A Week of Star Wars Gaming - Part Two

I think I'm getting the hang of this Star Wars - Edge of the Empire system, albeit at the detriment of my kids' bedtime.  If you haven't read Part One of our full Week of Star Wars Gaming, go back and give it a read.  Here's the continuation of this glorious, Force-filled week... 

Wednesday

"41-VEX, I've got forty-one reasons for you to buy a dewback!" - Jumper Mappy, the Mos Shuuta Dewback Rancher trying to close a deal with the party's Droid Colonist.

On Wednesday we debuted out brand new Star Wars Rebels, Season 2 collection.  Cooper and I watched two episodes while Evie did homework.  Carrie didn't get home from an event until later, so we had to wait until 9pm again to get back to our Edge of the Empire game.  

While Episode I of Escape from Mos Shuuta was fun, especially learning the new game mechanics, we had a much smoother and engaging night during Episode II.  Everyone started getting the hang of the rules system, which made gameplay a lot faster.  Also, the adventure came off the rails, and the party was able to explore the city of Mos Shuuta a little before continuing along the path.  

Perhaps my favorite scenes all involved Cooper's Droid Colonist, 41-VEX, and the purchase of his new dewback named Mitchy.  Cooper insisted that he wanted to visit the dewback stables, and then had to have one of the lizards.  Once purchased (after some shrewd haggling), Mitchy became a full-fledged party member.  

When the party faced off with some pesky stormtroopers, 41-VEX and his trusty steed charged into combat.  Cooper even used his dewback to talk his way past the droid guards out in front of the landing bay.  Cooper insisted that the droids should pet the dewback, and then had a tremendous Coerce roll.  So the entire team entered the facility while the guards were busy admiring Mitchy's silky scales.

Cooper wasn't the only one with crazy ideas.  In order to get into the landing bay with the Krayt Fang, Oskara (played by +Carina W.) claimed to be the new janitors for the landing bay.  The ruse worked, although I informed my daughter that her "Despair" die result meant that the landing bay staff wanted her to clean an incoming Imperial shuttle.  After some quick thinking the party slinked off in stealth-mode, quietly arriving just outside of the Krayt Fang.  

Thursday - Friday

Technically we skipped the Star Wars "gaming" on Thursday and Friday, mostly because of work and then I had a DCCRPG game last night.  But I did get some great swag in the mail: Heroes of the Resistance!  Now I've got the updated Millennium Falcon from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as well as Poe's T-70 X-Wing.  

Saturday

On Saturday morning we resurrected our old tradition of "Dunkin' & Dragons."  But instead of Dunkin' Donuts we went with Peace Love and Little Donuts, and instead of Dragons we went with Star Wars.  Yes, it was time to complete our run through Escape from Mos Shuuta.

On to Episode III...

Finally the party reached the Krayt Fang, and we were about to take off into the Stars.  Continuing with their stealthy plan of disguising themselves as janitors, Oskara, Lowhrrick, 41-VEX, and Pash convinced the droids to let them on board the YT-1300 freighter for some light cleaning.  

As soon as they were all on board, however, the team attempted to take out the security droids quietly, before Trex the Trandoshan could figure out what was going on.  

The plan didn't quite work out... as planned.  Oskara did a stealthy attack, as did Pash, but 41-VEX didn't get the memo.  The droid used a stun grenade, lobbing it down the corridor towards the cockpit, hitting the security droids, Trex, and even Oskara!  Cooper was amused.  

After slaying Trex, 41-VEX ran back to the engineering compartment and repaired the broken Hyperspace thingie.  The Krayt Fang roared into the skies above Mos Shuuta and into the black, never ending night of space.  

The last part of the adventure was a short space battle between the party's YT-1300 freighter and a pair of TIE Fighters.  The action was quick and exciting, and since we only had four players, everyone had something fun to do.  I asked the group if they enjoyed the game, and everyone gave me a big grin.

Winning!

