D&D Birthday Event in Austin TX, 1/26 (Free Event)

[countingwizard]

I would have preferred to have posted this in general discussion to get as many eyeballs on it as possible; but I guess them's the rules.

I'm organizing an OSR D&D event to celebrate the birth of our lord and savior Dungeons & Dragons 1974 edition, technically (or approximately) published on 1/26/1974. I've arranged for 8 master referees to run their preferred original edition of the game, including OD&D, AD&D 1e, B/X, BECMI, House Ruled Versions, and Retro-clone OSR equivalents. I've reserved space for up to 50 people for the event at Emerald Tavern, from 12pm to 5pm.

www.meetup.com/dnd-823/events/266466232/

Sign up or walk-in.

[stonetoflesh]

Dang, that looks fantastic! Alas, my wife is working that afternoon so I'm on kid duty. If I can find a sitter, I'll try to make it.

[Finarvyn]

I can move it to "general" if you like, but "classified" is also open to the general public. I think that your exposure here might be better because it's more likely to be the top subject and thus be shown on the front page. In "general" once someone posts in another thread yours would no longer show up.

[countingwizard]

Well if you put it that way leave it here.

[countingwizard]

Tomorrow is the big day. I've carefully prepared my own game to be as in accordance with the original D&D by the book as I can. Weight tracking, fatigue, and chainmail sequence framework and all. Only needed to make one house rule: a post-morale check table using the 2d6 reaction roll instead of the fiddly cumbersome calculation used in Chainmail.

The other referees are ready to go too. Sure hope someone takes pictures, I'll probably be too busy running the game to have a chance. I've got really neat little OSR business cards to hand out with links to odd74 and other OSR communities, as well as a list of early D&D games and their retroclone equivalent. Only lucky player at my table will get an illegal hardbound copy of the LBB pdfs all-in-one.

Some of the other referees are handing out free stuff too.

[countingwizard]

Anthony took a picture of the event:

imgur.com/5sBaWna



It doesn't show the rest of the players at Anthony's table, or any of the players at Tetramorph's table. We had about 25 people in attendance.

[captainjapan]

In the spirit of anonymity, feel free to disregard these next questions, but I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to try and put a face to the name...

Is that you standing at the front?
I'm guessing that, since tetramorph's table isn't in the shot, tetramorph is also not in it?.
Is Anthony someone we know from the boards? Anyone else in the picture?

D&D sure is popular in central Texas

[countingwizard]

Wish I could tell you, but I don't feel comfortable identifying myself online due to [no joke] the nature of my job.

I don't recall if he has a forum name, but that is Anthony Huso. He occasionally plays with Nathan's group, and has invited us over to run a game for us at least once or two.

Anthony Huso is a a level designer for video games and published author under Tor and Macmillan books. He designed levels for Dishonored, Call of Duty: World at War, and has published a few actual fantasy books. He also wrote the module "A Fabled City of Brass".

[grodog]

Jan 27, 2020 21:08:39 GMT -6 countingwizard said:

Anthony Huso is a a level designer for video games and published author under Tor and Macmillan books. He designed levels for Dishonored, Call of Duty: World at War, and has published a few actual fantasy books. He also wrote the module "A Fabled City of Brass".

www.thebluebard.com/products-1 and www.lulu.com/spotlight/anthonyhuso

Allan.

[Piper]

Jan 27, 2020 20:11:21 GMT -6 captainjapan said:

D&D sure is popular in central Texas

It is! I would have been at that gathering but I had to work. There are a couple of very good OD&D-based campaigns running in Austin TX.

[flightcommander]

Is that DIY DM screen in the foreground? It looks nifty whatever it is.

[countingwizard]

They are all DIY DM screens. AustinJimm's is closest. The one directly across from it is an exact copy but constructed differently (one of the two screens I brought). I'd actually like to hear his method posted but I'm not sure he browses this forum too often.

My method for screen construction is to go to the Art Shop in Austin (Jerry's Artarama) and buy black photograph/picture frame mounting board www.jerrysartarama.com/crescent-ragmat-museum-boards which come in big sheets of 32x40. I get that cut down into separate panels the size that fits normal printer-paper. Then I lay the panels out, and use black electricians tape to carefully tape the panels together on both sides, leaving just enough gap between panels (1/2mm or so) to allow the panels to bend and fold in either direction. Then I use spray glue/adhesive on heavy duty or cardstock printouts and glue the pictures/tables to the board. I started out using foam board, but switched to picture frame board because it was thin enough to fold properly at the joint without itself bending and be stored without warping the shape or depressing.

I think I've probably made 7 or 8 of these things in the past 8 years? I'm still perfecting it. I haven't been cutting the panels small enough. The closer the fit the better. I've been tempted to change up the shape to be low-profile like the D&D 5e screens.

[flightcommander]

DIY DM screens are, naturally, the superior article in all aspects.

[stonetoflesh]

I'm sorry to have missed the fun, glad you had a good turnout!