"Bat Out of Hell"

This past weekend I attended Camp Nerdly. A 40-50 person camp out with a role playing game theme. So I'm going to devote a few posts to the weekend, the games, the food, and the whatnot.

Traffic down was bad. Nerdly was at Prince William Forest Park, so it should have been like 45 minutes tops and was more like 90 minutes. I'm not complaining really, because I think that means I spent less time on the road than anyone. Mark and I drove together, and arrived around 4pm. We signed in, set up our bunks and then had nothing to do for two hours. We ended up cleaning our cabin because the layer of tree pollen was so thick it was causing us both to sneeze with thunderous power and regularity.

By six o'clock there were enough people there to say hi to, and the vibe was very friendly. I got in on plenty of conversations by dropping Dave's name and/or smiling. Our friend Jeff showed later that evening, and the guy who drove him down (another Dave) ended up bunking in our little side of the cabin. I think he regretted his decision later in the night, but only because he was good people, and we are louts.

Food Friday night was a mildly disappointing spread of cold cuts, veggies and dip, hummus and pita, etc. I mean, logistically I understand: People were arriving all through the night, and a sit down dinner would have been poorly attended. But we arrived at 4:00 pm, and were supposed to arrive at 3:00. No real dinner at all was a wee bit lame. The late night oatmeal raisin cookies more than made up for it. The lack of any milk other than whole or half and half was an odd thing to see in 2008.

My first game was supposed to be AGONY, and super villain style "hack" of Agon. Instead, the GM cancelled with like two days notice, and then pulled a standard Agon game out of his hat at the last minute. It was great. Five players, some with lots of experience, and some with none. We played a escape from Hades campaign. As with almost all of the games I played this weekend, the GM was top notch, at least one of the players annoyed me to no end, and at least one of the players I wanted to take home and replace a member of my own crew. Remi had a fun game planned out, that we messed with and tried to make him change on the fly. He rolled with it like a champ. The only quibble I had was with a couple of his Greek mythology mistakes.

We had a huge idiot bruiser, a blind archer, a singer, an orator, and an old man. I played the old man who had been around the block. I was certainly not the leader, but my wits and tactics did keep some of the other players alive. Plus I was pretty good with a bow. That's not to far outside of my comfort zone, and I wish I had played something more challenging for me.

In the end, the player keeping track of the score had me in second while I had myself tied for first. Later detailed counting would revel that I was fully ahead on points, but that's not really important. The game was fun, we connected as a group of mostly strangers and trusted in each other to help provide a good time. It was a great game to start the weekend.

Later that evening Jeff, Mark and I went to Waffle House. Apparently we had crossed the mythic divide where Denny's cease to be the primary late night 24 hour coffee stop, and Waffle House is King. I knew it was in Virginia, I just didn't realize how close to the line I lived. We stayed up way to late catching up, and drove back at around 1:30 AM. Our fourth bunk mate was already asleep, and we tried to be quiet, but like I said, we were louts. At least one back pack got knocked over, all of our boots came off loudly, and the flashlights didn't quite go dim as quickly as they should have.

This hat is the best thing I bought for the weekend. Hands free flashlight all night long.

More to come soon!