Cauldron 2025

I have a feeling this is going to be a long one. But people don't come here for the Tl;DR version of things, do they?

; )

Cauldron III took place at Hofraithe Rosenthal this year...a switch in venue mainly made to accommodate more people. The con had 81 registered attendees, whereas prior years had been capped at 50...a more than 60% increase but it didn't feel particularly larger until you walked into a gaming room during the middle of a session (or if you were late getting to a meal and looking for a seat). Still, it felt more cozy than crowded...although some of my larger games got a little tight, space-wise.

And large my games were. Thinking about it just now (at the con, I never took the time to reflect on this) I'm fairly sure I've never DM'd for so many people (and so many DIFFERENT people) in my life. In fact I'm 100% sure of it.

We'll get to the games in a moment. The facilities were fine, though perhaps not as nice as the previous place (the bathroom for the room...which I shared with five other people...was a large step down, though it was fine, utility-wise), and there were some very large, very crowded queues when it came to signing up for some of the sessions. The "club rooms" which were used for gaming were, on the other hand, quite nice...not just serviceable, but atmospheric and comfortable.

So many stairs, though. So many. And I LIKE stairs (and I'm in good enough shape that it wasn't an issue, even carrying gear). But I imagine some folks had to huff and puff a bit...especially if they ended up in a 4th floor room (as I was). Still...a little exercise is good when you're spending so much of the day sitting on your ass and drinking beer.

Yes, again the beer was free, excellent, and plentiful (God bless Germany!) and even though I've been OFF beer since July or thereabouts, except for the mornings, I drank continuously throughout the con (as did many)...and as far as I could tell, we didn't make much of a dent in the stockpile of 22 ounce bottles. An upstairs kitchen, stationed strategically between the club rooms, seemed to have Bucknard's Everfull Beer Fridge...it was never empty. Great when you didn't want to go down a flight of stairs in the middle of a game.

As usual, the "unsung heroes"...the volunteers and family members of the Con organizers...were spectacular. Asked if there was any decaf coffee at breakfast Saturday morning (and getting a negative reply), I resigned myself to a cup of the regular stuff. However, it wasn't 10 minutes into my first gaming block of the day that a friendly con organizer showed up at my gaming table, unasked, with a French press of decaf specifically for me...they went out and found me decaf coffee! This little spectacle was repeated during Sunday morning's game block. Can you say "fantastic service and attention to detail?" Germany!

The surroundings, by the way, were quite beautiful. Fresh, crisp October air (no rain, just sunshine) made it a pleasure just to step outside and breathe and stretch. And the venue was picturesque in the way these small German towns tend to be (at least all the ones I've visited). Delightful.

Food...especially the crisped, roasted whole pig...was, as may be imagined, delicious, as were the sausages, the sauerkraut, the fresh veg (I must have ate a plate of bell peppers myself), the fresh daily bread. Water, both sparkling and still, was available at all times.

While I'm discussing food, I might as well get around to the drink...I mean, the REAL drink. Some engineer of clever bent had rigged up a small, portable fountain of wine that had a constant stream of wine or red liquor spurting from a goblin's nose...that was amazing. There were plenty of bottles of wine as well, for the non-beer drinkers. Many folks brought their own spirits (of course) and the hootch started to flow in earnest Saturday evening...just in time for the post-dinner live auction. Seated with the indomitable Magyar contingent, I was again fortified with many shots of their Hungarian palinka...however, this year I was able to return the favor with a bottle of cask-aged, 116 proof whisky from Orcas Island (bottle #62 of 78). An incredibly large bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey also joined the table (I assume a contribution from Irish companion and former Cauldron roommate, Lynchpin), and we really had the chance to double-down on the boozing. I know MY bottle was killed before the sun came up...though the last shot wasn't poured till after 3 in the morning.

Good times.

Back to the gaming: Cauldron 2025 had a total of 54 pre-registered games over six scheduled game blocks. Other games were played that didn't make the registry, of course, but I was a little busy to track those. No less than 26 different Dungeon Masters ran games of AD&D, OD&D, B/X, and various retroclones, but the majority of games (38 of the 54) were 1E. 17 different DMs...including myself...ran the King of Games.

And...wow.

Last time I went to Cauldron, I waxed enthusiastically about the joy of playing AD&D with people who know and love the game, who have travelled from all over to a convention specifically for the chance to participate in the game. I talked about how wonderful the FOCUS was, and how engaging it was to play with people who were focused on actual play of the game. 

Well, two years later, they've gotten better. 

