any chance that we could order after the fact t-shirts? when I got into the room finally, my size had been sold out.

Any chance that we could order after the fact t-shirts?

Chris Hoffner was in charge of the tshirts, and I know he has some left. Anyone interested in a shirt (and they're nice shirts!) should contact him at hoffner5@yahoo.com .

That was a truly awesome event! Thanks for putting it together. Any plans to make it a continuing tradition at Gen Con? If so, write me in for another night shift!

This post at the OD&D 74 boards has a description of my events and the one of Mike Mearls' I watched, and a link to a post that has a picture of Frank Mentzer's and my experience as a player in his round.

Oh, and here is a piece on Forbes.com about it!

First off, Keith, many thanks for running this event! My buddy and I got to play in one of your sessions and it's definitely one of the highlights of the Con for us!

I really can't think of anything that I thought needed major improvement. Perhaps instead of just having the last room be one of the random rooms, have a "finale" of sorts to end the dungeon on a more epic note. Maybe a few different endings so you still get the "random" aspect, but with more of a feeling of conclusion?

Other than that, everything was great! Will we be seeing future versions of the Tower crop up in GenCons to come?

There was an epic "finale" of sorts to the end of the whole tower dungeon. They defeated the arch-magi that created the Tower! :)

oh wait, that was my session. I'll stop now. :)

Will we be seeing future versions of the Tower crop up in GenCons to come?

It's possible.

Hi, I figured I'd post an after-action.

I picked the Hall Of Pastel Doom (or something close to that) by M. Alexander Jurkat. I thought it was a fun, cool, concept. I also think I could have done a better job running it, but that's hardly the room's fault. Basically, I was caught VERY unawares by the timer -- the PCs had activated and defeated the guardian (before its "trick" was revealed) and FORTY FIVE MINUTES HAD PASSED without a PC death. A single monster doing relatively low damage wasn't knocking out PCs as fast as it should. I had to ramp up the fudging quickly to let any of the alternates in, even for a while, and I felt very guilty about not doing as much as I could to "cycle" people. Also, since the players didn't even START looking at the walls until there were fewer than ten minutes left to go, I had to basically drop most of the puzzle solving and just had them hurl polyhedrons at the (now 4) monsters.

My recommendations, based solely on my limited experience and possible personal errors:
a)When I wrote my room, I assume that the party would be at least partially "worn", that resources would likely have been expended. Having each group of 6 begin a room "fresh" means the deadliness needs to be raised -- D&D, esp. 1e, is a game of resource management and attrition. I understand this can screw over a player who "inherits" a magic user with no spells and one hit point, though. I'd like to hear if other people have ideas.

b)An hour is a very short span of time, even if the DM is cracking the whip. I was in full "drill sergeant" mode, very different from the way I normally run/play, and time STILL was consumed quickly. Maybe two hour sessions next time? Or 90 minutes?

I think the people at the table had fun, until the end was approaching and they felt frustrated. I think, looking back on it, I could have done more to emphasize "look at the walls", and given the more warning about what would "activate" the guardian. I blame myself only for any failures. Hindsight is 20/20.

Oh yeah, I also didn't get a T-shirt. :) Any way to aquire one now?

I'm checking with Chris and I'll let you know.

Contact Chris Hoffner at hoffner5@yahoo.com .

I agree with the points about the rooms needing to be written more lethally... I ran one of the rooms I'd written, and despite the players having fun... we had few PC deaths and I had three people stomp out at 45 minutes after griping at me. I made sure to fudge things in other rooms to be more lethal than written to get some turnover going. I did take some inspiration from Hickman's Killer Breakfast at that point. :) The other sessions went much better.

If I was writing rooms for this again, I'd do the following:

- More insta-death traps.
- Avoid combats in general, but put single monsters that do damage enough to kill a PC in 1-2 hits, but could theoretically be taken down by ganging up on it, or through some kind of puzzle way to defeat. Combat takes too much time for an hour game.
- Try to figure out better ways to involve the non-playing players. I didn't run any rooms (especially my own) that did this well.
- Perhaps put a real time limit on the room... if not defeated in 15-20 minutes, everyone still at the table dies.

First, thanks to Keith for the opportunity to run a room in the ToG for an hour. This was a wonderful idea and a beautifully sublime tribute. While I saw Mr. Gygax several times at Gencon over the years, I never took a moment to simply say, "Hey, thanks." Creating a room and running a game for a quick hour was the least I could do for the hours of enjoyment he gave me. I ran the game on the first day, at 1 pm. I had a table of 11 enthusiastic players who really got into the spirit of the game. My room was the 50' wide column with the Dodecahedron of Annihilation (DOA). It rolled over everyone and killed most of them when they failed their save. One character survived by keeping the party between him and the DOA, the other survived by jumping off the column (The answer to the riddle in the room: "Leave the way you came in.") Everyone had a great time: laughing, dying, and tagging the "alternate" player to replace them who dropped into the room from the portal and hoped to live long enough to stand up. I think they got the flavor of the ToG (as I saw it) when the first character was annihilated on the second round. "Welcome to First Edition." I said with a gleeful smile. My favorite part was when 3 characters tried to bull-rush the DOA off the column and each was annihilated without a save. "Worth a shot", they quipped...Jeff

I posted a reply above, but I did want to thank you, Keith, for allowing me to be a part of this as author, DM and player. It was THE event at Gen Con for me this year, and it felt good to get back in touch with my inner teenage-gamer-self.

