Chupacabracon was my first convention of 2024! I thought I’d do a little recap and share my experience. I’d been to this con once before in 2022, back when they were in Round Rock, Texas. Last year they moved to San Marcos after the previous hotel greatly raised the price of renting the space. But the new hotel and convention space is much nicer! So I came down to run lots of DCC and help run the Goodman Games booth. I didn’t do as much booth helping as I anticipated so I ran more games than I initially planned. This convention has lots of Savage Worlds and a fair amount of Cthulhu going on, but not that much DCC. That said, there’s plenty of demand for the game, just not enough supply.
Friday
I made the long drive down to the con and began helping with the booth. I got to hang out with my RAW co-host, Matt, who was running the booth. That night, I managed to get into a playtest of Dragon Kings for DCC. John Watson, author of Hell Train and a whole lot of Savage Worlds material, ran the game. He’s in touch with the creator to do a conversion to DCC.
Dragon Kings is a lot like Dark Sun. Timothy Brown worked on that line for TSR and made his own spiritual successor abut 10 years ago. The game that John ran was a ton of fun. We had to escape the gladiator pits and trek across the desert. This was literally the first playtest though, so it’ll be a long while before this is released in any public format. I definitely encourage folks to get in on a playtest if you ever see it at a con.
Saturday
I started Saturday by running a playtest for a short funnel that I’ve written. It’s just about to enter editing and will hopefully be released later this year (it’s the year of the dragon, after all). Lullaby For The Volcanic Wyrm is set on a tropical island that could be described as paradise, if not for the annual virgin sacrifice to the dragon that lives in the volcano. However, the adventure starts with the annual sacrifice being skipped, causing the dragon to wake up and pyroclastic rain burning their village. The PCs get told, “Go up that mountain, virgins. One of you needs to jump in that volcano.” It was a blast and I only had a few minor revisions to make.
After that, I had a couple hours before I was a presenter on a panel called Getting Into Game Design. Me and a few other folks gave insights on getting into the gaming industry. For those who weren’t there, basically you better love to do it cause the pay is pretty poor, but you’ll meet lots of wonderful people who’re willing to help out.
After that, a few folks were going “I don’t have anything to do. I wish there was a game I could get into.” So I ran an impromptu game of Colossus Arise! The folks who got me to volunteer myself were both DCC vets but I had a hunch that they’d never played 8th level DCC (and I was right). Some character sheets were quickly printed off and we soon had 5 players (of mixed DCC experience). I hadn’t read this adventure since I ran it 4 years prior. So I was a little underprepared, but they were also underprepared to play level-8 characters. Overall, a great adventure that could go way longer than the 3 & 1/2 hours we had, but it was an awesome experience.
That game ended at like 7:45 and I had volunteered myself to run another game at 8! Lots of folks had been stopping by the booth and picking up the rulebook (convention special: the softcover for $10!) but commenting on how they’d never played and would love to learn the rules by doing so. So when I’d been helping with the booth, I’d starting telling people to show up around 8 and we’d find a table. I needed an adventure that I knew well so I ran one of my own: The Blood Rose Curse. I did ask them which of the 2 adventures they’d like and they chose that one over my Winnie the Pooh adventure. Everyone had a blast. It was a great mix of problem solving, combat, exploration, and fun with the magic items.
That game ended around 11PM, I kinda wanted to go to sleep but there was a midnight auction. I stayed up and nabbed a copy of Harlem Unbound (leatherette version) for a great price. I would have been higher, as the proceeds were going to Extra Life, but no one was as interested in it as me.
Sunday
After about 5 hours of sleep, I woke up to ready myself for my last game: Glipkerio’s Gambit. I’d run all the other adventures contained within Chaos Rising and wanted to “complete” that collection of short adventures. Being a Sunday morning game, only half the players who signed up actually appeared but that didn’t stop us from having an awesome time. The players doubled up on PCs and quested up Mount Tyche! They fought horrific monsters, solved a puzzle through brute strength (and a bit of Luck), and got some sweet loot. I cut the final encounter a bit short. Essentially, it has the “boss” with a massive HP pool. Mid-combat, I realized that the HP pool needed to be cut in half or combat would take forever/get tedious. I wish I’d planned for that sooner. If I had, I’d have also given the enemies a bit of a boost to their attacks t make them feel more dangerous. Not that there wasn’t danger, but it felt a bit weak. The players really liked the twist at the very end. It’s a nice adventure and I’d love to see another riff on its gimmick.
After the game, I helped a bit with the raffle. Over at the GG booth, we game away a module, some dice, a MCC core book, and a ding-n-dent 5e adventure compilation. Unfortuantely, I couldn’t stick around to help with tear down. I had some old friends in the area that I’d agreed to meet for a late lunch.
I drove back home, excited to have had such a great time and also excited to get some proper rest. I slept long and hard that night, and then slept most of Monday too. That said, I’m looking forward to NTRPGCon! Hope to see some familiar faces there.
What’s your favorite local con? And which con are you headed to next?
What else is going on?
Big Trouble For A Little Blood
The campaign is live for 1 more week! It’s fully funded but we haven’t hit any stretch goals yet! Give it a look and please share the word online!
Wayward Gazette - Weird Frontiers zines full o’ new miracles, items & actions!
The Wayward Gazette is a series of dime novel zines that are compatible with the Weird Frontiers and DCC RPG. They contain supplemental rules, new character classes & equipment. Each zine will be B/W, A5 size (5.83inX8.27in) and approximately 22 pages.