Con Report: The Dungeons & Dragons Experience

Do you like fun? I certainly do, but it turns out there are many definitions of that word ...


DDXP was last weekend in Fort Wayne Indiana. It used be called Winter Fantasy, and was traditionally located in Fort Wayne, although in the last couple of years it has undergone a name change and flirted with moving to the east coast. It looks now like it's back in Fort Wayne for a few more years. They have one hall of the convention center, with about 6 or so vendors, a hundred or so tables, and about 400 or so attendees, I'd say, over the Thursday through Sunday it runs. There's a modern Hilton attached to the convention center with lowish room rates (~$100/night), parking is only $7/day, and decent food is available within 1 block. Events are about $2/hr and the badge was around $20.

There are about 5 types of events at DDXP: Seminars, Delves (a timed 1-hr 'adventure' which contains 2 combats), longer Delves (~2-3 hours, with 3-4 combats), RPGA Adventure modules (4 hours) and 'Specials', which are con only adventurers. Everything is based around 4e, except the Miniatures game, which uses the D&D mini's rules.

DDXP is an RPGA con. This means that the players are hard core. Characters min/max'd out the wazoo, every single person a true expert in all of the rules, and everyone focused on one thing: winning. "Ah, but this is an RPG, you can't win ..." you might say ... well, not in the RPGA.

These events are about combat, pure & simple. No adventure, no mystery, no exploration or decisions, just several combats in a row separated by a few sentences of flavor text. In this sense, 4e has helped the RPGA immensely. The massive rules arguments that used to happen at RPGA events are much less common with 4e. The players are now free to min/min their characters and win combat after combat in the time allotted. There is usually a brief segments called 'role play' in each adventure in which you make skill checks. "The boat has crashed on the beach. Make skill checks to collect the equipment." At this point the players say things like: "Arcana. I made it." "Religion, I made it." "Insight, I made it." This is the extent of the role play sections. The Specials usually have a group interactive element, where 30 or so tables are involved in the same adventure at the same time, with timed sections. I always like the idea of these sorts of things that you can only do at a con.

From the tone you can tell I didn't have a very good time. I went in expecting an RPG con, when in fact was a hard core D&D minis con, some played with minis rules and most played with 4e rules. There's nothing wrong with this, but it's not my definition of fun. I enjoy the social aspect of gaming and this con doesn't have that, it's pure mini combat. If you like that then you should find DDXP very enjoyable. If you don't then you may want to attend for only 1 day. (EVERYONE enjoys a little tactical combat, after all.)

So any good specific stories of your time there?

Wow, that sounds terrible. Talk about playing up all the things pen and paper RPGs do worst...

Wow. A whole con full of munchkins... Did they spontaneously bust out with 'Ding dong the witch is dead?'

The new 3 Dragon Ante set/expansion was supposed to be there, but was not.

I got to see D&D Heroscape. It's about 25%-33% the size of the 'real' Heroscape. It does have a nice Troll mini.

My GF and I were stalked to the con by her ex-Husband of 2-years. He spent the con twittering insults about me. (Generous AUP on Twitter, but should help the RO.)

During the 8-hour Battle Interactive RPGA game I sat in one of the 2 free chairs. The other was soon filled with a friend of the group I joined ... who stank to high heaven. I had sworn to myself that I would get up and move chairs if this every happened again ... but found that I couldn't ... my racial guilt kept me from doing so.

In 2 days of 12-hour gaming I believe I only rolled above a 13 twice (d20.) Once I was attempting to jump over a 10' chasm, rolled a 1, fell in, got flung out by tentacles doing over half my health. On my next turn (15 minutes later ... munchkins ...) I got up and tried to jump again. Rolled a 1 again, almost died from the tentacle flinging damage, but randomly got flung to the CORRECT side of the chasm this time. (This story reveals who I am to anyone at the table reading this.) I rolled SO many 1's in combat that I was getting bored and gave up and lost interest in ALL play for an hour or so.

D&D Minis (the real game) had a pretty nice Dungeon run game, with 8 teams on a huge dungeon map competing to gather the most treasure and make it out of the dungeon. They played with random starter boxes. It looked very fun (and I was told by friends that is WAS very fun.)

'Hand cut pub chips' means 'thick cut french fries' at the Irish place nearby. Food was ok, nce beer menu and a GREAT selection of Irish & Scottish whiskeys, with several of the Single Malts being new to me. (And I have gone out of my way to try new ones for about a decade now.)


I like these smaller cons, they have a much slower pace and are less frenetic than the big ones.

bryce0lynch wrote:

DDXP is an RPGA con... These events are about combat, pure & simple. No adventure, no mystery, no exploration or decisions, just several combats in a row separated by a few sentences of flavor text. In this sense, 4e has helped the RPGA immensely.

From such great heights! B7 - Rahasia has always been one of my favorite classic D&D modules, and it's actually a mash-up of two RPGA modules. Sadness...

Wow. i don't envy you. I tend to like stuff like that that but super competetive players, lackluster events, and Body odor are some of the worst apsects of cons. Sorry man. Better luck next time.

Steve"Fear of Girls RPG"Avery