It's been a couple weeks since the 2025 North Texas RPG Convention in Dallas, and I'm long overdue on detailing what I picked up this year. I'm probably more materialistic than I should be, but it is what it is and I got what I got.
On a side note, this was my 9th year at the convention and possibly my last year of *just* being a playing attendee. One of the reasons I love, love, love North Texas RPG Con is that I get to play in games. Before I moved down to Oklahoma for work, I considered it a good year if I got to play in a convention game as a regular player. I spent far too many vacations running, organizing, ad demoing. Now I'm not actually complaining about those years, just saying I think I need some balance and now things have shifted for me too far to the just playing side.
For this con my buddy Shad (Thunderbearer) came in from the Salt Lake City area and he gifted me a small bag of bison bone dice. Even though I am a bonafide dice snob these are cool dice. They just feel....right, in my hand. I like how they are hand made as well.
I also got another set of dice at the Saturday auction and they are just OK. Look like a milled set of wooden dice in a difficult to open case (a little sanding will fix that right up). The d4 is sharp as hell and fragile as it had already had a piece chipped off. I could glue it back on, but it'll just end up having other points chip. I might just sand the corners flat to take care of that issue. It was cool that they came with multiple d6's for rolling up characters.
I picked up a fair number of minis, and all from the same booth. I got some flat plastic, some Bones plastic, and a few metal minis......but...
I got these awesome painted minis for far cheaper than I think I should have. I looked them up when I got home and I got these cheaper painted, with extra "stuff" than what the base price (without shipping) is for the bare metal minis. I love how you can customize the minis on the fly by switching out the hands.
I kind of feel that this year was module central for me. 1st there were three different "convention" exclusive adventures, but only one sold directly by the con. The 1st two were personalized by the authors to me, with the second one being a bit more work to get. I knew it was a limited run and I kept bugging the registration desk people about picking one up and getting it signed. I don't think I was "that guy", but eventually Gary grabbed a copy and ran down the author for a signature for me....but that's a very Gary thing to do. I wasn't worried about not getting the signature. I kept the 1st module around for the artist to sign, but he was busy in games every time I was out looking. Shad offered to switch me out his autographed copy, but it wasn't something to fret over.
I also picked up a couple of old modules, just because I could, and I found 3 modules with Jeff Dee cover art.
Since he was at the con I asked Jeff to sign all three and I even got Allen Hammack to sign the one he'd written. His signature is on the inside, so it isn't obvious it is signed. I bought a copy of the same module signed by both of them last year, so now I have two....but one is obviously more special to me.
I didn't pick up many books this year, just three. I already had printing of the combined BX print in hardcover, but I liked this cover so much I had to have it and my "inferior" one I had made is going to become another play copy. I had bid for some other collections of the Gongfarmer Almanac, but they went for too much and I bought this copy outright. Also, who doesn't love a good Conan hardcover?
I always try to pick up some original art at a convention and this year was no different. Jeshields always has some great stuff that I have to at least look through, and I decided on this panel of four smaller pieces. I noticed the art wasn't signed, which I brought to his attention. After I bought this he kept it to sign when he had a moment and he wrote a nice note of the back.
There was a Jason Brauncowski piece I wanted to get, but I didn't want a print....especially after he told me he still thought he had the original in a stack of paintings at home. I'm crossing my fingers he can find it.
I also managed to pick up this original James Kennon piece. It's rather odd because this is the original drawing that he then used to create the inked "original" piece that went into his monster coloring book. This was drawn on a rathe fragile tissue paper and then used with a lightbox to trace over with another paper. Since this was an underlayment of sorts it wasn't treated very well as it's more a tool than a finished product, but cool....especially can see some of his process on his
Instagram.
The last things I outright purchased were a couple of magazines/zines. The Pegasus #1 had eluded me for a while so I snagged with when I saw it and the other was actually an online auction purchase I just picked up at the con.
Now there are two different, well actually three, auctions at NTRPG. The first is a series of daily silent auctions, but most people tend to gloss over those, like I almost did. I didn't win anything there and that is fine by me as I've done well in the past. The "main" auction is on Saturday afternoon and usually has some good collectible up for grabs. This year felt a bit off, but probably only because I was waiting to bid on an original Jeff Easley painting he did at the convention. I'd been saving up for some time but lost to a proxy bidder than was going to win as his top bid was like $1100 more than I was willing to bid. Maybe next year.....
Anyway that's where I got the aforementioned wooden dice, but I also picked up a trio of T-Shirts and an artist-signed print. Shad had been wearing a shirt of that print and I thought he might want it, so I bid a reasonable amount and if he wanted it'd I'd have sold it to him at my cost....otherwise it was cool and something I wanted to keep.
I also big on a couple of T-Shirts from previous conventions and conveniently forgot that I had already ordered, and purchased a reprint of a previous convention shirt so I picked up three shirts altogether. Since I rarely wear con shirts I might have to figure out something to do with all the ones I have gathering dust.....
The second auction is a silly affair done at midnight and I had already decided I was going to "bid" (i.e. donate) $100 to the convention. I ended up paying $110 altogether. $10 was for a singer's t-shirt...I do not recall who and it isn't important. Nobody wanted to bid on it so I offered up $10 on the condition that Bad Mike's brother, who was wearing his traditional speedo (you have to be there?), use it to cover up. The other $100 went towards buying this Deck of Sexy Things after the auctioneer called me out. Meh, $10 over budget while having fun (and drinking some good Whisky) isn't a big deal.
The finally of the Midnight Auction was a raffle they had mentioned a few times. It sounded like it was a "big prize" and honestly thought it could be a free ticket to next year or a even a hotel stay as there was mention of the hotel "chipping in". The auctioneer's assistants handed out all of these envelopes and the winning number was 666...which was the number that everybody had. Evidently the prize was a copy of Witches' Mountain, which was a running joke at the con for years. The convention had a fricken pallet of this game and they used this occasion to get rid of them, stating there was a $5 restocking fee if people didn't take their prize. Jeshields tried to play the game the next day and reports it was truly terrible. I kept mine anyway because I have an idea on who to give it to!
I arrived at the con Tuesday night, had a blast until Sunday early afternoon, and got home so I could get back to work, which really couldn't afford to have me at the convention, but this is my once-a-year-thing and they sucked it up on my behalf.
Always have to get a pic at Bucees!
