It's that most wonderful time of the year.... (original) (raw)

Yes, it's that time...the weekend that is most special to a certain group of people, ex-Hamsters and Excaliburites all--it's Ravenloft weekend!

What is Ravenloft, I hear you cry. Well, (in this context, not in its official definition) it's essentially a tournament-style role playing game that a bunch of us started at Hampshire college in 1991. I wrote about those beginnings here. And this year is the 17th consecutive year that we have had a quorum of the circle of friends who started the thing (as well as many who joined in later on) get together to spend a night (and, these days, most of a day as well--we're old and can't stay up as late!) fighting the forces of darkness. (Not sure whether I'm referring to the game masters or the dice here.) And, for many of us, getting our butts handed to us by said forces.

Of course, we haven't always been using a D&D setting each year. We did the first, but we've varied (this year, for example, everyone will be kung fu fighting...and it might get a little bit frightning)....can anyone help reconstruct the general settings over the years? (We can start in the comments and I can post a follow-up later...) Also, I'm of the belief that the only person who can say they've taken part in every durn one, each year--or at least one per year in the times when we had competing games--is ronelyn. Am I wrong in this?

Ravenloft does survive at Hampshire as an event sponsored by what must be Fourth Wave (at least) Excalibur called "DeathFest," which name probably captures the spirit of the original tourney quite well. ("Have you killed any characters yet? Geeze, we have too many for the final battle!") And it's great to know an Excal tourney still goes on.

But Ravenloft? That's ours. Has been for seventeen years now. And I, for one, cannot wait until Saturday!