I'm very tempted to run an AD&D 1E or OSRIC campaign going forward, though I may have trouble talking my group into it, since we are already split on whether to run 4E or Pathfinder as our main campaign.

I thought I handled a really tough situation one night on the night shift of 4-6, when I had 3 hard core, very D&D players playing with what were 3 drunk non-D&Ders. I thought "Oh no, I can just sense someone is going to get offended, or I'm going to have to ask or escort someone out if they get beligerant" What the hell I thought, we'll make this work somehow so everyone still has fun and I don't get Keith in trouble at the same time... somehow. Looking around the room, I could see on their faces they were thinking something along the same lines, "Oh no, what did I get myself into?" Within 15 minutes I had them all laughing, roleplaying and getting along great with each other. A couple times I thought "Oh no, this is it!" like when I did the typically Gygax-ian trap of stripping their equipment... and the clothes off one of the characters.. One of those "oh crap, what'd I just do" moments, as the very D&Der female player playing a woman character was dropped right down naked between the two drunkest player's characters. As i was frantically thinking of how to spin it so no one got really offended if i just "magically yanked them" somewhere else, one of the players started rolling out this carpet he had collected, and started advancing on the now "Hold Person"ed naked player by the priest player. To my surprise they solved it all for me, as the priest "Held" the advancing male player playing a female elf (you could almost start to hear the 70s porno music at this point for the lesbian scene) .... and started lecturing them like a catholic priest! Every round when I got to him, he'd lecture for about 15 seconds the held characters, and very nicely as his turn ended, paused or toned down his speech... and when it was his turn again picked it up without missing a beat! Everyone was laughing so hard, and several commented that night was one of the best D&D sessions they'd had and were so happy they'd made it. (My "priest" obviously got a Tower Champion ribbon. :)

But then, Saturday night something happened that made what I thought was a "great moment" look like amateur night at the Tower of Gygax. Between my 8 and 11p Saturday night, the guy who ran that slot (i'm sorry I'm terrible with names) was amazing.... Many of the others were amazing as well, but this guy... well I'll just explain what happened. He ran into the same situation I did; mixed crowd, hard nosed D&Ders with people that i don't think have ever played D&D before. Some were already being borderline belidgerant to the others. One came up and even asked me "is that kid really the DM? The blond one." He was like half my age... I was thinking "Oh no... he's going to get eaten alive by this crowd... do I rush in and save him? well, lets see how things play out.." Within a couple minutes he had everyones attention, and in a few more he had them all dieing at brilliant intervals and in the most humorous and fun ways for the players. The way he played to all their personalities and worked the rooms to fit.... it was brilliant just to watch and listen. He'd take suggestions from the crowd for everything and work it in like a ring master... even when someone had to die and one of the drunken masses screamed out "fried chicken"... he killed one of the hard nosed D&Ders in a landslide of greasy fried chicken... and the guy loved it! I thought he'd be offended "that's not D&D", but said instead "That was the coolest D&D death I've ever had.. " or something to that effect.

Then he got to one of my rooms. He used it as a base and took one of the rooms worst variations.. I didn't even think would work given the format and people sometimes getting disgruntled by not playing... and I wrote it. He made it work. The Lust tent of course got picked for "Whats the rooms favorite sin?" I was thinking, ah finally he's going to slip... maybe I should warn him this could get ugly in a drunken, mixed sex and personality crowd.. but he pulled it off. I was shocked. At one point he had a guy dancing literely by the table with his imaginary harem girls when it was his turn, and not offending or freaking out anyone. The harem dancing girls was all him... not in the room I wrote.

I ripped off alot of ideas from him and the others I saw, and my last room was more successful for it...

Unfortunately, I missed that session. However, that would have been Michael Foster.

I wrote a room called The Abyssal Ascent. I never got a chance to playtest it so I'm really curious as to how it ran. Did anyone run that room or see it run?

heh. I was thinking the same for the cubic crystal. I fear it was way way too easy, and not enough player death.

I wasn't worried about the deadly factor. Quite the opposite. I was wondering if anyone made it through the room alive. lol. It was definitely a "Doom" level encounter.

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend GenCon this year. I did, however, contribute a room to the event entitled "Hidden Shrine of Tharizdun." I was wondering how it was received? I wrote the room as a tribute to Gary Gygax's WG4 Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun 1st Edition AD&D module. I regard said module as the greatest ever written for _any_ RPG. Requiescat in pace Gary Gygax. In ludis, veritas est.

Salve atque vale,
Alphonso Warden

Hi Keith---

Any word on when/where the compiled ToG will be posted for download?

