[Green Mountain Game Days] Fall-loha 2010 After Action Report

A grange hall full of gamers in Lyndonville, Vermont.

This past Saturday was Fall-loha 2010, the second of the Green Mountain Gamers‘ game days around the state of Vermont. Fall-loha took place up in the Northeast Kingdom, in the town of Lyndonville. We learned some things from this summer’s Game ‘n Grill, namely don’t over-schedule a game day. Open play allows things to flow organically, including jumping into a new game without worrying about “missing” something on the schedule. It also makes ducking out for lunch and dinner so much less hurried.

Exploring Castle Ravenloft

Richard, Chuck, Andy and Alex (left to right) brave the terrors of Castle Ravenloft.

We arrived at the grange hall to find things in full swing, having been waylaid by the slowest cider-pourer in New England. Alex, Chuck, Richard, Andy and I leapt into Castle Ravenloft, the new dungeon crawl board game based on the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. It was surprisingly difficult. I don’t know why I’m consistently surprised that cooperative games are difficult, but I am. Probably just as well I didn’t get to try Defenders of the Realm as I originally planned or I would have been flummoxed all over again.

[Green Mountain Game Days] Fall-loha 2010 Coming This Saturday

Fall-loha 2010, the Green Mountain Gamers‘ second ever game day, has slipped up on us. After a strong start in July with their first Game ‘n Grill, the next stop on the Green Mountain Gamers’ tour of Vermont is the Grange hall in Lyndonville this Saturday, September 18th, from 10:00 in the morning to 10:00 at night. And if the June game day was any indication, we’ll play games until it’s time to put the lights out.

I’m looking forward to Fall-loha for a lot of reasons: getting out into Vermont for a couple days — we’re making it a weekend trip, rather than deal with early morning and late night schlepping — and not having to do a whole lot but play games. At the Game ‘n Grill, I think we over scheduled things a bit: teaching games, set times for role-playing adventures and all that. This time, there’s a scheduled Small World tournament, a Flames of War setup and I think that’s about it for really scheduled stuff. Everything is people bringing something they’d like to play.

Over on the Green Mountain Gamers website, there’s a thread going of what people want to play. Highlights for me include the story game Fiasco — yes, I’m dipping my toe into scary, commie story games — the new dungeon crawl Castle Ravenloft and a cooperative game in the vein of Pandemic called Defenders of the Realm. From those three alone, I think I can fill my day very nicely, with time for kibbutzing and checking out the dining side of Lyndonville.

I hope to meet some new folks this weekend. And of course I’ll have a game day report with pictures when it’s all said and done.