Get yerselves to OwlCon XXX!

We’ll be there at Rice University in Houston in person, gaming, talking dungeon-making, and even running a few games this year: High Water Marks andKeepsakes (see below).

We had a great time last year, playing a bunch of 4e DnD, Advanced Civ, Rail Baron, and immersive BattleTech in the pods, and vowed to return.  And so we will.  Look for us at these locations.  We’ll also likely tweet our locations @clawclawbite (also at http://twitter.com/clawclawbite).

Register here and attend as well, and you too will have fun the weekend of Jan 28-30, 2011.

High Water Marks 4 – 6 players
Sun1000 (6) Intermediate
Your 5th-level party starts off in a downtrodden village where it has rained a full fortnight. Among the muck, the fistfights and verbal ill-will broken out between the denizens hints at problems that run deeper than the water. With all the enemies afoot, you will soon learn that a more sinister plot faces the village from higher ground.GM – Stephen Hilderbrand
Keepsakes 4 – 6 players
Sun1500 (5) Intermediate
You and your 5th-level party are traveling on a road along the southern route in a expansive moor, a journey not without considerable challenges. While paying a toll under the shadow of a keep among rocky crags, it is recommended that you seek accommodations within, as a chilly rain has begun to fall, and the eerie glow of the overcast night is about to follow suit.GM – Stephen Hilderbrand

 


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MilleniumCon 13 & Pathfinder

We rolled up to Round Rock last weekend to play some D&D, and ended up playing Pathfinder all weekend.

For those who don’t know, MilleniumCon is a yearly convention put on by Lone Star Historical Miniatures and is primarily focused on, as their name implies, historical miniature wargames. It’s pretty much the closest convention to us here in Austin, so we usually make it. They generously provide space for the RPGA folks, and this year they also had Pathfinder Organized Play set up in one of the four-table conference rooms.

Originally Dan and I had intended to get in some XP for our 4e RPGA characters. I was looking forward to honing my tactics with my elven barbarian Sithadel, specifically figuring out how to play him without getting him killed. He tends to die once per convention – that’s what I get for making a dex-based barbarian I guess. I like to play unconventional characters.

That all got derailed when I took the Pathfinder core book to work. Dan picked them up when they came out however long ago but I had only read the alpha version they put out online when Pathfinder was first announced. At any rate, I decided to roll up a character just for grins. I came up with Kes, a 1st level wizard specialized in abjuration and prohibited from casting evocation and necromancy. At the end of the process I was really curious to see how this character played, and how Pathfinder played.

So when we got to MilleniumCon we went ahead and jumped in on a Pathfinder game and played. It reminded me a bit of the old RPGA, with the adventure record sheets given out at the end of each session. I liked how some of the organized play elements were structured. For example, at the end of each adventure you get a list of magic items you can buy with the gold you’ve accumulated. By the end of four adventures we had a decently broad list to pick from. Overall it seems nicely structured to keep the characters balanced and play fun.

So, we played two slots of Pathfinder on Friday night, and two more slots on Saturday. At the end of it all I have to say that I enjoyed playing Pathfinder quite a bit. Of course I think the changes to skills in PF are great moves: I’ve hated Hide vs Spot and Move Silently vs Listen since the first time I had to roll them both when 3e first came out. The changes to the classes are great, too. My 1st level wizard was able to contribute to the combat on every round because now 0th level spells aren’t used up when you cast them, so I could throw an acid splash or cast daze every round. The changes to concentration and spell casting times also pleased me – I’ve always thought that spellcasters had it too easy in melee. Now you really have to think twice about where you put your wizard. The changes to how poison work also impressed me.

There were a few downsides, or course. Over and over again I had to hear from the other players how much more they liked Pathfinder then 4th edition D&D. I play 4e, 3.5e, and a little Pathfinder in one game, and I don’t like the “us vs them” these conversations usually take, so I always get turned off when the topic comes up. And of course the Pathfinder fans trotted out the same old saw about how confusing grapple was in 3e. I have always disagreed – 3e grapple wasn’t a blocker for us, and as far as I can tell it’s pretty similar in Pathfinder.

