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Looking to play a whole lot of TTRPGs IN PERSON this PAX West 2021
Taraka_Dark
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
UPDATE (9/4/21): While we had at least one player sign up for Mythic on Friday, I had another commitment (namely my friend who didn't want to play RPGs) to honor, and I had also been up since 11:49 PM on Thursday because I was so excited by PAX (and had so much to do to get ready), so by the time that Mythic would be ready to go on Friday, I would have been hard-pressed to help run it effectively. Now that I've been up for just over 24 hours, I don't think that I'll have any trouble sleeping a longer stretch this morning!
So Mythic is still on the chart, and Steve from Alexandria RPG Library is even interested in checking the game out with us if he finds a chance. Because someone signed up, I'll call them first, hopefully before I attend True Dungeon at 2 PM tomorrow to see if an evening time will work for them. Myself, I'm thinking of maybe 5:30 PM to start, but I'll have a better idea after that phone call at which point I'll try to update this thread with a confirmation of time. Please feel free to respond if you want in on the game but would like to suggest a different start time. If you were the Friday sign-up for the game, I'm sorry that I was unable to hold to the evening plan (and I'm actually surprised that I lasted as long as I did, starting to nod off while I showed my friend various classic nes games with which I had passed my youth in the classic console freeplay).
Also, for the five of you who played The Iron Realm with me Friday, thank you! I will try to include a little more detail about the available game materials, but this will be after PAX ends (unless you see me in person since it's easy to answer direct questions), so please check back here if you want to know which materials (all Pay-What-You-Want) are best to start playing. You can also get the necessary information just by listening through the podcast, starting with Chapter 1. This play-by-podcast show is stronger than ever and nearing 100 episodes, so I hope that you find an interest in spending at least a little more time in the game in future, and there is an opportunity to share in our own role-played adventures as a community! If any of you would like to pursue that, I can offer a Discord space to do so, and The Maze Master has a Patreon that would also be an option if you want to join there. Having a shared world is just one more way that the game becomes more immersive beyond roleplaying through the Adventure Writeups since each shared experience helps to shape what becomes more and more a living world.
The Vast in The Dark (D&D 5e) setting game that I mentioned for Saturday will likely get pushed to Sunday, but again no time set yet unless the Mythic players wanted to push on into late Saturday evening after a meal break.
(You can scroll down to my last 9/1 post for more details on the Mythic and The Vast in the Dark games that are coming as soon as I have times worked out for them).
SPECIAL UPDATE, 9/2/21:
I will run The Iron Realm at 1 PM on Friday in the TTRPG area on Floor 6 of WSCC. There are 1d6 slots remaining to receive a free full-color Player Pack. See the previous special update for more details!
SPECIAL UPDATE, 9/1/21, EDITED 9/2/21:
Maze Master Abel Enzo, creator of The Iron Realm Podcast, the "World's First Play-By-Podcast Campaign," was aware that I was going to run Chapter 14 of The Iron Realm as one of my first ventures in the TTRPG space at PAX West this year, and he has edited a special cast, emailed to me as an .mp3 this Wednesday afternoon, just for our PAX West session! Here is what he said about it in his own words that I've italicized:
"For your consideration, I have a custom edited episode of The Iron Realm which may be used by you at Pax should you so wish. I recall that you had an interest in running Chapter 14. What I've done is combined Chapter 14 and 15, removing segments that are not directly related to the Character Eight campaign - but leaving in applicable story elements and Tribal Matters segments. As it turns out, 14 and 15 make a full tale together, clocking in at 35 minutes in all.
"Just an option for you, should you wish to take it. I suspect it might be a little smoother for the convention setting. All players will benefit greatly from your wisdom and experience playing the game. I wish all of you a full and enjoyable delve into The Endless Maze of Stone.
"Of course, let them know that the core books are Pay-What-You-Want at this time, so anyone who enjoys the experience can pick up every eBook desired for kicking off Character Eight Campaigns of their own.
"May Wynlan lead them well, and all my best for PAX!
"Abel Enzo
The Maze Master"
I am so excited by this offering, and I have decided that this will indeed be my first game run at PAX West! I haven't finalized a time yet, so if what you have just read here stokes your interest, please let me know when you are available on FRIDAY. I'm thinking some time in the afternoon might be appropriate to get the biggest table. Sparing some expense (I still spent over $20, but just you wait until you see my own printed materials), I have printed out full-color Character Record packets for rolling up your Character Eight for the first six people who show up to play at the time decided. If you get there, and I'm out of handouts, you can still play, but you may want to bring your own paper to write down your character stats and graph paper for the dungeon crawl mapping. And if you've read this far, I will remind you that the key books are available digitally right now (Pay-What-You-Want) in case you want to ensure you have prints. By the way, there is a FedEx in the convention center (open until 4 PM) from where you can pick them up if you want to order any printed pages online beforehand. This game session (and likely all of my RPG sessions at PAX West) will be played on the sixth floor in the TTRPG space, hopefully somewhere where we can hear well enough to enjoy Abel's expert audio craftsmanship to the fullest.
(You can scroll down to my last 9/1 post for the rest of this update. We now return you to the original post).
ORIGINAL POST:
During recent times of online TTRPG promotion, I have weighed myself down with tons of .PDFs, often massive collections for just about every TTRPG under the sun. While I have recently begun playing solo after having burnt out on Zoom, I am interested in playing with other people in person at this year's PAX West 2021 and am very excited to try out at least some of these new games that I have been picking up! Hopefully we can have a renaissance of TTRPG playing this year at PAX West!
