Shire Con 2024 Photo Recap

 Alas, there were no bids for the unopened copy of Dungeon Crawl I donated to Shire Con.  Art & Arcana and the Ogre Kickstarter box DID sell.

The shirts were from Bob G's Paranoia session. 

What an amazing time! My hat's off to Thom, the volunteers, the attendees, and the venue for the best Shire Con to date. As they've all been awesome, that says a lot ;)

ShireCon 2024 - Random Picture Dump - Friday September 27th

 

ShireCon PreCon Get it On was Tonight

Yep, Rach and I are in Falls Village, CT for ShireCon 2022. We booked a room at the Falls Village Inn, and it is a historical location with a very nice bar and restaurant - so long as you eat and drink between 5 pm and 8 pm. Seriously, possibly the best pub burger I've had, and I know my pub burgers ;)

It was fun catching up with new and old friends after dinner at the Pre-Con-Get-It-On. Right now, Rach is helping with some finishing touches on tomorrow's Swords & Wizardy Light adventure. I'm looking forward to a day of gaming, and a night of drinking ;)

State of The Tavern - Minions of Tenkar, ShireCon, Tenkar's Thursday Night One Shots, and More

Wow. Things have gotten busy here at The Tavern. Let's talk about the balls being juggled ;)

Dungeon Crawl Cards should be going out in a few days. I did about 7 or 8 cards with pens that did a poor job leaving ink on the actual card, so I had to track down better silver ink pens. Ordered and crossing my fingers. Those receiving the first cards with the poorer ink will be getting a bonus to make up for it.

See that artwork/mock module cover above? That's from Fugli. Simply amazing. But it also inspired the adventure I'll be running at Shire Con on September 17th, 2022. Here's the pitch:

The Minions of Tenkar -The crazy dwarven bartender has left his Tavern and has taken up residence in the ruined abbey’s dungeons just outside of town. Over the past few months, a deformed tribe of goblins has heeded his call to extract revenge on his former town. Pets have disappeared. Someone peed in the brewery’s kegs. And now, old man Nasala has gone missing. Will you heed the call. Will you confront Tenkar’s Minions?

SWL levels 1-3. Characters rolled at table. Or bring you character back from a prior Shire Con and possibly level up.

I've got some twists and turns already mapped out in my head. Now to put it on paper.

I just ordered a Tenkar's Minions T-Shirt as well as an extra Torchlight hat. If the shirt meets my expectations, I'll order another as a giveaway at the Shire Con table, along with the extra Torchlight cap. There's a distant chance I may take orders for fulfillment at Shire Con. 

I'm thinking of using the following art for some Tenkar's Minions coffee mugs:

Starting in August, on the second Thursday of the month, instead of hosting the usual Tavern Chat Hangout on The Tavern's Discord Server, I'll be running a session of Tenkar's Thursday Night One Shots. These will use the Swords & Wizardry Light Rules with some options from Continual Light. We'll generate characters prior to the session, and characters that return from prior sessions can level up. It will be drop in - drop out and run from 8 PM Eastern till about 11 PM Eastern. The first session will be on the evening of Thursday, August 11th, 2022, and will use Discord for voice and Roll20 for the VTT. I am very much a VTT minimalist, so don't expect much more than for of war and online dice rolling It will be a playtest of The Minions of Tenkar, so if you plan on playing in my Shire Con game, I'll ask you to skip this session ;)

Oh, and no Livestream tonight for those wondering. Summers have a habit of f'n with expected scheduling.

K, time to get to work...

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State of The Tavern - Alexa, The Lost Voice and the Demonic Dungeon of the Bone Dreamer

Alexa ranks internet traffic from 1 to 15 million or so. Lower is better. Since Jully 11th of this year, The Tavern has been on fire, moving from approximately 570k to approx 197k in that time. Lower is better. This is, by far, the best trafficked The Tavern has ever been, and I thank you, the reader, for this. I'm simply stunned. For some comparison numbers:

The new traffic ranking has opened up some opportunities, particularly with regular press publishers, and we couldn't have done it without you.

As an aside, my voice has been all manners of fucked up since the drive home from ShireCon Saturday night. Can't blame the con, obviously, something was brewing in my throat before it, but all the DMing and talking brought it forward. Recording the Tavern Chat Podcast has been a hoot ;)

The Demonic Dungeon of the Bone Dreamer played out better than I ever hoped. Now, as asked about at the table at the con, work will commence and making it something for distribution to the OSR community. Should be fun!

Alright, about to drown my throat in hard liquor to sooth it. Yeah, that's the ticket! ;P

ShireCon 2019 Recap - Voice Lost - Amazing Time

I'm in the process of losing my voice it seems. But that's okay because I had an amazing time at ShireCon.

Slept in till about 7 am. Left the house with Rach shortly after 8 am. We got to Falls Village / ShireCon around 1030.

Hung out and yapped with friends till about Noon, and then an excellent lunch. Ran Demonic Dungeon of the Bone Dreamer for Swords & Wizardry Light from 1 pm until approximately 430. It was a blast. I never sat down - but then I rarely do when GMing at conventions.

Of course, Joe Bloch picked my pocket - multiple times ;) Jeff Talanian would have, but I already owned everything.

