Owlbear and Wizards Staff Con 2024

The Beer, Curry and Gaming weekend

This year OBaWS ran over the weekend Friday 13th - Sunday 15th September. If you’ve read my previous articles on OBaWS, you’ll know how it goes; meet in the Royal Pug on the Friday followed by a curry; Saturday AM and PM gaming then the White Horse in the evening, rounding off the weekend with a Sunday game. All of that happened, and all of it was fantastic, I really enjoyed the socialising this year, but we go for the games, and the games this year were the bees knees.

Desert Angel Fiasco

Saturday Morning

An OSE and 5e adventure by Mr DungeonAge Joseph R. Lewis‬, the mastermind behind Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow and Raiders of the Obsidian Keep, both recently published by ‪The Merry Mushmen‬. Desert Angel Fiasco is a short adventure set in the dying world setting of Harth, where our adventurers are hired as security on the maiden voyage of the titular Dunecutter. As far as we know there is only one Dunecutter, a ship that hovers 10ft over the sand, but otherwise sails like a sea ship, and it’s about to sail across the Great Sand Sea, an unexplored route that will shorten the traditional caravan route from 3 weeks to 3 days, carrying 3 times the cargo.

The adventure is linear, but designed to be flexible with a number of encounters that can be included or dropped to suit time and taste. An interesting crew and a some interesting items on the ship make for an interesting and fun adventure. My players quickly engaged with the setup, and before long were facing challenges across the sands. It’s not a combat heavy adventure, but has lots of interesting things going on, with many of the NPCs having their own agendas.

Ok, mini review over; this was a great start to gaming over the weekend.

Lunch time is always a treat as the organiser Matthew B, orders in a load of samosas, plenty for everyone to eat. They are always delicious and a lovely touch by Matthew B‬.

The Mean Arena

Saturday Afternoon

As a teenager I loved the Mean Arena strip; I was reading 2000AD when it started, and it continued way past when I had stopped reading it. Earlier this year I’d picked up a PDF of the first series which told the tale of Matt Talon’s quest for vengeance against his brother’s killer. I’d forgotten the Roy of the Rovers quality the stories had, and while I enjoyed rereading them, felt they hadn’t aged particularly well.

When I saw Dirk the Dice‬ was running a Mean Arena game, it was an easy decision to join. Dirk the Dice‬ had chosen a Forged in the Dark foundation for the game which worked really well. In the session we played out a match against the Leamington Spa Spartans, a team Slaters Slayers had history with, and not a good one.

The game was structured in quarters where the Spartans started with the ball and it was down to use to setup and succeed in a number of scenes to win the ball back and score a goal. Dirk the Dice‬ used a clever system where of tallying successes and failures which pushed the game in the favour of the Slayers or Spartans.

Like all of Dirk the Dice‬’s games it was fast moving and packed with action, and of course the Slayers triumphed once more. Sorry Everton Spartans, but it’s relegation for you!

Another great OBaWS tradition is the Saturday evening gathering in the White Horse for food, beer and great chat in the most excellent of company.

Age of Arthur: The Curse of the Past

Sunday Morning

A little jaded and somewhat tired, there were still quite a few folks keen to play on the Sunday morning.

I’d signed on to this game due to my original choice for this slot falling through, but I don’t think I lost out at all, this was a fantastic session. I was drawn to the early dark ages setting of this game rather than the Fate based system, but the whole thing meshed together really well.

We were kinsmen of a local tribe sent to investigate a solve a mystery of missing villagers in a nearby settlement. My character was a bit of an outcast being of Roman descent, but his military skills and background came in really handy in the adventure - as did those of the other PCs. The GM ‪Graham Spearing‬ handled the 6 gobby players very well and we all got plenty of time for our heroes to shine. As you’d expect these things are never simple, not only were there missing villagers, but also roving Saxon raiders.

Of course we solved the mystery and were victorious. If you get a chance to play this with ‪Graham Spearing‬  I’d highly recommend it, also if Age of Arthur sounds like your kind of game I know there’s a second edition in the pipeline, well worth checking out.

And with that it was time to say farewell for the drive back home.

As always huge thanks and kudos to Matthew B‬ for organising this amazing event. I’m already stoked for OBaWS 2025, I know it will only get better.