I know that the Westin has hosted plenty of rooms for TTRPGs in the past, but the ways to find out about pick-up games (other than I remember seeing one Shadowrun sign-up sheet) seemed a bit sparse. This thread is an attempt to create interest in a variety of games and systems so that we might see a robust turnout with plenty of games, players, and GMs.
I have a lot of systems that I can run, but not knowing what anyone wants to play, I'm going to be new to just about everything with a few exceptions. I have also acquired books like Word Mill's Game Master Emulator so that we could also play GM-less and GM-full games (with agreed-upon Safety Tools of course).
Is there anyone who is open to playing just about anything? I mean, if just several people are interested, we could always have something to play whenever there is a lull in the convention.
Games that I own and would like to play (especially interested include a * with more *s for more interest) in alphabetical order include (but are not by any means limited to):
3Deep
13th Age (which I just picked up from Humble Bundle) *
Adventure System *
Amazing Adventures!
Arcanis (D&D 5e, preferably for Living Arcanis OP credit) *
Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerors of Hyperborea *
Aventyr (AAW games setting for PF 1e and D&D 5e) *
BYTE **
Calidar
Castles & Crusades (Siege Engine) *
Cha'alt (Crimson Dragon Slayer D20) **
Changeling: The Dreaming
Chivalry & Sorcery
Coriolis: The Third Horizon
Cosmic Odyssey
Cthulhu Invictus (Call of Cthulhu 7e) *
Dark Streets & Darker Secrets
Defiant
Delve Second Edition *
DeScriptors
Doctor Who
Dragon Age RPG *
Dragonlance (D&D 3.5e)
Dungeon Crawl Classics (3.5e) **
Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC)
Eclipse Phase
Eldritch Century *
Encounter Critical
Enoch's Wake **
Eryphir (WizCo Games setting for D&D 5e)
Exalted Vales (D&D 5e)
Fantasy AGE
Fate (which I just picked up from Bundle of Holding with 50 world settings) **
Fate of The Norns
Fateforge *
Fellowship (Dungeon World) **
Fifth Edition Fantasy (D&D 5e)
Five Torches Deep
Forbidden Lands
Fragged (Empire / Aeternum / Kingdom / Seas, all of which are still available on Bundle of Holding)
Hypercorps 2099 (Legendary Games setting for PF 1e)
Index Card RPG **
Invisible Sun *
Ironsworn
KULT
Lamentations of the Flame Princess *
Lankhmar (DCC)
Legendary Planet (Legendary Games setting for PF 1e)
Lone Wolf
Meatlandia **
Midgard (Kobold Press setting for PF 1e and D&D 5e) **
Morningstar
Mutant Crawl Classics
Mythras
NeoExodus
Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland (B/X) ***
Obsidian Apocalypse
Odysseys & Overlords
Overlight
Pathfinder 1e and 2e (not necessarily for Society Organized Play credit)
Power of 10 *
Ptolus (3.5e)
Realms of Rothaen (Dungeon World) **
Rifts
Scarred Lands (D&D 5e)
Shadow of the Demon Lord *
Shadowdark *
Shadowrun 5e
Shadows of Esteren *
Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells *
Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells *
Spelljammer (AD&D) *
Spire
Starfinder (Society OP or not)
Starjammer
Stars Without Number
Swords & Wizardry (Complete / Light / Continual Light) *
Symbaroum
Synthicide
The Dying Earth
The Gaean Reach
The Iron Realm **
The King in Yellow
The Lost Lands (Frog God Games setting for PF 1e, Swords & Wizardry, D&D 5e) *
The Nameless Realms (Art of The Genre setting for D&D 5e)
The Strange (Cypher System)
The Vast in The Dark (system agnostic) **
They Came From Beneath The Sea! **
Third Dawn (Dreamscarred Press setting for PF1e)
Through The Breach
TimeWatch
Traveller (Mongoose 2e ruleset) *
Troika! **
Umerica (DCC) *
Urban Shadows
Warhammer 1e or 2e
Warlock! (available on Bundle of Holding)
WILD: Dream Dive Training Simulator
XCrawl *
I also own many, many other digital resources from GM-less (Infinium Game Studios' Flex AI) to adventures, bestiaries, generators (adventures, encounters, quests), mini-dungeons, pre-configured books (NPCs, towns, traps), pregenerated characters, quickstarts for different rules systems, and much, much more. I would be interested in using new online resources too, such as Arcanist Press's new line of Ancestries and Cultures (system-agnostic or D&D 5e).
I envision a group of players who want to explore new systems, have patience while we learn them together, are willing to try GM-full or GM-less games, or are willing to try alternating running. Also, I know that not everyone will be into mech combat, steampunk, and other genres, so I expect some variance in the player base per game.
By discussing now, we might have some time to read up on these systems, decide on adventures to run, and much else. Also, we can discuss the particulars of what day we play what at the convention, and I have a 4-day pass. Even if we were just to play a couple of games like this each day, it would enrich the PAX West experience for me and some of you roleplayers immensely!
Thanks for reading, and I hope to see some interest from at least a few of you! Please feel free to list other titles that I have not: I may actually have them or at least be interested in either getting them or playing them too!