But the real downside for me was all the minmaxing. Just like in the bad old days of ultimate 3.5 cheese some of the players were rolling with some uber powerful summoner class that they couldn’t stop talking about. I was lucky enough to not actually have to play with the roll-players, but it reminded me of how much less 4e games seem to breed uber-powergamers. And I was reminded once again how much I disliked that.

But that was really minor for me and was totally overshadowed by how much fun I had and by how well-organized the mustering and gaming was. Kudos to the Pathfinder Organized Play folks. Next year I’ll definitely be back for more.


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GenCon 2010

I’m just now getting a chance to write about the great time I had at GenCon this year, but I wanted to make sure y’all saw the pictures I got of all the great games, costumes, and miniatures I got.  So welcome to Unicorn Rampant’s virtual walking tour of GenCon 2010!

Games and Minis

In the “big tables” category, I saw a giant version of Ticket to Ride that looked like a lot of fun.  Also present but not pictured were giant Settlers of Catan and a few other giant versions of some great board games.

Geek Chic had their beautiful gaming tables in evidence as well.  This year they’ve branched out some and have many styles of hand-made, beautifully finished game tables, end tables, coffee tables, all with lots of neat hidden compartments, removable tops, drink holders, die cubbies, and such.
I love Babba Yaga, and these guys had put together a fun 3′ x 3′ piece of terraced terrain for her hut to live on.
Close up of the chicken-legged hut itself.
Speaking of terrain, if you want to make assloads of walls and caverns for cheap, this is for you.  Molds that you pour your own resin into and then paint the resulting walls yourself.  Available in castle flavor, gothic cathedral flavor…
…and of course Egyptian flavor.
I was really impressed by the level of detail, and the multiple levels of these paper playscapes.  Also, super-affordable compared to any of the resin pieces.
Arr, that be a fine-lookin’ vessel, ripe for the plundering!  And a bargain at twice the price!
In terms of high-quality finished work, these guys always stand out head and shoulders above everyone else.  Of course you get what you pay for in this case.  This Caribbean Spanish settlement actually gave me flashbacks to my trip to San Juan in Puerto Rico.
And of course the miniatures.  First of all, you need a bunch of dragons.
No.  More dragons.
One of Reaper’s display cases.  I love those guy’s work.
Close up of a Remorahaz.
Frost giants!  We got your frost giants!
Scorpion-man-things and dinosaurs.
A good specimen of a Type 6 demon.
Demons, djinn and dastardly dark steps.
And of course a plague rat-a-pult?
I love digging around for old gaming books, particularly anything from the late 70’s and early 80’s when I first started gaming.  I found some real gems, like this.  Who doesn’t love a game of hot man-to-man combat?
My assembled loot from the Exhibitor’s hall; the 1980 D&D red box, just like the one I bought in the toy store at 7 years old, a couple of AD&D adventures from the same era, and a couple of vinyl transfers from Berserk.

Costumes

One of the highlights of GenCon for me is always all the great costumes everyone puts together.  Most are hand-made.
Satyr girls always make me horny (pun intended – sorry).
Not sure if these girls were officially supporting the new DC comics game that just came out, but I really liked the costumes either way.
Steampunk, Victorian styles, corsets and bustiers continued to be popular costume themes this year.  I also saw a lot of savage or primitive costumes this year, a newer trend.
Nice brass jetpack!
A couple of Paizo’s iconic characters made an appearance at their booth.
A picture of me enjoying the costumes.  That’s my renfaire garb, minus the cowl.
Some fun and overtly sexy costumes – I particularly like the caution tape miniskirt.  Caution indeed!  In seriousness, I really like the atmosphere of acceptance at GenCon when folks want to let their freak flag fly.  Last year there were kids going around with “gay gamer” shirts, and this year there was a fair amount of cosplay / anime / genderqueer / raver costuming going on.
This lady put together an excellent Goblin King costume, a’la David Bowie in Labyrinth.  I tried to take several pictures of her costume, but I think she cast blur on my camera.
The blur spell took a while to wear off my camera.
Another savage-looking outfit from this pink-haired elven sorceress or shaman.
The world’s tallest leprechaun.

