The Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff: an update

Plans are progressing for our RPG mini-con in Leamington on the 2nd-4th September

As mentioned in the prior blog post, we’ll host the games in St Patrick’s Irish Club but for those who are down early, we’ll meet for drinks in the Royal Pug before moving onto Kayal for a curry on Friday evening. Saturday is a full day of gaming, samosas at lunch, with pub in the evening, and I’ve booked the venue for Sunday morning for some more RPG sessions and space to play some board games.

I’m delighted by the amazing games submitted so far by wonderful GMs – we have 25 sessions so far with RPGs including Blades in the Dark, Bushido, Cairn, Cepheus Engine, Conspiracy X, Deus Vult, Divided Horizons, Fate Tianxia, Heart, Kult, Liminal, Masks, Mistborn, Old School Essentials, Pendragon (Mythic Greece), Runequest Glorantha, Savage Worlds (2000AD, and East Texas University), Star Trek Dee Sanction, Things from the Flood, TimeWatch and Weird Frontiers.

I’m currently adding all these to Warhorn and I hope to get a few more games submitted in next couple of weeks and open to registration and sign-ups in early July! Aiming for about 12 tables morning and afternoon on the Saturday, and perhaps 4 RPG sessions on the Sunday with boardgames too.

Hope to see you in September!

The Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff 2022

Apologies for the delay in finally confirming the dates for #OBaWS in Leamington this September. I had originally planned for 17th September – typically I go for middle of that month to allow people to get kids back to school, and for a decent gap from #grogmeet. However, as a further sign of my age, my eldest may be off to university this year (A-levels permitting), and the 17th may be the weekend when I’ll be driving me over.

Hence, had to go a bit earlier. This year, Owlbear will start on the evening of 2nd September (usually we meet in the Royal Pug for drinks and then go for a curry after, perhaps Kayal again), a full day of gaming on Saturday 3rd, followed by pub trip (people seemed to like The White Horse last year), and, I’ve also booked the venue for a Sunday 4th morning gaming slot for those who would like to stay around. As well as change of date, the extra gaming slot on Sunday, there’s a third change – I’m going to try a new venue. The Band Factory has been fantastic but thought I’d try St Patrick’s Irish Club – more salubrious, more parking, bar open from lunchtime, and a slightly spooky statue of Pat in a box by the river. The venue are still happy for me to provide samosas and tea/coffee so hoping will work well, and I’ve booked the ground floor room (see pic below) and a room on the 1st floor.

I’ll open doors on Saturday at about 9am with the first game slot at 10-1.30pm, a break for samosas, and then second slot at 2.30pm to 6pm, with us beginning to gather in the pub from about 6.30/7pm.

Sunday we’ll have a third game slot, from 9.30am-1pm. Could also offer some boardgames and pick up games in this slot too.

I’ll begin writing to previous GMs in the next several weeks and start building up a Warhorn page with the games on offer – so do get thinking!

Download

The Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff update- September 18th 2021

I thought I’d offer a brief update as to where I’m up to with OBaWs.

I am hoping to host the 4th Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff mini-con in Leamington on 18th September. This is a very difficult decision given that although the Covid-19 restrictions have been discontinued, there is ongoing concern as to the number of cases and the spread of the virus.

At present, I aim to have an in-person event at The Band Factory with some parallel on-line sessions. For those interested, I’ll arrange a curry the night before the con in a local restaurant. The con itself will open at 9am on 18th, with the first game slot 10am-1.30pm, a break for lunch and samosas, and then a second game slot 2.30pm-6pm. We can then retire to the pub.

To make the event as safe as possible, I’d like all attendees to have had the double vaccine, to be negative on lateral flow test, and to not be suffering any symptoms of the virus at the time of the event. I’ll try and maximise ventilation and provide hand sanitiser gel. I’d like all attendees to wear masks when moving around, but will not insist on people wearing them during games. Of course, people are very welcome to wear masks during the RPG sessions and I’ll support that decision.

There are a couple of other caveats. The most obvious is that if the pandemic situation worsens and/or the government re-introduces restrictions, then it may be the case that the whole con may revert to being wholly on-line. The second caveat is that a given GM may become unwell or need to isolate/quarantine – so may be some last minute re-arranging of players into other games. Of course, I’ll try and accommodate preferences where possible.

For those who are intending in-person I’ll ask for a voluntary donation of £10 (via Warhorn) to cover venue hire and refreshment.

