Gary Con 2025: Days 3 and 4

Dawn Patrol

Gary Con 2026 started today, but I am still traveling there, so here's the final installment of my report from last year.

This post covers Saturday, March 22 and Sunday March 23, 2025.

The previous days can be found here: Day 0 (Wed) - Day 1 (Thur) - Day 2 (Fri)

(1) Learn to Play Dawn Patrol (Snoopy vs The Red Baron) run by Skip Williams

My first game on Saturday was TSR's Dawn Patrol, designed by Mike Carr, who also wrote the first module for Basic D&D, B1 In Search of the Unknown. Mike still runs games at Gary Con, but this game was referreed by a different TSR alumnus, Skip Williams. I owned a copy of Dawn Patrol back in the 80s, but never actually played it, which is why I signed up for this introductory scenario, which pitted "Snoopy" Sopwith Camels versus "Red Baron" Fokker DRs.

Convention event listing description:

"Dawn patrol on Saturday morning is a Gary Con tradition. Did you know that Dawn Patrol (then called Fight in the Skies or F.I.T.S.) was the first event ever to run at Gen Con? (Now you do.). Become a legend! Join us! The scenario features Iconic aircraft: Sopwith Camels vs. Fokker DR Is."

Photos:

Skip Williams (standing center) reffing

(2) Planet of the Mists run by Chris Hunt

This was another first for me, playing WEG's classic d6 Star Wars for the first time. The scenario was a WEG module, Planet of the Mists, using a minis and a cardboard scenery setup that made for cinematic melee scenes. I got to be a Wookie and cause some mayhem as we escaped from an Imperial prison.

Convention event listing description:

"A band of unlikely allies is imprisoned on a world the star charts say doesn't exist and caught in a desperate struggle to save the Galaxy from the Empire! A Rebel agent, cynical slicer, brash smuggler, savage wookiee, Imperial expat, or fallen Jedi. Which will you be? Thwart the Empire’s evil plan and escape the Planet of the Mists. This Star Wars RPG adventure by West End Games is for all ages."

(3) The Future King run by Demos Sahlas

Another game run by Demos of the OSR Grimoire (see Day, Game 1 for the first), this is a very obscure adventure written and self-published by Tom Moldvay of B/X Basic fame after he had left TSR, one of his last RPG adventures. As can be seen in the event description below, this is a League of Extraordinary Gentleman-type scenario (before that even existed) where each played a historical figure from a different era and place. I'd known about this adventure for years, but never thought I'd get to play in it. An epic and poetic adventure, perfect for my last evening this year at Gary Con.

Cover image from
 Wayne's Books

Convention event listing description:

"Six historical figures: Doc Holliday, Nostradamus, Bruce Lee, Harald Hardraada, Owen Glendower, and Cyrano de Bergerac have been gathered together out of the mists of time. Their mission is to find and wake King Arthur, for it is time that he again don the mantle of kingship. A unique small-press role-playing adventure by the late, great Tom Moldvay, published in 1985."

I didn't take any photos during this game, which was mostly played theatre-of-the-mind.

Sunday 

(4) G.I. JOE: Race To Reality

For my last morning at Gary Con, I played in a GI Joe vs Cobra two-sided game. This was another minis heavy game, and they GMs also provided us with lots of fancy swag. I got to play Snake Eyes, my favorite character from the 80s cartoon.

Convention event listing description:

"Who will be the victor in the race to find the Ancient Artifact that brings your thoughts to reality. Help the Joe's or Cobra out, and be the first to find the artifact. Characters provided to save time."

Photos: 

That's it for Gary Con 2025 ... onward to 2026!

P.S. Spotted Cow, by local WI brewery Spotted Cow, is a perennial Gary Con favorite, and now I know you can buy it at the Milwaukee airport to bring home!

Gary Con 2025: Day 2 - BECMI D&D, OD&D and AD&D all in one day

Dungeon Map for the Eye of Arzaz adventure by J. Eric Holmes,
from his 1981 book. Photo by J. B. (mondotikiman)

It's just about one week until Gary Con 2026 starts, which means it's a great time to try to finish up my con report from last year. : )

This post covers Friday, March 21, 2025, my second full day at the con, where in a single day I played in or ran D&D games from three different eras: BECMI D&D, OD&D and AD&D.

The previous days can be found here: Day 0 (Wed) - Day 1 (Thur)

AC7 Master Player Screen with the The Spindle of Heaven mini-adventure.
Photo from the AC series page at Wayne's Books.

(1) My first game on Friday was nothing less than the start of a quest for Immortality in a very high level D&D adventure, 

The Spindle of Heaven (1985), run by Demos Sahlas of the OSR Grimoire blog. I try to play in one of his games every year. In addition to being a great GM, his picks are overlooked gems from the past, often Mystara/D&D or Judges Guild modules, which means that I get to play through adventures that I've known about for decades but never thought I would get a chance to experience.