Games

And of course, I played a lot of games at GenCon this year.  In years past I had made a point of trying to promote Unicorn Rampant, either by meeting people in the industry that we have partnerships with, like Paizo and RPGnow, or by running games.  Of course that meant I was either exhausted or missed out on having fun playing myself.  This year I tried to maximize the fun by playing as much as I wanted to, and giving myself breathers between games if I wanted.  As a result, I had the most fun this year that I’ve had a GenCon.

I played some great RPGA games – the Ravens of Winter’s Mourning game was lots of good investigative fun, and the Curse of the Gray Hag was simply awesome.  Here are a few pics from the Curse of the Gray Hag game.

Here we’re trying to get away from the shambling mounds and into the Hag’s tower, since I had convinced her that we were there to help free her.  I played the eladrin priestess of Loth that is in the rear of the party there.
Some of the unfortunate other players in the Curse game.  Notice the ‘cursed’ status markers on half the party?  That meant they took 20 damage or lost their highest level spell every time they attacked the hag or her defenders.
The actual battle against the Hag, a solo monster, and her flesh golem, an elite monster.  With half the party unable to effectively attack, this ended up being too tough of a fight for us, and some of the players got frustrated and called it quits when we hit the end of the time slot.  Since my character had already accomplished her objective of getting some deadly nightshade from the surrounding fey-swamps, she had no problem bailing on the fight at that point.  In one of my prouder moments, I took no damage at all in the entire adventure, and managed to parley past two of the combat encounters.  Note my strategic position hiding on the stairs.
Then, of course, there was the Tower of Gygax.  This event has become the highlight of the con for me.  I even got a chance to run the Tower for a bit late Saturday night.  Now with a Facebook group, even!  Check it out for even more pics and memories from the Tower: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=145288208818624
I feel like this character sheet I found illustrates the excitement that the tower created.
Here’s Steve, another of Unicorn Rampant’s writers, running a room he contributed to the Tower of Gygax.  We had lots of girls playing in the Tower, which is always nice to see.  In fact, it seemed like more women come to GenCon to play every year.
The chamber that Steve ran: a chasm, rope bridges, sinkholes in the floor, rushing torrents, and an enormous air elemental.
The master of the Tower: Save Versus Death and Kobold Quarterly’s Scott A. Muarry running The Tomb of Horrors for the Tower players Saturday night.  I was thrilled to survive a few rooms delving into the Tomb.
One of the Tower’s deadly rooms: the Arcane Monolith.  I won’t ruin the details, but I’m stealing parts of this for my home game.
Towards the wee hours, Scott decided to throw out the books and wing it off the cuff.  Hilarity and death ensued.
Finally, in the wee hours of the night, I stepped in to run a few rooms in the Tower.  This is me explaining how the chest they just opened is full of poisonous vipers that are now biting them.
Here I am describing how the lever that they just pulled has sent half the party to their deaths at the bottom of a 100 foot pit.
Finally, once they removed the treasure from one of the tests, a fusillade of darts strikes those nearby.  The dwarf grabbing the box survived and got away with a magic ring of protection.  Those who dare win!
Of course, this was just a fraction of the gaming going on, but with 20,000 gamers gathered and playing, there’s no way I could see everything.  It was awesome.
One of the many rooms full of gamers.
Until next year, thanks for reading, and happy gaming!
-Adam A. Thompson
Unicorn Rampant

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OwlCon XXIX Recap

It’s not often enough that we’re able to get out of our regularly scheduled lives and game for a few days straight. But it was time!

Last weekend, we attended OwlCon at Rice University, a handsome campus smack in the middle of Houston. Since we could stay at a hotel just a few blocks away, we could walk to the con itself, which this time of the year is brisk but enjoyable.

