That’s me in the black t-shirt, sort of in the middle (source)

I spent saturday morning at OSRCon exploring Dwimmermount with fellow blogger Ram (and several others). James M. was referee. I rolled up a second level magic-user named Eknuv and we proceeded to explore the dungeon. It felt like we were very successful (though who knows what all we missed), as we avoided a poison gas trap, defeated several groups of monsters, and discovered a hidden treasure room worth 10,000 GP. Along with other experience, this was enough to promote all of our characters to level 3, which we did. After that, we explored part of dungeon level 2 as well. Overall, this was a great example of how to get a lot done in a limited time, even with many players, and Zak’s suggestion about starting games where players can do things right away holds just as much for in person games as it does in G+ games.

In addition, delving Dwimmermount highlighted the value of small details. You really don’t need a paragraph of description to make a room interesting. One or two features is enough. For example, there was one room that was empty save for small metal rings set into the stone floor making up a pattern. We didn’t figure out what those rings were for, if anything, but the lingering mystery in and of itself is intriguing. This is a good reminder, being in the process of developing a megadungeon of my own. There were many other rooms with similar details, such as columns made of different elements. I’m sure some of those relate to puzzles that we did not solve.

Ed Greenwood running a Forgotten Realms setting (source)

I also played in a Labyrinth Lord game run by Carter Soles (from The Lands of Ara blog). I played Zephyr the cowardly fighter (whose character sheet I unfortunately did not retain, as I needed to leave the game early). That game was basically a commando assault against what seemed to be a haunted keep. As proper adventurers, of course we went in through the roof. There were undead sheep.

The conference as a whole was a lot of fun, though small. I got to play part of a Tunnels & Trolls game run by its creator, which was totally new to me. I also got to watch Ed Greenwood run a session in his Forgotten Realms. In hindsight, I wish I would have made more of an effort to exchange contact info with local OSR gamers or others that I might only know from blogs (for example, I now know that Akrasia was there, though I didn’t meet him). So, if any other readers just happened to be there, leave a comment! Maybe we can get some local Toronto OSR action going, at least semi-regularly.