So Mythic is still on the chart, and Steve from Alexandria RPG Library is even interested in checking the game out with us if he finds a chance. Because someone signed up, I'll call them first, hopefully before I attend True Dungeon at 2 PM tomorrow to see if an evening time will work for them. Myself, I'm thinking of maybe 5:30 PM to start, but I'll have a better idea after that phone call at which point I'll try to update this thread with a confirmation of time. Please feel free to respond if you want in on the game but would like to suggest a different start time. If you were the Friday sign-up for the game, I'm sorry that I was unable to hold to the evening plan (and I'm actually surprised that I lasted as long as I did, starting to nod off while I showed my friend various classic nes games with which I had passed my youth in the classic console freeplay).
Also, for the five of you who played The Iron Realm with me Friday, thank you! I will try to include a little more detail about the available game materials, but this will be after PAX ends (unless you see me in person since it's easy to answer direct questions), so please check back here if you want to know which materials (all Pay-What-You-Want) are best to start playing. You can also get the necessary information just by listening through the podcast, starting with Chapter 1. This play-by-podcast show is stronger than ever and nearing 100 episodes, so I hope that you find an interest in spending at least a little more time in the game in future, and there is an opportunity to share in our own role-played adventures as a community! If any of you would like to pursue that, I can offer a Discord space to do so, and The Maze Master has a Patreon that would also be an option if you want to join there. Having a shared world is just one more way that the game becomes more immersive beyond roleplaying through the Adventure Writeups since each shared experience helps to shape what becomes more and more a living world.
The Vast in The Dark (D&D 5e) setting game that I mentioned for Saturday will likely get pushed to Sunday, but again no time set yet unless the Mythic players wanted to push on into late Saturday evening after a meal break.
(You can scroll down to my last 9/1 post for more details on the Mythic and The Vast in the Dark games that are coming as soon as I have times worked out for them).
SPECIAL UPDATE, 9/2/21:
I will run The Iron Realm at 1 PM on Friday in the TTRPG area on Floor 6 of WSCC. There are 1d6 slots remaining to receive a free full-color Player Pack. See the previous special update for more details!
SPECIAL UPDATE, 9/1/21, EDITED 9/2/21:
Maze Master Abel Enzo, creator of The Iron Realm Podcast, the "World's First Play-By-Podcast Campaign," was aware that I was going to run Chapter 14 of The Iron Realm as one of my first ventures in the TTRPG space at PAX West this year, and he has edited a special cast, emailed to me as an .mp3 this Wednesday afternoon, just for our PAX West session! Here is what he said about it in his own words that I've italicized:
"For your consideration, I have a custom edited episode of The Iron Realm which may be used by you at Pax should you so wish. I recall that you had an interest in running Chapter 14. What I've done is combined Chapter 14 and 15, removing segments that are not directly related to the Character Eight campaign - but leaving in applicable story elements and Tribal Matters segments. As it turns out, 14 and 15 make a full tale together, clocking in at 35 minutes in all.
"Just an option for you, should you wish to take it. I suspect it might be a little smoother for the convention setting. All players will benefit greatly from your wisdom and experience playing the game. I wish all of you a full and enjoyable delve into The Endless Maze of Stone.
"Of course, let them know that the core books are Pay-What-You-Want at this time, so anyone who enjoys the experience can pick up every eBook desired for kicking off Character Eight Campaigns of their own.
"May Wynlan lead them well, and all my best for PAX!
"Abel Enzo
The Maze Master"
I am so excited by this offering, and I have decided that this will indeed be my first game run at PAX West! I haven't finalized a time yet, so if what you have just read here stokes your interest, please let me know when you are available on FRIDAY. I'm thinking some time in the afternoon might be appropriate to get the biggest table. Sparing some expense (I still spent over $20, but just you wait until you see my own printed materials), I have printed out full-color Character Record packets for rolling up your Character Eight for the first six people who show up to play at the time decided. If you get there, and I'm out of handouts, you can still play, but you may want to bring your own paper to write down your character stats and graph paper for the dungeon crawl mapping. And if you've read this far, I will remind you that the key books are available digitally right now (Pay-What-You-Want) in case you want to ensure you have prints. By the way, there is a FedEx in the convention center (open until 4 PM) from where you can pick them up if you want to order any printed pages online beforehand. This game session (and likely all of my RPG sessions at PAX West) will be played on the sixth floor in the TTRPG space, hopefully somewhere where we can hear well enough to enjoy Abel's expert audio craftsmanship to the fullest.
(You can scroll down to my last 9/1 post for the rest of this update. We now return you to the original post).
ORIGINAL POST:
During recent times of online TTRPG promotion, I have weighed myself down with tons of .PDFs, often massive collections for just about every TTRPG under the sun. While I have recently begun playing solo after having burnt out on Zoom, I am interested in playing with other people in person at this year's PAX West 2021 and am very excited to try out at least some of these new games that I have been picking up! Hopefully we can have a renaissance of TTRPG playing this year at PAX West!
I know that the Westin has hosted plenty of rooms for TTRPGs in the past, but the ways to find out about pick-up games (other than I remember seeing one Shadowrun sign-up sheet) seemed a bit sparse. This thread is an attempt to create interest in a variety of games and systems so that we might see a robust turnout with plenty of games, players, and GMs.
I have a lot of systems that I can run, but not knowing what anyone wants to play, I'm going to be new to just about everything with a few exceptions. I have also acquired books like Word Mill's Game Master Emulator so that we could also play GM-less and GM-full games (with agreed-upon Safety Tools of course).
Is there anyone who is open to playing just about anything? I mean, if just several people are interested, we could always have something to play whenever there is a lull in the convention.