Jen wanted to make sure that I got a picture of her quote for Pash...

... and Evie spent a lot of time working on her own character art.  

Even Cooper had some stuff to share!

All in all, I think we had a fantastic time with Edge of the Empire.  I had my reservations with the dice mechanics again, especially with tallying them up.  I've had the chance to play in a few games of Age of Rebellion on Google+ and Roll 20, but we always use a dice-app to calculate the results.  But as we moved along in our live-table game, the dice calculating went faster and faster.  It really got easy when the symbols clicked with Carrie, and she was able to guide her brother... and mom... through the results.  

I'm thinking about continuing the story of these four characters on Tuesday night, with the Long Arm of the Hutt. 

Oh, and we also played some Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures today!

Cooper has sat in on a few games with me and his sister Evie, but has never had the opportunity to fly against someone in a solo match.  Well, today Cooper decided to take to the stars on his own!  Cracking open our Ghost and Phantom box, we toyed with the idea of Cooper flying the Ghost... but then again that's a tough ship for a first timer. 

Since he really wanted to play as Hera Syndulla, the best pilot from Star Wars: Rebels, I set Cooper up with the Phantom.

We each went with 25 points, and I picked a Scum and Villainy ship, the Kihraxz fighter.  I've only flown it once or twice before, and never with a one on one, but it seemed like a balanced battle.  

I think the kiddo needs a bit more time in cockpit!  He darted straight past my fighter, and then relied on a dorsal turret upgrade to pepper me from medium range.  Maybe another round or two would've helped him get a victory, but I got very lucky towards the end of the game.  

In the end, I was able to shoot down Cooper's Phantom, forcing the Lothal Rebels to perform a rescue mission and save their pilot.  At least Chopper was on board the shuttle to keep Hera company.  

A Week of Star Wars Gaming - Part One

I know the Living 4 Crits blog has been quiet, and I apologize.  Between work, and school, and soccer, and Halloween prep (it's our favorite holiday), getting time to blog, let alone game, is a real challenge.  This is the ultimate curse of adulthood.  I have the cash to buy some awesome games without asking for my parents' permission, and yet I don't have the time to play them all.

I thought I'd showcase how we've been able to squeeze in at least a little gaming, despite the crazy schedule.  With Star Wars Rogue One on the horizon, our house is erupting into full Force Fever.  We watched Episode 7 over the weekend... twice... and are ready to finish season two of Rebels.  Evie and I did some X-Wing dueling on Sunday night, and the entire family decided to give Star Wars - Edge of the Empire a try.  

So here's our Star Wars themed "week in review," part one... 

Sunday

Another grudge match in the Walls household, this time between Evie and me.  I guess technically that's virtually every grudge match, between we are the only two regular Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game players in the house.  Carrie, Cooper, and Jen occasionally play with us, but it's rare.  

Surprise, surprise, Evie showed up with a pair of TIE-Interceptors and three TIE-Fighters.  Originally we were going to go with two 100 point teams, but we scaled back to 80 points because of it being a school night.  Not that we finished, since we ended up pushing way past bedtime...

... I get an F for parenting skills.  

We did get to dust off our medium freighter miniature though, so that's a win!

A view from my side of the table.  Two X-Wings and a Z-95 that managed to get blown up in the first turn.  Go #TeamJames.

I have to say that I held my own pretty well during this game.  It was five on two for a good portion of the session, until I lost an X-Wing in the last turn before calling it a draw.  Technically Evie won on points, but don't tell her that.  

Monday (Halloween)

Not a gaming night, but for Halloween I went out with Kylo Ren (Evie) as my own Star Wars/Firefly/Doctor Who creation: Cyberbacca Cobb!

Tuesday

We gave Star Wars - Edge of the Empire another try on Tuesday night!  I've had the opportunity to play Age of Rebellion several times over the last year, but it's been about eighteen months since I've attempted to gamemaster Fantasy Flight's Star Wars system myself.  I've gotta say, the beginner's box for this game is fabulous!  It's incredibly easy to get a game going, and the first adventure helps guide a GM step-by-step through the process.  

