Well, our first gathering has come and gone and was a great success. We'd like to thank everyone who attended; a gathering isn't much of a gathering if people don't... well... gather. Here's a list of the characters who attended (and yes, my choice of wording is deliberate ;-):
Special thanks is also due to Simutronics for their support of this gathering through the presence of Gamemistress Reline and her magical grab bag of free alteration chits as well as her mystical card of credit that treated the group to dinner on Saturday at the Royal Bavaria Brauhaus. Every attendee received at least one appointment for the free alteration of an item. Even without these perks, however, it was a real pleasure getting to meet with a GM and grill her not only on GemStone III, but also on other Simutronics games. Thanks for putting up with us, Reline ;-)
We arrived and wandered toward the mermaid bridge to meet Reline at noon, passing several interesting characters, a camel ride, and a wide variety of shops on the way. It reminded me of a merchant event without the lines ;-) Folks were starting to get hungry, so by 12:30 we decided to track down some food and drink sans Reline. While wandering about trying to determine what to eat, it became apparent, to the dismay of many in our little band, that no beer could be had at the faire. We settled for turkey legs and lemonade. After a short detour to watch a balancing act, we noticed that one of our sorcies, Kadaen, was missing and decided to head back to the bridge to meet him and give people a chance to rest their feet and watch the passersby.
Zharahk, Irissa, Waldo2, and I, being the adventurous types, decided to wander back to the other side of the pond and scout out the merchants. Waldo2 got split off from the group and ended up walking back to the bridge when he couldn't find us. After wandering a ways, we found a nice leather garment shop. Zharahk ended up with a leather doublet and a flame-bladed dagger while Irissa bought a very nice leather bodice. We nearly had her talked into getting a skirt as well. After wandering about a bit more, we ran across our missing sorc who didn't even realize he was missing. ;-) We finally made our way back to the bridge for our 3:00 rendevous with Reline. Kadaen even managed to beat us back, somehow (gotta watch those sorcs ;-)
With the entire group now together again, we drifted over to the lists for a jousting tourney. While watching the knights and ladies spear rings and whack cabbages, Ransom and Irissa volunteered to go on a run for funnel cake and lemonade. As we were finishing our snack, the tounament ended with a bout or two between fully armored opponents using live steel. Carefully choreographed, I assume ;-)
Feeling refreshed, we headed towards the south bridge back across the pond, stopping to watch a caber toss and move out of the way of the royal entourage which was led by pipes and drums. We found that following them across the bridge sped our passage greatly as all bridges at the event tended to be packed. On the far side we drifted from stall to stall admiring the wares of the merchants. Almost anything imaginable could be had, from staves to swords, from leather to lace. We finally found the booth for Things Medieval under a large banner advertising body piercing. This was the outfit that makes and sell chainmail bikinis. Methinks Wanton and Reline were eyeing those things with gleams in their eyes. ;-) We tried to coerce Ransom into purchasing one for his wife as a souvineer, but failed in the end. We wound up our trip to the faire watching the SCA chapter's fencing group go at each other. Neat stuff! Tired, sore, and (some of us at least) sunburned to a crisp, we decided to head for home base.
We relaxed and chatted for a while at our place and I showed off WarBirds to a few interested parties, then it was off to the Royal Bavaria for dinner. We'd reserved the King's Room so we'd have enough space and could chat without scaring the other customers ;-) The dinner was great and the RB had just brought all three of their beers back on tap: a light lager, a dark German-style lager and a dark wheat. Nothing beats the flavor of a freshly brewed beer ;-) After taking pictures and chatting (and drinking) after dinner, Reline pulled out her magic Simu credit card and picked up the tab for dinner. (Thanks again Reline!) We then headed back to our place to talk - what else - GSIII.
Reline started taking a survey about what problems we saw in the game and how we would propose fixing them. The biggest problem that people saw seemed to be AOL, not because of the quality of player, etc... but because of the huge influx of people when AOL went online. Part of the feeling of community was lost. Suggestions of other towns and more hunting areas were met only with a knowing smile by Reline. Changes may be in the works ;-) Reline also gave everyone a chance to tell her what they'd do if they were running GSIII. I didn't catch all of the answers, but I did notice Reline taking lots of notes. Near the end of the evening, we all got to draw for free sessions with an alterer. A few lucky folks got 2 sessions (items altered). Thanks again to Simutronics! The party started winding down again at around 4 am, with those folks staying in hotels heading out and the rest of us slipping into an exhausted sleep. It was a big day.
Thanks to Wanton for her brilliant idea to get disposable cameras for everyone. Now everyone should have pics to remember this by.
In all, I think everyone had a great time. We even got to find out the origin of the name "rolton" ;-) Now all that's left to do is figure out what to get altered...
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If you have problems, comments, questions, or complaints you can send mail to Tim Melton (tam@tamcon.com).
Last modified 22 April 1996.