I'm glad to say that we are expecting to have the Adventurer Conqueror King System hardcovers in time for Gary Con, which is particularly awesome because it'll mean we'll have a chance to give 'em in person to so many of the people who we thank in the credits for their contributions to the original fantasy roleplaying game, of which ACKS is just our particular season-to-taste homebrew. Lead designer Alex Macris and my fellow developer Greg Tito are going to be joining me at Gary Con this year, which is particularly awesome because I don't get to see them as often as I'd like. We're going to be running a series of events to introduce people to the delicious, refreshing taste of New Glarus Spotted Cow, I mean Adventurer Conqueror King. I'm not sure all the events will make it into the registration system, as getting the manuscript to the printers has kept us busy, but here are the details. Each event description starts with the standard line "Every campaign needs its Borderlands, and the Auran Empire - implied setting of the Adventurer Conqueror King System - is no exception.", and ends with the notice that pre-generated characters are provided, and that you can play these characters in any of the Borderlands events or in Night of the Walking Wet at 8 pm Saturday. Doing so is not required: you can play in just one of these, all four, or anywhere in between. Adventurers in the Borderlands. Thursday, 6pm - 10pm, Tavis The Caves of Chaos have been well-mapped for a third of a century now, but rumor says they still hold great riches. That's fortunate, since you have great ambitions to bankroll! Conquerors of the Borderlands. Friday, time TBD, Greg Ancient evil has corrupted the Castellan! Recruit a rag-tag army and lead your troops over the fortress walls. Will you have to destroy the Keep to save it? Kings of the Borderlands. Saturday, 2pm - 6pm, Alex Ruling the Keep provides many resources and many problems. Delegate lesser tasks to your henchmen, hirelings, and spies while you seek the evil only you can stop, and the reward worthy of a king.
Eager to see you again, Jeff, and put a face to the name, Morgan - although we've probably met at a previous GaryCon and I am just failing to connect the dots. (It gets really screwed up when I meet someone and while I am still trying to work the mental switchboard to connect real name to forum name, we're like "okay what's your character's name?" and it all goes phlooey.)
I completely spaced on the registration - but I was lucky to get in Adventures in the Borderlands...and, of course, Walking Wet. Oh, and the kids are signed up for the Sunday Kid-friendly game! Look forward to seeing you and playing together!
Cool, Javi will be glad that he has players (beside myself of course). Will y'all be in Rich's kid-friendly game too? I only got one slot in Stormberg's, alas, but that let me snag a spot in Harley Stroh's game while Javi is exploring the Haunted Keep.
I'm in a conundrum... So I signed the kids up for both your game and Richie Franks kids game...not realizing Harley had games in the event catalog. I went to add Harley's game for the kids - only to find they had used up their points. Oh the problems of having the kids want to game more.... :lol:
Yeah, because of DMing a lot I had lots of points left over; the kid badge allowance was brutally limited though!
Tavis...s'all good. Looks like Harley is amenable to some off the books DCC for me and the kids! I love GaryCon...and this is one of the many reasons why...
ACKS is now available in PDF, and signs look good for having the hardbacks in time for Gary Con! You don't need to have the books in any form to play - all materials will be provided at the con, and if you have a mimeograph of the rules from some other member of your gaming group we will not rip it up unless you ask us to so that you'll have a good story to tell about it later - but if reading through ACKS, playing with your home group, etc. will enhance your enjoyment of the Gary Con events I'm all for it. You can get the PDFs direct from us at shop.gamesalute.com, or DTRPG if you prefer; both have a wide range of payment options for folks who didn't preorder because they didn't want to do PayPal. The PDF is $9.99, and includes a coupon for $10 off the hardback which you can apply to a copy you get from us at the con. We will be sharing exhibitor space with Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea because Ghul is awesome and generous and community-spirited, and because AS&SH is a great game that can make ours look good by being on the same table so we can bask in its reflected glory.
Sharing space: Check! Awesome and generous: Check, but you forgot handsome. Kidding! Reflected basking glory: One can hope! To be truthful, my friends, I rented the booth before I knew whether our core product would be in print in time, and it looks like it might come down to the wire. When there is editing, layout, and box printing and shipping involved, there are a lot of hands involved. Then there was my binding machine dilemma. See, we are outsourcing maps, dice, boxes, and booklet covers, and we used our fundraiser to invest in a high end 1200 dpi Xerox printer and a beautiful binding machine. The printer showed up within days. The binding machine disappeared somewhere in Ohio. Checking the UPS tracking number day after day and still it said Ohio. Then days later the status changed to "package destroyed and under claim investigation." On top of things, my box printing company changed their lead time. And guess what! It wasn't changed to quicker, of course, but lengthened by a week or more. Wrenches are being thrown like magic missiles! Sorry, that's a bit of D&D nerd humor there. Anyway, I'm still hopeful that we have a chance to have the game out for Gary Con, but the window is getting tight. At the minimum, I'll have prints and t-shirts and I'll be running games all weekend, so fun will be had whether I like it or not! I was actually happy that Tavis asked to share space, as it might save me from embarrassment!
