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Volume 2 • Number 3 • 2005August http://www.HarrowedHalls.com

F r o m T h e D e s k O f

E V I L M I K ETired. Dead tired. That’s what 4 days cram packed full of gaming will do to you! GenCon was a blast as usual. It’s so nice to have such a huge conven-tion right in our own home town.

This is our third year going to GenCon and I really think we’re getting the hang of it. No major problems...nope...not one...everything went smooth as buttermilk...yep...smoooooth...uh huh...not one glitch in the whole thing, boy...

Editor-in-Chief“Evil” Mike McNeal

Assistant Editor“Chaos” Steve Todd

Art DirectorSherman Lee Templeton II

ContributersSteve Todd

Owen Harrison

Web Sitehttp://www.HarrowedHalls.com

Editorial Offi ceHarrowed Halls

10370 Hillsborough DriveFishers, IN 46038

GenCon Edition

LegalStuff

Day 1: We All DiedUsually how things begin sets the tone for the rest of the time spent. Fortunately this wasn’t the case for Gencon. Mike, to the amazement of us all, didn’t buy a Gencon badge. The reasons for this are obscure, but many have their theories (See Alien Abduction: Or what happened on the way to Gencon in this issue). Needless to say, Mike had to stand in a long line and we had to ditch our first game, Cartoon Frag. As his good friend, I spent this time getting a coke, cashing in tickets, and pick-ing up my Gencon bag of goodies. One other thing to note is that when we got to Mike’s parking garage,

T h e C h r o n i c l e s o f

G e n C o n

someone had taken Mike’s reserved parking spot. That person has been dealt with and won’t trouble us any further.

After Mike got his badge we (and about 10,000 other folks) headed to the dealer area. I wanted to take

care of some things for Jim and get his sec-ond edition Runequest game. We ran into Owen at the Fantasy Flight booth and hung out with him until our first game. While in the dealer’s area, Mike and I found a guy selling heroclix. He had three huge tubs filled with figures and you could fill up a bag with them for only $10. Mike and I had a fun time picking out figures for Neces-

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sary Evil. They ended up costing us about 20 cents each—not bad at all.

Savage Worlds: Lost ColonyOur first game was a Savage Worlds: Lost Colony game, think Deadlands, but in space. The GM was none other than B.D. Flory the author of all of the upcoming Savage Worlds Dead-lands books! We had a lot of fun even though we had played the sec-ond part of the adventure last year at Gencon (using Deadlands rules) when B.D. ran a pickup game that included a lot of Pinnacle writers. That didn’t help our valiant heroes much though as we all died from explosive decompression saving the space colonies from a nearly unbeat-able Skinny by pushing it/him out an airlock.

[Begin Evil Mike Addition]

Battle LineWhile waiting for our 8:00pm game, Steve and I stopped by the board game room and talked with Owen and Ben. As usual, Ben was using his diplomatic skills to encourage the

other players to attack him!

So, to kill some time, Steve and I played Battle Line. It’s a great 2 player strategy game that unfortu-nately I could not defeat Steve at. I think I won 1 game out of 5! [End Evil Mike Addition]

Savage Worlds: Across the Desert of DeceitOur 8:00 event was a Savage World’s game called Across the Des-ert of Deceit, a fun, fantasy game run by Tim Hannon (aka The Lore-master.) Each of the characters had a Dark Secret card that revealed something unknown about each of us. We all started as captives of sla-vers in the middle of the desert. At the climatic battle in a tomb in a ru-ined city, it was revealed that one of the PCs was actually an agent for the slavers. He sealed our fate, literally, by sealing us in a pitch-black tomb with many mummies. We were never

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seen again. If you’re paying atten-tion you should have realized that so for our PCs have died in every game.

Day 2: Wormlings Want Our WomenI got a free coupon to refill Mike’s 286 oz. Gencon cup. I forgot about it for the entire convention. This was not due to any aliens though. Mike and I played some Magic in the morning before our first game. For those keeping track, we tied.

Savage Deadlands: Hell on EarthAgain we met with B.D. as he ran a Savage Hell on Earth game about wormlings and biological compat-ibility. Our PCs were a band of scavengers just trying to make a living in what is left of the world af-ter the ghost rock bombs fell. We came upon a group of people need-ing some help with some wormlings

(kind of like a humanoid Mojave rattler.) Well we were in for lots of surprises and LOTS of guts checks! Let’s just say the final battle of us in a humvee pulling a van full of people being chased by wormlings and a massive rattler was very climatic and very fun. B.D. did a great job with the entire scenario. And just for the record, we survived this one.

