Tucson RPG Guild Gathering Report

For the first time in a long time I made it to the Tucson RPG Guild Gathering.  The gathering is the monthly meetup of Tucson RPG Gamers sponsored by SAGA (the Southern Arizona Gamers Association).   It was well attended with about two dozen gamers partaking in RPG gaming goodness.

Games that were run include:

• Lady Blackbird sort of a steampunk Firefly adventure
• Dark Heresy a Warhammer 40,000 RPG
• Primetime Adventures an RPG where you create TV shows and act them out.  This one is very popular with our group.  I’ll have to try it sometime.
• D&D 4th Edition Dragonlance game
• D&D 4th Edition conversion of Tomb of Horrors, which is what I played.

Tomb of Horrors is a classic and infamous dungeon module written in the late 70′s by Gary Gygax.  It’s notorious for being an extremely difficult and very deadly dungeon.  This was an update of the Tomb of Horrors for 4th edition.  I was curious about the dungeon, because I’ve heard about it and wanted to experience this classic.

The DM had 11th level pregens created for the adventure.  This was my first taste of the paragon tier.  I’m sure it easier to handle all the options when you’ve slowly built up the character over time, but there is a lot going on.  While some of the options are cool, others seemed a fiddly.  I played a human fighter, so he wasn’t too complicated.  I can definitely understand the complaints about the slow combat in the paragon tier when you have so much to consider.

As for the adventure itself, for most part it was pretty fun.  I liked the puzzle nature of the dungeon.  How each room was an obstacle to overcome and there were traps at almost ever step.  It certainly had an old school feel.  Yet, I think it loses a little in translation.  I never felt in grave danger.  Maybe due to the sturdiness of 4th ed characters.  Single monster fights don’t play well to the strengths of 4th ed either.

It’s great to get out to the guild gathering.  The tough part is choosing which game to play.  I want start running 4th edition games as a DM, so I want to play it as much as possible to become comfortable with the rules.  But, I’d also like to try out as many other game systems as possible. So many games, so little time.