Games that I own and would like to play (especially interested include a * with more *s for more interest) in alphabetical order include (but are not by any means limited to):
3Deep
13th Age (which I just picked up from Humble Bundle) *
Adventure System *
Amazing Adventures!
Arcanis (D&D 5e, preferably for Living Arcanis OP credit) *
Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerors of Hyperborea *
Aventyr (AAW games setting for PF 1e and D&D 5e) *
BYTE **
Calidar
Castles & Crusades (Siege Engine) *
Cha'alt (Crimson Dragon Slayer D20) **
Changeling: The Dreaming
Chivalry & Sorcery
Coriolis: The Third Horizon
Cosmic Odyssey
Cthulhu Invictus (Call of Cthulhu 7e) *
Dark Streets & Darker Secrets
Defiant
Delve Second Edition *
DeScriptors
Doctor Who
Dragon Age RPG *
Dragonlance (D&D 3.5e)
Dungeon Crawl Classics (3.5e) **
Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC)
Eclipse Phase
Eldritch Century *
Encounter Critical
Enoch's Wake **
Eryphir (WizCo Games setting for D&D 5e)
Exalted Vales (D&D 5e)
Fantasy AGE
Fate (which I just picked up from Bundle of Holding with 50 world settings) **
Fate of The Norns
Fateforge *
Fellowship (Dungeon World) **
Fifth Edition Fantasy (D&D 5e)
Five Torches Deep
Forbidden Lands
Fragged (Empire / Aeternum / Kingdom / Seas, all of which are still available on Bundle of Holding)
Hypercorps 2099 (Legendary Games setting for PF 1e)
Index Card RPG **
Invisible Sun *
Ironsworn
KULT
Lamentations of the Flame Princess *
Lankhmar (DCC)
Legendary Planet (Legendary Games setting for PF 1e)
Lone Wolf
Meatlandia **
Midgard (Kobold Press setting for PF 1e and D&D 5e) **
Morningstar
Mutant Crawl Classics
Mythras
NeoExodus
Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland (B/X) ***
Obsidian Apocalypse
Odysseys & Overlords
Overlight
Pathfinder 1e and 2e (not necessarily for Society Organized Play credit)
Power of 10 *
Ptolus (3.5e)
Realms of Rothaen (Dungeon World) **
Rifts
Scarred Lands (D&D 5e)
Shadow of the Demon Lord *
Shadowdark *
Shadowrun 5e
Shadows of Esteren *
Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells *
Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells *
Spelljammer (AD&D) *
Spire
Starfinder (Society OP or not)
Starjammer
Stars Without Number
Swords & Wizardry (Complete / Light / Continual Light) *
Symbaroum
Synthicide
The Dying Earth
The Gaean Reach
The Iron Realm **
The King in Yellow
The Lost Lands (Frog God Games setting for PF 1e, Swords & Wizardry, D&D 5e) *
The Nameless Realms (Art of The Genre setting for D&D 5e)
The Strange (Cypher System)
The Vast in The Dark (system agnostic) **
They Came From Beneath The Sea! **
Third Dawn (Dreamscarred Press setting for PF1e)
Through The Breach
TimeWatch
Traveller (Mongoose 2e ruleset) *
Troika! **
Umerica (DCC) *
Urban Shadows
Warhammer 1e or 2e
Warlock! (available on Bundle of Holding)
WILD: Dream Dive Training Simulator
XCrawl *
I also own many, many other digital resources from GM-less (Infinium Game Studios' Flex AI) to adventures, bestiaries, generators (adventures, encounters, quests), mini-dungeons, pre-configured books (NPCs, towns, traps), pregenerated characters, quickstarts for different rules systems, and much, much more. I would be interested in using new online resources too, such as Arcanist Press's new line of Ancestries and Cultures (system-agnostic or D&D 5e).
I envision a group of players who want to explore new systems, have patience while we learn them together, are willing to try GM-full or GM-less games, or are willing to try alternating running. Also, I know that not everyone will be into mech combat, steampunk, and other genres, so I expect some variance in the player base per game.
By discussing now, we might have some time to read up on these systems, decide on adventures to run, and much else. Also, we can discuss the particulars of what day we play what at the convention, and I have a 4-day pass. Even if we were just to play a couple of games like this each day, it would enrich the PAX West experience for me and some of you roleplayers immensely!
Thanks for reading, and I hope to see some interest from at least a few of you! Please feel free to list other titles that I have not: I may actually have them or at least be interested in either getting them or playing them too!
Taraka_Dark on
+1
Posts
Just a nerd into anything Nintendo, anime, MCU, Star Wars, and board games/card games.
Also a computer scientist and a streamer.
It's encouraging to already see so many with some interest in this list!
Since my earlier post, I am ordering a Google Pixelbook Go so that I might have more digital resources in a more manageable format than just on a mobile device. Because DriveThruRPG had a "Christmas in July" sale through this morning, I went back over to Word Mill and picked up a lot more of the Mythic toolset, including the original game and the first six volumes of the monthly magazine. Of especial interest in issue 6 is an article entitled "Use Mythic to Learn A New RPG," which allows one to layer on crunch over multiple sessions. I think that I may end up using it as a way to get us into any games with a crunchier side. I find it to be a thoughtful way to tackle some of these hefty rules tomes. (Granted, I would have to get through reading the Mythic rules in order for us to try this).
This is just my latest idea. My previous one was to plan several adventures in different rules systems, but that one reduces group flexibility a little. It does allow for certain systems to get played. And for character sheets to be printed ahead of time. Or maybe we switch to this plan as we have a better feel for who is going to be where when.
