{"id":108,"date":"2009-08-15T12:09:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-15T12:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unicornrampant.com\/newccb\/?p=108"},"modified":"2014-11-19T21:38:43","modified_gmt":"2014-11-19T21:38:43","slug":"gencon-2009-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/unicornrampant.com\/newccb\/?p=108","title":{"rendered":"GenCon 2009: Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What can I say?  Tower of Gygax rocked my world.  A return to old school 1st edition D&#038;D, before everything got so complicated.  Before the terms taint, bloodied, and grapple entered the scene.  Back when you just took 2 actions &#8212; move and attack, move and cast, or double move.  Back when dungeons consisted of puzzles rather than long battles.<\/p>\n<p>The main premise of Tower of Gygax is that you&#8217;ve entered this tower that was built by a wizard, and that constantly shifts and changes.  But this Nethack-like dungeon is not dull; the room description s are rich and the puzzles challenging.  Some rooms need to be pushed through with combat, but most require the lining up of symbols or the solving of a riddle, or even just the careful use of the elven ability to search for secret doors.  Tread softly; there are deathtraps around every corner!  So the premise if fairly ridiculous, and you&#8217;re expected to die as if you&#8217;re in a Paranoia game, but this experience is too fun to pass up.  You must try it next time you&#8217;re at a con where it&#8217;s being offered.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, I started the day playing a nine hour game of Advanced Civ, coming in 3rd out of 7 players.  Since I&#8217;ve never seen the end of a Civ board game, it was nice to have this run to completion.  When it comes to board games, this may be my favorite; it&#8217;s definitely in the top five.<\/p>\n<p>A good two games of Pompeii later, I was ready for Tower of Gygax.  You know the rest.  I emerged from the game at 7am after almost 5 hours of playing and then chumming with the DM afterward.  I was the lone survivor and had the Crown of Paradise to show for it, providing command abilities and the ability to open up pocket planes at will.  Good times!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What can I say? Tower of Gygax rocked my world. A return to old school 1st edition D&#038;D, before everything got so complicated. Before the terms taint, bloodied, and grapple entered the scene. Back when you just took 2 actions &#8212; move and attack, move and cast, or double move. Back when dungeons consisted of puzzles rather than long battles. The main premise of Tower of Gygax is that you&#8217;ve entered this tower that was built by a wizard, and that constantly shifts and changes. But this Nethack-like dungeon is not dull; the room description s are rich and the puzzles challenging. Some rooms need to be pushed through with combat, but most require the lining up of symbols or the solving of a riddle, or even just the careful use of the elven ability to search for secret doors. Tread softly; there are deathtraps around every corner! So the premise if fairly ridiculous, and you&#8217;re expected to die as if you&#8217;re in a Paranoia game, but this experience is too fun to pass up. You must try it next time you&#8217;re at a con where it&#8217;s being offered. Of course, I started the day playing a nine hour game of Advanced Civ, coming in 3rd out of 7 players. Since I&#8217;ve never seen the end of a Civ board game, it was nice to have this run to completion. When it comes to board games, this may be my favorite; it&#8217;s definitely in the top five. A good two <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/unicornrampant.com\/newccb\/?p=108\">Continue Reading &#8594;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[112],"class_list":["post-108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-gencon-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/unicornrampant.com\/newccb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/unicornrampant.com\/newccb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/unicornrampant.com\/newccb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/unicornrampant.com\/newccb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/unicornrampant.com\/newccb\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/unicornrampant.com\/newccb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/unicornrampant.com\/newccb\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/unicornrampant.com\/newccb\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/unicornrampant.com\/newccb\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}