You only get one chance...

...to game with someone at a con.

Unlike a gaming group at home, you will only have this group together once, for a few hours. Once the game is done, the story is told and it will never happen again. So making it memorable is very important.

For "Attack of the Retcons", I pulled out all the stops. Spending nearly 6 months in development of this adventure, I like to think I put together a show-stopper. It's got:

* Your favorite Transformers characters recreated using original stats from the toys.
* An epic story that is a loving homage to the classic movie.
* Music cues from the classic movie.
* Screenshots from the classic cartoons depicting major settings and characters.
* I even had an artist friend draw a picture of what a Retcon might look like.

Why am I going on about "Attack of the Retcons" yet again? For one thing, 6 months of work lodges certain things in your brain. I'm finding similar results with my research and reading for Oz facts. For another, it's a great example of what a con game once-in-a-lifetime event can be (If I may be so humble).

So that leads me to "The Magic Belt of Oz". Originally designed as a "quickstart" game to promote the RPG and let players try out the rules, it should work well as a con game experience. But I'd like to make sure that it's as awesome (in it's own way) as "Retcons". So far it's got:

* Canon characters (including Dorothy) as playable characters.
* A story that offers some new places to explore in Oz.

And that's about it. I've thought that a cool touch might be to actually serve something to toast with during the birthday party scene (and maybe teach the kids some ettiquette).

I could also use some more pregenerated characters. The challenge isn't statting up the characters. I believe the rules are simple enough that anyone can do that in about 5 minutes. The challenge is choosing friends. Since this is only one story (though with room for expansion), I'd like to have characters who can call on their special friends for help during the adventure. For example, Scraps the Patchwork Girl might have Ojo as a friend, but what benefit might Scraps recieve by spending an Oz Point to call on him?

Also, I need to come up with a simple paragraph or two bringing the players up to speed if they've only seen the movie. Explaining how Dorothy came to live in Oz and maybe touch on a few of her new friends.

Thanks to all my loyal readers for bringing me a total of 1000 hits on the blog! Here's for 1,000 more!

EDIT: All right, I think I figured out why "Magic Belt" is not as awesome as Retcons. I don't have as much enthusiasm for the game. When I was writing it initially, I was so determined that it be "Ozzy" that I fought a lot of my own adventure writing instincts. Now to see if I can rewrite it to be something that I can actually be proud of in the next three weeks.