Another option would be for each player to run a game system of choice, and if we are using the emulator for any, then it's more of just a system preference for each player to get to choose at least one adventure that they want to play.
There are risks at both ends of the spectrum: by embracing the whole list, we could be paralyzed by choices. On the other hand, someone who has played D&D might opt for that, and then we just end up playing a system that we may all know. I at least picked several 5e settings with which no one may be familiar. For mainstream systems like D&D 5e and PF 1e, I do have a bazillion adventures that I could run.
There are also the options of quickstarts for many new games. On Kickstarter yesterday, for example, I discovered that pretty much the full rules for Heroes of Tara are available in a draft link within that project. Likewise, I have seen many recent Kickstarters that offer a link to a demo of the game (with incomplete rules) so that a system can get tried out. I have the demo rules for Bloodsword (D&D 5e).
Anyway, lots of food for thought! I know that everyone will have a busy schedule with PAX too, so we can establish a "base" in wherever the RPGs are being played or a sign-up paper there or something as the days progress so that we know when we might be there to play. While it could be as granular as a way to contact each other, I elect that we just use this forum thread here and discuss those particulars as we begin meeting up at the con.
There is also usually a pre-PAX board games night at the Sheraton where we could try to at least get a chance to play and talk, but I'm not sure what the guidelines are going to be for any of the peripheral events yet.
Note: For the following ideas, please consider any PAX policies. I have elaborated where there may not be policy, and please use your best judgment or ask here on the forum or an Enforcer if necessary. If anyone sees anything here in the following list that may be a violation of policy, please point me to the proper part of the code, so that I can review and edit.
- Crafting props: This is also an inclusivity category for people who like to focus on other things while playing, provided that they can give reasonable attention to the game as well. I've conceived the idea of allowing for the construction of crafting props during sessions, so long as there is not too much distraction at the table. What kind of props? Well, I was thinking large, mobile things to decorate our space like cardboard trees, but I'll leave it to your imagination. Please do not bring anything water-based as that may be against building code (I'm going off of what the downtown Seattle library has allowed for arts classes): things that should be fine include gluestick, cardboard, crayons. Please bring whatever is necessary, and it will be expected that you clean up all of your scraps and materials and are responsible for your materials. It could be that RPG PAX staff will have a way to accommodate your crafted creations between days. By making it assemblable, you can take it with you at the end of the convention. It is expected that nothing is left in the room if RPG PAX staff do not have a way to accommodate it, and if you make it mobile, there is no reason why you couldn't bring it back each day.
- Music/sound effects for our game: I do have Syrinscape and additional ambient sound files. I plan to play these during our sessions at a reasonable volume that does not extend to others beyond our table. Also, if you are sensitive to certain sounds, please message me. I have not listened to every last sound file I am using, but all have been designed with tabletop roleplaying in mind (village ambience, jungle noises, and so on). In between playing (e.g. during character creation), I will stream mood music via my Spotify subscription account. Music like symphonic or power metal with fantasy themese, dungeon synth and so on. Again, if you have any sensitivities around musical instruments, please let me know, and this may be harder to accommodate if I am not very familiar with what is being played.
- Miniatures: I will have a wet erase tactical map for us to use miniatures. You may bring your own miniatures to represent characters, but painting would not be allowed, per the wet liquids rule. I am hoping that RPG PAX staff will have a place to accomodate miniatures painting. Please ask for this in a separate thread if it is important to you to be able to paint your miniatures that you pick up in the Expo Hall while you are at PAX, or if there is an admin reading over this thread, they can also choose to respond about whether there is a place to do stuff like that. If there isn't, I can potentially accommodate off the convention site, but this will require additional consideration based on demand because I want to try to remain at the convention where all of the play will be.
- If you plan on GMing and wish to allow for use of your battlemats or books or so on during your games that I'm hosting at my reserved table, please feel free to offer. It's great to have more materials! I do plan on bringing some hardback books each day for additional flavor, depending on the games that I will be running.
To make this thread more digestible, I'm only going to update the header post with things like this post if this thread gets very long and confusing.In light of all of the COVID precautions, please bring your own paper, pencils, dice, ways to sanitize your materials that are shared, and so on. If I am providing fillable character sheets, I will try to handle them as little as possible or on a certain side or something. Everyone will be in charge of handling their own materials as much as possible. For example, if someone is in need of dice, it is up to the party who loans the dice during a session whether they want to sanitize them afterward.
I have an idea for at least one session that I want to run for the play-by-podcast game, Abel Enzo's The Iron Realm. I hope to print character sheets, Map Master's paper, and so on for this session. This will be a special shorter game and will likely be one of the shortest that I run. It's to help us get acquainted with the space and each other as players and requires almost no prep and knowledge of the rules. Since this game is play-by-podcast, it will be dependent on me being able to stream the podcast at a level that everyone can hear. Because it is also rated Mature Audiences by the podcaster, we will also have to accommodate for that as feasible. Nothing has jumped out at me as being too risque from the twelve chapters that I've heard, but again, this will be a chapter that I haven't heard so that we can all play it together for the first time. For anyone who is interested in trying out this game ahead of time, please PM me, and I can point you to the available materials, which can actually be obtained for free. There is no requirement that you have heard the previous chapters in order to be able to fully enjoy the one that I have in mind, but you should be able to play from the beginning afterward without too many spoilers of note. After this special session, I am going to explain how you can apply the Character Eight rules of this game to be able to play in any prerecorded setting, whether that be a TV show, film, book. I will also extrapolate another system that can build on this concept, namely Reimagined: Fanfic Roleplaying Game by Katarzyna Kuczyńska.