Jennifer and I are trying to make a commitment to play something every Tuesday night, no matter what happens with our schedule.  It just so happens that we almost weren't able to make good on this first promise.  I had to work late, Jen had to work (she usually works Mondays instead of Tuesdays, but took off yesterday for Halloween), and there was some confusion with bath schedules.  But we were committed...

... so we started playing at 9pm!

Again... "F" for parenting.

For Episode I of Escape from Mos Shuuta we had the following players and characters:

• Carrie played Oskara the Twi'lek Bounty Hunter
• Evie played Lowhhrick the Wookie Hired Gun
• Cooper played 41-VEX the Droid Colonist
• Jennifer played Pash the Human Smuggler

A common silly look from Evie for the evening.  All-in-all, we had a much easier time with the dice mechanic than I expected.  I remembered last time having to spend a lot of time working through the results, but these kiddos picked up quickly.  It helped having character sheets that cover and explain all of the details.

I think the high point of Episode I for us was Evie trying to hide from the Gamorrean Guards.    With her brother hiding in a closet, and both her mom and sister behind a stage, Evie decided to have her wookie try and impersonate a rug...

...

... it didn't work.

Furthermore, when Evie yelled "ouch!" I told her that her character did the same.  The dice result made sense as well.  This, of course, led to a fight scene.

Carrie, our clever artist, illustrated the scene with Oskara sniping the guards from behind a doorway.

Reading the character backstories aloud, covering some of the rules basics, and playing the first two encounters took us just over an hour, so we decided to pause the game...

... to be continued.  

Christmas Gaming 2015

Happy holidays fellow gamers!

While I've been quiet this week on Living 4 Crits, our family has been crazy busy celebrating.  We went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens twice last weekend, and then spent Christmas with my parents in Delaware.  Santa brought a lot of great presents for the kiddos, but I think they preferred the gifts that Captain Phasma delivered in her First Order shuttle...

This was a fun gift to get into the kids' hands.  Even my wife didn't know that I was letting them have Disney Infinity 3.0, so it was up to me to do the planning... scary!  

 

I placed a silver wrapped gift behind one of my parents' blinds, that just read "To: Evie, From: Captain Phasma."  When she opened the gift there was a Kylo Ren mask inside.  I told Evie to wear the mask and follow me into my parents' sun room. There, on the floor, was another silver gift: Disney Infinity 3.0.  Evie carried the wrapped gift into the living room so everyone could join in opening the next present from Captain Phasma.  

 

So the kids were thrilled, and believed that they were just getting the game...

... that's when I told them to go back in the sunroom together, where I uncovered all of the Star Wars figures available for the game.

Sure, the kids will have a great time playing with these figures on the Xbox 360, but I'll probably us them for some tabletop gaming.  The 2.0 figures made great mini's, so I expect no less with these figures.  

After presents and brunch, the family settled in for a long day of hanging out with new toys and presents.  Along with the Star Wars toys and Legos, I got Evie a few items for the Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game.  She got a Star Viper as well as another TIE/fo for when we set up some Force Awakens missions.  Not to be outdone, with an Amazon.com gift card I picked up a new T-70 X-Wing, on top of a bunch of Edge of the Empire books...

... and Age of Rebellion... 

... yes, the post Star Wars Episode 7 bug is completely consuming me.

Evie also got a new Death Star play mat for our games, so we grabbed my eldest daughter Carrie and settled down for a little Christmas Day gaming!

Evie flew a trio of TIE fighters (Mauler Mithel and a pair of Academy Pilots), and Carrie had Boba Fett in Slave I.

I brought Han Solo and Chewie in the Millennium Falcon, as well as Wedge Antilles in his X-Wing.

For points, we evened out with 95 points each.

It was a fantastic battle, especially because I won!