Allan.

It was my pleasure and my honor to be a part of all of this; thank you, Keith for putting it together.

For me, it was the first DMing I had done in 30 years; likewise the first all-new dungeon design I did. The first six in each of my two session got a signed, numbered (only 15 made) copy of the room, sort of a "very-mini" module.

First was a TPK, +1. Killed one guy within 10 minutes, and greased the rest at the end when they boldly went where no one had gone before without a means of returning.

The second group just wouldn't do enough stupid things; I didn't kill a single PC, for which I will be ever remorseful.

The highlight for me came as I was setting up for my first of two consecutive sessions. Looking at the pile of AD&D books provided for us, I disdainfully swept them aside as I got out my first three booklets and Greyhawk, and said something to the effect that they should get ready to play some D&D "old school". At that point, the room erupted in cheers and we got right down to it. Had only one player start to think about arguing/questioning a call I made; looked sternly at him and reminded him that things worked the way I said they did because it was MY world, after all.

Keith, if you do it again, I'm in.

I had so much fun that I have determined that I am going to start writing campaigns and adventures again for commercial release and sale. My specialty will be "Old School".

Tim Kask

Thanks Keith,I had a blast running the Tower of Gygax, and was happy to see my players enjoy the room I submitted, "In the Twilight Garden". The audience seemed to enjoy choosing different hallucinations for those playing and the players seemed to enjoy acting out their "bad trips". I worried about whether it was really lethal enough but after I managed to swap out all my players after only 30 minutes my worries went away. Yellow Mold is fun but gas spores really get the job done!

Any word on when/where the compiled ToG will be posted for download?

No. At the moment, it's only a thing GenCon would like to do; there may be legal issues based around reuse of 1E monsters, items, or the like. The PTB at Gen Con are going to look at it ASAP, but they need to get things back to normal after the show. I'll certainly keep folks posted here.

Thanks for running the event, Keith. I contributed the mini-adventure called "Chasm of the Faceless Lord" and I talked to at least 1 DM who ran it. I enjoyed stopping by the room a few times to witness the carnage, and even though I asked around for you, no one knew where you'd gotten off to. Alas, I'm proud to have contributed to the event, and kudos to you for putting it together.

Cheers,
Jeff Talanian

This was definitely my biggest regret. I was an industry insider guest as well as running the Tower, so I constantly running off to do seminars and signings and such. As a result, I didn't get to meet as many of the contributors or DMs as I'd hoped to. If we do it again, I suspect we'll want an assistant DM/room manager on hand at all times.

In any case, thanks Jeff (and Tim, and everyone else who took part) - I hope our paths cross again soon.

I just want to thank you again for chatting with me after the Secrets of Eberron presentation on Thursday. (In case you're wondering, I'm the big guy with long red hair). It was cool to hear what you had to say, and awesome to meet in person the creator of what has easily become my favorite D&D world.

I'm new here, just wanted to say hello and introduce myself.

Hello!

If you're going to introduce yourself, you might want to mention your name - otherwise, since you have an anonymous account, it doesn't accomplish much. ;)

I was at GenCon, but I didn't manage to play in the tower event. (It came down to Sunday afternoon, deciding whether to run ToG or play the 4e Dungeon Delve with some friends of mine who were new to the game. I opted for the Delve.)

I would very much have liked to have played, but there was entirely too much going on during the day, and it seemed like there was always a huge line in the early evening, post-vendor-hall hours. By 10pm, the people I know have typically settled into a hotel room or lobby somewhere to play games, and I guess I'm just getting too old to do the all-night gaming thing, because by 1-2am I really wanted to sleep.

The only suggestion I really have is more organizational than material: it might make sense to cut down on DM's during the wee hours of the night and increase the number in the evening, when there's a huge rush post-vendor-hall. Of course, some might say that's blasphemy, and I do admit having an event running all night long was a nice change from previous GenCons, even if I didn't take advantage of it.

I lucked into one of Keith's midnight games and just want to say thanks. I think the while thing went pretty well (especially since I could barely remember 1E rules).

Apart from some memorable moments - such as the supposedly lawful good paladin played by a 13 year old kid running past a monster while pushing one of his gnome companions back towards it - the only regret that I had was that no one in the group I was in got the "Orc with a Pie" reference but me. Okay, sure. This time it was a goblin with cake, but it seemed pretty obvious.

Anyway, thanks again Keith. Getting to be in one of your games was awsome.

The only regret that I had was that no one in the group I was in got the "Orc with a Pie" reference but me. Okay, sure. This time it was a goblin with cake, but it seemed pretty obvious.

Indeed, that was the inspiration. Orcs like pie, but goblins like cake. Meanwhile, the room itself came in two flavors: "Cake or Death", in which the cake is the antidote to the poison gas filling the next room... and "The Cake is a Lie", in which the cake holds a slow-action poison. I say this, of course, because there's no way to tell them apart - so even if anyone who reads this later plays it, there's no easy clues.

Keith---

Do you have any updates on hosting the Tower of Gygax files yet?