DragonCon 2014 : Here's What I'm Running (So Far)

This is probably the first of several posts I will make prior the event itself because I'm really looking forward to DragonCon this year and find myself daily checking for updates.

Gaming event submission has been open for a few weeks, and registration to play is going live very soon live as of Monday 7/21. I decided yesterday to apply to run 3 sessions and all 3 were approved.

The Purple Worm Graveyard (Planet Thirteen)

I had a lot of fun with this when I ran it in December 2013. My concern, then as now, is that it could all end early depending on what choices they make. I may fiddle with the module a bit to prevent at least one of the possibilities. But I will have a second adventure on hand, just in case.

I chose to run this at 9AM, the Friday of the con. 

I don't know if I'll get a full table or not, but last year the b/x game at 9AM Friday had 18 players (way too many) because people kept showing up with nowhere to put them, so I have hopes that I'll get my 6. I have been running as many as 8 with my open table campaign, and I find that is really the top end of what's fun. Four to six is the sweet spot; everyone has a better chance to get involved or perhaps, I just do a better job of involving everyone.

The Dungeon of Akban (S&W Quickstart)

I ran this in November 2013 and really enjoyed it. There's no way the players will complete the dungeon in 4 hours, but there are multiple paths they can take that will allow them to satisfy at least one of several possible victory conditions. 

I know, I know, you can't win at role-playing, but for a one-shot, I think it's nice for there to be a sense of achievement, even if it's, "well we didn't find X, but we found Y and Y was pretty cool!"

When i ran it in November, I converted it for use with Labyrinth Lord (that took about 3 minutes). For DragonCon, i'm going to run Swords & Wizardry : Whitebox. That's how much I like Whitebox.

I might sign up to run one more slot (probably a 2nd Purple Worm Graveyard), but that depends both on what I sign up to play, and what else looks interesting on the schedule, and how much time I want to leave for the pop-up zine library. At this point, I'm only signed up to play D.B.A. (I've heard many times that the best way to understand these rules is to have someone show you, so that's my plan!)