(Seriously, how often does that happen?)

In hindsight, Evie was hamstrung by having Carrie as a partner.  While a good player on her own, Carrie wasn't communicating her movements well with Evie, and therefore kept flying off.  In their opening sequence of movements, they led their TIE's in a straight line formation, allowing me to heavily damage one of them, before turning Han and Wedge on Slave I.

 

By the time Mauler Mithel shot down Wedge Antilles, the battle was already won... Carrie and Evie just didn't realize that the tides had turned.  Although one ship down, the kids' ships were all seriously damaged, with two (including Slave I), barely keeping it together.  Han and Chewie finished off all four of the Imperial vessels one after the other.

Carrie left the table as soon as Slave I was destroyed.  But Evie hung on until the end, donning her Kylo Ren mask in tribute to the fallen.

 

All in all we had a fantastic Christmas Day, and are incredibly excited for the rest of the Holiday season.  I've got a Cypher System Fantasy game scheduled for Tuesday, and Carrie and I are running a Dungeon Crawl Classics Star Wars tournament funnel called "Wrath of the Gungan Hordes" next Saturday.

Somewhere in the middle of all this I need to squeeze in a little Star Wars: Edge of the Empire as well... as the Force continues to call to me.  I spent much of today reading "Lords of Nal Hutta", and am ready for a Hutt based adventure!

Villainous Scum - Star Wars Across Two Systems

A Time to Celebrate

Like many of you I've been counting the days since that very first teaser hit YouTube.  Finn on the sands of a faraway world.  BB-8 rolling at top speed.  The first glimpse of Kylo Ren's lightsaber burning bright.  The Falcon in flight dueling with TIE Fighters.  I was thrilled yet anxious.  Would this be the amazing film I craved, or Star Wars in name only?  Admittedly I had my doubts, and reserved judgement until I could see more.  

Of course, when the second teaser dropped, and I saw Han and Chewie, I was fighting back tears of joy.  

Since the April release of the second trailer, I've gone into Star Wars overdrive.  We celebrated a magnificent Star Wars day with friends and family.  I purchased way too many Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures much to my wife's delight.  I picked up Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Role-Playing Game and read that entire book cover to cover (of course it took me half the year to do so.)  I even had the chance to play a few games of Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion, enjoying myself thoroughly.  

So when Thanksgiving was over, and I started to seriously count the days to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I knew that I needed to celebrate with some kind of role-playing extravaganza.  But my first instinct wasn't to open my new RPG books.  I'm already  in the middle of enjoying several "non-Star Wars native" game systems right now.  

What if I tried running Star Wars in a totally unexpected system?  

To Choose the Dark Side… or the Light

While on Facebook last week I saw a question pop up asking about people's favorite Star Wars RPG systems.  Obviously whenever something like this gets posted several games come to everyones' minds, and their fans race to throw in their support:

  

• There are those who first explored the universe of the original trilogy with West End Games' original d6 System, and have never left. 
• Following the D&D 3E renaissance, the D20 System Star Wars game had some popularity, and there are still a few out there slinging their Revised Edition Rulebooks.
• About the time that D&D 4E showed up, the Saga Edition was born, with some modified rules, and new squarish books.  I often see Saga Edition games posted on G+.  
• Fast forward to present day and you have the Fantasy Flight Games series: Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion, and Force and Destiny.  There are quite a few players for each of these, and I have been hounded by my good friend Andy to get an EotE campaign started.  

I realized that most folks posting on this question would offer up one of these games, so I decided to go outside the box and suggest something completely different:  running a Stormtrooper-themed game using Dungeon Crawl Classics.   

Speaking from my experiences in the Spring, I had an absolute blast running players through the Stormtrooper-themed 0-level funnels that I hastily threw together.  The games were fast, campy, and a lot of fun.  Now, I'm not going to sit here and try to tell you that DCCRPG is the "perfect system" for running Star Wars themed adventures.  But I can say that I enjoyed running those few Stormtrooper adventures more than all my time running Saga Edition combined.   

