We explore our favorite game conventions, from the chill vibes of CinCityCon to the dynamic events of Gamehole Con, to the cozy fun of MEPACon. We also look ahead to Philadelphia Area Game Expo, a new-ish convention happening in January 2025.

After the convention stories, we dive into our RPG experiments, including David's mechanical torchlight for ShadowDark, the crunchy mechanics and destroyable hexcrawl map of Forbidden Lands, and Dragonbane as the sweet spot of complex vs. simple game rules.

Chapter List

0:00 Intro0:36 Convention Recap: CinCityCon and Gamehole Con3:12 Super Nintendo Escape Room Highlight5:45 Upcoming Events: MEPACON and Philly Area Game Expo7:10 Exploring ShadowDark's Torch Timer Mechanic10:29 Forbidden Lands: Hex Crawls and Crunchy Dice Mechanics14:12 Open Table Games and RPG Planning16:45 RPG Innovations: ShadowDark vs. Dragonbane19:30 Wrapping Up: Balancing Gaming with Life30:02 Outro and Lair Warnings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2vZFA8dRVk

Show Notes

Conventions We Attended

CincityCon

Hamilton, OH

October 11-13, 2024

Played lots of Sparks

It’s a Star Wars Living Campaign based on West End Games original Star Wars RPG.

Gamehole Con

Madison, WI

October 17-20, 2024

Played in an Escape Room

Met Seth Skorkowski in person

Played a lot of Sparks

Saw friends who I don’t normally see

Digression: Easton’s Escape Room

Off Center Escape Rooms in Easton, PA.

Easton was a hive of scum and villainy back during Prohibtion (or at least, a good place for illegal alcohol).

Conventions We Plan To Attend

Mepacon

Bethlehem, PA

November 8-10, 2024

Philadelphia Area Game Expo

Philadelphia Area Gaming Expo (aka PAGE 2)

January 16-19, 2025

Banter

Forbidden Lands

Ken’s reading through the Player’s Handbook. 

Dice-pool based fantasy RPG built around a hex crawl.

Bunch of d6s, a d8, a d10, and a d12.

These represent base dice (from attributes), skill dice (from skills), gear dice (from your stuff).

1s are called banes. They represent  damage, exhaustion, fear, or degraded gear (but only hurt you if you push your luck). When you fail, you fail forward.

6s are successes; multiple 6s trigger special effects.

Great art, great setting, but is the dice mechanic too crunchy for beginners?

Thinking of playing a solo game with this as a way to try out the rules and relax.

David ran ShadowDark in person and used Foundry VTT

Ran The Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur from the Shadowdark Quickstart

Used Foundry VTT on the television to show the player view of the map. Sans UI

Had the Shadowdark module installed

The torch timer was fun

The timer on the first torch ran out an almost inconvenient time

David made physical torch prop as a clue to the players, which they liked due to it’s obvious changes

Ken's been playing with TorchLightTimer.com

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