Dalgard's Open House 2007

[Lord_Dalgard]

Chello!

OK, finally some time to write down what I felt about the whole experience....

The Beginning: Friday

I manage a movie theater that had a midnight showing of Spidey 3 on Thursday. After leaving the thttaer, Ramsey, Beth (my wife), and I went to Ramsey's house. Beth crashed on the couch and Ramsey and I stayed up so we wouldn't miss our 7 AM flight. We made it (despite the fog) and arrived in Dallas and had a 1 hour lay-over waiting for our flight to Detroit. Perfect time for breakfast.

I caught about an hour of sleep on the plane and apparently we didn't hit any turbulence...I wouldn't have noticed anyway because I used to jump out of airplanes courtesy of Uncle Sam!!!

We arrived in Detroit and made our way to Hertz. After waiting 45 minutes I got to the counter to hear:

"Ah, yes, Mr. Emmel. We have your reservation, but we're out of full-sized sedans...would you like a small SUV at the same rate?" Sweet!

We then made our way to the Ramada, headed to the sign-in desk....similiar story.

"Mr. Emmel? We're overbooked on the parlor suites...would you care for a Presidential Suite at the same rate?" It just kept getting better and better!!! :D:D

So, we freshened up and prepared for VIP night. Snagged a fold-out bed for Ramsey and we were suitably impressed by the size of the room. Had to get the fridge fixed and sheets for the fold-out, but that was quickly handled by the hotel staff.

[We later found out that Carmen was running games in the suite below ours (460) on Sat. nite...the noise caused me to jump up and down on the floor and hurl imprecation at them.... j/k!]

Made it to Palladium Books, signed in, and started shopping...all I picked up at this point was Machinations of Doom and D-Bees of NA. Then, walking around, I spied him...THE MAN...the reason we were all there..the Kev! I walked over and said, "Excuse me, Mr. Siembeda? I'm Anthony Emmel." "Tony?" he said, and gave me a big hug...I was floored!

[It was at this point that I realized this really was going to be like a family reunion!]

Well, we chatted a bit and he offered to sign my books..he added the famous "Kevin dragon" to the sig (naturually....see what happened later). He went back to pricing and getting auction items ready and we browsed some more. I then saw Ramon Perez sitting at his table and got him to sign MoD...he opened it up and said something along the lines of "Heck, Kevin drew a pic...now I have to too!"...so he signed with the Perez clown! MOST excellent!!!

Well, we hung out and chatted and looked at stuff until the food was ready! And what a spread it was...sandwiches and kielbasa & kraut and potato salad and salad and Swedish meatballs....after I was through eating I made it point to hunt Kathy down and thank her and brag on the food...my family is German and that is some of the best kraut I've ever had (my family prefers "Bavarian", or sweet & sour, kraut.) The potato salad was second only to my father-in-law's (better than my Mom's!) and then only b/c he puts bacon in his. [When I pointed this out to Beth, she stated what Kathy would later echo....have to have some items that are meat-free in case there are Vegans running around! Women...they really do think alike!)

After eating, Beth was feeling sleepy...I've only had an hour as had Ramsey, but we're ready to truck forward. (Did i mention I was in the Army when I was younger? ) I took Beth back to the hotel and rushed back in time to catch the last half of the panel discussion.

Then, it was off to Carl Gleba's Phase World: Dimensional Outbreak game. Now, before OH, I was stoked about Minion War...I can't think of anything else by ANY game company that spans GENRES, not just planes (like PlaneScape or Ravenloft....Spelljammer almost spans genres...but not like this)! I mean, it starts with teh dimensional Outbreak in Phase World (space opera/fantasy) and ends up spreading to Rifts Earth (poatapocalyptic science fanatasy) and Heroes Unlimited (supers).

After playing in the game...I am ready for this to be out NOW!!!! This setting/adveture series/campaign is gonna rock...and HARD!!!!

Carl did an excellent job of wrangling 12 players split into two groups and we had some excellent advetures...no spoilers except to say that Center GOES OUT!!!!! Awesome!

(btw, George, the kewl dude with the wife that I would be in Kev's fantasy game with on Sat...if you read this, shoot me a PM, dude!)

During play, all the sudden there was stillness in the air...all the game tables went silent and then...THUNDEROUS appaulse breaks out....there's a Deadboy Officer walking through the warehouse!!! If it had been a Vader costume, polite applause, I'm sure...but this was a FREAKIN' DEADBOY!!!! The thunder lasted for about a minute...are we all Palladium fanboys or what?

Well, after we wrapped up the game we got a chance to have first shot at the sign in sheets and back to the hotel it was...with a brief stop at White Castle. At this point I was so tired (1 hour of sleep in ~44 hours)that I was giggling hysterically...as was Ramsey...I'm glad none of Taylor's finest saw us. Jail time for sure!

Oh, and what is it with food up North? No spice I can understand, but there was NO salt in our food....ah well.