In a similar way, I really enjoyed running the Star Wars themed sessions of The Strange  earlier this year.  Turning Knights of the Old Republic into a recursion, I had the chance to come up with some quick house rules, select relevant foci for character generation, and experience the Star Wars universe with the Cypher System's nimble game mechanics.  This was all pre-Gen Con and the Cypher System Rulebook had not been released yet.  My only way of running a complete Cypher Star Wars game back then would have been to hack Numenera and The Strange.  Thankfully we live in a post-Cypher System Rulebook release world now… 

… boo yah.  

So I want to do some Star Wars RPG'ing, and when it came time to pick the system I was torn.  While I enjoyed the West End Games d6 System, I gave away almost all of my books several years ago when the D20 System came out.  Completing the cycle, I ditched many of my D20 books when Saga Edition turned up on the shelves.  I didn't particularly enjoy running the Saga Edition, and finding the books is a pain, so that game was out of the question.  Finally, I was left with running Edge of the Empire, which I enjoyed, and want to play more, but I didn't feel that I had enough mastery of the system to do something "special" for my celebration.  

I wanted to experience Star Wars a bit closer to home.

So I chose both the Cypher System and Dungeon Crawl Classics.  

The Villainous Scum on board Chris West's Dimensional Timeship

The Villainous Scum

This time last year I was preparing for Quattro con Carnage, an exploration of old-school fantasy role-playing across four different RPG systems.  For this Star Wars experiment, which I'm titling Villainous Scum, I'll be doing something similar.  Over the next several weeks I'm going to craft a pair of Star Wars adventures featuring a band of bounty hunters in service to the Empire.  As I develop the characters, adjustments to game mechanics, and adventure details, I will share the information right here on my blog for anyone who wants to follow along.  

The cast for Star Wars: Villainous Scum is currently as follows:

• Commander Dragoon, an Independent Operative in the service of the Empire with her VT-49, "The Last Dance."
• Gann Arrok, a Slicer and Tech Specialist who is always in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Mist, a Clawdite Bounty Hunter who has taken on so many faces and mimicked so many personalities that they no longer remember their original self.  
• L-7S "El Sevs", a Droid Pilot assembled on Nar Shadaa from the parts of over fifty poor and unfortunate droids.  
• Seraph, a Dark Side Devotee and ex-Swoop Ganger discovered by the Empire in the hive-like slums of Coruscant.  
• Rondi, a corrupted Force Adept that learned of the Dark Side on her own while enslaved in the Outer Rim. 

Here's what I can share from my plan right now:

• The Villainous Scum are a motley crew of six hardened operatives in service to the Empire.  These will be pre-generated characters, complete with backstories, connections to other characters, and dark secrets that they would prefer to keep hidden.
• It's important to note that I've gone with pre-gen characters so that I can showcase how easy it is to throw together Star Wars characters in just about any system with minimal effort… I'm all about the "minimal effort!"
• This also means I'll be ready to go for convention season!
• I like to think of the Villainous Scum as Star Wars meets the Inglourious Basterds.
• I will be featuring my quick conversion notes for both the Cypher System and DCCRPG as their own blog entries.  I'll be posting links back to all the materials that I draw in to create these adventures.  
• Each member of the Villainous Scum will get their own blog post, complete with game statistics for both the Cypher System and Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, as well as all other relevant information.
• I will be running the Cypher System adventure, Between the Rocks Waits the Hard Case, at a live event here in Pittsburgh on December 19th.  Incidentally this is the same day that I'll be watching Star Wars the Force Awakens!
• Our Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure, Wrath of the Gungan Horde, will take place at a special Norwin Game Knights celebration on January 2nd, and may have completely different players (but the same six characters, along with a few Stormtrooper 0-levels… just in case.)  
• Depending on the feedback I receive, I may run both of these adventures again in mid to late January as On Air Hangouts so that they can be shared on YouTube.  

