Furry Fiesta

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    • Furry Fiesta

      I had the opportunity to meet a bunch of good folks recently at IKKicon, when we were running SHARD demos, who declared that we simply must take a drive up to Dallas to demo our game at Furry Fiesta on February 19th-21st (a local convention of the anthropomorphic fandom)...

      Never one to ignore that kind of warmth and enthusiasm, I communicated with the con's organizers and ensured that we had a table we could demo at (we tried to get a dealer's table to sell our product at as well, but discovered that they had long ago sold out, merely five days after the Dealer's Den opened for table space! Wow!). Then, with several friends as company (including a few forum members, one of whom, Mulefoot, will be helping us with the editing and content creation of the Magic and Martial Arts book), we took the four-hour drive from Austin up highway I-35...

      We couldn't stay as long as I usually stay for trade-shows and conventions, but since I wasn't setting up a dealer's table and manning it throughout, I had the chance to check out some of the seminar tracks available... Among the many there was a voice-over talk, a comic seminar, a fiction-writing discussion, and even a HAM radio-operator gathering... Who'd'a thunk it!

      Anyway,...those with me helped re-label and lay out a handful of our company's fliers all around the con, and I had the chance to run a really great demo at 3:30 Saturday afternoon for six players (and several observer guests), a fun murder mystery with magic early on, some monsters, and eventual combat mayhem! I used the "Mine Inspection" adventure (found here in the forum under Downloads), as the basis for it, and a good time was had by all... From the response, I'm betting there will be a bunch more fans of SHARD out there after this, which makes me really happy...

      I'd like to thank the folks that accompanied me for helping out and providing some great company and conversation...(and for driving...heh! :P). It really helps not feeling like a loner newbie at such conventions...

      Next year I'll be contacting the convention super early to get a dealer's table! Wish us luck!

      Scottie ^^
    • RE: Furry Fiesta

      It was definitely a great time at Furry Fiesta. I really enjoyed watching the players navigate through the short campaign. Some were quite entertaining.

      It was my first time attending that particular con. My friends and I were quite glad to share the experience with you.

      Too bad you weren't allowed to sell at the demo. Then's the breaks, though.
    • RE: Furry Fiesta

      Yep,...but that's OK... I seemed a decent enough potential selling venue that by this time next year I'm hoping we'll have good tales to tell concerning the sales we'll have made at the 2011 convention...

      The price was really affordable for a single table.. The trick will be making sure to get one before they're snapped up...

      Thanks again for helping out!

      Scottie ^^
    • RE: Furry Fiesta

      I am still new to Shard. I was one who spotted it at Furry Fiesta but did not get to go to the Demo. I've purchased the Basic Compendium and am pouring through it now to start my own campaign soon. I ran the demo with some friends and since then, some have made some pretty interesting characters with flaws that will make for a fun (and long) epic campaign.

      No doubt, I will have questions, as my friends already do. I want to thank you for bringing this game to Furry Fiesta. I've been a gamer for a while now and have never actually been a game master in any game. My friends and I are always playing the White Wolf games so this is something VERY different and new to us, but all of my friends have played a variety of other game venues.

      In short, we are excited, I am excited and can't wait to run this campaign I have planned.

      Though I do have a good question. Why are most of the skills and animal abilities run off of Agility instead of strength? I suppose this is not a question for this forum. I will probably ask it elsewhere. I just found it odd that Natural Weaponry went off of Agility.

      Again.. thanks so much for this game. I hope it does well and hope to see additional books put out for this venue!
    • RE: Furry Fiesta

      Originally posted by ArmaCoyote
      Though I do have a good question. Why are most of the skills and animal abilities run off of Agility instead of strength? I suppose this is not a question for this forum. I will probably ask it elsewhere. I just found it odd that Natural Weaponry went off of Agility.


      Well the number of dice you have for an action are equal to "how good" you are at it.

      Strength will not increase your handling of a blade or your claws/etc, but the damage output (which it does).

      Thus it is logical to use Agility as linked skill for most melee combat skills.
      Mind however that just having tons of agility and low strength will lead to a terrible damage output, I'm having this problem with a character I made for Serpentus campaign (char is battlin' like a pro but fights take forever). xD

      If you would like to factor strength more in your campaign, you can always add reasons to do strength checks. Have your players move things around to get somewhere, or during combat:
      If a player has a partial success blocking an enemy (or other actions that may require strength), have them roll a strength check to simulate the character struggling to still get that parry/block right.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Sherbie ().

    • RE: Furry Fiesta

      Originally posted by Sherbie
      Originally posted by ArmaCoyote
      Though I do have a good question. Why are most of the skills and animal abilities run off of Agility instead of strength? I suppose this is not a question for this forum. I will probably ask it elsewhere. I just found it odd that Natural Weaponry went off of Agility.


      Well the number of dice you have for an action are equal to "how good" you are at it.

      Strength will not increase your handling of a blade or your claws/etc, but the damage output (which it does).

      Thus it is logical to use Agility as linked skill for most melee combat skills.


      Hey there Arma! Thanks for the compliments on our game! We're so glad you are enjoying it so far... And thanks for the great question...

      Sherbie actually did a great job of nailing the answer right on the head...

      Agility in our game is a sort of "whole body in motion" type of thing, which certainly represents the way most animals use their various natural weapons to attack their enemies and their prey. And like Sherbie said, their strength certainly plays a part in the amount of damage they do as well, which is reflected in our rules, not as a roll, but as a factor in a weapon's initial damage itself, and gets multiplied even further the more skilled you are at combat (how many additional successes you roll).

      Hopefully that answers your question!

      Scottie ^^