Whereas Cauldron One had many players who were new to the game or who had never played 1E (and wanted to learn) or people who came from other RPG backgrounds (WotC-stuff, the "OSR," 2E and trad gaming, etc.), these folks were dialed in. They knew how to play and they'd COME to play. I'd lay out my 2-3 house rules and away we'd go and questions or pauses to provide for explanations/answers were few and far between. Just gaming...glorious gaming for hours at a time. 

My Blackrazor Cup tournament adventure was, again, one of the high points for many con goers, and THIS year I got to see what that looks like. Eight different DMs ran the adventure...most everyone who wanted to had a chance to participate. Top prize went to the group that managed to pull 390K in gold from the dungeon, but there was a pretty broad range of play with much death and hilarity (one group saw every single one of the ten tournament pre-gens killed). My own table, which included the infamous Prince of Nothing (we'll get to him) caused me to laugh so hard, so many times (at their expense) that I nearly fell out of my chair. Just gluttons for punishment. They ended up with 88K (second from the bottom in rankings), but they had a good time and I can honestly say they did a LOT better than either of the prior two groups I'd play-tested the adventure with.

[it is my suspicion that some of the DMs are a little more lenient than I am when it comes to their running of the game...and that's fine, I'm totally okay with that. But I think that might account for some (not all!) of the discrepancies in results]

Prince's own "mini-tournament" adventure, Assault on the Becker-Drome, was likewise a big hit and much hilarity was had over the three sessions of that. I did not have the chance to take part (and I didn't find out who won the prize he was offering...maybe the Sunday group?)...but he has promised to provide me with a PDF copy for my own entertainment. Can't wait.

The only game I actually played in was con-orgnizer (and Best DM of Cauldron 2024) Settembrini's Chainmail recreation of The Battle of Emridy Meadows. Greyhawk aficionados may recognize this as the original final battle between the forces of Good and those of the Temple of Elemental Evil. I, of course, chose to play on the Temple side and was graced with an evil high priest and a couple units of ogres. Unfortunately, Chainmail took place in the Friday Night block (the day of our arrival) and by that time (9pm) I'd already been up for some 36 hours. I lasted till midnight or so before I became in danger of (literally) collapsing with exhaustion. However, I will take some credit with the Temple's eventual (and non-canonical) triumph, as it was my priest's summoned fire elemental that eventually killed Prince Thrommel and routed the forces of Good...even if I wasn't there to see it.

[ha! and Dreadlord had been trying to convince me to take "bless" as my one spell. No way, man! Go big or go home!]

But that game...which featured four players versus three with Settembrini acting as referee...was the only game session I failed to get through. By Saturday (with a little more than six hours of sleep and plenty of good food in my belly) I was able to go the distance with my games...including my "mystery," Saturday Night block which didn't finish till after 2:30am and had, in the end, only three players at the table (only two of which had still-living PCs).

I will write a follow-up post with "after action" reports of the various games I ran. Suffice is to say they all went well, and it was a joy to see so many familiar faces (like Mike and Michal and Sönke and Ollie and Prince and Tom and the Hungarians) all sitting around my table, rolling dice, cursing their failures, celebrating their successes, and having a hell of a good time. I ran five games and had full tables every session. Well...except for that Saturday Night Block (I ran an adventure that accommodates up to 16, but only NINE showed up to play...).

I am told that the sign-up sheets for my games usually filled up fast.

However, I was NOT to be awarded with the prestigious Best DM of the tournament this year (although I tied for second place in the voting along with Philipp). Instead that went to the to the ever-energetic, Con-Meister General, Grützi. The man is a beast...he ran five sessions this year (as he did last year, too!), the only person other than myself to spend so much time in the Captain's Chair. A much-deserved win as he scored in 11 of 16 qualifying categories, as judged by his players (Philipp and I only scored in 10) and I have no qualms about him taking home the trophy...especially since Grutz and his buddy Alex were the ones who picked me up from the airport and drove me the 90 minutes to the convention!

Alex and Grutz were also kind enough to drive me to the hotel in Frankfurt where I am currently writing this post, while I slept in the back seat. As I mentioned, Saturday's Night Block went long...but my night went longer still as several of us stayed up, kabitzing and drinking into the early morning hours. Truth be told, I was trying to outlast Prince (the rapscallion!), but eventually pulled the trigger on going to bed  around 5:50am. I was walking back to the building where my bedroom was (at the top of four flights of stairs) as Settembrini's wife was crossing the other way to start the kitchen duties for breakfast. While I could have gone longer, I felt I had a responsibility to be awake for the players at my final game session of the morning.