For a special "bonus feature", I'll be developing a pair of Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures scenarios for Commander Dragoon's VT-49 Decimator, The Last Dance.  These scenarios will play out between my daughter Evie and myself, and will both be posted as separate blog entries.  

All in all, I'm looking at about fourteen separate Villainous Scum posts between now and early January.

As always, I would greatly appreciate any and all feedback regarding this little experiment.  For those Edge of the Empire devotees, I'm betting that Andy will get his way and I'll be giving in to his demands by the end of the month.  But for now, I'm really excited to see where this goes.

May the Force be with me!

Tabletop Gaming in the Magic Kingdom

A Walls Family Disney "Game-cation"

Our family is obsessed with all things Disney.  

The characters, the television shows, the movies, the games, the art, no matter how much "ear-marked" goodness we consume we still crave more!  We are also incredibly fortunate in that we can make the trip down to Walt Disney World every eighteen months or so.  My wife Jennifer and I first vacationed in Disney World as a family in 2007, and have watched our three children grow in the Disney parks.  Note my reluctance to use the exact phrase "grow up", as it is our hope that our children never lose that delightful spark of childlike imagination.

While a vacation in Disney World is exciting and wonderful, it is also physically demanding.  If you've never been there, imagine spending six to seven days in four theme parks, surrounded by thousands of fellow vacationing parents and children, eating way too much food, while walking seven to ten miles each day.  

Yes, for us, this is paradise!  

This is an actual photo from our trip… look at that sky!

Over the years we've created many unique memories in the parks, so for 2015 we wanted to take our visit to the next level…

… and yes, that is an intentional gaming reference!

As well as being extreme Disney-fanatics, we are also a family of devoted and intense gamers.  Whenever we travel, our family packs an extensive collection of handheld devices (tablets, Nintendo DS's), card games, board games, dice, and tabletop roleplaying game books.  You just never know when a good game will break out!

In 2014 we brought our Numenera core book to Orlando and played two tabletop role-playing sessions in Disney's Art of Animation Resort.  One of these games took place in our hotel room while the other smack dab in the middle of the resort food court.  Following a very successful game, I knew that the only way to "up the ante" in 2015 would be to run a tabletop RPG in an actual Disney park.  

More on that later… 

A proud geek-parent moment captured on film

X-Winging at Saratoga Springs

Knowing that we had nothing planned for our first night in Disney World, I wanted to prepare our family for a week of awesomeness by gaming in public at our resort.  This year we stayed at Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa, a peaceful property that emulates the feel of an upstate New York country retreat.

After arriving at our hotel, my daughters and I scouted out potential places to sit down and play a tabletop game.  There were a few tables in the main lobby, as well as at Artist's Palate, the resort's casual dining area.  But neither of these felt right.  

We ended up choosing a very comfortable table right outside of a small bar attached to the resort's table service restaurant.  The room featured a pool table and a TV, and several other guests were watching some kind of sportsball.  

I don't know which one… I don't do sports'ing.  

After unpacking, we went through the games we brought to find just the right one to play.  While Love Letter and Fairy Tale Gloom would seem appropriate given the magical fantasy world of Disney, my daughter Evie wanted to explore a different kind of Disney fantasy…

… the kind that only exists in a galaxy far, far away!

Along with our card games, we had packed the new Fantasy Flight Games X-Wing Miniatures Game starter set, featuring ships from The Force Awakens.  Before leaving Pittsburgh I also purchased a pair of new fighters, the Z-95 Headhunter and the Kirhaxz Fighter just for this occasion.  

Carrie and I chose the Resistance fighters (X-Wing and Z-95) while Evie and my mom went with the First Order TIE's (bolstered by the Kihraxz).  This would be my mom's very first time playing X-Wing, and while it took her a few turns to get the hang of the game, eventually she became a sinister adherent of the Dark Side!  