Savage Worlds: Tour of DarknessUnfortunately I didn’t get the name of the guy running this game. It was only two hours long, compared to the usual four, but it was pretty fun. We were a unit chasing a sorcerer working with the VC. Sure we didn’t really believe in all that Charlie mojo, but orders were orders. That is until we found ourselves on the shores of Normandy during the June 6th, 1944

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invasion! Our battle with the sorcerer took place at a country farmhouse and was great fun. I think we all came out alive in this game too! So far, 2:2.

Savage Worlds:Necessary EvilMike ran a pick up game up on the second floor of the Hyatt. Which, BTW was the best place we found to game; Ben, Owen, Ben’s friend Rick and I chose some villains and we were off trying to rescue the PuppetMaker from a maximum se-

curity V’sori holding facility for Dr. Destruction. One thing we all for-got to do was choose super villains with SKILLS! Sure we could take on an army of V’sori super tanks, but sneaking into…well, sneaking into ANYTHING wasn’t our particular area of expertise. Amazing, even using default skill rolls we managed to consistently make great rolls—much to Mike’s dismay. Of course when clobbering time came, we were un-stoppable! That is until we removed that funny metal headgear from the PuppetMaker. Now we all work for him, instead of Dr. Destruction. Great game Mike!

Day 3: A Journey and new friends madeWe skipped out on our 10:00 game (sorry, if that was your game) so we could hit the dealer area with some chance of getting free stuff. Hmmm, apparently so did 10,000 other peo-ple. We played a demo of a fun new game called En Garde! It’s a card combat game based upon fencing “…in a more civilized age.” Or so says the box. They were giving discounts if you bought more than one, so Mike and I were ready to give them our credit cards! They only took cash. What!? That’s inconceivable! So we left without buying and went to look up Shane Hensley to say hi. We had a nice talk with Shane and then headed to our next game.

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Savage Worlds:Journey to the Red TempleThe journey to the Red Temple was just released in print the previous week and it was cool to have the author, Sean Preston of Reality Blurs, running it. Sean turned out to be a really great guy. The game was fun and very fast paced. We faced magi-cal sword wielding samurai spirits, beautiful temptress spirits, bandits, “pretty lights”, and finally a demon. One fun thing was that our charac-ters were not necessarily the heroic sort found in legends…those had been killed off earlier I guess. We were simple folk from a village rav-aged by a mysterious disease. This made the game a little different from others we had played in so far. Sean did a great job with the setting and I’m looking forward to the entire set-ting book that will be out sometime in the future called Iron Dynasty. We also ran into Tom (Count Zero from the forums) who we had gamed with during previous cons. He agreed to

come to Mike’s pick up game that evening.

Savage Worlds:Tour of Darkness - The BugsOnce again we met over at the Hyatt and scoped out a great table right by the costume contest to play Mike’s TOD game. Ben and Owen showed up, along with Tom, and we started our simple reconnaissance mission that would soon turn into a night-mare. Not long after we started B.D. Flory showed up. It seems that he and Tom were good friends and B.D. joined the game. Mike gave us quite a battle just outside of an ancient temple when the trees came alive and nearly beat the crap out of us. As Tom said, “The door just kicked our Asses!” We managed to prevail and entered the temple, only to be-come sealed inside with a child we were helping back to his uncle’s vil-lage. That’s when the bugs showed up. Not the household variety, but the Starship Trooper variety! We thought we were all goners, espe-cially when it turned out the ‘child’ was really some kind of wizard in disguise. Amazingly none of us died during the climatic battle, as we dis-covered that hurting the wizard af-fected the bugs behavior. Another great game by Mike! Oh, one more coincidence, Tim Hannon (The Lore-master) also came by. It seems that he, B.D. and Tom all hail from the same area and rode to the con to-gether. It was great gaming with all

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of them and we’ll look forward to seeing them next year!

Oh, I almost forgot! Shane stopped by Mike’s TOD game and we got to talk some more, he signed our books, and we finally got a picture

with this special Guest of Honor at the con (his badge even said so.) Thanks Shane!

And I forgot about our captivity in the parking garage! I bet you didn’t know that those places held people prisoner. Well they do—until you pay their exorbitant prices! Mike and I both saw the sign that said “$12.00 All Day”. Little did we know that the fine print said a day was 12 hours—here I thought they were 24? Anyway heading to the garage we scrimped together $12 ($8 of it in quarters.) Imagine our surprise when the attendant asked for $18. We didn’t have $18. Oh, and they don’t take debit cards, credit cards, offers of free sex, pints of blood,

gaming dice, gaming t-shirts, signed gaming books, or IOUs—we tried them all. So after much parking and sitting and sitting some more we made a deal and they let us out. I’m not allowed to discuss the details of the plea bargain.

