On the Road Again: North Texas Con 2021

 I took the week off work because I received my second vaccination and knew I'd be suffering too much to play at being a working body. Pretty much laying still where ever I was from Monday AM until Wednesday AM, I was done with it. The sweating, the heart palpitations, complete with slightly more than usual nearsightedness had worn down enough, to where I could do a road trip to check out North Texas RPG Con. I had planned on going on Friday night, but I was really tired of being cooped up at home. So I left the house too early and moved some money around via my interwebby phone and made the drive from NWA (mountaintop Arkansas) to the DFW, as in the airport that is its own city.

The drive itself was easy, from I-49 to SH 121, I had about a dozen stop lights and one stop sign for the whole trip. Oklahoma has strict "Get the hell over already laws" when it comes to lane closures, so even the traffic jams were quicker than most. In my new-ish VW Golf it was 3/4 tank of gas. I reached the Westin around 2pm, was able to grab a room throughout Sat PM with no problem. If it had been full there were four other hotels, well one motel, within walking distance. The beer store was within 150 meters from the front door, but there were no rooms with hot tubs and the rooftop pool was not open. I mean, I was recovering yet again from the Bat-Flu sideshow-- I don't need such Spartan conditions, but alas I struggled through.

SO when the bar opened, I met a couple ppl straight off the bat. One of whom Dimitri Del Castillo, "Dimitri" from here on, had flown in from LA and we became fast friends. He steered me towards one of the pre-con sessions. Something called Crouching Hamster: Lost In Translation written by Chris Clark (the guy who wrote Inner City back in the day). I had a fun time doing nonsensical Ninja Kung-Fu action complete with bad dubbing and the rules written on a Chinese restaurant menu. I started writing a Red Bat campaign in my head based off of our antics.

The next morning I got to play Carl Kolshack in Jerold Stratton's homage to the show using a Dare Devil scenario. I was doing the best that I could, but the fellow that was playing Kolshack's editor, Tony Vincenzo, was too spot on. I really felt like that I had been in the show.

Break time at Dare Devil

 

On purpose, I didn't plan anything for Friday. Instead I hanged around the bar. Dimitri would show up that evening and I would corrupt him into being a drunken conventioneer. We'd party throughout the night with a lot of names I should remember, but you know. Had a late night chat with Mark Hunt of Gangbusters and Tall Tales fame.

Though hungover on Saturday, I was able to make it to Merle Rasmussen's table for his Top Secret/New World Order scenario "Operation Sasquatch". For as bad of shape as I was in, I was the only show, but boy was it fun talking to him and his wife, Jackie(?), for over an hour. It was actually more fun than me trying to ham it up for a four hour session AND I could get some more sleep.

Saturday evening, Mark Hunt would oblige me by running "Welcome to Rock Junction" for Ganbusters. The night before I had drunkenly begged his to run one more session as I had missed the one he did on Friday. He, like Peryton did a year and a half before, subverted my expectations with quite a new take on the gangster subgenre of the criminal underworld. You'll have to wait for the scenario to go on sale, no spoilers. But sheesh guys and gals...

This picture is about the thing on the guy's shoulder.

After the game, Hunt and I had a stop at the bar, where I closed out my tab early. He doesn't drink, so I actually tried to go to get some more rest. AND then I remembered the Midnight Auction. It was quite occassion, if a little sparse on decent stuff to bid on. I did score a VHS copy of two episodes of Wonder Woman, the Linda Carter ones. But for all the theatrics going on, I asked Dimitri, whom of course would appear, like an avatar of Nyarlathotep in a Delta Green narrative, to settle my purchases and went to bed then

 Overall, for all the star power at the con, I was impressed for the lack of pretension.  Folks were busy being at a tabletop roleplaying convention rather than glad handing. Folks that were plying their wares were busy selling rather than trying to recruit fans. Other attendees would start up conversations with me about the mundane details of their current lives, as well as whatever was their last championship in Adventure Gaming. I met a couple of different people that are big time gamers from the state of Arkansas where I currently reside.

Sunday I was on the road by 8am. Before I got into the car though, that I finally got a plane passing overhead. I had been trying for that picture since Wednesday.