If there are games that you would like to run at my table or are interested in having us run through the GM-less/GM-full category, please post here, so that we can consider picking up our own copies of things, such as player options. For the running of everyone's games at my table, I will try to make a schedule that accommodates everyone's availability and days, but please understand that this is loosey-goosey until the final schedule is printed. More than likely, I will try to establish the same availability to run every day for myself so as to set some stability for the player base of my table. For myself, I do plan on attending every day and have a pass for every day. Oh, yeah, before I forget, if we decide to revisit a setting with the same characters because we all elect to (hey, it could happen), I am putting out up front that we will apply a subset of West Marches rules, namely that, if someone doesn't show for a follow-up session, the characters opt to desert them somewhere (and they'll have to solo their way out of that later). If you aren't familiar with West Marches, please search online, and if you still can't find anything, please PM me, and I will point you to the original articles from the person who conceived of them (or so I think).
Please note that, if I or other players are playing in your game at my table, then I hope that you will play in the games that we are running, where possible. This should ensure that everyone finishes PAX feeling like they got to play some of their own games that they were hoping to play.
Also, the amount of time that I am setting for roleplaying may be limited by other events, but I am hoping to make at least a block of four hours available each day, which should be enough to accommodate one game. If I plan on more than one block, we will likely break at the three hour mark for food, so the two back-to-back blocks would likely have a 1-2 hour break between them. Because of other physical needs that we all may have, we will likely take a break of 5-10 minutes every hour. Please bring these to my attention if I overlook them because I feel that they are good to keep our circulation going!
If we have time at the end of a session, I may also elect to run a shorter game then if everyone is in agreement, such as something out of Level 1 by 9th Level Games that was available during Free RPG Day last fall.
If we play one of my games, and you want to play another session on another day with book in hand, you can order printed books from a local FedEx, but I will tell you that this can be exorbitant in price. I am very antipiracy and only condone printing materials that you own in digital format where allowed. For example, I have printed The Iron Realm strategy guides as needed because they include fillable pages, and I have gotten permission from Abel Enzo to do so. They are very expensive through FedEx Office Print Online, upward of $30, but you will see how swank you can make copies like my spiralbound ones with the translucent vinyl covers, and you may want to do this for materials of your own where DriveThruRPG does not have a printable option. For The Iron Realm books, there is not even an option on DTRPG to print the PDF pages in color!
Now that True Dungeon is happening, it might be good to try to get in on one of those events as a group too. The pack that plays together... True Dungeon is happening through Sunday, every twelve minutes between 10 AM and 8 PM, so I don't think that we would be wanting for a time slot for a group of us to play through! I have run the idea past a local friend of mine who is also attending for the four days to see if he is particular about a time slot. Because there are so many time slots, I don't think that we're going to have to worry about booking one ahead of the convention like last time (all slots had been sold out by PAX West Day One in 2019).
We settled on the Saturday 9/4 time slot at 2 PM for our True Dungeon playthrough of Felurian's Feast. There are still four slots left if you all want to join for that, @Nfan10039 , @ambrousis , @Timoon , and @davobah !
Just a nerd into anything Nintendo, anime, MCU, Star Wars, and board games/card games.
Also a computer scientist and a streamer.
@HeyJoe , yeah, your promo is welcome here! I have visited the Alexandria RPG Library at PAX West in 2019, and if we use my game emulator tools, or if you have player's guides and what-have-you of any of those myriad games that I list, then only time will prevent us from living out infinite lifetimes in our games!
I know that you guys had a lot of stuff there last time, and it's great to know that you'll be back this time! I forgot that you had tables set up for gaming in there too, and it might be a "best place" to play because of that since players can peruse the stacks while we're ramping up or even while we're taking an extended food break! It probably depends on what we're playing and whether I'm streaming sound effects, music and whatnot.
In any case, I look forward to visiting the Alexandria RPG Library again with new eyes! The last time I was in there, I was only familiar with a handful of RPG games, so there wasn't the draw for me then that there will be this time!
I'm not familiar with 4-Eyed Horsemen, but I do like the nerdcore song "The Link" by YTCracker, featuring a dungeon music loop from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. I just wasn't able to locate any other dope nerdcore songs like that last I had my ears open for those bands, but all I was hearing locally was Death*Star, and his songs aren't bad, but they just don't hit me the way that "The Link" does. Maybe I'll listen to the 4-Eyed Horsemen on Spotify, hear what I think, and let you know when we meet up for True Dungeon, if not before over the table at another game.
Thanks for joining our group for "Felurian's Feast"! I have played in the free True Dungeon demo back in 2019 at PAX West (that was all that was available by the time the convention started, when I saw it there and was interested in trying it), and I thought that the free demo was worth it enough to plunk down the money for the full experience this time around! I'm not too keen on the Treasure Tokens, but I do want to try to find the one that I earned in the demo last time. Hopefully, I'll figure out where I stashed it! I think that it gives me some kind of perk when I play a Thief, if I remember right.
First, I think it would be beneficial that everyone has access to Discord on either a mobile device, netbook, or laptop. From a channel on my Discord server, this allows me to quickly send you everything from links to resources to pictures of NPCs during our sessions. It can even act as a way to preserve our experiences roleplaying. If you don't know how to use Discord and are okay with using it, then I can answer some questions on getting it set up on your smart device. If you don't want to be burdened by tech, I hear you too! We'll just make do for you, just as players did long before anyone was toting around a mobile device.