I’ve asked GMs to check the entries of their games on Warhorn this week, and to have a think as to whether would like to run in-person or on-line, and then intend to open bookings more widely on Friday 30th July.

The Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff 2021: brief update

Thought I’d post a quick update.

I had intended to release tickets at around the end of June for OBaWS but given the delay in reduction of social distancing, and the spread of the delta variant, I’ll hold off for a few more weeks and see what 19th July brings us. I’m hoping by then vast bulk of adult population will be vaccinated, restrictions will be lowered further, and there won’t have been any increase in hospitalisations. If this is all the case, will be looking more positive for August and September. Of course if there are ongoing concerns, I’ll revert to an online event.

The Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff 3: Adventuring in the Aether. 18th-20th September 2020. Autumnal Update!

With Birmingham and Oxford teetering on the edge of a further lockdown, and Leamington neatly between, I’ve decided to keep The Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff wholly virtual this year.

For the virtual event, on the 18th September we’re kindly opening The Owlbar at The Mitchener Arms for a beer and curry on Friday night, and being hosted by the gracious Paul Mitchener @TheTweedmeister https://twitter.com/TheTweedmeister . We then have three gaming slots on Saturday 19th (10am-1.30pm, 2.30pm-6pm; 7.30pm-11pm) and have lots of games on Warhorn for people to book into. Not many slots left so more GMs always welcome Some great games including Liminal, Cthulhu Dark, Star Trek Adventures Klingons, Conan, Legend of the Five Rings, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and Dying Earth.

On the 20th, we’re going to have a RPG seminar/panel and I’m delighted to say we’ve got Chris Birch and Lloyd Gyan from Modiphius and Cat Tobin and Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan from Pelgrane lined up.

A big thanks to Paul @spookshow71 https://twitter.com/spookshow71 for his excellent art for this year’s event.

Link to the Warhorn page is https://warhorn.net/events/the-owlbear-and-wizards-staff-3-adventuring-in-the-aether

The Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff 2020

Venues are all booked for The Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff RPG mini-con in Leamington on the 19th – 20th September!

As on prior years, I’ll book a restaurant for a curry on the Friday night (18th). Saturday will be the main event at The Band Factory http://www.thebandfactory.org , with 12 tables of RPGs in the morning and in the afternoon (AM Session 10-1.30pm; PM session 2.30pm – 6pm). Samosas and RPG swap shop at lunch time. I’ve booked a private room and bar in the Royal Pug https://www.theroyalpug.com for the Saturday evening.

I had requests for us to continue into the Sunday morning for those able to hang around – we’ll have around 6 RPG tables, and also some boardgames and RPG demos hopefully.

I’ll set up Eventbrite and open tickets shortly and will then spend the next couple of months getting the games sorted with GMs before booking people into those from around Easter. One other change – rather than donations, I may add a charge for tickets so as to cover costs for venue, refreshments, and GM gifts. I hope that is ok with people

REFLECTIONS ON RPGING IN 2018

Where to start?  Overall, a very good year of gaming.  Some real highlights with hosting the Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff in Leamington, and having lots of friends travel to game with us, meeting gaming chums in Melbourne for a session of Shadow of the Demon Lord, and releases of new editions of some of my favourite RPGs.  I was disappointed not to be able to attend Grogmeet due to a work commitment and it was a shame that for some reason Free RPG Day didn’t seem to reach Coventry or Warwickshire.

Games

Played a lot of games this year.  As with 2017, a fair bit of D&D and I do really rate 5e.  With @chimpy20 we’ve continued our excellent Forgotten Realms campaign, and had a dramatic end to the arc just before Christmas.  We had a break earlier in the year to try out Monster of the Week (run magnificently by @dan_connolly), and looking forward to trying Spire in the new year. In parallel, I’ve been playing in a 5e game of Primeval Thule, run by the dad of one of my son’s friends.  This is a more Swords and Sorcery setting with thieves guilds, powerful old families, cultists, and jungle and tomb exploration.