Adam spent the weekend at the RPGA tables, which were well-run, complete with an organizer taking orders for food, which was then delivered at your table so you could keep gaming. Very enabling of our addictions…

And very well run. Their adventures take part in the Forgotten Realms, which allows players to come in knowing much of the world, helping to paint the scene for easier role playing. I have to admit I don’t know enough about FR, so I’ll need to pick up a book and do some background reading before my next con. That way I’ll know where Aldric is from and where he’s been. Seems like harmless enough homework…

I spent Friday and Sunday at the RPGA tables playing the same adventures, and Saturday I played board games. It’s hard to find the groups to play Advanced Civ and Rail Baron since people are rightfully daunted by these classic Avalon Hill titles and their many complex dynamics. But at my last two cons, I’ve seen these listed, and simply had to play. When it all shook down, as Asia I came in second in Civ (Egypt taught us all a lesson in economics) and as Minneapolis-based “white player” came in third in Rail Baron (first time playing; I’m clearly not a optimal capitalist).

We learned on Saturday night (in the last game of the night) that Battletech pods are fun as hell! Providing a hands-on ‘Mech pilot experience, they confounded me, but Adam racked up tons of points. I did have fun jumping all over the map and firing missiles at long range toward every ‘Mech I could track down. Good times, and a desire I’ve had since middle school fulfilled.

Our final game on Friday was run by a great DM who embodied many of the traits of other favorite con DMs — he controlled the action, telling an engaging story, didn’t read any of the mechanics aloud, occupied the long end of the table, stood for much of the session, and used traps, hazards and classic DM trickery to get us to fall into them. We learned a lot from his presentation. So, Phil of the Houston RPGA, this post is for you.

All in all, a very well-organized con, especially one hosted by a university. Good people, DMs, and miniature dungeons and battlescapes. Adam got a few photos of the scapes, but I put it off too long…

Late night diner runs led us to 59 Diner, a friendly joint with tasty greek salads. Try ’em the next time you’re in downtown Houston.

Finally, on our way out of town, we dropped by some old friends’ place for some home cooked lasagna and caught up. A great weekend! Looking forward to next year’s.


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Ale Break: 24 Hours in Faerun

Update: more OwlCon photos available here!

I just spent 24 hours in the Forgotten Realms, and boy am I tired!

This weekend Steve and I packed up our PHBs and trekked on over to Houston for OwlCon 2010.  We left early Friday because I wanted to play some D&D, actually I wanted to play a lot of D&D, and I got what I wanted!

When we got to Rice University, where OwlCon is put on, we were really pleased at how well organized everything was.  Steve had the foresight to book a hotel just a few blocks from campus, so every day started and ended with a nice walk across their stately campus to the buildings where the games were.  Inside, we got our packets, peeked into the exhibit hall, noting the Battletech Pods with excitement, and made our way over the the building where the RPGA games were held.

Now, in my experience, with the exception of GenCon, RPGA is the red-headed stepchild of convention events.  That is to say the RPGA events tend to get shuffled off to a corner of the convention, and I usually get the impression that the convention organizers either don’t really care too much about them, or, at some historical-miniatures-focused conventions I could name, seem downright hostile towards them.

OwlCon was different.  When we arrived at the nice large room the RPGA events were in there were plenty of comfortable chairs and large tables.  I was directed to the Houston RPGA organizer and right away started to have my socks blown off.  My pre-registeration on Warhorn was indicated on his printout of all the weekend’s games, he directed me to the GM for my game, and we sat down and started playing.  We didn’t have to stand around for an hour trying to muster, we didn’t have to fight other players for a GM, we just showed up and started playing.  Pow.

And that was just the start.  On Saturday the morning slot started at 10 AM instead of 8 AM, as one often sees at a con.  That meant we got a good night’s sleep and didn’t have to rush breakfast or run like mad to catch our games.  Steve headed off to play some Advanced Civ and Rail Baron, while I put on my dragon-skull helmet and headed back to Ferun for more bloody fun.

