Vaticon

So this Con is fast approaching. Organised by UCD Game Soc, it is due to occur on the weekend of the 3rd to 5th of April 2009.

Located in the UCD students centre and back for its Fifteenth year.

The website is here (as linked on the right).

All Looks well for the con. So I hope to see you there.

Ωr

Free Pizza at Leprecon!

Thanks to Tygerkrash for pointing this out…

A recent post on the Leprecon blog has revealed that there will be free pizza for guests thanks to Just-Eat.ie

This is absolutely awesome and should be encouraged! Sponsorship of this kind is exactly what games conventions in Ireland need. Hmm – they cover my area too… I think I’m going to have to start using Just-Eat.ie

Fate/40,000

In September 2008 there was a rush of content on a certain Irish Gamer’s LJ that many of us thought could be the birth of a book online… Shane Carr was pouring out a huge flow of Science Fantasy in a series of chapters he entitled “Fate/40,000″. This is an unfinished piece of work that may some day (given enough pressure) be completed. Several chapters are linked below Read on and judge the quality for yourself!

Fate/40,000: Prelude
Fate/40,000: The opening move
Fate/40,000: The magic number
Fate/40,000: The board is set
Fate/40,000: A flow of bodies
Fate/40,000: Secrets and Sins
Fate/40,000: Dark Alleyways
Fate/40,000: Unexpected
Fate/40,000: Circles
Fate/40,000: Interference
Fate/40,000: Revelations in steel

The Adventuring Party – Podcasts

I found an interesting series of podcasts over here http://www.theadventuringparty.net/ about gaming and the Irish Gaming scene… Will be syndicating on the right if / when I get the ok! I especially like the “Downtime” podcast about Character creation…

[edit 10th March 2009 : Updatd the link to http://www.theadventuringparty.net/]

Green Ronin “Winter is coming”! A Song of Ice & Fire has gone to print!

Two years ago, after the demise of Guardians of Order, George R.R. Martin made the exciting announcement that Green Ronin would be publishing his new “A Song of Ice and Fire” RPG…

Now, finally, after a long wait, Green Ronin have announced that “A Song of Ice and Fire” has gone to print!

(Ed – Opinion: Woo-Hoo! I can’t wait… I already have a lovely shiney special edition of the d20 / tri-stat “Game of Thrones” RPG from Guardians of Order but I’m keen to see what Green Ronin do with the setting as I think they do a great job with dark settings. The quick start rules which have been available for a while look pretty good!)

Poison and Remedy

If you know anything about Magic: the Gathering (MtG) then you know there are several ways to win the game.

Over the game’s 15 year history, more and more cards have been printed that say something like, “If you control 1, 2 and 3 and an X, Y and a Z you win the game.” As a result, there are now all sorts of conditional winning effects.  Wizards of the Coast (WotC) even expanded the rules to use conditional effects for not losing the game.  Platinum Angel is a prime example, the card text of which says, “You can’t lose the game and your opponents can’t win the game.” To avoid the obvious confusion when effects interact or contradict with one another and occur simultaneously, there’s a primary rule in the game which states that: “102.3e If a player would both win and lose simultaneously, he or she loses.”  That such a rule is necessary is a sign of how crazy things became.

Festive Gaming.

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas, seems I’m the first poster of the new year so happy new year from everyone at the Weasel!

I was thinking about what to post here that is relevant to all Irish gamers, casual and not so casual alike and I figured there’s one thing we’ve all come across at some point or other. Gaming at Christmas or more specifically gaming with family and friends who aren’t gamers. Christmas is traditionally a time where after one too many slices of Christmas pudding and having gotten bored of watching The great escape someone decides it’d be a good idea to play a game. In many homes this might stretch as far as your uncle saying “Ooh Monopoly, I bagsy the sports car” or Mum piping in with “Lets play Charades, I love charades” and that’s that, but sometimes it goes more like “Hey Johnny, Whats that funny little game you play with the cards/tiny men/dice/pigs” or ” you’ve got loads of games, why don’t we play one of them?”.

Pop quiz hotshot, what do you do?

Do you play it safe and pull out a classic like Risk or do you go out on a limb and haul out something a bit less familiar like Shadows over Camelot.

Maybe you’re feel like a real challenge and hand everyone a measuring tape and a codex. “Ok Auntie, you’re playing the Necrons“

Or do you dare risk trying to Roleplay with your family?

“Dad, that’s a crit 1, your head files off landing 1d6 feet away.”

So.. tell us about it. Did you game this festive season past? What did you play?

Streaming CONFESS Live on Qik

I was going to be streaming some of CONFESS live on Qik this weekend… I still plan to; assuming that the service comes back up (otherwise I’ll just have to make do with recording on the N95 and posting up here later)…

I was inspired to this by Omegar’s post about using technology in our games; why not use more technology in ourr gaming community? We’re a pretty tech savvy bunch (gamers in general I mean) and we do a load of stuff online (as proven by this blog and the tons of other gamer blogs) so why not give people who can’t make it a chance to watch what we’re doing at cons and laugh at us (comments and live chat on Qik are pretty cool!).

So – I’ll be editing this post as the weekend goes on with links and (hopefully) embeded video from CONFESS all thanks to Qik. For those of you who won’t be at CONFESS – watch the video and come next year!

Breaking News – MTG PTQ Kyoto will be at Gaelcon!

Small details have yet to be decided but the Gaelcon Con-Director (Hugh Lardner) confirmed today that Martin Kenny of Models Inc in Dublin has organised this year’s PTQ to run at Gaelcon.

That’s pretty good news for the card gamers who go to Gaelcon and great news for the Gaelcon Committee. Last year saw a resurgence of CCGs at the IGA’s annual convention but this will hopefully give the Con a boost and get the “Card Flopper” numbers right back up there!

While Hugh Lardner doesn’t “do quotes”, he has gone on the record as saying he’s very excited about this and more than happy to accomodate the hordes of Magic players who will be beating down the castle doors!

For more information see www.wizards.com (particularly helpful page here).

“World’s Largest Wargaming Table”

Whenever I see the words “World’s Largest” used about anything, outside the Guinness Book of Records, I start thinking of ways to find / make one bigger! Accordingly this post from Ethan Ham on Tim Hutchings’ art installation “The World’s Largest Wargaming Table” got me thinking…

Surely, with all the people who go to Irish Conventions and the amount of major gamer activity we have in this country, we can do something like this (but bigger and better). We would need a delegate or independent viewer from Guinness World Records there to verify it of course but we should be able to do it! Even if it was just for an hour or so at next year’s Gaelcon, CONFESS, Warpcon, Itzacon, Leprecon or any con where there is enough hall space and enough tables!

It could be a group effort with Irish Gamers from round the country bringing a part of the terrain and assembling it in situ… We’d need someone to co-ordinate and make sure the terrain was all suitable and everyone knew where their peice was intended to go etc but it wouldn’t really be all that much work…

Oh – and obviously we’d need someone to come up with a game to play (so it won’t just be sitting there useless *grin*)

Anyone interested..? I’m going to start plotting right away! I know some pretty cool terrain crafters round the country!

[Ed: Thanks to Tygerkrash for sending me the original link from BoingBoing]