TotalCon 2015

Hello my sad neglected blog, it’s been a while.  And TotalCon is now many weeks ago, but I thought it might be worth recounting my experiences, hazy though the memories may be.

TotalCon snuck up on me this year, I think perhaps Carnage on the Mountain threw my schedule off a bit.  I’m used to a longer gap between convention seasons, and thus I barely made it in time for registration.  I somehow missed GM registration, so this year I was just a player.  Actually that was a nice recharge of my creative energy, as I came away with new ideas of things I’d like to run, while before hand I was starting to slag a bit.

So, let’s see, what did I play?  I played two games of Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics, not entirely on purpose.  I signed up for them because they were run by Michael Curtis, who is a great DM, and I’m happy to play in whatever he’s excited to run.  Actually, I dismissed DCC when I first heard of it.  What do I need with another quazi-D&D game, when I have my beloved original?  And the funny dice just felt too gimmicky to me.  Actually, both games were really enjoyable, and I actually find some of the quirks of DCC rather endearing, and am going to run a game of it myself at the coming HelgaCon.  Perhaps I’ll save writing too much analysis about DCC here, as it could easily take over the whole post.  Maybe saving that in my back pocket will encourage me to come back and write another blog entry in the near future.

Oh, and one of those games was like a bizarre-o reunion from last year.  Last year, there I am sitting with these two guys Mark and David playing a Labyrinth Lord game run by Michael Curtis, and David is going on about the wonders of his space pen.  Michael goads David on and much good natured ribbing ensues.  This year, I sat down to my first game with Michael and he asks me if I’ve seen David?  No, I haven’t but it’s only Friday, and I seem to recall those guys only come down Saturday and Sunday.  Michael then shows me his new space pen, hand-delivered to him at Gary Con as a gift from David, couriered by a mutual friend.  Hilarious.  On Saturday, I sit down to my second DCC game with Michael, and who is at the table?  Yup, Mark and David.  Somewhere out there, perhaps on Facebook, is a picture of Michael and David holding their space pens under their noses like weirdo high tech Hitler mustaches.  I’m thrilled to have gotten to see pretty much the whole story unwind before me.

OK, what else did I play?  I played a fantastic game of Call of Cthulhu with the very skilled GM Scott Legault.  I’ve been trying to play in one of his games for a couple conventions now, and was glad to finally get the chance.  Actually, I also played in a steampunk themed game he ran, but the CoC was the gem.  My character ended the game with a twisted ankle, a broken leg, the bubonic plague, and severe agoraphobia.  All in all, a pretty perfect game of Cthulhu.

I also ended up playing a massive game of Car Wars, again totally unplanned.  The Swords and Wizardry game I was going to play failed to pull enough players, so I found myself at a loose end.  I wandered into the board game section where I peered curiously at the massive Car Wars game and quickly found myself behind the wheel of “Vlad the Impala” and Scott barreling down on my gunner.  Yes, that is the same Scott who gave me agoraphobia, do you think maybe he’s got it in for me?

So despite the failure to register any games to run and despite the horrible parking situation (next year I plan to never leave the hotel for meals), I had a fantastic time.  Someone said that TotalCon is like Cheers.  You barely remember any of these people all year, but then you show up at the Holiday Inn and everyone greets you like age old friends.  We play games, we drink, we play more games, and it’s just four solid days of fun with some really interesting people.

So that was my TotalCon.  I’m already looking forward to next year.  But in the meantime, there’s HelgaCon to prepare for.