Gary Con 13

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This past Thursday to Sunday, March 25th-28th was the 13 Gary Con.

Gary Con is a gaming convention put on my Luke Gygax and crew to honor his father and creator of Dungeons and Dragons. "To celebrate a life well played" to quote the tag line of the event.

I've been going since Gary Con 6. I have friend that have been going since the first one and even at Gary Con Zero, the impromptu gaming that happened after Gary's wake. The spark of the idea of the convention.

I've been running events since the first one I've attended. I ran Circus Maximus events as qualifiers to get into the Circus Maximus Championship. It was a way for me to get into that without having to race. Tim Kask had been running Circus Maximus for years at Gary Con. Going back to one of the Lake Geneva Gaming Conventions pre-dated Gary Con.

As it turns out I won the Championship in Gary Con 6 and 7. I came close to a third trophy in 8 but alas, I got unlucky at the end. It was after that championship that Tim turned running everything over to me.

In 2017 I added a figure 8 track to the events I ran. I call it Wreckus Maximus.

In 2020 covid 19 changed things and I didn't run any Circus Maximus events. I did run an RPG event however.

Enough about the past.

For this year I wanted to see if it was possible to run them online. A friend pointed me to Vassal. As it turns out it works great.

I submitted 2 regular Circus Maximus events, 1 Wreckus Maximus event, and 1 Hyperborea event. I played in 1 on-grid event.

Thursday my oldest kid and myself Searched for Pantheras. The group was eventually able to find him. I think all of us even survived. It was a fun time and Bryan is a great DM.

I was scheduled to run Circus Maximus. The one person that did register for it decided to jump into the Friday event where there were more racers.

Thursday night I gamed with some folks that get together at the physical con. It was a fun time to hang with folks. We were able to "beat" the scenario rather quickly so we mostly just sat around drinking and chatting with each other.

Friday was a great Circus Maximus run. There were 4 players. The Purple racer mostly kept to the inner lanes of the track and avoided getting into any problems with the other racers. It was pretty close until the start of the final lap.

That is when Blue and Green had their chariots flipped. They then tried to hold on long enough and take minimal damage to try and cross the finish line alive. Alas, they did not. Purple was able to take the final egg and win the race.

I wanted to run Wreckus Maximus ( figure 8 track ) so I created a Vassal module (that I need to resubmit it get in the "approved" module this).

I use the Optional Rules from The General, Volume 17, Issue 5. This gives a way to create more customized teams as well as weapons. So, increased lethality and options for the racers.

I created some pregens so we could get to racing as quickly as possible.

The race is started with the field split.

Half start at the red line on the bottom left, and the other half on the blue line on the bottom right.

This usually creates this nice interaction in the crossover section.

Things are a bit closer than expected. Black and White teams have team speeds of 32! This pregen I labelled "Speed at All Cost".

Blue took "Whip It Good" and Purple took "Small Blades 2".

I forgot that White was going 32(!) in the 28 lane and had to make a flip check. They passed it without any ill effects. This would set the tone for the rest of the race for them.

During this turn Blue tried to lash the White driver. They had the bad luck to have White grab their nice Long Whip.

I don't think Black and Purple did much in their interaction.

Then again, Blue might have lost their whip here.

Regardless, this shows a bit about how fast the White team is and how they can "drift" through the crossover section and stay in the "fast" lanes.

Lots of "just racing" going on here.

A little bit of interaction between Black and Purple.

This was actually a brilliantly bastardish move by Purple.

Black had just got jostled or something so they couldn't strain. Purple drew before Black and positioned themselves such that Black would be forced to change lanes which would cause them to flip.

Instead Black burned endurance, they had 28 movement factors written and had to burn 26 endurance. It was a great bit of racing from both of them.

Another "boring" turn :-)

White is really close to lapping Black here.

I think it helped to have only 4 teams and having 2 teams that are just stupid fast.

Purple rammed Black's cart and if I recall correctly they both damaged each other's wheels.

Blue decided to go to a dead stop in front of White in an effort to frustrate their easy roll to completing their 3 laps.