[Prince, gosh darn it, didn't sleep till 7:30am made the breakfast call an hour later, AND ran his last game. But he's 20 years younger than me...]

SO...incredibly exhausted, and more than a little hungover, once the post-convention high had worn off, I was ready for a nap in the car, drowsing off to the soothing sounds of excited, German banter and Alex's quietly playing death metal.

What a blast.

It is hard to overstate how awesome this convention is. I mean, Dillon (a Canadian who goes by the online handle "Terrible Sorcery") best expressed it with his repeated exclamation of the phrase "Hell yeah!" in response to...well, pretty much everything. He apologized for his excited enthusiasm, but I think he was simply expressing the same emotion that ALL of us were feeling (with slight variations). Everything about Cauldron is worthy of such exclamation: the setting, the victuals, the gaming, the camaraderie. 

So many people brought their CHILDREN to the thing, older teens (boys and girls) who are playing the Old School games of their parents. I have already told Diego I will take him to the next one I attend (when he's 16/17), and I can see I'm not the only person who finds the con worthy of generational sharing. 

In fact, it was Settembrini's older son (who, if I remember correctly, was unable to attend Cauldron I due to illness) who won the "MVP" trophy of the tournament. That trophy happened to come with a good bottle of German gin, which the boy doesn't drink, and Settembrini kindly passed it off to me as he'd heard I'm a gin enthusiast (I am). It's one of many souvenirs I have filling my bag, including the "official Cauldron boardgame," designed and hand-crafted by the Nexus gaming club (or, at least, Settembrini's family). I haven't opened it yet...like the gin, it is carefully packed in my luggage...but I look forward to reading it. Hopefully the instructions are in English.

[though, of course, I have Google translate]

This, I'm quite sure, is a poor review post. It's early in the morning, I've been up for a while, and I'm still a little loopy. I'm just gushing about this and that and every little thing that pops into my head in something very different from a coherent order of tale telling. But that's because I'm not really trying to "sell you" on Cauldron...I'm just trying to convey something of my experience here. I've been to gaming cons before Cauldron; I've been around friendly, happy gamers all bubbling about what a grand time they're having, socializing with like-minded folks about their particular jam...it's what I imagine most "themed" cons (comic cons, Lego cons, Sci-Fi cons) are like, as people can feel free to let their hair down and "nerd out" with each other.

But Cauldron IS different. Probably because it is such a smaller, more intimate affair, or perhaps because of the ever-present Setti family members, you feel very much like a part of this organization's family. These are brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, uncles and aunts. It's not just camaraderie and shared fandom (though that's there, too)...there's real and genuine love. Love for the games and love for each other and for each other's love of the game. It's not just about "acceptance" or being accepted: it is ACTIVE. People want to GIVE. They want to do for others, they want to share. Some people work out trades but there are many more gifts that are given. People volunteering to do chores: washing dishes, serving food, hauling beer (and crates of empties). One guy does all the grilling/roasting. People are giving each other books that they have extra copies of, people are given small tokens of appreciation, people want each other to have mementos and remembrances of their time here, together. Yes, it's fun, yes, it's a good time. But when I leave, it's not just walking out the door of a convention...I feel much the same as when I leave Montana after a stay with my relatives or after leaving my wife's family in Mexico after an extended visit. We linger. We hug (probably too many times). We talk about when we hope to see each other again.

That's very cool. Very cool indeed. One kid came up to me (today, as folks were packing to leave) and shyly asked me if I could teach him how to write adventures. "Of course!" I gave him an overview and told him to hit me up with a direct message so I could put it in writing for him. He seemed very grateful/appreciative...like I was doing him some huge favor to tell him "Moldvay's a good place to start."

Yeah, it's like family at Cauldron. I find myself asking how a person's doing with their new baby, or asking how's the married life treating a new groom. People ask me about my kids' soccer playoffs (because they read Ye Old Blog). People care. They were engaged with each other, both in and out of games. It was so refreshing to see and be around, because it's so unusual these days. So unusual. Especially with the crisp October air, it brought back memories to me of childhood Thanksgivings when my family would always return to Missoula, Montana...my mother's hometown...and spend many days with the extended family. Those were the best holidays of my life (probably why I love Thanksgiving) filled with food and drink and laughter and games. Very similar vibes.

Yeah, Cauldron may be becoming my new favorite holiday.

All right, that's enough for now. I'll be boarding a plane home to Seattle in a few hours and I'll have plenty of time to write more. But for now...rest and decompression.