[Utrecht] Free RPG Day

Yesterday, my wife and I were lucky enough to attend the Free RPG Day event in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Before journeying to the Netherlands, I had made contact with the Ducth Pathfinder Society Venture Captain, Auke. Somehow, he convinced me to run Paizo’s contribution to Free RPG Day, the Dawn of the Scarlet Sun module.

The event was co-organised and hosted by the Netherlands Roleplayer’s Guild and Subcultures (one of my favourite stores in the world) and was held at the Dutch Game Garden. The event began with a short introductory speech, which detailed some of the guild’s activities. I was rather impressed by the guild’s activities, especially the free support they provide to GMs. The guild can supply almost everything a GM needs to run a game, provided that the GM in turn runs games for the guild. My wife and I arrived in the Netherlands with little more than our summer wardrobe (a mistake), our dice, and a file with our character sheets. So, I was glad to get the necessary flip mats and extras to run my module. I was surprised how much the guild was able to pull together, since they run on little more than donations and the good will of the Dutch RPG community. I’d certainly like to see something like that in South Africa.

I got 6 players for Dawn of the Scarlet Sun, including one new PFS player. The short module features a quick investigation followed by a short crawl through the villain’s lair. I had fun running the module, primarily because of the fun player characters at the table, which included 3 of the pregenerated characters. Clever spell and gear selection won the day, as the PCs nearly always had the right spell, weapon, or consumable (accursed tanglefoot bags!) for every situation. After reading some other reports, however, some other parties were not as well prepared and suffered accordingly. Take care if you intend to play this adventure with 4th level characters.

The day ended with a trip to a local Italian-Greek restaurant for pizza, drinks and war stories. I had great fun and look forward to bringing Free RPG Day to South Africa in 2013.

In addition to Dawn of the Scarlet Sun, I also managed to snag Only War‘s Eleventh Hour (how can I not grab anything Imperial Guard?), Jon Brazer Enterprises‘ Shadowsfall: Temple of Orcus, and LPJ Design‘s NeoExodus Adventures: Undying Legacy of the First Ones. I hope to squeeze these in at a game day or two when I’m back in Cape Town.

- Jerall