Dundracon is a weird con for me, because I don’t know in advance which games I’ll get to play. At Dundracon, you don’t sign up for games in advance. Instead, you rank three games in which you want to play in each time block, and then the con randomly draws names by ranking until each game fills, and announces the results 20 minutes before each block begins. This system ensures that everyone gets a chance at every game, no matter when they sign up; but it also means you can end up with long blocks without a game. This year, I got lucky. I didn’t get into every game I wanted, but I got into a few; and I enjoyed and learned something important from every one.
Highlight 1: Daggerheart!
My first highlight at Dudracon was getting to play Daggerheart. I bought the set a few weeks ago, but hadn’t yet had time to open it. I was able to play two games using the system, and especially enjoyed DM Jeff’s The Marauders of Windfall session. Here’s what I really like about Daggerheart:
- I like how it uses Hope and Fear dice to determine when the “spotlight” passes to the GM in combat. It’s honestly way quicker and more efficient than initiative, because you don’t need to track initiative order any more. (We used a rule where no one got a second turn until every PC had taken a first turn, which kept things fair.)
- I like the Hope and Fear tokens. Hope tokens create lots of little “rewards” for PCs, while the Fear tokens naturally create and release tension. (Rowan, Rook, & Deckard have a similar system in their soon-to-arrive Hollows game.) Creating and releasing tension is an important part of storytelling, especially horror stories, and I’m interested in mechanics and tools that make that easier to use.
- I wasn’t excited by the cards at first; it felt like just another gimmick to sell more products. But I have to say, it made character creation and character sheet management way easier as a new player. I tried doing something similar with my kids when I first introduced them to D&D back in 2020, but that fell apart because there are so many options in 5e. Daggerheart has a lot of options, but it is still much simpler than D&D.
Takeaway: This is a great system, and I plan to play it again soon with my family. I am also now looking forward to the upcoming Hope & Fear expansion set, which promises a guide for telling horror stories with the system.
Highlight 2: Hobo Noir
My second highlight at Dundracon was helping my friend Charles playtest his in-development TTRPG, Hobo Noir. The game uses cards with symbols from the historic “hobo code” as storytelling prompts for each scene; and uses the physical arrangement of the cards on the table to help create the vibe for the story you’re telling; a linear card arrangement for journeys, a grid card arrangement for escaping from trouble, etc. It’s a hard to explain, but if you’ve played The Details of Our Escape, it’s feels lot like that.
Takeaway: It’s a great game for a small group of people who like a rules very light, role-play very heavy storytelling system! I hope Charles gets it up on Itch.io soon!
Highlight 3: Vaesen
My third highlight, if you will forgive a bit of self-promotion, was my two Vaesen games. I did a second playtest of my scenario, Wine Dark Sea, set on the island of Vis, Croatia; and a first playtest of a scenario that I’m still trying to name (but am calling The Old Mill as a placeholder), set at a grain mill in a village outside of Dubrovnik. I had amazing tables of role-players at each one, and enjoyed running both games, especially The Old Mill. Covington, Sokoloff, De Lauren, and all the rest of you, you’re welcome at my table any time! I hope to polish up those scenarios and get them on DTRPG in the next month or so, alongside my first published scenario, Before the Flood.
Takeaway: I still think that Vaesen is the best supernatural mystery game out there, Quinn’s Quest be darned.
Other Games
I played more games at Dundracon, which I wouldn’t call highlights, but I certainly learned some stuff. First, Cairn 2e. I don’t normally play OSR games, because I don’t enjoy the fragility and expendability of my characters (Mausritter excepted!). But I backed the Kickstarter for that and have been slowly reading through my copy, so I was eager for a guided introduction. I took away a few interesting game design observations:
- Character creation is fun and more than a little silly; I randomly rolled up a tall, gangly mushroom hunter with a stinkbomb. At first, I was a little frustrated by my lack of control. Later, however, when one of our PCs died and the player had to create a new character, I concluded that it’s a feature: If you’re going to design a game where your players make a lot of characters, you want that process to be entertaining!
- The scenario we played is called Thulian Echoes. The game has an interesting gimmick: You first run the dungeon as the authors of a journal found by the characters you play during your second run through the dungeon. It’s a way of blunting the lethality of OSR dungeons, I think. As a con game, though, it’s a really cool idea: My table played the first group, and the DM kept all of the maps, notes, etc. that we made to pass on to the next group. So I deliberately tried to make mine interesting and (as is the game’s vibe) more than a little silly…
Takeaway: If you want a lightweight game for a weird story, Cairn might be for you.
Next a shout-out to DM Scott, with whom I played the 5e scenario The Secret of Karnov Mansion. I can’t say that I enjoyed the scenario very much; that adventure is very much a railroad (which I’ll admit makes it a good con game!), while I prefer sandboxes in which I can do more role-playing. But it was also very tactical. I’ve stopped using hand-drawn maps for my 5e games, because I think that they take too long. Instead, I rely on my Loke Battle Mat or Map Library maps. As a result, my players don’t spend much time worrying about cover or spell range. This scenario has a lot of narrow hallways, and Scott is a stickler for spell ranges, and it all made combat more intellectually engaging than I’m used to.
Last but not least, a photo of the silliest thing I saw at the con:
Yes, that’s an official James Bond branded tarot deck, made as a tie-in for Live and Let Die. I guess that made sense as a movie tie-in at the time?
What’s Next?
Dundracon this year was great, and I’m glad that I went. I played some fun games, saw some old friends, and made some new friends! Now, what’s next is… well, it’s a surprise! But watch this blog, I’ve got something pretty cool that I plan to announce this week!