GaryCon 16 – Playing Blackmoor

I was at GaryCon a few weeks ago and had an absolute blast. I got to reconvene with friends, play a decent amount of games, and chat will all sorts of people. GaryCon has consistently been one of my favorite conventions to go to.

Probably the highlight of the convention was getting to participate in a “seminar” with Bob Meyer, an old Twin Cities gamer, and the man who had inherited Blackmoor from Dave Arneson, as well as play in a game with him and a co-GM of his.

I put seminar in quotes because it was really a discussion, several people sat at a table and Bob told us stories about how gaming got to where it is today. He encouraged people to ask questions and kept the whole ordeal very warm and casual. Ben Riggs of Slaying the Dragon was there recording the seminar, and I was certainly happy because I wasn’t the only one asking “deep lore” sort of questions of Bob.

I think the biggest concept Bob conveyed was that nothing in the early days of roleplaying was birthed entirely full-formed in any one place, nor can one draw a historical precedent to any singular activity, rather that everything tends to be the sum of many influences, failed attempts, random ideas, and mechanics taken from other games.

I asked him about the Troll game he participated in – the short version of this is that Dave Arneson wanted to run Blackmoor for Bob, and Dave told Bob that he would be a “hero.” Bob then ran into a troll under a bridge, charged the troll, and after a few failed attempts to dispatch the monster, the troll clubbed Bob’s character, killing him immediately. The mythology around this event tends to state two things – that this was run utilizing the Fantasy Supplement in Chainmail, and that Bob’s disapproval of the session (which Dave agreed with) led to the inclusion of hit points (from Don’t Give Up The Ship) into Blackmoor.

Bob did seem hesitant to crown this event as “where hit points came from” in Blackmoor, and in addition – Bob listed numerous implementations of hit and damage structures that were floating around the Twin Cities, that Dave had likely been planning on playing with. Nonetheless, it was very interesting to hear him recall these events.

Bob mentioned that a big part of his continuing to run these events, despite wanting to retire numerous times, is that he has seen more and more people adopt a “Blackmoorian” style of running games. He seemed pleased when I told him there was a whole sub-niche of nerds online who are pretty obsessed with this style, and he got a bit emotional that people would travel far and wide just to hear about his friends and their games.

In terms of the actual game, I cannot go too far into specifics, as Bob did not want any details recorded, as he felt the surprise and novelty was a part of the experience of playing in his versions of Blackmoor, so I will not say what happened in the adventure. For general setup – we had two tables, one run by Bob, and a second run by a co-GM (Bob specifically liked Game Master over Referee, as he felt Referee was “rules oriented”, and Dungeon Master because he said games were more than just dungeons). Each table contained a party, and we each had the same goals – we were essentially splitting up to cover more ground. The two parties could meet up throughout play, or even affect each other.

Bob starts by asking everyone why they, the players, are there. This led to short discussions of how everyone had heard of Blackmoor. For many it was obviously Secrets of Blackmoor, for a few of us it was First Fantasy Campaign or Adventures in Fantasy and just being into the old-school stuff. After this Bob asked us all about our characters and let us pick one unique ability – this could be magical, it could be a special item or expertise, anything really. My character could talk to spirits, and other examples at our table included a shapeshifter, as well as someone who could change the density of any object.

In terms of resolution, most of it was what you’d expect if you’ve followed any details on Bob Meyer – contested 2d6, the highest roll gets their intent. My whole Primeval 2d6 is written to basically explain how I run this style. Bob made lots of calls and had a great way of finding complications to almost any action. He had a very specific way of calling for the character’s action by pointing out when a player had put forth and intention but hadn’t clarified what they wanted to do. I found that interesting, and wondered if he had run into situations of players doing gotchas of “I said I wanted to touch the glowing skull, not that I did touch it.”

It was a very fun game, and one of those experiences that I will cherish for the rest of my life. The rest of the con was fantastic as well – I got to play in many great games. I had a very fun game of Wyvern’s Roost ran by directsun that had some of the top fantasy hijinks I’ve ever been in.

If you’re ever planning on heading to GaryCon, drop me a message and maybe we can meet up and get a game in!