As a side-note, I’ve always been a Greyhawk fan, and was a little disappointed to see it replaced by Forgotten Realms by WoTC.  But I really liked the stories that they ran this weekend.  The organizers had put a lot of work into the scenarios and it showed.  The adventures dove-tailed into each other and after an adventure or two you really had the impression that you were in a living setting where your actions would have an effect on what was ahead.  They even played a round where the player’s success or failure at the some tables affected what was happening at the other tables.

After my elven barbarian got his ass handed to him by were-rats (actually, a total party kill) the organizers went around and got sandwich orders from everyone from the campus deli.  30 Minutes later lunch arrived.  That meant we didn’t have to rush to wrap up our game, run off to find some lunch, and run back to make the next slot.  This convention had a very atypical relaxation component to it that I could really get used to.  I pretty much couldn’t believe it.

After the third slot of the day finished at midnight we strolled over to the dealers room, perused the wares on display, and played a round of the Battletech PODS, which I had never had a chance to try before.  It was every bit as fun as I imagined it would be.  I was once again impressed by the fact that the dealer’s room didn’t close up at 7 pm or so as is typical at previous conventions I’ve been to.  Usually, even at GenCon, I have to decide between playing a game or skipping something to shop at the dealer’s room.  Not so at OwlCon.

Sunday followed Saturday’s great lead with more of the same: friendly, if tired, GMs and players playing two more slots of RPGA events.  At the end of the weekend my elf was 3rd level, I was tired and satisfied, but not frazled or exhausted as is ofter the case after a con, and we headed on home to Austin.  We had met a bunch of great players and GMs from all over Texas, and we had hit the monsters until the gold came out.

I’m already looking forward to OwlCon 2011.  Thanks for a great time, guys!


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Owlcon XXIX


We’ll be at OwlCon this year, which starts tomorrow!

Look for us with the unicorns on our shirts. We’ll have a few copies of our issues, including hardcover copies of Claw/Claw/Bite Omnibus 1.1 for you to peruse.


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Unicorn Rampant Heading to GenCon

Just a quick note to let everyone know we’ll be there in Indy from the 12th-16th of August. Looking forward to 4 days of non-stop gaming.

We’ll post which games we expect to attend once we register for them.

See you there!

PS – One of the games we’ll be DM’ing at GenCon is “For Love of Evil”, an adventure for evil 30th level characters. Find out more here.


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Unicorn Rampant is going to Owl Con!


We are proud to announce that we’ll be attending our first ever convention as a vendor this Feburary 6-9th at OwlCon, at Rice University in Houston Texas!

We’ll bring along some of our wares to peruse in printed form, and if you mention seeing this announcement on our blog, we’ll give you half off on all of our products! We’ll also be set up to give you discounts on any of our products you’d like to buy from RPGnow.com.

And of course, we’ll be set up to play some games right there at our table, so come on down and say hi!


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Millennium Con 10

Millennium Con 10: for those of you who don’t know, is a gaming convention put on here in Austin, Texas, or rather just north of us in Round Rock, by LSHM, the Lone Star Historical Miniatures gaming society along with the Austin branch of the RPGA.

There were lots of great games this year. I always love to go and look at the great landscapes and huge armies of miniatures at the wargaming tables, even though I don’t really play tabletop wargames anymore. It makes me think about dusting off the Warhammer Epic scale army I have packed away, though.

It did inspire some of the other guys from Unicorn Rampant and I to break out the Battletech and play a few battles on friday night, though. I hope it leads to a semi-regular Classic Battletech game with us. I still have all my old, original 3025 Technical Readout minis.

But the real excitement for me was running a group through a session of The Horror of the Old Ones. It was my first time running a game at a convention, so I had big pre-game jitters. This is going to be my first published adventure, after all, and I haven’t run a game for complete strangers in, well, basically I’ve never run for strangers.

But the players were all great, and did a great job both role-playing and in combat. All of them survived, even the young teenager for whom that was his first game of D&D. Playtesting credits for them are in the works 🙂

So, without further ado, here are a few of the pictures from Millennium Con 10!












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