Ancon Postmortum and Oddmall

Back on Ancon last Saturday, but with the family. Not so many games played (as in none :( ). She-who-must-be-obeyed was going to do the paint and take, but was discouraged by the need to wade through the registration line again to pick up the required tickets. Had a nice chat  with Andy Hopp about Con-on-the-Cob in the fall and the heretical concept of not charging for individual events, but including games in the registration (probably not this year). Andy wants you to know about the Oddmall this Saturday down in Akron at the John Knight Center. Toys and comics have been promised in addition to the weird art, so I have to check it out this time. Definitely gamer friendly hours Noon-10 PM (even if no gaming). Andy is hoping for some crossover from the Roller Derby game in the evening. Come on down!!!!

Ancon Friday

Decided to take off work and go down to Ancon instead. Not pre-signed up for anything but had a good time playing demos and pick-up games. Games played so far:

Python Fluxx
Libertalia
Barebones Fantasy
HouseTek
Numenaria

Most interesting is Barebones Fantasy, quick character generation reasonable percentile resolution system, class as skill mechanic which avoids skill proliferation, Have to dig up my .pdf of the rules and post a full review sometime soon. Went on with Larry Moore one of the publishers of Barebones off to play HouseTek. Although we successfully stopped Mechazilla ( In order to stop Mechazilla we resorted to dropping tanks on his head, see Larry's Blog for the Skystriker in Mechazillas death grip), the rules seemed a bit rough-and-ready. By the way if your rules contain high tek space lasers they should shoot across the room not just a crappy few feet in front of themselves. Both Fluxx and Libertalia were card games and less than an hour to play, good for filling time while waiting for events to start, but not the main attraction. I prefer Libertalia for a little more finesse and less randomness, even though I won the Fluxx game. I have written about Numenaria before, but wanted to try it actual play, Mechanically it went quite smooth, however the dungeon we were in seemed challenging figure out without breaking out the skill checks and having the DM explain (not really my cup-of-tea). Ancon has two more days to run. It's at the Clarion in Hudtson (Route 8, and I-80 the turnpike). If you are close to the Cleveland-Akron area, come on down!. If you stop by the Barebones or HouseTek booths tell them Imredave sent you.