Sorry for the missed post last week! I was scrambling to do some last minute prep for DanyCon! Everyone flew in Thursday night and most flew out Monday so we had 3 full days of Danycon fun! It was fabulous! Our last guests left this afternoon so the house is quiet now… we’re all thinking about next year already.
Theme
This year we did Medieval Danycon. This meant – shirts that look like knights, a Shakespearean (I know this is renaissance) murder mystery, an extended D&D session and plenty of medieval themed games!
Party Favors
The favors for this year were pretty basic – we had everyone pick their D&D character in advance so they got an unpainted mini, this year’s t-shirt complete with cape, a DanyCon bingo card and a copy of Excalibohn.
Side Quests
Mark and Erin made some amazing “side quests” for Danycon which were a Connections, Strands and Wordle for each day. I’ve added them here below if you want to try your hand!!
Day 1 – Friday
https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=ycijt
https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-O61yZa3DrIV7go9GH3b
https://customstrandsnyt.com/play/HeyGoodLookin-
Day 2 – Saturday
https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=codhc
https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-O61vAd5alJcNvYWfZW3
https://customstrandsnyt.com/play/GoodKnight
Day 3 – Sunday
https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=dcsej
https://connections.swellgarfo.com/game/-O624zGPraBFBXfmrjoy
https://customstrandsnyt.com/play/YourTurn!
Friday
Most people were working Friday so we did mini painting during the day and nothing formal for gaming. For dinner we did the Maiming of the Shrew murder mystery. This year I randomized the characters everyone got (honestly this is how I should always do it). Weirdly every single person but one was off gender so we had some great costumes. Dinner was Impossible Shepherd’s Pie with salad and sourdough cookies for dessert.
Saturday
Saturday was heavy games. Once again with Will’s website that allowed you to pick a game in advance things went much smoother than previous years! The medieval games played were Lords of Waterdeep and Kingsburg. We then had a dinner of salad and tofurky “chicken” and biscuits followed by D&D.
D&D
Our D&D adventure this year Will and I decided we wanted to each DM both groups. We usually split the group in half and somehow make the adventures meet up, but we knew people suspected that twist. Instead we focused on the fact that it seemed everyone loved to compare their experiences. So we decided to plan two shorter sessions; I’d run one session Will would run the other and the players would swap so they get to do both. This unfortunately didn’t exactly play out as expected. My session took almost 3 hours for my first time running it because the session was role play heavy. I will admit I had a grand time running it. The 3 hour session was my favorite session I’ve ever DM’ed. We went so long though that we had to do the second sessions the following day. I think some folks in the group were a bit less than thrilled, we’ll have to rethink this next year!
If you’re curious the background of the sessions were, for Will, that they had to free a trapped pegasus (which included a puzzle). For me they had to locate where a unicorn had gone and free it – this involved finding the location of the villain’s hide out by role playing city interactions. Both teams were employed by a group called HEMA (Heroes for the Ethical treatment of Magical Animals). I had a single sheet of paper (which included Will’s scenario) as the background for my story and winged the rest. I did manage to keep the important parts consistent though with that sheet of paper. It was interesting to see how different the two parties acted.
Sunday
After finishing up our D&D games, we all went straight to a game of Zoovadis which is a negotiation game. Everyone was mad at each other by the end and we vowed never to speak of the game again. This was followed by a giant game of Freelancers which is another RPG type game. (I know, you’d think they’d be done with RPGs for a while, but most folks weren’t!) We’ve played the pirate version by the same company and it was just as good. Dinner that night was pizza, generously sponsored by the Coltons!! (Everyone joked it is our first real sponsor.)
“We vowed never to speak of the game again”
Hey! Except me! I actually like Zoo Vadis.
The one other note I will add is that we ordered games for Danycon almost 2 weeks ago that have somehow not even shipped yet. I think they are overloaded from a Labor Day sale. Next time we will have to order games for Danycon much further in advance.