Next, I can imagine that there may be some overlap in our group with people who would also like to play in tabletop games besides RPGs, and I would like to accommodate that (so that I can play too)! I will likely make some forays to the spaces where the tabletop games are played, and I can bring some titles along with me, depending on interest, games as varied as The Valley of The Dead King in the HEXplore It series, Betrayal: Legacy, One Deck Dungeon, Arkham Horror (board game or LCG), and many, many other board or card games. I won't list them here since this thread is about our upcoming RPG times, and the other types of games are more of a secondary focus if we have had our levels drained by wights.
Okay, the biggest item to mention here is food. I have the misfortune of suffering from hypoglycemia and need to eat about every three hours. While this might be bane to RPG sessions, I think that we'll be putting in enough hours in some of our games that it might be good to get up, go outside to an eatery, and eat there. We can certainly discuss upcoming games and plans over food if we want, so it's not really lost time. I have some very specific places in mind, probably none of them of which you are aware unless you live locally, that are not going to be swamped with convention goers. I won't list what they are here and will reveal them when it's time for food, but I have four in mind, and I will describe them by what they are and have now:
- Breakfast is served all day at the first option. It closes in the late afternoon. Prices are reasonable. The food takes a while to get, but the person making everything is very friendly.
- There are two healthy, tasty lunchtime options (and by lunch I mean after the other place closes or as an alternative). Both can be expensive. One closes at 6 PM and the other at 8 PM. There should be plenty of vegan options at both.
- The final place is for when we're winding down. Maybe we're already done playing for the night. This eatery is open until 2 AM and serves a wide selection of alcoholic drinks, but I believe it allows for people who are under drinking age to sit in a particular area of the establishment. We can certainly call to make sure. If I were to tell you what their type of food was, I might be giving it away, and even by me not revealing it here, you can probably guess what sort of place is open that late!
If everyone gets tired of these places, I can probably find us some others. I am picking these based on their proximity to the convention center along with their variety (with the exception of that last eatery), also keeping in mind places that aren't going to be swamped with long wait times.Also, how is your schedule looking now?
As for myself, there aren't a whole lot of events that I feel like I have to attend. I have my eyes on the opening Storytime, the Mega64 panel mid-Saturday evening, and possibly the Sunday night concert. I do have one friend who doesn't plan on playing any RPGs with me who wants to play other types of tabletop games, so I'll have to make sure I give myself some time to do that with him. I do have some other friends attending, so hopefully they will join me or us for some RPG goodness!
Maze Master Abel Enzo, creator of The Iron Realm Podcast, the "World's First Play-By-Podcast Campaign," was aware that I was going to run Chapter 14 of The Iron Realm as one of my first ventures in the TTRPG space at PAX West this year, and he has edited a special cast, emailed to me as an .mp3 this afternoon, just for our PAX West session! Here is what he said about it in his own words that I've italicized:
"For your consideration, I have a custom edited episode of The Iron Realm which may be used by you at Pax should you so wish. I recall that you had an interest in running Chapter 14. What I've done is combined Chapter 14 and 15, removing segments that are not directly related to the Character Eight campaign - but leaving in applicable story elements and Tribal Matters segments. As it turns out, 14 and 15 make a full tale together, clocking in at 35 minutes in all.
"Just an option for you, should you wish to take it. I suspect it might be a little smoother for the convention setting. All players will benefit greatly from your wisdom and experience playing the game. I wish all of you a full and enjoyable delve into The Endless Maze of Stone.
"Of course, let them know that the core books are Pay-What-You-Want at this time, so anyone who enjoys the experience can pick up every eBook desired for kicking off Character Eight Campaigns of their own.
"May Wynlan lead them well, and all my best for PAX!
"Abel Enzo
The Maze Master"
I am so excited by this offering, and I have decided that this will indeed be my first game run at PAX West! I haven't finalized a time yet, so if what you have just read here stokes your interest, please let me know when you are available on FRIDAY. I'm thinking some time in the afternoon might be appropriate to get the biggest table. Sparing some expense (I still spent over $20, but just you wait until you see my own printed materials), I have printed out full-color Character Record packets for rolling up your Character Eight for the first six people who show up to play at the time decided. If you get there, and I'm out of handouts, you can still play, but you may want to bring your own paper to write down your character stats and graph paper for the dungeon crawl mapping. And if you've read this far, I will remind you that the key books are available digitally right now (Pay-What-You-Want) in case you want to ensure you have prints. By the way, there is a FedEx in the convention center (open until 4 PM) from where you can pick them up if you want to order any printed pages online beforehand. This game session (and likely all of my RPG sessions at PAX West) will be played on the sixth floor in the TTRPG space, hopefully somewhere where we can hear well enough to enjoy Abel's expert audio craftsmanship to the fullest.
So what else do I hope to run afterward? Well, for possibly in the early evening, I printed 7 GM-full Mythic packets. This will be my first time playing Mythic, so it may very well be GM-less. But that's okay because Word Mill's system is designed to allow you to pick up any setting and play without a GM using its rules (and I did read the core rulebook over in the past couple weeks). Even better, you can plug in anything with little effort to convert characters between systems. (So you could, for example, convert a character from PF 1e to Mythic to D&D 5e, and your biggest challenge would be to find parallels for the crunchy aspects of spells and so on.) I chose to play this second because, not only will we be able to play in any world setting that we decide on, but we can continue to use the Game Master Emulator from it (using its modular toolset) to run any other systems without a GM. During this Mythic game, I also hope to unveil Parts Per Million's Cut Up Solo tools to inform those NPCs that aren't run by the missing GM with language that actually may be appropriate to their world settings.