Our taste for Swedish RPGs has continued.  We’ve progressed with the Throne of Thorns campaign for Symbaroum and played several sessions of Mutant Year Zero.  One of my first sessions of the new year will be Forbidden Lands, which I’m really excited about.  Tempted to run it at UK Games Expo if can get my head around it in time.  We’ve also enjoyed The Strange, Infinity and Conan as part of our Sunday morning breakfast club (@chimpy20, @dan_connolly, @giryan, @Er0_0, @doc_griffiths , Chris and Dave)

I’ve continued to play and run Star Trek Adventures and always have a marvellous time.  FASA Trek was an important game to me as a young RPGer.  I’ve been running the Modiphius’ Living Campaign for the TNG era, with the excellent crew of the USS Thunderchild (@spookshow @blythy @theGrognardfile @pedr @wayne_peters) and hope to bring in some more home-brew stuff in 2019.  My pedantic Captain Senek enjoys being saved by the crew of the USS Stan Lee (thanks @pilky @tallaluhmaait @tarasis @MissJennavyrH  @ItsAJWassh). We played an excellent few sessions of the Legend of the Five Rings 4e (where I got to play a Scorpion Bushi at last, another gaming ambition – thanks @jimbohawkins) and have enjoyed running sessions of Call of Cthulhu, Wild West Cinema and Vampire the Masquearade 5e on-line (thanks @spookshow @xtamsynx @MissUnreason @restrepowriter @adamrkitch @morthrai @chrissyspill).  The latter was particularly exciting as missed out on Vampire and the whole World of Darkness in the 90s, and got to meet some new twitter RPG friends!  Maybe Vampire Dark Ages and Mage in 2019?

I began running the first part of the Dead Suns Adventure Path for Starfinder for my son, his friend, and another dad and enjoyed that very much.  Hope to get another session in soon.  At the beginning of the year, had a great focussed campaign with @Ian_h_cooper and run by Ron Edwards @RonAdept – this used the RQ2 ‘classic’ ruleset and a lot of the game was world-building and developing the rather malign metaphysics and pantheon, and psychologically exploring the growth of the young heroes .  Also had the great experience of several sessions of Nights Black Agents, run by @kinnygraham and with my fellow Bourne-wannabees @dimbyd @lintillaz @nfbenson ). I enjoyed running HeroKids for my nephews and my children and have had a great time as my bloodthirsty Cambrian Knight Aneirin in @dissectingwrlds PBEM Pendragon game.

Despite missing Grogmeet, I did manage to get an away gaming match and was very fortunate that @mark_gor very kindly pointed me towards a RPG Meetup group in Melbourne and then, even more generously, ran a game of Shadow of the Demon Lord.  This was a really excellent session in a great venue and very much enjoyed playing with @alex_cattoo @patrickoduffy @Art_the_DM – hope to do so again!

Releases of Old Favourites 

If a game defines the year, it may have to be Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay for me.  This began at the end of 2017 when Dirk asked me to run WFRP1e for Grogmeet17.  I then ran ‘Mistaken Identity’ (the first part of ‘The Enemy Within’ campaign) three further times in 2018 – for Virtual Grogmeet, at UK Games Expo, and for the Armchair Adventurers and the Grognard Files (thanks for a great session @blythy @theGrognardfile @kitch66uk @thedicemechanic).  This love for the old edition has been compounded by the release of the 4th edition from Cubicle – not played as yet, but one definitely for 2019.

Another big release for me in 2018 has been Legend of the Five Rings 5th edition, from Fantasy Flight Games.  I’d got into the hobby again when the 3rd edition was out and have really enjoyed 4th edition (and continue to do so), but was excited about new release.  We’ve played the Beginner Game and I am really liking the new mechanics, particularly around social interactions, loss of face and stress, and the Rings.  I’ve submitted an adventure I’ve written for 5e for UK Games Expo 2019 and hope to get to grips more with new edition.

2018 was also an important year for Glorantha.  Releases of the Glorantha Sourcebook, RuneQuest Glorantha, and 13th Age Glorantha but marked by the sadness of Greg Stafford’s passing.  Chaosium goes from strength to strength – strong releases, the new edition of Masks of Nyarlothotep and taking Pendragon back in house.  In 2019 I want to read through the three Gloranthan RPG rulesets and try to get some to table.

Conventions

As mentioned, I was sad not to get to Grogmeet18 but was able to attend UK Games Expo and we put on Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff mini-con in Leamington in September.

My Expo was slightly over-shadowed by a big work commitment the week following but, despite that, enjoyed it greatly as always.  Ran Symbaroum, Ars Magica 2e, and WFRP1e and had a fantastic time playing the D&D epic on Saturday night (thanks @Grami_WER).  Good to see friends and buy a few things. Picked up some books from James Raggi for LotFP and really enjoyed the HeroQuest seminar. Have submitted one session to UKGE19 and thinking about 2nd.

