Flames of War: D-Day 2011 Recap

Every year we run a large, multi- player and table event near the anniversary of D-Day to honor and remember the day and all who served during the war to end all wars.  To celebrate this anniversary we run this massive Flames of War event.  I know that I've already posted information about the day and how the event went, but now it is time to show some pictures that we now have from this day.

As today is the 4th of July, I figured it was appropriate to get these up today! Happy 4th of July to everyone who is celebrating today here in the States!

If you want to read more about the event, check out the blog post from June: D-Day

Sean "Striderlotr" Banks

Free RPG Day Recap

Brave adventures, 

those of you who are still standing... 

we salute you!

Saturday June 25th, 2011

The Day

Now that the dust has settled and the players have rolled for some great prizes, we are going to recap the day and let people know the highlights so that they can better understand the craziness that they participated in or missed out on.  If you did miss out... where were you????? Free RPG Day falls in the middle of June on a Saturday yearly, so you should make it next year! 

 Costumes

 The Staff even got involved with the fun of coming in costume to the event. If you notice in the picture above, even some of our DMs got dressed up. Sean, Brittani, and Stasi all went out to the front of the store to pose for pictures, next year YOU should come in costume also!

 Tables

Over the course of the day we ran many different events.  We set up several different tables so that players would be able to see the signs letting them know events and times for different games. We were able to have 4 tables with 4 different time slots for games all day.  We also set up tables for free stuff and for demo games of board and card games that are RPG-like (Castle Ravenloft, Thunderstone, etc).  With all the great demo games we ran with the FREE RPG Day adventures, as well as some special RPG demo events we ran with materials from previous years, including some L5R and source material from the past 2 years for Star Trek, we had full tables for all the events.
 

  Live Action

One of the oddest events of the day was our live action D&D Event! We created 6 different characters with very basic stats and then created 2 killer boss monsters with their crazed minions! So if you wanted to face off against the Crazy Samurai or the Insane Wizard you could chose your class from Fighter, Wizard, Ranger, Cleric, Monk, or Warlock.  As the event went on, we learned about the the characters we built... and darn can we build some killer basic characters!  On the fly, we had to make the bad guys just a little tougher to challenge the players.  We also needed a few more minions to round out the combats.  Next year, we will make sure it is EPIC and maybe even add on a dragon!

 FREEBIES

 By the end of the day we had given away almost all the FREE RPG Day event product.  We also had a free contest where every event you played in got you a checkpoint.  When you had to leave for the evening you got a D20 to roll and you got to add +1 to the roll for each event you were in!  Depending on what you rolled, you got a choice of prizes, just for coming in to play some FREE games.  Another great free item was from Dapper Devil. Dapper Devil sent us these great tiles that make D&D tracking fantastic.  If you have not seen there product, check them out here: Dapper Devil, or stop in and check out what we have here in-store. They also make great tokens for creatures in Magic, so stop in and see a sample here at the Dragon's Den!

Sean "Striderlotr" Banks

Wizards Ban announcement 6/20/11

Ok, so Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has finally added new cards to their ban list, the first time in Standard in a very long time.  What does this mean for the game, and what does it mean in general.....

Well it does make me wonder why? Why did they make this announcement with only a few months before rotation and both Jace and Stoneforge would leave Standard anyway? Why did they put Stoneforge in the Event Deck when they had to know what the format was doing before they created the decks? Why did they allow the format to stagnate for so long?

Wait a minute.... are you saying you have no idea what I'm talking about??? Well you need to read what WotC has to say about the new banned cards!

FREE RPG Day Saturday June 18, 2011 the 12:30 Time

So it is now 12:30 and we will be starting the next time slot for all the FREE RPG Day events.  This hour we have Dragon Age, Savage Worlds, Arcanis, and a pick up game of Dungeon Crawl Classic! From where I am standing, I can also see Dave setting up for a demo of Castle Ravenloft, the board game, Thunderstone the deck building game, and Ascension the deck building game.

So just to let people know, we have 6 players with a game master in Savage Worlds, 6 players with a game master in Dragon Age, 4 players and a game master in Arcanis, and 7 players with a DM in Dungeon Crawl Classics. So many games and so much more to come today.

We will also start our version of the D&D Live Action Event! Come in and play as a Wizard, Warlock, Fighter, Ranger, Cleric, or Monk.  Take on the Crazy Cultists and there master: either the Evil Wizard or Evil Samurai!

Don't forget, the more events you play in the better the bonus on your prize die roll. We have some great FREE prizes for FREE RPG Day, but to get the really, really, really good prizes, you need to participate in events.

We also have some great samples of some fantastic new tokens made by Dapper Devil!  If you have not seen these, you might want to take a look.  We have some here, but I know there are so many more out there.  Check them out at Dapper Devil. They also make some really cool Magic the Gathering Tokens, so come in and see a sample of them as well!

Sean "Striderlotr" Banks