Day 4: it’s 8:00 in the morning and we’re tiredI really should have titled this day “The Day of the Aliens” or something like that, because our 8:00 game was ‘Roswell’ run by William Reger. We had played in a pickup game last year that William ran, so we knew we were in for a good game. And we were right…

Savage Worlds: RoswellDuring this 1947 pulp game we played the aliens! We were sent in to clean up the mess with the crashed spaceship and capture Professor Orpheus who had broken the rules by interfering with the barbaric hu-mans. Our team consisted of the Engineer, played by Mike, who was convinced that earth animals could talk; the science officer, me, who was overtly curious and wanted to experience Earth first hand; the ro-bot, think ‘Lost in Space’ but with faulty programming; the captain, who was eager to disintegrate and ask questions later; the investigator Costello, our self appointed leader; and his right hand man…er, robot, Abbott. Believe me when I say Earth will never be the same. We disinte-

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grate a horse that we thought had been trained in counter-espionage techniques (we couldn’t get him to talk), we freed subjugated chickens (we were abhorred at Earth’s casual imprisonment of other beings), I got dead drunk, and the Captain nearly

killed us during the ride in the semi to our final battle with the Professor. William did a great job running the game. And now we know what really happened at Roswell back in 1947.

Last RightsWe did end up buying EnGarde. Af-ter a final run through the dealer’s area, Mike, Owen and I headed to the board game area to play a demo of Shadows Over Camelot. We found them packed up and gone! We must have looked lost because three ladies invited us to play a demo of Redneck Life. I was skeptical, but Mike was all for it. The game turned out to be a funny redneck version of Life. As the game progressed you bought

cars, houses, got married and di-vorced, and remarried, and collect more youngins. Of course you didn’t have any money so all of things you bought were on credit. Oh, and you had various accidents that caused you to loose teeth. The winner was the one that had the most money and most teeth. Owen, being from England, Northern England no less, won hands down. I guess he was the better redneck after all. We also tried Mike’s Wench card game. Although the art work is first rate…ah the art work…the game play lent itself more to a group that had had a few drinks first. With that we called it a day.

Wow, another great convention. Mostly made that way because of the friends we made and friends we saw again. Thanks to all of you who made Gencon 2005 a Fast, Furious, and Fun event!

Chaos SteveChronicler for Harrowed Halls

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Mike forgot to buy his badge for Gen-con! Let me repeat this: Mike forgot to buy his badge for Gencon. How could this be? What possible set of events could cause a somewhat nor-mal (albeit, evil) gamer to forget to buy his badge? I mean we’re not rookies at this. Mike and I maintain a constant flow of emails discuss-ing events we want to attend, pickup games we are going to run, new games we want to buy--all precluded by the fact that we’ve purchased a badge for the convention. The only conclusion I can come up with is that Mike was abducted by aliens some-time between May and July. I know you’re wondering how I came up with this, but let’s examine some facts.

The only way Mike could ‘forget’ to buy a badge would be because he thought he already bought one…which of course he hadn’t. So someone or something had to alter Mike’s mind into believing he had already bought a badge. Only two groups have the technology available to do this: The Mormons and the aliens. The Mor-mons I contacted seemed abhorred at the idea of accepting Mike into their flock, so that leaves alien abduction as the only reasonable cause.

I think Owen and Ben can substanti-ate that during that May/July time frame there was a week where Mike was silent—no emails, no calls, noth-

Alien Abduction: Or What Happened On The Way To Gencon

ing. Then suddenly one week later he was back, as if nothing had happened. I think we all know where Mike was during that time: on some alien ship being probed like nobody’s business! It was during this time that mistakes where made.

Take Mike’s colon problems…please. Think about it, normally Diverticulitis doesn’t occur until the colon is about 60 years old. So the aliens, for what-ever reason, must have transplanted a 60-year old colon into Mike’s body. Normally, after they gather some in-comprehensible data, the owner’s original body part is returned to hide any evidence of tampering. Whether it was just an alien oversight or they were just too busy with our earth women to bother; for whatever rea-son, the old colon was left inside of Mike. The aliens are probably watch-ing him right now…and laughing. As for the ‘extra’ memory of purchasing a Gencon ticket, I can only surmise that this one stems from the alien version of ‘oops’ during one of the probing sessions. I bet if we look, we’d find some tiny alien object lodged in Mike’s brain, probably the earth equivalent of a scalpel or maybe a sponge.

