The Dead Reigned at GallowsCon by Kevin S.

[AlexM]

Gallowscon™ was a blast! As always.

Attendance seemed a little light, and Palladium’s sales were down 50% from last year (money seemed tight for most people and lack of new Palladium product didn’t help), but people contributed to the charity event, garnering the Make a Wish Foundation an impressive $1050.00 – impressive because there were only about 100-120 people in attendance. Gosh gamers make me proud.

Gallowscon was also a ton of fun because the people behind it are warm, wonderful, welcoming and silly people with whom you enjoy spending the weekend. Thanks for having us again. On top of that, we got to hang with buddies like Steven Dawes (who drove in from Nebraska!), Kerry Cook (Ohio), James and Diane Brown (Kentucky; and two of the nicest people on earth), Glen Evans (and Katie and Maggie), Big Dennis Hughes, Lonnie Langston, Todd Wilson, Jay, Eric, Mike, Kevin, Alex, Wallace and others I know I’m forgetting to mention (sorry).

Oh yeah, and we gamed a lot.

Wayne Smith came in Second Place in the Settlers of Catan tournament, Jason Marker ran his (quickly becoming legendary) Robotech® game, James Brown ran a couple Beyond the Supernatural™ games and, I think, a Heroes Unlimited™ game (or was that Lonnie Langston?), and I ran two Dead Reign™ games. I was only supposed to run one zombie game, but the other group insisted I run Dead Reign™ so I did. I ran the same scenario for both games, though the two groups played very differently.

My Dead Reign™ games . . .

In my second Dead Reign™ game, I had two young ladies and a gent who had NEVER played an RPG before – Lisa, Melisa, and Travis. First, they played GREAT! I mean, you’d never know they had never played an RPG before. Second, all had a great time! Third, all loved Dead Reign™! In fact, the two girls came back to ask the name of the game again, and I made sure I gave them a catalog.

Boy, people love to fight zombies. The first group laid siege against a group of Death Cultists and took down 33 zombies!!! It was amazing. They fought with guns blasting and when the walking dead got within arm's length, took to bashing with crowbars and gun butts. It was one of the most impressive onslaughts I’d every seen. Yikes. Explosives were supposed to be involved in this battle, but a roll of a “2" to strike got the explosives tossed up onto the roof of a nearby building, instead of in the middle of the oncoming zombies. Ah, the best laid plans. Only one casualty, though others were injured, and the group managed to saved a doggy and a puppy.

The second group used much more caution, cunning and were a stealthy lot. They avoided a lot of zombie encounters and combat till the siege on the cultists. Even then, the battle was fast, decisive and in our heroes’ favor. They wiped out the cult (in part by killing the Cult Priest immediately and setting the zombies under his control on a killing spree starting with the cultists) and rescued three out of four of the people they came looking for, along with a few other innocent people, and a dog (but not the puppy), and got out alive! It was awesome! I must admit, I thought they were goners as the group was getting surrounded inside the cult’s lair, but they were smart enough to find an exit with the fewest zombies (9), and make a guns blazing mad dash through the gathering zombie mob. Blasting them just enough to part them like the Red Sea and run past them. It was awesome!

Btw, everyone played ordinary people. Characters that Julius Rosenstein spent 10 hours creating for me so I could continue working on the Dead Reign RPG before we left for Gallowscon. Great job, Jules, thank you.

On a personal level, it was gratifying that everyone had so much fun, and even more gratifying that EVERYONE said they were going to pick up the game (and without my asking). Very cool.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten™, by Eden Games, is the gold standard of Zombie RPGs. It is a great zombie game that's been around for several years. Consequently, I was floored when three or four people who had played All Flesh in the past told me that based on what they had seen (I brought the opening section to the RPG and the Zombie descriptions) and played, that Dead Reign was even better than it. Wow. I don't know about that, but I'm glad they think so. I wasn’t trying to outdo All Flesh Must Be Eaten, but it was nice to hear some people thought we had. I think they liked the fact that Dead Reign™ offers a very specific setting (the Zombie Apocalypse), that it is scary (I was tickled that so many people said they thought playing in my game was scary and full of tension), and action-packed. All Flesh, by contrast, took a more generic, you can play any number of classic zombie settings approach, which is cool, but the Palladium approach with the zombie apocalypse, infested cities and how our zombies work, seemed to really resonate with the players.

They also liked some of the different aspects to the Palladium zombies too, not to mention the artwork. Dennis “Subjugator” Hughes was funny, because as I would explain certain aspects about the zombies and the game rules, there were several times where he’d exclaim, “Oh my god, that’s brilliant.” It made me laugh, and it made me feel like all of our hard work on this book has been worth it.

Folks loved what they saw of the Robotech® Macross Saga Sourcebook too. And three people now have an advanced photocopy, so you may hearing about it from them online. Anticipation for Macross and Masters is hot.

Obviously, this is “my” experience at Gallowscon. There were a lot of other things going on and people having fun on many different levels. Other RPG events, board games, miniature games, card games and more.

Our fun at Gallowscon made me all the more excited about the 2009 Palladium Open House next May. I will definitely run a Dead Reign™ game or three, and I’m thinking of taking the suggestion of Spinachcat (and others) and try to run numerous games (like 6-10) at the Open House so a lot of people can game with me. I also hope to actually be rested for the event, and the Open House more organized and fun than ever. Yep, I can hardly wait.

The Dead Reign™ RPG – The Zombie Apocalypse™ – is in final production and will go to the printer this week. Heck, I’m going to work on it right now.

Sincerely,
Kevin Siembieda
Publisher, Writer, Artist and Game Master

© Copyright October 13, 2008 Palladium Books Inc. All rights reserved.

Rifts®, The Rifter®, RECON®, Splicers®, Palladium Books®, Phase World®, The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game®, Megaverse®, Nightbane®, The Mechanoids®, The Mechanoid Invasion®, Coalition Wars® and After the Bomb® are Registered Trademarks of Palladium Books Inc. Dead Reign, Heroes Unlimited, Beyond the Supernatural, ‘Burbs, and other published book titles, names, slogans and likenesses are trademarks of Palladium Books Inc., and Kevin Siembieda.

Robotech® and Robotech® The Shadow Chronicles® are Registered Trademarks of Harmony Gold USA, Inc.