Day 2, later.

Tony

[mumah]

Sodium's no good for you, sir!

[Lord_Dalgard]

Chello!

Ah, yes...but one does expect fries to be salty at least!!!

Tony

[Lord_Dalgard]

Chello!

Let's add some more....

Day 2: The Gaming

Well, we woke up at ~8 without the alarm after collapsing around 3...surprising as I was up almost 2 days with only 1 hour of sleep in the midst of it all. We kinda drug around, got dressed and headed on over to Bob Evans.

Having never ate at one, this was a true experience...for my Texan bretheren out there, the best way to describe it is like the Cracker Barrel...country-style food with an attached gift shop. On the breakfast menu, they had a WHOLE BOWL OF FREAKIN' SAUSAGE GRAVY!!!!! Now, like any good Texan & Southerner, I likes me some gravy! That part. plate also came with 2 biscuits (OK...I make them much better! ) and hash browns....I was suitably impressed and excellently stuffed. Beth and Ramsey had more normal fare..pancakes and eggs or somesuch...I was too busy devouring a BOWL OF GRAVY to notice.

We then made our way back to the OH where there was a LINE FROM DYVAL at the signup table. We also saw Hiipe Mama and a child in the parking lot so I yelled "Hey it's Hiipe Mama and child from teh car as we drove by...that was my only contact with her the entire weekend...oh well.

Glad that we had signed up the night before, we searched for our table. Our first game was James Brown's (Reelman) "Just Another Bug Hunt." The basic scenario deals with a CS squad going into the Duluth hive to infect the Queen...very scary to do and the minis and Dwarvan Forge set was excellent for the game. It was definitely a sneak game...not a standup fight at all. We did manage to accomplish the mission with 3 deaths (1 was friendly fire) and all had fun under Reelman's direction.

Just for the record, the PCs were: CS MilSpec, CS SpecForces, Combat Cyborg, Mind-Melter (ISS), Dog-Boy, and CS Juicer. I played the juicer, Ramsey the Cyborg, and Beth Sgt. Tremble (Dog-Boy).

somewhere in the middle of the game I hran and got lunch. One thing I will say for Palladium, they kept us fed. They had Pizza and nachoes and dogs and brownies and pringles and nachoes and salad....wait a minute, SALAD? Yep, salad. And I really appreciated that...I was feeling guilty over the BOWL OF GRAVY breakfast, so salad it was for lunch! Oh, and the bottled water was greatly appeciated as well.

After that, we had about 30 mins or so before Kevin's game...for me this was the highlight of the Weekend....the chance to play in Kevin's Fantasy Surprise. He wrangled 14 players in a most masterful style....we had a lot of fun. Won't say much about the addventure itself but this....

My wife Beth is a quiet gamer usually. she's hangs back does her thing, but most forget that she's there...until the right moment like when we were gaming once and the minotaur picked up one of the PCs and was threatening to squash him. at that moment in time, Beth (who had been passing notes to the GM with us noticing) says, "'Uh-huh, I don't think so' as Andrea roosters her flintlock pistol and claps it to his temple." That's how she games. Usually.

For Kevin's game, she was playing a female knight and she was not the part leader, but she was right behind him and ended up taking point. In fact at one point she did something that even took Kevin aback because he wasn't expecting that particuliar move! I've never been so proud of my wife!

After that wonderful experience, we got to see the Costume Contest. Now I wish I had put togther my New Soviet uniform for Rifts. Well, my wife nad I had our own scorecard for the Rifts section anyway....our choices were:

1. Madmanmike's Crazy. Very well accessorized and he looked like he was out on the prowl. Especially loved the bubbles!

2. The female City-Rat (that we thought was a Merc at the time)....just loved her look.

3. The Altara...need I say anything more!

The Deadboy armor was going to be "Best of Show" so no need to grade him...though it would have been funny if the Wolfen had beem "Best of Show"! lol

Ramsey went off to play in the Rifts Zombie game while Beth and I went to the hotel to decompress. after flipping channels for a bit, we decided to go eat in the Orleans downstairs. VERY nice steaks and drinks...we also got to eavesdrop on Ramon Perez, Scott Johnston, and a couple of other artists who were sitting at a table in the bar adjacent to ours in the restaraunt. Don't worry, guys...your secrets are safe with us...now about that custom group sketch....

And later we picked Ramsey up at OH...had to wait FOREVER for that game to end. Had some interesting chats with Kevin and a fellow from Boston whose name I didn't catch (sad since we were all wearing tags!)...who says you can't discuss religion and politics! And the lady from Arizona with the purple hair....she was in on the chat as well!

Anyway, we finally collecting Ramsey, stopped to get sodas for the room at some grocery store where we ran into (literally!) Eric Wujick!

At the hotel, Carmen was running some games in the suite below ours and was getting quite loud...I occasionally had to jump up and down on the floor to shut them up! (J/K...but they were loud! )

Tony