ATW Con 4

We had ATW Con 4 at the Chateau Strelow this year. Amy, Henele, James, Nick, and Tracy returned, and Keith also joined us.

We kicked off with Kremlin, but we stopped early when it ran into our RPG time. When we stopped, Henele and Tracy had each waved twice - two-thirds of the way to victory - and Tracy controlled the board.

For RPGs, James, Nick, and I ran new episodes continuing the stories from last year. James ran Traveler for us, this time focusing on ship travel and ship combat. For D&D, Nick ran an investigative adventure in Waterdeep - a police procedural in his words - and I ran the next game in my “Ascent into Madness” Hollin campaign.

Keith flew out a day after the others, so the two of us got in a pretty full day of Middle Earth Duel on Monday.

For food, we had breakfasts at the Chateau so we could have the full morning for gaming. For eating out, we revisited some favorites from previous years, Fratello’s, Mai’s Deli, Stone Arch Brewpub, and Author’s. We also did a couple of new places - Mark’s East Side, and Lil Taco for late night street tacos.

ATW Con 3

We had ATW Con 3 this year, another long weekend of gaming in Appleton. We had a full house at the Chateau Strelow this year - Amy, Henele, James, Nick, Tracy, and me. Thanks to everyone for coming, some from quite far away.

We mostly did RPGs again. We made new D&D 2024 characters and Nick ran his own adventure in Waterdeep for us. Here we are playing Nick's game.

We also played Traveller for the first time. We made Traveller characters together in a late-night session, and James ran an adventure for us the next day. Here we are playing James's game.

We played another of my Hollin D&D adventures again this year, the last "Master of Revels" game.

Here are some of our fancy maps from this year, the Hollin Mooncalf and the Mooncalf's opium den labyrinth.

For downtime we also played a little Liar's Dice and Jabba's Palace, which was a favorite from ATW Con 1 a couple years ago.

For food we hit Fratello's, Author's Kitchen, Osorio's Latin Fusion, and Stone Arch Brewpub as people left town on Sunday. We ate in more this year, particularly breakfast, so we could get games rolling earlier in the morning.

ATW Con 2

We had a second ATW Con this year - a long weekend of D&D, board games, and food in Appleton. Amy, James, Nick, and I were there.

For D&D, we continued Nick's homebrew campaign in Scélan, his Roman-empire-like setting. Here’s Nick's nice world map.

For Hollin, my Elizabethan-London-like setting, we played the second game in my "Master of Revels" mini-campaign.

Root was the big board game this year, but we also played Arkham Horror: The Card Game, Star Realms, and Wizard.

For food, we mostly ate out this year, and upped our restaurant game at Author's, Fratello's, Mai's, and SAP. We also hit a couple of Appleton's friendly local game stores, Chimera and Boardlandia.

Here's Jonathan Frakes thanking the players, from Cameo.

ATW Con

In February some of our Gen Con crowd went to the Outer Banks for a long weekend of gaming at Buck's place, "OBX Con." I moved home to Wisconsin this year, so we also decided to do an "ATW Con" at the new Chateau Strelow in Appleton. James, Karen, Nick, and Rob came.

Here are Nick, Rob, and James playing D&D.

For board games, Return to Dark Tower and Dune Imperium were the main events, but to wind down in the evenings we also played a lot of Star Realms, Jabba's Palace, Bang! The Dice Game, and Liar's Dice.

We also played a lot of D&D. Nick ran 1.5 days of his Roman-inspired homebrew campaign in the Scélan empire. Here's his nice map of the party's home base town, Mare Nostrum.

I also ran a D&D one-shot, Gregor the Naturalist's Marvelous Wunderfauna Arkiv, in my homebrew world, Hollin.

Our meetings always include some wining and dining, and we learned the hard way that Appleton restaurants close pretty early after covid. We did several Appleton standbys like Good Company and Mary's Diner, but our big discovery was Mai's Deli and their stuffed grilled chicken wings. Here's our lunch at Thai Ginger Bistro.