Another ANOTHER short post as I am getting ready to leave to Frankenparty!  What is Frankenparty you ask? Well true believers, Frankenparty is a house party held by none other than Frank Mentzer, the gent who created the Red Box Dungeons and Dragons set…  No not the 4th edition one… that was just a terrible attempt to cash in on the coolness that is the original Red Box. I digress. Where was i? Oh yeah! It is a party at Frank’s house. His ever awesome wife feeds us, we play games, we talk about Dungeons and Dragons, we play a ton of board games (Frank I am coming for you! You kicked my butt last year at that balancing game so this year I will have my revenge!!! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA! Just kidding you will probably kick my ass again), and generally have a great time.

One of the things I really like about table top gaming and the gamers that play it… is we are a very pleasant bunch. Think about the nature of some games…. so in games like League of legends, call of Duty etc.sure you have your team mates, but it is an us against them attitude while playing against faceless opponents. Now take board games, where there is an essence to win, but the people are sitting around face to face with you, and unless you have problems, I am willing to bet you are all laughing and joking even as someone places a road across your land in Settlers of Catan (I hate that guy. Just kidding He owes me five bucks so he is my best friend in the world). On top of that, look at Role Playing games. Everyone strives toward a common goal, sure its usually to beat down everything you come across and strip them bare so you can sell all of it, but it is still a ‘together’ activity. This is why I prefer solo video games (when I am anti-social), and role playing games to all others. I like that dynamic of ‘all of us use our strengths for a common goal’ style of game play.

The point of my ramble is this: Everyone I have met at 8 years of Garycon have been truly remarkable. Sure there are a few people that wont shut up about their favorite edition, or they will tell you about cool stuff their Half elf, half demon, half llama, half halfling, half half eaten sandwich, half vampire, half bike rack, half half and half did in a campaign six years ago but that’s okay. We are nerds, and social skills are never our strong suit. But we are some of the most passionate people you will ever meet (and I mean that. The word passionate gets tossed about a lot these days by mainstream folks and unless you are practically autistic like I am, you know these people have NO IDEA what they are talking about).

I am still rambling. I guess my point is that table top gamers are really the nicest people I know and I am thankful Frank invites me into his home every year ( I sure as heck would not invite me into my home, I am kind of weird).

Last but not least, lets take a look at the pre-generated characters I made for the Castle of Blackwood Moors adventure I will be running. Even though I am using a modified basic D&D character sheet, the mechanics and abilities are all of my own design. For example, if you look at the Helm and Shields, they have a +______HP next to each of them. This shows that unlike most versions of D&D Helms and Shields do not raise your Armor Class, they give you additional hit points. The first amounts of damage you take till be from these items, and when they are depleted, they will break, ruined forever.  I wanted to set up a mechanic were equipment is valued, and non permanent. In by the book D&D, a shield lasts forever and players do not give it an ounce of thought until they find a magical one. Now my players judge how many hp their shield has left, should they replace it? In a world where there is little magical healing, they need to constantly think about this for survival. A simple change, but it greatly altered the way my players think.

Oops. I am rambling again, this time about game mechanics. I will shut my pie hole and on with the character sheets!!!

Needless to say, please do not steal my game mechanics, or I will tie you to a chair and make you watch the Star Wars Holiday special 5 times in a row.

Hope you like the character ideas, and I hope even more that you will head down to Lake Geneva this week and roll some dice with some great people!

If you don’t think you know any great people, I encourage you to keep looking. They are out there, I promise.