OSP play Encounter Critical

My game group, the Old School Pastafari, played Encounter Critical this past Tuesday. We played the adventure which I wrote for our local convention, Three Rivers Con. As has been mentioned in the Encounter Critical corners of the entrée-net, the adventure is titled The 36 Chambers of Darth Viraxis. Darth Viraxis is the token evil overlord of the EC setting, the world of Vanth. I intend to keep this adventure on ice as a backup plan for future gaming conventions. I imagine myself traveling the South East U.S. and running E.C. in various ‘burbs; Chattanooga and Birmingham are definite possibilities for this plan. I can, for the blog, reveal a few details of the adventure without revealing any of the main plot points.

The guys choose a variety of characters from my pregens and surprised me by staying in character more than usual. The characters where a dwarf warrior wearing a ten gallon hat and long red mustache and armed with twin Colt revolvers named O’ Cinnamonie Sham, an ammunition expert with superior driving skills and a nifty van named Mr. S.U.V. and a high school kid acting as a wizard named Napoleon Dynamite. Napoleon managed to make friends with the Tyrannosaurus Rex at the beginning of the adventure and the killer robot at the end using his Ensorcel and Monster/Machine Friend skills. I, acting as the J.M. (Journey Master,) forgot to attempt saving throws against these magical acts but the successful magic didn’t break the game. In fact, these two successful uses of magic by the pc kept the plot moving smoothly.

A majority of the plot of The 36 Chambers of D.V. involves problem solving and I occasionally had to prompt the players for solutions. As if often the norm in rpgs, the guys wanted to solve all of the problems or puzzles through violence. The solution to the puzzles was, at least one, simply solved by my reading the “flavor text” a second time. (No taunting occurred during the playing of this rpg adventure.) The players managed to escape the legendary chambers of Darth Viraxis in two hours.

My next rpg design projects will be:
1. The Epilogue for Raiders of the Mercenary Coast. I've already started typing this and it's very short. I will probably be two pages with one page dedicated for a list of the NPCs involved.
2. On simmer on burner number two we have another free adventure. I’ll be converting one of my few remaining old adventure designs for use with Labyrinth Lord.
3. Burner number three: Infinity and Beyond!