This TSR "mini-adventure" (8-pages), which was written by Bruce Nesmith for Master-level BECMI D&D, came bundled with the AC7 Master Player Screen, and finds the PCs taking their first steps on a path towards BECMI Immortal-level play. One reason Demos chose this is because it was the 40th anniversary of its release.

As Demos explains here, he used the pre-gens from another Master-level adventure, M2 Vengeance of Alphaks by Skip Williams. I was Trent the White, a 30th Level Paladin (112 Hit Points!), who I believe is the highest level character that I have ever played. (For those unfamiliar with high level BECMI D&D, Lawful Fighters can opt to become Paladins once they reach 9th Level). The party successfully navigated the adventure, and if this was a campaign, would then continue on further adventures to attempt achieve Immortality, at which point their characters would be transferred over to the Immortals Rules boxed set.

Convention event listing description:

"The Spindle of Heaven is reborn." An epic quest for the secret of immortality, the endgame of the BECMI boxed sets, using the D&D Master Set rules. Here's your chance to play a character of 28th-30th levels. Do you have what it takes to confront the elemental powers guarding the path to immortality?"

Photos:

Demos running the Spindle of Heaven

Trent the Paladin

(2) As with the day before, the afternoon was when I ran a game. This time it was The Eye of Arzaz, the *other* sample dungeon written by J. Eric Holmes, which appears in his 1981 book, Fantasy Role-Playing Games. While in the book it is part of a chapter that includes its own simple d6-based FRPG, I decided to run the game using OD&D rules, which let me use my Boinger & Zereth & friends pre-gens that I previously created for my In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus con game. 

I made a few modifications to the Arzaz adventure as written by Holmes to fill it out a bit, including adding an encounter from an Example of Play in the opening chapter of his book. There was lots of creative play and the party was successful in retrieving the legendary Eye. 

Thanks to all of my players in this game, four of whom were returning from previous games of mine: Lee (Sunna), Gary (Sir Geoffrey), Joel (Zereth), Steven (Bardan), J. B. (Maximilian), Jarrett (Murray) and Paul (Brother Ambrose). 

Convention event listing description:

"Delve into a classic dungeon filled with monsters, traps and magic in search of the legendary jewel, The Eye of Arzaz. J. Eric Holmes, the editor of the original D&D Basic Set, wrote this introductory dungeon for his 1981 book Fantasy Role-Playing Games, and it will be run using OD&D rules."

Photos:

Attention wanders as I draw part of the map... Photo by J. B. (mondotikiman)

Partial dungeon map. To speed things along for time-limited con games
I usually draw the map on a giant sheet of graph paper. Photo by J.B.

Detail of the pre-gen Maximillian the Centaur taken by his player, J.B.

Table photo by player Gary Welsh. I'm behind two players on the right.
Also captured in this photo is game behind us being including T
om Morello, Joe Mangiello and D.B. Weiss as players!

(3) In the evening, I once again played in the annual Friday night Legends of Role-Playing Tourney organized by Paul Stormberg. This time the scenario was the Dungeons of the Ghost Tower, a sequel to the TSR module C1 Ghost Tower of Inverness, written by former TSR employee Allen Hammack. Our GM turned out to be none other than Harold Johnson, also a former TSR employee, and co-author of the AD&D modules C1 Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan and A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade.

As is standard for these tournaments, the pre-gens are provided on replicas of 1979 AD&D 1E characters sheets, and with character portraits by TSR artists, here Erol Otus. I ran Delkus, a 7th level M-U, whose name was apparently drawn from a brief mention in the AD&D module I9 The Day of Al'Akbar, also by Hammack.

Character sheet signed by GM Harold Johnson

I've played in this tournament several times before with low- to mid-levels of success, but have enjoyed teaming up with several regulars each year. Thanks to Harold for running the game, and returning team members Matthew, Demos, Steve and Vince for making the session fun.

Convention event listing:

"The 7th Annual Gary Con, Legends of Roleplaying Tournament! A single-round, open tournament inspired by legendary tournaments of the past. Gary Con's most popular gaming event with over 140 participants each year, making it the largest old-school D&D tournament in the world! The top scoring team receives free Silver Badges to next year's Gary Con and is crowned Legends of Roleplaying Champion!"

 

Handout from the game, Player Aid #1: Introduction

Also in this series:

Gary Con 2025: Day 0

Gary Con 2025: Day 1

Previous Gary Con convention summaries:

Gary Con 2023 (unfinished): Day 0

Gary Con 2022: Day 1 --- Day 2 --- Days 3 and 4

Gary Con 2019 (unfinished): Day 1 --- Day 2 (part 1)

Gary Con 2025: Day 0

Gary Con XVII illustration by Chet Minton

In March, I attended Gary Con in Lake Geneva for the sixth time, and for a con report I'm going to make a short series of blog posts with highlights from each day.