I was really delighted by being able to host the Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff mini-con OBaWS – so grateful to all the kind GM’s for running and for all those who joined us for the day (and curry the night before).  Ended up with 10 tables running morning and afternoon. Currently, I am looking into dates for 2019 and will think about improving on post-Con drink plans, and  make sure we have lots of D&D, and keep the samosas.

2019….

Some fun plans already underway.  As mentioned, have submitted L5R5e adventure to UK Games Expo and am thinking about offering one of WFRP5e/Symbaroum/Forbidden Lands/Star Trek Adventures for a second game.  As a player, I’ve got a session of Primeval Thule planned for January and we are starting Forbidden Lands at the weekend.

More generally, want to keep playing and running Star Trek Adventures and am starting an online game of Pendragon this month, a long-held ambition.  Thanks to some Twitter enthusiasm, we’re starting some setting/Saga/world-bulilding for an Ars Magica campaign, which may or may to also include some on-line sessions. I think our Sunday morning sessions will include Coriolis and Symbaroum down the line so for me, other GMing goals are to get L5R5e and WFRP4e to the table.  More Vampire and getting to try Mage would also be fun!

Happy new year everyone and hope to see you at Expo/Grogmeet/ and may be Owlbear… I’m off to read King Arthur Pendragon v5.2 and email Dirk with thoughts about virtual and meatspace Grogmeet.

The Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff, 13th-15th September 2024

Hello! Thought I should begin to advertise our 2024 Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff RPG mini-con in Leamington!

As in previous years, plan would be for us to meet on the Friday (13th September) in The Royal Pug in Leamington late afternoon, and then go for a curry later in the evening. Saturday 14th will be a full day of gaming at St Patrick’s Irish Club with 12 tables of RPGs in the morning and afternoon slot and, of course, samosas offered at lunch. The bar in the club will open at lunchtime. Saturday evening we will head over to The White Horse for food and beer.

The Sunday gaming seems popular and people asked for us to extend the day a little. So I have booked St Patrick’s later into the afternoon on the 15th, and thought we’d have a normal morning 3.5 hour RPG session, with perhaps 6-8 tables, and an option of some drop-in board games too. Then if people wanted to game in the afternoon we could have a post-lunch 2-hour session for those who would like to run or play a ‘taster’ session of a RPG.

I’ve booked the pubs and venue and need to think about the Indian meal as that was a bit complex last year.

I’ll begin reaching out to potential GM’s shortly and then set up a Warhorn page for registrations/booking into games subsequently. In interim, please do register interest in the con and leave email via this Survey Monkey link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/762JHCG

The Owlbear and the Wizard’s Staff 2023: Honor Among Gamers

Plans are progressing for the next Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff (OBaWS) RPG mini-con in Leamington. We’ll go back to the more traditional slot of later in September. The con will take place on the weekend of 22nd -24th September 2023.

As is tradition, for those who can, we’ll congregate on Friday afternoon in the Royal Pug in town and go for a curry in the evening. Saturday 23rd will be a full day of gaming, again at the St Patrick’s Irish Club in Leamington, with samosas and refreshments provided. The bar will be open in the club from late morning for those who want a pint of Guinness and a bag of tatos with their game. Doors open at 9am with first session kicking off at 10am and second session at 2.30pm, after a lunch break. Then off to pub in the evening. Sunday morning there will be games in the morning – both a selection of RPGs and also Jimbo’s drop in board games

The GM response has been incredible – I’ve had 28 games submitted so far and am putting these up on Warhorn currently. Plan will be to have 12 games Sat AM, 12 games Sat PM, and perhaps 4-6 on the Sunday AM. Aiming to open sign-up later this month or early July.

Very much looking forward to seeing you all in Leamington!

The OwlBear and Wizard’s Staff (#OBaWS) 2021: September 18th, Leamington Spa

Many thanks for all the interest and enthusiasm for the 4th OBaWS event. Last year we were wholly virtually, this year I am hoping to offer both face-to-face gaming as well as online, with the caveat that if restrictions do not lessen in July/August, and the delta variant causes more problems, the whole con may move to being a virtual event.

The plan is roughly the same as previous years. For those who would like to, I’ll book a restaurant for a curry for the evening before (Friday 17th) so we can meet up for beer and food. Saturday will be the main day of gaming and will be in The Band Factory again http://www.thebandfactory.org/contact . I’ll open the venue at 9am and we’ll have the first gaming slot 10am-1.30pm, break for lunch and samosas, and then second session 2.30pm-6pm. I’ll book a pub in the evening for us to gather after a day of RPGs.

