Hey guys, as you may or may not know, I've been involved with the Gygax family for a little over 2 years now- since right after Gary's death. If you don't know who Gary Gygax is, educate yourself.

Every year in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, we hold a small 'gathering of family and friends' to honor Gary and to play some good old school pen-and-paper RPGs, miniatures war games, and board games. Many of the old original authors like Tim Kask, Frank Mentzer, Mike Carr, Rob Kuntz, artists like Jeff Easley and Larry Elmore, and many others attend. Its a small intimate setting and the accessibility of these old greats is just outstanding. We just wrapped up Gary Con 2 and now have finalized plans for next year's Gary Con 3.





Starting tonight, over on the Gary Con Forums, there will be a trivia contest lasting through the week. Winners will get various cool swag prizes as well as free pre-registration for the event next year. Site registration is free and you wont get spammed.

Pre-registration for next years Con will start next week. Even if you are unsure whether or not you can attend, pre-registration is a good way to lock in your chance to game with some of the great originals. If you end up not going, the money goes to a good cause- I personally know the organizers- this is a small, non-profit, volunteer group. All the proceeds go to covering costs and then to the Gygax Memorial Fund.


The forums themselves are a great way to find other gamers, perhaps near you, or to just exchange ideas about old school games. If any of you have interest there, this site might be a resource for you.

Sorry to advertise on the site, but i figured VS is a good target audience and it would be great for me personally to see some of you out in Wisconsin next year- we are all proud nerds here!

I personally really appreciate you sharing! No idea if I would be able to attend but I'd like to. I will definitely check out the forums.

Thanks!

That is...incredibly cool.

From the forums in question (note that there is no nudity):

http://io9.com/5495199/on-reality-tv-series-i-hit-it-with-my-axe-porn-stars-play-dd

I have to thank you a second time Brendar!

I've never been to this 'con' as it were, but Bren and I have talked a little bit about such things. Gary was a great man, if you haven't played D&D or any table-top sort of game I recommend giving it a shot. With D&D, you do need to have someone who is up on the game mechanics and can run it. That is the biggest put-off for most people.

All that being said, there is a mmorpg that came out a couple years ago, Dungeons and Dragons Online that uses a lot of the great mechanics built into the original D&D games. This mmorpg has recently gone free of charge for normal play.

While playing the game, you enter a dungeon of course which is somewhat narrated as it is intended to be while playing the pen and paper version. There is at least one dungeon that I know of that is narrated by Gary Gygax himself, and upon completion of the dungeon you get an ingame reward dedicated to the man.

Game wise it does lack in the end, but it will certainly keep your attention for a little bit and now that it is free, I recommend giving it a try.

I actually played DDO for almost a year, overlapping with when I first started playing WoW. I thought it was a pretty fun game. I've lately been thinking about checking it out again now that it is free to play.

Also, the great thing about GaryCon is that most everyone there is very open to inexperienced players. This particular group is 'the old guard' and they are all about sharing their experience and stories and teaching someone something new. I even got to playtest some unpublished stuff in the open gaming room- I was just taking a break and having a soda when this this old dude, who I knew was a designer, approached me and my friend and asked us if we could spare an hour to try it out. Its a really great environment.

Thats awesome Bren. I met Gary in '78 at Gencon II at Widner college in PA. Great guy, I'm happy to see his memory live on.

I actually played DDO for almost a year, overlapping with when I first started playing WoW. I thought it was a pretty fun game. I've lately been thinking about checking it out again now that it is free to play.

Let's it it then! I will download it now, in fact I got an email about it yesterday about some of the benefits to having a paid account

Yeah they are big into the micro-transactions- more available races/classes/content, etc if you pay. But the rest is free. I stopped playing before they went to this model, so I can't say much about it.

I dabbled since the free model. I was soloing of course, don't know nobody. I'm busy this week-end mostly. I might be on WoW for a while in the evenings though. Doubt I want to dig into something different this week-end.