman-negotiating, trap-dodging, atlantean puzzle-solving, and jewel-gathering ensues!

WIP Painting Time (-Travelers)!

So its that Season again. No, I'm not talking about Football season, I'm talking about Mini painting Season. Though you can totally combine them and paint minis while watching Football if you want. I know I do.

But more specifically its painting season because Gamehole Con 2015 is coming up, and this year I'm running a Back the Future RPG with a lot of special guest cameos. And while I've playtested this game without minis and it went fine, I believe every game is always more fun with representative minis. Especially when it means you get to paint up a Marty McFly.

So I just wanted to stop in to show off a quick work-in-progress of some favorite Time-Travelers I started on last night:

But there's still plenty more Chrono-warriors to go. So better get back to it.

Paint on!

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!

VCP: Alex Kammer

Today on the Vorpal Chainsword Podcast, we talk to the Warrior King of Gamehole Con himself:
Alex Kammer!

 

At his heart, Alex is a Gamer. Even more than that, Alex is a Gamer Cleric, who strives to bring the True Light™ of tabletop gaming to the masses.  About two years ago (by Dale Reckoning) Alex and his hearty crew of Gamehole ne’er-do-wells decided to take their gaming and business expertise and launch a gaming convention in the Midwest the likes of which must be experienced to be believed. Gamehole Con burst onto the RPG convention scene in 2013 and right from the start showed what a top-notch tabletop-focused gaming convention should be about. Between the impressive guests, the fantastic games line-up, and the incredibly friendly volunteers and organizers, Gamehole Con is THE gaming convention for anyone who gets excited by the idea of discovering a Longsword+1 (+3 vs. Undead) in an Ogre's treasure hoard. Check it out!

GameHole Con 2015 Event Submission Now Open!

I don't know if I stress this enough, but GameHole Con in Madison is a Con that you want to attend. There are a lot of good reasons, and one of them is I run my games there, and event submission just opened today!

This year I'll be running a new 1980's-nostalgic Time-Travel Adventure I've cooked up. We played it at ScanCon 2015 and it was a blast, so with time to polish it up even more before GameHole Con in November its going to knock some socks off.

Here's what I just submitted:

---
Event Name: Back to the Future RPG: OUTATIME!
Ruleset: D&D 5e
#Players: 5
Duration: 6 hours (with lunch/bathroom breaks)

Description: 
Monday, October 28th, 1985 
After returning from the Old West, and with the time-traveling Delorean safely destroyed by a train, Marty McFly is finally waking up after some much-needed rest in his bedroom...

*Whiz! Bang! Flash!* 

Another Delorean just appeared in the driveway! Rushing outside, Marty discovers that the Delorean is empty, without anyone inside. "Oh no!" Marty realizes, "Doc must be in trouble!"
---
A cross-genre Time-Traveling RPG Adventure using the 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons Ruleset. Pregenerated characters will be provided, and a nostalgic love for 1980s-1990's time-traveling movies and TV shows is recommended.
---

So if 1980's-style cheesball time-travel is your thing, I recommend you give this event a look-see. I guarantee you will not expect what's coming next.

Gaming DIY: Secret of the Laser!

Like many of you, I like shooting lasers at stuff. In fact, I'd wager to guess that all people like shooting lasers at stuff, at least a little bit. Lasers are just inherently great. I also have started using them in my tabletop RPG games, with mirrors and all that. But there is a secret to using lasers in your games. Something you may not have considered, and will only encounter when you've built the whole damn thing and it doesn't work right. Fortunately, we here at Vorpal Chainsword Productions were able to solve this dilemma, and in our generosity we will share with you...

The Secret of the Laser!

At the end of this post, that is.

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!

GameHoleCon. Better than GenCon. There I said it.

Its Sunday here at GameHoleCon and I have already endured two solid days of gaming majesty, with another game yet on the horizon in a few hours.  In the meantime, let me give you a run down about how epic this convention has been here in Madison, WI.