We managed to get 13 tables running in 2019 (26 games in total) and perhaps was a little cramped so will cap at 11-12 tables this year and some great GMs have submitted games already. At the time of writing we have 21 games on offer (11 morning, 10 afternoon), and getting close to closing for submissions.

Current games on offer in the morning include: Liminal, Gamma World, Deadlands, Sentinel Comics, Vampire, Questworlds Nightbane, Zweihander, Vaesen, Traveller, Hellboy, and Barbarians of Lemuria.

In the afternoon we have: Genesys Harry Potter, Questworlds Glorantha, Advanced Fighting Fantasy, Swords of the Serpentine, Call of Cthulhu, Liminal, Smithy of Sacrilege, The King of Dungeons, The Dee Sanction, and Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar.

I’ll probably charge £10 entry to cover venue hire and refreshments and won’t open the Warhorn site for at least another 2-3 weeks pending on developments with the pandemic and social restrictions.

A massive thanks to Paul @spookshow71 for the fab art (which we’ve dubbed ‘Owlbear Victorious’). If people are interested, I can add both of Paul’s #OBaWS designs to Redbubble if shirts would be popular.

I’ll keep everyone updated via the blog and Twitter and give good notice before ticket release. I’ll be keeping a close eye on all COVID-19 updates and the safety of the event.

The Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff 2019

The weekend after Owlbear and looking forward to some reading, dog walks, RPG prep and thinking about next year!

I had a great time last weekend and am very grateful to all those who came and supported the con, both as players and as GMs. Aware weekends are precious time away from work and with family, and attending Cons can be an expensive business. We ran 13 tables morning and afternoon, and I reckon had between 80-90s attendees. I think the changes I made from last year were generally for the good – I’d planned some dedicated D&D tables in advance, booked a bit of extra space (including an extra toilet) and the social events (Friday night curry, Saturday night pub) went more smoothly.

We had a great range of games on offer and hope people got into games they enjoyed. There was juggling around of GMs in last few weeks, but this all went off ok, and I really enjoyed playing in Carl’s game of Dresden Files Accelerated in the afternoon. This week, I’ve enjoyed listening to some of the feedback from the podcasters who attended – dpercentile https://anchor.fm/dave-aldridge The Grognard Files https://thegrognardfiles.com and Roleplay Rescue GM’s Journal https://anchor.fm/rpgrescue/episodes/417-GMs-Journal-21-09-19-feat–OBaWS-e5g5fh . Thanks all for mentioning the Con and for coming to the event.

Thanks in particular to Dave, for running at short notice and bringing lots of drinks and sweets, to Griff for the swap shop, to Bruce for the wonderful Owlbear miniatures, and to Dan for our fantastic art.

For next year, I’m thinking of a similar weekend (want to allow school term to restart and a gap before Grogmeet) – the venue has confirmed that has space for 19th September 2020 and I’ve checked that this won’t clash with September’s Concrete Cow. Also asked about the 26th. Planning to be both bigger and smaller next year – smaller in that may cap to 12 tables (3 in the upstairs room may have been a bit much) but also expanding into the Sunday morning. For this, thought to have 6-8 RPG tables running in the main room (meaning would have 30-32 RPG sessions at the con in total) but using the other rooms for more open gaming (low prep RPGs, boardgames).

Other things I’m hoping to achieve are to ensure we have several women GMs – thanks to Anjuli, Kaye, and Kat for agreeing, and hopefully Erin and Virginia too. As well as D&D streams, I think having a DCC stream is really good so will keep that if possible (several of our attendees are part of the Goodman Games Road Crew). I’d like to have a stream or two for Swedish RPGs (Symbaroum, Mutant Year Zero etc), as well as one for Horror Sci-Fi (Alien, Mothership). Would like to see Pathfinder 2 on offer for a session (Phil?) as well as Vampire 5e, and tempted by a Tolkien/Howard/Moorcock RPG-off (The One Ring, Conan, and perhaps Stormbringer?). OSR, Savage Worlds, Cthulhu, Glorantha are also popular. We’ve not had Legend of the Five Rings or Star Wars as yet so an FFG stream could work too!

Get in touch with any thoughts and I’ll keep you posted!