Well, if you have seen the past few posts, you know that the cornerstone of the weekend was GenCon Registration. It was not a pretty experience, but then again it has never been a pretty experience. In the end, I got tickets to all the events I wanted to get into, but was unable to secure extra tickets for other events to attend with friends.

Overall I think the Green Shirts did well. Pawz, had a pretty easy run on the registration system and was able to get out with a bunch of tickets for his events. Spenser was able to get some tickets for some events as well. So overall, while the experience was pretty unsatisfying overall, we did ok.

On Sunday, we had a Dresden game scheduled, but a player cancellation killed it, an hour before game time. Lucky for us, Spenser, had his demo 4e material on hand, and we were able to play some more 4e. This time our party of 8, 1st level adventurers (Ranger, Cleric, Wizard, Warlock, Fighter, Paladin) faced off against a young black dragon. It looked pretty ugly for a while. I personally was rolling terrible, and the Ranger, who in previous encounter had rolled two natural 20’s and dealt the killing shot to several creatures, was totally ineffective. But in the end, we managed to leverage all the 4e crunch and kill the dragon.

This has been the 4th time I have played the 4e demo material, and while we do not have all the rules of the game, I have to say that 4e combat, is IMHO, a lot more fun and exciting compared to 3e combat. There are so many combat options, per character, and great ways to combine them to really encourage teamwork. Also the At Will abilities make every member of the party useful at all times.

As for this week, I am working on an article on the different skills of GMing, and how this process lead to how I can improve as a GM. I am also going to do my first mini-adventure for Qin, on Tuesday Night, so I will post some notes on how that went as well.

Enjoy your week, and stop on by to check out the new material.