So this weekend was Carnage 11, which had an excellent ROCK N' ROLL theme. I ran a pair of events, first was my standard D&D Throwdown game.
4E Throwdown takes the 3rd edition Iconic characters (Regdar, Krusk, etc.) and reinvents them in 4th Edition. I took the world of Mystara as my backdrop, so all of the characters have custom built histories with some adventuring hook. I mated that with the Keep on the Borderlands adventure, which is basically a sandbox of adventure. I have no adventure prepped when I run it, I just pull everything out of the adventure and the character's backgrounds and it seems to work well. 4th Edition is great for just winging it.
The game went off without a hitch and I had an overfilled table, since I always make extra characters for people who wander in at the last minute. The main thrust of the adventure is for the characters to show up at the keep and find something to kill. When they got there, I rolled on the random rumor table and they heard that a merchant was being held in the caves by orcs. The feedback I got was upbeat and everyone, including myself seemed to have a good time. I showed no favoritism to BLAMM67 who played Soveillis, in fact, I ended up having the orcs attack him in preference to others since he was a sworn enemy :)
In the end, the party triumphed and was able to rescue the captured merchant. The next time I run the game, I'm going to have loot cards ready and let the players figure out what magic items/money goes where.
The second game I ran was Robotech, using Hydrogen. The players picked up on the system easily, its not very difficult, roll 2d6, add stat and skill. If you don't like your result, you can spend Luck to boost the roll. I think everyone loved the open ended nature of both the system and the adventure. Basically it boils down to this...you are a group of genetically engineered killing machines (Zentraedi) who are ordered to go on vacation. Since you can't refuse and order, you find that there is a night club in a nearby town that may house some Malcontents or other scummy types. Other than that, the adventure is completely opened ended. The players acquired the HUMVEE of the highest ranking Marine on the base (T.R. Edwards), got ambushed, made it to the city and "infiltrated" the nightclub. In the end they discovered the presence of Malcontents, allied with a local gang to take out two rival gangs, and set the stage for two adventures at OGC next year. All in all a good time.
I also had a chance to play in my normal Friday game, while at the convention, which was really cool too.
All in all a great convention and my greatest thanks to the staff who made it possible.