I'd give shout outs to everyone I spoke with, hugged and hung out with, but I'm sure I'd miss a name or two. Suffice to say, it was great to meet friends, both old and new. As Rach and I discussed on the drive home, ShireCon, although small and only one day it already has the feel of NTRPG Con. That simply is amazing and no higher compliment can be made.

Thom, you did a great job, but we expected nothing less. Sign us up for next year!

(forgot to take photos this year, damn it!)

Demonic Dungeon of the Bone Dreamer - Part the First

So, Thom Wilson reminded me earlier that I need to submit my adventure for ShireCon II / 2019 coming up in September. As many of you know, I've recently been juggling multiple balls (as an aside, the flooring for Casa de Tenkar comes in the morning and installation commences on Friday - Huzzah!) and this is one that had escaped my grasp - until now.

If you plan on playing in my session at ShireCon this September, you may not want to follow up too closely with the later posts in this series, as it may give away some secrets to the adventure. Then again, if you've played in any of my sessions at the various gaming conventions, you probably know I'm big on improv. Players beware ;)

In any case, I broke out the Tome of Adventure Design by Matt Finch for some adventure inspiration and I ended up with Demonic Dungeon of the Bone Dreamer for the adventure title. I love it. It speaks to me. I see demons and undead and a new, unique creature for the BBG. As I will be using Swords & Wizardry Light, it will need to be written so as to challenge a first level party while still being beatable. Not a small challenge but one I look forward to.

At the moment, I'm looking at using the following Dyson map for the adventure, but that may change if I am inspired to create my own. We'll see. It might be too large for a single session.

More importantly, I need to decide what the Bone Dreamer actually is. A new creature, perhaps.

As always, the creative process will play out on the blog side and if all goes well, the finished product may make its way up to DriveThruRPG.

Time for more brainstorming...

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Shire Con - Recap and Highlights (and Photos)

Yesterday was Shire Con, and my God it was a blast! I ran Beneath the Battered Dwarf Tavern (using the Swords & Wizardry Light rules) and the players had me laughing my ass off. I couldn't have asked for a better group sitting at my table.

Thom Wilson ran an amazing con. With the help of his volunteers, you would never have known this was his first time running one. Thom told me much of the success was due to advice he asked for and received from Bad Mike and Doug Rhea of NTRPG Con fame as well as Alex Kammer (he of Gamehole Con).

I enjoyed finally meeting Michael Gross (and his son, Michael) face to face. Amazing how you can know someone for so long and yet never have a chance to shake their hand or grab a hug until now, years later. It's stuff like this that really makes the memory highlight reals for me.

Other's (like Joe the Lawyer) I hadn't seen in years. It was nice finally running a game with Joe at my table and it wasn't a VTT ;)

I'm glad I didn't try to squeeze a game into the day's second slot. The time I spent socializing with friends was extremely well spent and meeting friends of The Tavern was another highlight. Just know that remembering names was never my strong point, and it's even harder for me these days, but I really do appreciate the kind words and encouragement I received. I thank you all.

This was my first time as a Convention "Special Guest". Thom, you were my first ;P

The photos were posted to the Shire Con Facebook page. Everyone should join the page- and plan to attend in 2019. Photos by Arjen L,  Jerry J, and Michael Gross.

The Tavern Chat Podcast - E130 - Do You Also Suffer from Gamemaster Anxiety?

Yesterday morning, on the drive up to Shire Con, I actually considered the consequences of driving off the road (one of those winding, country roads) to avoid running my morning session of Swords & Wizardry Light. Obviously, I didn't, but the thought did cross my mind. Do you suffer from Gamemaster anxiety?

I know I suffer from Gamemaster Anxiety. Right before I have to run a session, that feeling of dread, nervousness, and fear slips in - and immediately leaves the moment I start running the game. Do you suffer the same or similar? How do you handle it?

Link to Episode 130 -  https://anchor.fm/tavernchat/episodes/E130---Do-You-Also-Suffer-from-Gamemaster-Anxiety-e29ct8

The Tavern Chat Podcast - E129 - ShireCon 2018 and How to GM for a Con RPG Session

I'm beat. Not even 9 PM and I'm ready to crawl into bed. ShireCon 2018 write up tomorrow here on the blogside.

Today was the ShireCon #1, and it was a blast. Huge props to Thom Wilson. I ran a game of Swords & Wizardry Light today and I discuss on this episode my thoughts on running a successful convention RPG session.

Link to Episode 129 -  https://anchor.fm/tavernchat/episodes/E129---ShireCon-2018-and-How-to-GM-for-a-Con-RPG-Session-e29ahb

The Tavern Chat Podcast - Episode 100 - Need I say More?

I'm not sure whether to curse or bless Hobbs, Tim, Matt and the others that got me into this "Anchor Podcasting" thing (whether they knew they were an influence at the time I do not know). Here I am posting up the 100th episode of that became a daily podcast right out of the box. Damn!

Woot! 100 episodes in 100 days. I never expected that when I kicked off this little podcast. We also hit some other milestones this week. September 22, 2018 is Shire Con. Guess who is a "notable industry guest"? Really. Guess ;)

Link to Episode 100 - https://anchor.fm/tavernchat/episodes/Episode-100---Need-I-say-More-e23b0d

Link to Shire Con - http://throwigames.com/shirecon.html