Gaming weekend in Clemmons

The entire staff of Gaming with Chuck (except for the two Battle Cats, who stayed behind at GwC headquarters, to defend against the encroaching hordes) took a journey from Columbus GA up to Clemmons NC, to engage in a weekend of Bacchanalian Ludo-Revelry.  The games played included a variety of board and card games, as well as loads of roleplaying.

Roleplaying Games

The roleplaying consisted of two sessions of Labyrinth Lord, and one session of D&D Next.  Yours truly ran the sessions of Labyrinth Lord (on Friday evening, and also during the day on Saturday).

Dan Proctor's wonderful clone game, that copies early D&D so very well

The Friday night session followed a character building session for folks who didn't have characters.  That included two GwC staff members (Anita and Heidi) as well as.  It was to be the first RPG session ever for Heidi, although she has grown up playing all sorts of games, and hearing her parents and all the friends of the family talk about the RPG aspect of the hobby.  She chose to create, and play, a 1st level Gnome Thief.  The session involved a bridge crossing (with a goblin ambush), some outdoor encounters, and was going to culminate in a short dungeon adventure, but the evening ended before the gaming did.  The action was loosely based in the Gran March of the World of Greyhawk.

Section of the phenomenal Darlene map for World of Greyhawk

Heidi's character, the Gnome Thief (named Trixie) was not the only newly created character for the evening,  the other players all had new 1st level characters - including Anita rolling up a 1st level female Dwarf fighter named Badb Bigaxe.  Carol had a half elf Ranger called Dil (her name was much longer, and extremely elven, but Dil is a nice nickname).  Marcy played an Elven Druid called Glengaraeth.  Rachel also played a Druid called Aerilyn.  John played a Magic User.

The Saturday day session, featured an installment in the ongoing Greyhawk campaign (detailed, moderately, over at the Sword and Potion blog) that I run.  This featured four of the five regular weekly players being present face to face, as well as one player being present via Google Hangouts (he couldn't travel to Clemmons).  In addition to the Wednesday Night All Stars, we had some additional players.  Heidi and Anita had their characters, Trixie the Gnome, and Badb the Dwarf, upped to 2nd level (for survivability reasons) and they joined the fray.  Also, Dil and Aerilyn joined the group, allowing Carol and Rachel to join the game (they were also bumped to 2nd Level).  John and Marcy are regular players on Wednesday nights, so they switched over to their regular characters (John plays a halfling thief named Flinders, and Marcy plays an Elven cleric named Rhysgil).

Saturday's adventure was a continuation (and part sidebar) of this much larger group, along the main campaign quest, to investigate a curious dungeon located inside the Rushmoors.  The Rushmoors is a swamp that lies over what was once the heart of the Occluded Empire of Vecna.  One of the most noteworthy locations in the Rushmoors is the Black Tower (or Rotted Tower), which was once the capitol of the Empire.  The characters in this campaign, however, are seeking a curious spot inside the fetid and evil swamp, where a curious dragon ship has crashed into the heart of a huge and ancient cypress tree.  This ship has opened up a portal to another world, and is called "The Ship between the Worlds" - also the name of the adventure path the players are following.  This sidebar adventure is inside the Rushmoors, but the dungeon is one where a curious little tribe of fishmen (not too different from Kuo Toa) have an underground temple.  The players invaded, began investigating, and disrupted the nest of evil.  The adventure wasn't finished, but it was a fun time for a long Saturday afternoon of gaming.

A different version of Greyhawk, this time showing the Rushmoors, lower left.

Sunday's gaming was run by John, and was a short adventure using the latest playtest package of D&D Next.  I made up a character - hailing from the city of Dyvers, at the northern edge of the Gnarley Forest, named "Robin of the Gnarley Wood".  The character has a heavy Errol Flynn influence and was quite fun to play as a swashbuckling bravo!

Robin of the Gnarley Wood

There were all new characters around - Steve with a wizard, Rachel with a Druid, Marcy with a Cleric, Heidi repeating her Gnome Thief, Rowdy with a Monk, and Carol repeating her Elven Ranger.  It was fun to play, but it still doesn't feel like AD&D (or D&D) to me, yet.

Board Games

A wonderful weekend of gaming, that also included some board and card games.  We played a game of Eight Minute Empire.  This is turning out to be quite a fun little game, I can't wait for the release of the successor (which I backed) to come out - Eight Minute Empire Legends from kickstarter.

We also played a game of When Zombies Attack. This is a new dice game based on the players trying to survive a zombie attack.  Slightly different than the (superior) Zombie Dice game from Steve Jackson Games, where the players are themselves Zombies, trying to collect Brains.  This game has the dice representing Zombies, and the players trying (through dice rolls) to get rid of the Zombies.  If a player survives a whole round being zombie (dice) free, then they are the winner.  In one or two respects it is superior to Zombie Dice, but in general, I think it will not surpass the original.  The biggest advantage, is not having to keep score.  But, I have heard that it is easy to keep score in Zombie Dice, if one uses little plastic brains or skulls (or similar) instead of writing the score on paper.  Must try.

Finally the group played a round of The Resistance.  This was a fun game as a filler between the long Labyrinth Lord session on Saturday, and the evening activity (which was a ctered BBQ dinner and a group viewing of "The Avengers" at Steve's wonderful home theater at his house in Greensboro).  We had a great time playing Resistance, even though it was a new game to most of the players.  Everyone fell into it right away, with lots of accusations and paranoia out of the gate.  It was a seven player game, and the Government Spies won!!  Treachery!