This is why I believe that all of the name-calling, ridiculing, and finger pointing that occurred during the con-vention was uncalled for. It wasn’t Mike’s fault, it was the aliens’.

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As per usual, boardgames were housed in the 500 Ballroom and Reception Ar-eas - aka The Frozen Tundra. Why oh why did they have the temperature set so low this year? It was cold enough to freeze the d20s off a dice monkey (if such a thing exists). Anyway, on to the games. Arriving about 9am the first day, I decided to see if I could join Mike and Steve in their cartoon Frag game at 10am. Strange, they were not there. Can’t imagine what could have hap-pened......

First up, The Settlers of Catan. We played one of the many expansions - Historical Scenario II. All four of us had never played before, so we had to learn as we went along. You can play a number of scenarios, but we agreed to play the Chinese vs. Mongols. In this scenario, we each play a Chinese ruler and have a section of the Great Wall we have to maintain to keep the Mon-gol Hordes from getting in and pillag-ing our lands. Victory points are scored based on number of settlements, cities, etc, and the first to 10 wins. If the Mongols successfully invade 5 times then we ALL loose. After a few rounds we restarted due to a player having placed too many settlements - some crazy person who had an argument with himself concerning whether or not the Mycenaean were called the Mycenaean back then.

Upon the restart it eventually became apparent that the aforementioned crazy person was going to win, so the

rest of us let our walls fall into disrepair to ensure mutual defeat. We played a third time and the crazy person won fair and square. Rats.

Day two was the highly anticipated Conquest of the Empires - the new game from Eagle Games. Set in Roman times, it pits warring Roman gener-als against each other vying to become the next Caesar - the winner is the one with the most victory points after 16 turns. Despite the large map, large plastic figures (nicely sculpted) and Victory (nothing to do with buying the extra Victory Points card when I found out we were ending the game that turn *cough*), I was somewhat disappoint-ed as the map was not fully utilized - maybe the Classic game makes better use of the available real estate?

Day three featured Doom: The Invad-ers Riddle. What can I say? The invad-ers won. Again. What a surprise. I pre-dicted this at the start as soon as we discovered that, although there were 6

Boardgames at the ‘ConBy Owen

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marines, we were in two squads and in competition with each other. With the premise of working for competing min-ing companies, we could score frags by killing each other, downloading informa-tion from computers, and making it out alive. The two teams combined scored 3 frags, the invader scored 9.

Other games I played were... Manila - This simple looking game in-volves smuggling goods into port at Manila - watch out for pirates! Good family game.

Nexus Ops - A very enjoyable combat orientated strategy game involving lots of plastic creatures - victory is mine!!!

Rednecks - a game making fun at Red-necks (what an original concept). A huge victory for me in this one - I was the only one in credit. Although enter-taining, not sure about the replayability factor.

Wench - A card game bought by Mike (perhaps enticed by the pictures?). I am sure it is a good game to play when you’re drunk. Thankfully I don’t drink.

Necessary Evil - After reading on a website that the GM runs a good game I was really looking forward to it. It turned out to be a highly entertain-ing roleplay game based on the Sav-age Worlds system. We played a group of Super Villains who were set up by a certain Doctor Destruction fellow. This guy cannot be trusted. We all managed to survive (kind of) thanks to some superb dice rolling. It should be men-tioned that we were honored by a visit from “Just Shane”.

Tour of Darkness - Another enjoyable game run by the same GM who ran NE. This game is set during the Vietnam War, and again uses the Savage Worlds system (is there anything this system can’t do?). Never in the field of human/scary creature conflict, has so much been owed to so many by a Smarts roll.

Despite 3 attempts, I never did get to play Shadows over Camelot. Is it any good?

Last years GenCon - which was my first - was very disappointing in one area. Women - the lack thereof. There were hardly any to be seen, apart from the one or two nice costumes (including a particularly cheeky number). Maybe the golden years had passed. NOT SO!!! This year was a sight for sore eyes! There were beauties everywhere! Even playing games - Jimminy Jillikers!!! I must also mention there were some spectacular Vendor and Volunteer babes. Top honors for me was the Nurse and Schoolgirl - a fine adver-tisement for the Wench card game.

I would like to take this opportunity to nominate the inventor of low-rise jeans for a Nobel Prize. All Superhe-roes do not wear capes.

A Bachelor’s Guide to GenCon

By Owen