The first is for Wednesday, March 19th, or "Day 0", when I traveled to Wisconsin, checked in to the hotel and picked up my badge, before the official start of the con the next day. Highlights included:

—Stopping at Renaissance Books in the Milwaukee Airport. The only used bookstore in an airport in the US, Renaissance always has a good selection of Appendix N and adjacent paperbacks in the sci-fi/fantasy section. I normally stop here on the way out, but this year I had time after arriving and before I was scheduled to get my rental car. 

Taking advantage of a "buy 3-get 1 free" for paperbacks, I picked up H. Rider Haggard's The People of the Mist (1894), ERB's Tarzan and the Leopard Men (1935), Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978)(for a friend; I read this in the 90s); and Conan the Undaunted (1984), #19 in TSR's Endless Quest series and written by the late Jim Ward, a longtime Gary Con regular.

—Visiting Mars Cheese Castle, a humongous cheese shop in the shape of castle located in Kenosha, which I stopped at on the way to Lake Geneva. Coincidentally, this is not far from the University of Wisconsin Parkside, where Gen Con was held from 1978-1984, during the heyday of AD&D 1E. 

Mars has gone all-in on the medieval theme, which you can see in the photos:

The Mars brand cheese curd selection

—Having lunch at the diner inside Mars, where I had the "World's Best Fried Cheese Curd's", which did not disappoint, with Dang! butterscotch root beer, which I'd never heard of before but was excellent.

—Arriving at the Grand Geneva hotel, checking in and feeling like it was the day after last year's con. 

View from my room at the Grand

—Seeing the new D&D Pinball Machines in the lobby. There were a few units set up throughout the hotel for free play, and on another day I was able to try one for a few minutes.

—Meeting up with friends from back home also attending the con, and sharing pizza delivered from the venerable Next Door Pub, a favorite of TSR staff employees, and a pecan kringle from Mars for dessert.

The extensive Kringle stand at Mars, with a wide variety of flavors

—Super quick badge pickup. In an improvement from last year, they had many more check-in stations so that there was essentially no line by the time I arrived.

—Luke Gygax's annual Welcome Party, with free Spotted Cow on tap.

Next: Highlights from Day 1.

Holmes Day 2025

J. Eric Holmes at his chalkboard game table, contemplating miniatures and notes.
Taken by Tony Bernard for the 1979 L.A. Times article, "Fantasy Life in a Game Without End";
a cropped version appears with the article. Scan of the original photo courtesy Bill Galaxy.

For fans of the Holmes Basic Set, today is notable as it marks the birthday of its editor, J. Eric Holmes. And this year he would have been 95 years old, although sadly we lost him in 2010 at the age of 80.

To mark the occasion, here are some Holmes-ian highlights from the last year:

February

For Leap Day 2024, I shared a new monster inspired by Holmes' Sample Dungeon: the Giant Zenopus.

March

At Gary Con 2024, I ran two games, one of which was a session of the Forgotten Smugglers' Cave, my Ruined Tower of Zenopus-adjacent dungeon. Later in the year I worked on preparing this for publication, although I haven't been able to finish it yet.

April

At our local Scrum Con 2024, I ran the Forgotten Smugglers' Cave again, and also an impromptu fill-in session of the original Ruined Tower of Zenopus sample dungeon, which is always a blast.

May

May saw the publication of 50 Years of D&D, which includes an article, "Doctor Holmes I Presume?' How a California Neurology Professor Penned the first Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set", co-written by Tony Rowe and yours truly. Read more about the book here: 50 Years of D&D.

June

Pacesetter Games published the Islands of Peril, the latest adaptation of Holmes' original campaign maps and notes, to which I contributed a Foreword discussing the maps and notes on which it was based.

Wizkids promo photo. Source.

July

WizKids released a line of miniatures for the 50th anniversary of D&D, which included the Red Dragon, Blue Wizard and Green Knight from the cover of the Holmes Basic set. I have been somewhat frustrated with the availability of these figures, and haven't written a separate post about them on the blog, although I still might.

August 

I wrote about the return of the OSR zine Fight On #15, with an issue dedicated to Holmes, including an article by myself about how to Holmesify your OSR game.

September

I reviewed a Holmes Basic metal sign available from Ata-Boy via Amazon.

November

I wrote about the Coleman-Rider-Waite Deck tarot card The Tower, and its thematic similarities to the Tower of Zenopus.

December

I shared the "Tower of Xenopus", a writeup by Tony Stroppa of his adaptation of the Sample Dungeon for the Greek mythology-based Mazes & Minotaurs RPG.

January

Looking forward to Gary Con 2025, I wrote about the games I will be running, one of which is The Eye of Arzaz, Holmes' other sample dungeon from his 1981 book Fantasy Role-Playing Games.