A lot happened here.

White had to slide in front of Blue, costing 6 movement factors. Consequently, they ended that exact amount from being able to finish the race.

Also, Purple rammed Black's cart again because why not?

Both carts suffered damage! Black's wheel was destroyed causing the flip. Purple only took 2 points of damage but didn't flip.

Black wasn't able to survive to cross the finish line.

White was able to cross the finish line and win. A first for any Wreckus race I've run. At least completing 3 laps in 4 hours.

Catching up, Grey, and Cooking

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A late night of gaming and general blahness caused me to miss posting a few days.

Gaming was good, players always make unexpected choices and they never seem to pick up on hints you lay down. That's ok, I get it. That's part of human nature. I'm shitty at reading people and social cues. Especially after a day of work, you really just want to maybe do a little murder hobo shit.

No real excuse for not blogging last night. Just tired and working on stuff at the last minute for a birthday.

Today was a cold day, and like a friend says, "at least it's a damp cold." Tomorrow is supposed to be better weather. A few gray days seemed to drag on, especially during the pandemic's "stay at home order" days.

I made some pretty good baguettes today for my youngest child's birthday. Started it yesterday morning with a pre-ferment from my starter. Then last night I added in the last bunch of flour, water, and salt. Then let it bulk ferment in the fridge overnight.

Timing it to be ready for dinner was a little tricky. An end of day work task delayed when I did the final shaping and rise. They turned out about as good as I could expect.

Dinner was fresh made pasta from the hands of the birthday kid. I cooked some chicken breasts and a cream based Alfredo sauce with plenty of garlic.

Then we introduced the kids to Agent Carter. My spouse and I really liked it when it first came out, and were extremely disappointed it didn't get a third season or more. We probably should have started watching it a bit sooner so that some of the stuff in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would make a little more sense to the kids. Either way, it's good to rewatch these episodes.

I also submitted a talk proposal to Conference in the Cloud, this year's incarnation of The Perl Conference. It had to change a bit because of Covid19.

All in all not a bad day.

Pandemic Dangers and Bloody Axes

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A grey, rainy day.

I took a long lunch break with my wife. She wanted to look at some chairs to put on the balcony outside our bedroom. We also grabbed some lunch through the drive through. Probably the closes thing we've had to a date since the stay at home order was put in place.

It was also probably the first time I've gone shopping in 2 weeks. Maybe 3-4 weeks since I left the car to go inside a store. Maybe kinda risky behaviour given my comorbidities, but we were masked and gloved up.

Speaking of that, at the building supply store all of the employees and masks and gloves on. Well, masks were probably 80-90% properly been used. With a spectrum from bandanas to what might have been N95's.

We did our shopping and headed home.

My spouse and youngest made chicken pot pie for dinner. The kind with a full pie crust. The crust was ok, it could have been better. The youngest is still learning the ways of baking and how recipes might not turn out like you want or leave something to be desired.

After dinner we played Fire and Axe: A Viking Saga, second edition. This is easily one of my top 5 if not top 2 games I've played. In fact, among the gamers that I have played it with it is among their top games as well. Lots of replayability, lots of ways to try to win, and lots of fun.

My youngest has never failed to get the Bloody Axe bonues when we've played it as a family. She got it the first time she played the game and I think she might have one that game. Naturally, she's been trying that ever since. It has served her well. In fact, she won tonight's game with a little luck to help her score double points for a city she raided.

Lots of fun even if it kept the kids up way past their bed time on a "school night", or what passes for such during a pandemic where elearning is now what we do.

And with that, time for a snack of some Wheat Things, or as I have been calling them: 20th century ship's biscuits. I am not ashamed to say this box had a best buy date of 2018 and they still taste no different than a fresher box. I'm not too surprised given that 18th century ships biscuits, aka hard tack, could keep for at least a year in barrels. Modern sealing wrapping and sealing techniques along with some preservatives can go a long way. I think being baked to a very dry state helps, like it does for hard tack.

Night y'all.

Stay safe out there.