Between Two Cons
I went to Between Two Cons in sunny Portland, Oregon! There have already been a lot of great recaps, and I think they've all done a wonderful job capturing the atmosphere, so I'll skip trying to summarize the event itself and instead share a few of my favorite moments.
I kicked off the weekend by dropping off print copies of A Familiar Tower for Skullboy to sell at his merchant table. I feel incredibly lucky that both he and Tony, over at the PlusOneExp booth, were excited enough about the adventure to stock it. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't share Aberrant Reflections more broadly—especially with the people who specifically came looking for it. The new print run had some major issues, and corrected replacements are only just now making their way into people's hands.
The first game I ran was A Familiar Tower for an amazing group of players. They managed to unlock content that none of my previous groups had ever reached, which was incredibly exciting to watch happen. Between that and another experience I'll get to in a moment, I've decided to make a tournament-style scorecard for the adventure.
I've talked before about players being able to choose their own difficulty by deciding whether to engage with optional challenges. Mario games do this with those big coins hidden behind risky platforming. You don't have to jump across the lava pit—but you can. This group jumped the lava pit. They got the big coin.
Speaking of tournament modules, I got to play Weird Little Freaks, the tournament adventure Brad Kerr and Skullboy created specifically for the convention. I had an absolute blast. When I got home, I ran it for my home group, and they loved it just as much.
Bragging rights: my convention group currently holds the high score in Weird Little Freaks.
Tournament modules are fun. This one was especially funny. Our GM was fantastic, and later in the weekend I wound up grabbing coffee with them and their partner, which made the whole experience even better.
Some time ago, Tony Vasinda quietly let me in on a secret. He was making a parody of the Between Two Cairns podcast and keeping it (mostly) under wraps. After politely nudging my way into playing an alternate universe version of a specific host, I found myself co-hosting the smash hit parallel-dimension adventure review podcast: Betwixed Two Piles.
We reviewed Weird Little Freaks, which I had intentionally avoided reading until about five minutes beforehand because I wanted to experience it first as a player. That meant my reactions were super fresh, and I had a great time recording it. My fellow hosts were fantastic with Ryan Lynch, of Perils and Princesses fame and Dan Phipps, of Gem Room Games (Dukk Borg, 9 Lives to Valhalla). Somehow Tony Vasinda wound up playing himself, which oddly wound up being the second time this character was played—the first time happening during the actual play bonus episode of B2C the night prior. It was a very meta weekend.
The audio for the parody show was recorded but has yet to be released.
One of the games I was most looking forward to was Eeldip's puzzle-dungeon furniture crawl, The Desk, inspired in part by The Chair—the very same The Chair that Brad adapted for the live Between Two Cairns bonus episode.
Eeldip was also one of the organizers behind the broadsheet handed out at the convention, and he definitely left me thinking about the possibilities of unconventional physical formats for RPGs.
The premise is simple: you've been hired to move a desk... but The Desk has no interest in being moved. There was faction play, exploration, discovery, betrayal most foul, and an ending involving delicious props—both figuratively and literally. It was everything I hoped it would be and more. The event listing was delightfully vague, but I had a feeling it would be special. It smelled like a good time. It was a good time. Also, there was brain surgery.
Of course, I also attended the live recording of the Between Two Cairns review of Quagmire! I was told later that in the recording my specific laugh could be heard in the audience. This was because there were several moments where I was literally (figuratively) dying.
The whole weekend just felt good.
Like everyone else who's written about Between Two Cons, I left wanting more. I wish I'd been able to arrive earlier and stay longer. Every conversation—with both new friends and familiar names I'd only ever known online—felt like it ended just as it was getting started.
I'm already looking forward to the next one. Luckily, I'll be at Gary con to see friends again in March.