SOS - Adventures at MTL Comic Con (2013)

Comic-Con… It’s become an important event for fans who are into movies, television, comics, and gaming. It is the present mecca of pop-culture. The San Diego convention grew out of the love of comic books to what it has become today and many similar events have popped up all over the place and model themselves after it. The Montreal Comic-Con was my first experience at one of these, and after attending the one in 2012, I resolved to go again this year and be a bit better prepared. One question that people have asked me is what do you do at something like this and how do you justify going the whole weekend?

MORE at Sound on Sight...

M

FREE S&W Adventure

Free for a limited time... the new conversion Arcana Creations did of the 'Vile Worm' for Swords & Wizardry.  This was done and released for free to celebrate S&W Appreciation Day back on April 17th earlier this year.  I have hosted the file myself for the better part of 6 months but with a recent web redesign (currently in progress at www.arcanacreations.com), I've also decided to set up the Store Front over at RPGNow! (and other One Book Shelf sites) and the file is now available there.

However, come October 17th, this file will no longer be available for free.  The price will increase to a whole $1.

So, if you think you might want to take a look or just haven't gotten around to grabbing it in the past, now is your chance before time runs out!

You can find it HERE.

Some of my readers may wonder why I am only setting this up now?  Well, the earliest products that Arcana Creations was involved with was publishing in collaboration with Brave Halfling Publishing and, to this day, these are still available through them.  However, after months (many many months), I finally have something tangible coming out for Ballista and it will be available through RPGNow!

M

The Day The Blog Went Silent?

It's odd and, while I know I haven't been as active here at Under Siege for the past few weeks, I have noticed a sudden trend about 2 weeks ago (give or take) where the traffic has dropped dramatically.  I'm not saying that I ever had loads of traffic but I was content at my monthly average which ranged between 2000 - 2500 views.

I know... peanuts.

Suddenly and overnight, it's dropped to half that.

A couple of referring sites don't seem to refer here anymore and, at one point, the blog got 'disconnected' from my Google+ profile (it's now reconnected), after Google did a few changes.

I may have to move from blogger and start up on Word Press.

M

Weekend R&R: Yarr!

In celebration of 'Talk Like A Pirate Day', Bill De Franza has released a Rules Light Pirate RPG entitled, "Yarr!".  The system that makes up Yarr! is based on the Dagger RPG system which is a set of supplemental rules for classic role-playing with children written by John Adams from Brave Halfling Publishing and Jimm Johnston.  For those of you who haven't seen Dagger, it's a great way to get a younger audience introduced to the world of pen and paper RPGs.

But we're not hear to talk about Dagger...

Yarr!  It be that pirate game we be talkin' about.


First and foremost, Yarr! is a class based system and there are five to choose from: The Atlantean, Captain, Marine, Rascal, and Sailer (they are all pirates). Each class has their own set of special abilities, but the Atlantean has access to spells and the Captain has access to special feats.

There is next to no complexity to the system though and, given the game's roots, it shouldn't be expected either.  There are, for instance, no stats to worry about.  Yarr does provide an optional skill system which encompasses eight skills such as Agility or Sneak.  By choosing to use the system, all character get all the skills but half of them are essentially things the character is good or trained at and thus have a better chance at succeeding.  These will improve as a character goes up in level.

Character advancement also increases their ability to fight (an increase in hit progression) and the number of hit points they have.  Rules for combat and gameplay are few and span a mere 7 pages or so.  Beyond that, the game provides a bestiary, rules for ship to ship combat, a variety of spells, and a glossary of pirate terms.

Of course, this game wasn't necessarily made for the typical gamer.  Being wonderfully simplistic, like Dagger, it's easy and simple enough to introduce to children.  That's not to say that older people wouldn't be able to get a kick out of the game, I think the optional skill system does well enough to add some variety to the game and something like this could be worthwhile to do a one-off for friends who don't necessarily game all that often but are open to the idea and open to some laughs.

That said, with a game as simple as this, these could be just as well suited to a Dungeon-type or Hero Quest-like board game proving once again, it doesn't have to be complicated to be fun.  As simple as it is, the book (65 page digest release) does seem to have everything you need to get set up and running.  The game is not a bunch of needless flash and polish but it gets the job done and it can be yours for $5 HERE.

M

Montreal Comic Con 2013

Last year was my first Comic Con and while small compared to the scale of San Diego's, there were a lot of people and the venue was packed on the biggest day of the con last year (being Saturday).  Highlights last year included Patrick Stewart, Shatner, and Wil Wheaton with Wheaton and I having a brief chat about old school gaming and C&C.  There was so much to see and do that both Mariosl (my significant other) and I decided then to do it again this year.

So... the events kick off today at noon if you are a VIP or Deluxe pass holder, and 3:00pm for everyone else.  We part of the 'everyone else' crowd this year.  We went deluxe last year and, while the earlier access is nice (really nice actually if crowds annoy you and you want to do some shopping), it was harder to justify this year.  Sure you also get a tote-bag and a limited edition comic book produced for the con (last year was a tote bag and t-shirt), but I found it harder to justify the $20 per ticket difference between regular and deluxe passes.  For that same price difference, the $40 (plus taxes) we save essentially pays for most photo-ops or autographs.  Besides, money has been tight for me (and Arcana Creations) for a few months now -- I have to tread carefully where my finances are concerned.  ;)

This year's Montreal Comic Con seems to have an interesting array of guests though there were quite a few lineup change the past 4 weeks.  The final lineup includes Gillian Anderson, George Takei, Christopher Loyd, Jason Mamoa, Sean Astin, a bunch from the Battlestar Galactica reboot/refresh, and a whole bunch more.  Honestly, there seems to be more celebrities this year than the last which is, no doubt, due to this con's continued success in the few years it's been in operation.

However, because of the many line up changes in the past few weeks, the schedule they've finally nailed down is, well, less than adequate IMO.  Like last year, it was pretty much released at the last minute.  A PDF version was released last Friday and there is an app which provides scheduling information which was released a bit earlier this week.  In the few days since the release of the PDF, there are ALREADY schedule changes and discrepancies.  Makes planning your weekend a bit more difficult.  Marisol and I took over an hour looking at the schedule, descriptions of events, and checking out movies trailers to decide what we were doing exactly to maximize our weekend.  Simply put, we haven't had a chance to do much as far as trips are concerned, so Comic Con is one of the highlights we focus on instead.

It will be great though and I'll be sure to post some pics and give a post-con report once the weekend is behind me.

M