We set the victory conditions as follows:

• Resistance victory if they shoot down two First Order fighters.
• First Order victory if they shoot down one Resistance fighter.

Perhaps I was setting Carrie and I up for disaster with these rules!  In the end, it wasn't Evie that scored the killing blow against my Z-95 Headhunter, rather it was my mom and her Kihraxz!  After almost losing her fighter to the combined fire of both Resistance fighters, my mom took her Kihraxz far to the edge of the game table, circling back while we were tangled up with Evie's TIE's.  The next round it was all over, three hits against my poor Z-95's already whittled hull.  

I can't wait for the chance at revenge next time we are at my parents house in Delaware!  

Running a No Thank You, Evil Adventure in Adventureland 

Back in September I posted Disney World: Strange or Weird, highlighting my own internal struggle on which tabletop RPG to run while at Disney.  By the end of the post I was leaning towards The Strange.  Here's a sample from my initial notes:

• The Walt Disney Corporation has a close, but secretive connection to the Estate
• The Estate is called in to investigate a missing persons report
• An entire boatload of park guests disappeared on the Jungle Cruise ride 
• These guests fell through a translation gate into a recursion based on the Jungle Cruise ride

Great idea, I thought.  Neat concept, cool plot possibilities… but I shelved it for a future adventure.  

Several people, notably +Henry de Veuve on G+ and my kids at home, mentioned how No Thank You, Evil would be a perfect fit for "Disney Con 2015."  I agreed.

For those of you who may have missed out on the Kickstarter, No Thank You, Evil is a family-friendly role-playing game by Shanna Germain and Monte Cook, currently under development over at Monte Cook Games.  No Thank You, Evil allows children to enter the world of Storia and take part in all manners of fantastic adventures, many of which could come right out of their favorite storybooks.  

Although No Thank You, Evil has yet to be released, my family and I had the opportunity to take part in the playtest.  So I reached out to the folks over at Monte Cook Games and they gave me permission to run a very special session of No Thank You, Evil using the playtest materials while on our Disney vacation!

On the third day of our Walt Disney World excursion we packed our already stuffed bag with the playtest rules, character sheets, art from the Kickstarter page, dice, and pencils.  We were bound for the Magic Kingdom, and in search of the perfect gaming table for the ultimate fantasy #GetOutAndGame experience!  After a full morning of rides and shows we stumbled across a terrific selection of tables right across from the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction!  

We ordered our lunch from Pecos Bill's in Frontierland, and set up our game while we finished eating.

I can't share any details from our game session at this time, but I can say that we were able to play a full and enjoyable adventure while in the park.  We were scheduled to spend nearly fifteen hours in the Magic Kingdom that Tuesday, since we had tickets for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party.  Taking a few hours in the middle of the day to relax, eat lunch, and play a really fun and family friendly adventure was a needed recharge!

If you want to find out more about No Thank You, Evil, definitely check out MCG's website dedicated to the upcoming game! 

Future Plans

Sadly, like all good things, this visit to Disney World had to come to an end, but plans for the next "Disney Con" were already underway before we left the parks.  On Friday night my daughter Carrie and I discovered the perfect game table for old-school, fantasy RPG'ing… 

… right in the back of New Fantasyland!  

At Gaston's, a cozy quick service restaurant based on the dastardly villain from Beauty and the Beast, we came across a round table tucked away in the corner.  Located beneath a large chandelier made out of fake antlers, this table could host a myriad of adventures…

… oh yes, there will be a Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG encounter at the next Disney Con… and it will be in New Fantasyland!  

Before I sign off, I need to thank my amazing wife (and professional travel agent specializing in Disney-awesomeness) +Jennifer Walls for making this vacation possible.  She's the one that develops all our itineraries and makes our reservations way ahead of time.  So when I tell her "hey, I want to squeeze in some gaming on Tuesday", she goes out of her way to make it possible. 

I love you Jenny!   Thanks for another great trip :)