Although I can only carry so much, I do hope to bring along a random assortment of books that will help color our Mythic game. The game is designed to allow you to use any sourcebook, even if you don't have the core rules, to flavor your game, so if you have some sourcebook floating around that you haven't even cracked open yet, this may be a great game in which to use it!
If we do get through both of these with time remaining, I do have something more traditional (well, OSR) that we might play the first evening, which I can Referee (that's a second hint).
Finally as a Saturday preview, I've printed out seven character handouts for the 2021 Kickstarter Zine Quest game, Charlie Ferguson-Avery's The Vast in The Dark, which we can run as D&D 5e with its optional horror element, "The Harrowing." The designer designed this setting to "quickly generate massive amounts of area to explore with little or no setup." If you followed this project's progress, then you also know that it comes with its own immersive soundtrack, which I'll definitely be streaming for us while we play. During this segment, if we haven't used it yet, I will introduce Infinium Game Studio's FlexAI, which allows one to run encounters without a GM. Did you know that J. Evans Payne, the FlexAI creator, also has statblocks allowing one to scale all of the SRD creatures so that you can attempt to play any adventure at any level, and that he has released these books for multiple systems? I'm not sure if we'll worry about that (I have a bazillion adventures of every level to run), but still I hope to help make this one of the most memorable conventions that you have attended in person in which you play RPGs in 2021!
Okay, that's it for now. Don't forget to post what time works best for Friday's Iron Realm game because that's Abel's custom edit version that you're not going to hear anywhere else!
Oh and, before I forget, I will also provide a sign-up sheet for my later games at the admin table. They likely aren't going to be listed by title or system. It will be more like a list of your names and availabilities. You may even influence the titles by responding to my initial post about what games in which you may have interest from my original post. Just please keep in mind that I will also be planning on some tabletop games with my friend who doesn't want to play RPGs, and I can only do so much reading, so if you want to put some games on the docket for my players (including me), I'm not going to object so long as you stick around for some of our games. That's right, I've even asked some of my potential players that I know to run games, and I'm so hoping that the one or two of them will bring it! (Now if I can just find the time to read Neon Lords of The Toxic Wasteland rulez built on B/X as well as find my MasterBook to go with my MasterDeck, then I should be all set for a second day after True Dungeon)! Oh, and DriveThruRPG has a September Starter Sale going on if you can't find something in the Alexandria RPG Library to run (I can tell you from its previous incarnation, however, that Alexandria RPG library packs a lot into a little space!)
Time to go pool my energy reserves!
Just a nerd into anything Nintendo, anime, MCU, Star Wars, and board games/card games.
Also a computer scientist and a streamer.
@Nfan10039 , that's fine about True Dungeon. They may offer free demos like 2019, so if you change your mind, that may be an option. In 2019, True Dungeon sold out before PAX even started, so that was the only option! Btw, I saw your post about trying to play at the Sheraton tonight. If I get over to pick up my vax wristband at Will Call before they close at 8 PM, I'll swing by to at least say hi and maybe try to get in a game. I was interested in Dominions, but it sounds like you have your hands full with SKDD and Weiss Schwarz. I don't know anything about any of these titles, including Dominions! Hopefully I'll make it over there to check out whatever you have at hand!
I'll see you at True Dungeon at 2 PM tomorrow!
So Mythic is still on the chart, and Steve from Alexandria RPG Library is even interested in checking the game out with us if he finds a chance. Because someone signed up, I'll call them first, hopefully before I attend True Dungeon at 2 PM tomorrow to see if an evening time will work for them. Myself, I'm thinking of maybe 5:30 PM to start, but I'll have a better idea after that phone call at which point I'll try to update this thread with a confirmation of time. Please feel free to respond if you want in on the game but would like to suggest a different start time. If you were the Friday sign-up for the game, I'm sorry that I was unable to hold to the evening plan (and I'm actually surprised that I lasted as long as I did, starting to nod off while I showed my friend various classic nes games with which I had passed my youth in the classic console freeplay).
Also, for the five of you who played The Iron Realm with me Friday, thank you! I will try to include a little more detail about the available game materials, but this will be after PAX ends (unless you see me in person since it's easy to answer direct questions), so please check back here if you want to know which materials (all Pay-What-You-Want) are best to start playing. You can also get the necessary information just by listening through the podcast, starting with Chapter 1. This play-by-podcast show is stronger than ever and nearing 100 episodes, so I hope that you find an interest in spending at least a little more time in the game in future, and there is an opportunity to share in our own role-played adventures as a community! If any of you would like to pursue that, I can offer a Discord space to do so, and The Maze Master has a Patreon that would also be an option if you want to join there. Having a shared world is just one more way that the game becomes more immersive beyond roleplaying through the Adventure Writeups since each shared experience helps to shape what becomes more and more a living world.
The Vast in The Dark (D&D 5e) setting game that I mentioned for Saturday will likely get pushed to Sunday, but again no time set yet unless the Mythic players wanted to push on into late Saturday evening after a meal break.
As prophesied, here are some recommended materials to start playing The Iron Realm, all available from DriveThruRPG as Pay-What-You-Want books. You may need to have your adult filters off to see some of these: