The RTR Special Events Committee oversees a number of different long- and short-form RPG events for the group, including both one shots and larger gaming events. These offerings typically require less investment and attendance than other programs, like The Semi-Organized Play campaigns.
While COVID has cut into our programming somewhat, our core programs are still running, and we look forward to offering even more great ways to participate as volunteer availability allows!
Quarterlies and other Mini-Cons
A few times each year, RTR hosts its Quarterlies and assorted other full-day gaming events! These are similar to all-day gaming cons you may have attended, but they’re RTR-sized, showcasing games run by our awesome stable of local GMs. Usually hosted at Triangle-area gaming stores, these events are typically themed. Expect 2 to 3 multi-hour blocks of gaming, with 3 to 6 different game options per session, with availability dependent on volunteer capacity, as usual.
Ahead of each of these events, we’ll recruit GMs via email and social media, organize their offerings onto the schedule, and post it on our Meetup for players to peruse ahead of sign-ups. Day-of, when we’re able to meet in person, be on the lookout for an RTR banner by a table, where one of our volunteers will be offering nametags, raffle tickets, and even themed re-roll tokens for that event to help fundraise to support RTR.
Of course, we’re glad to offer these events virtually, as well, organizing the games via our central Discord server and letting each GM use the VTT/videoconference/die-roller tools they like best.
Below is a list of our current offerings.
Future Sight, Inc.
Future Sight, Inc. is the multiverse’s most popular far-future television channel, offering a variety of mind-bending scifi programming every season — and luckily, RTR’s got the fancy cable subscription needed to tune in! 2020 marked our first year running FSI, and we can’t wait to bring it back!
Each year, the FSI event’s individual game sessions are presented as “episodes” of an anthology-style science fiction show’s new season. Think The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. RTR GMs think up scifi scenarios to run for our players based on each year’s theme (e.g., Time Travel, Heists, etc.) with the only limit being their imagination! The systems offered vary heavily from crunchy combat to lighthearted story-games.
Future Sight, Inc. takes place each year in the winter, typically in January.
The GM’s Faire
An event especially dedicated to showing the amazing GM talent available here in the Triangle area, The GM’s Faire is an opportunity for local gamemasters, storytellers, dungeonmasters, and more to showcase their talents, meet and mingle with new players, and even recruit for upcoming campaigns — home games and RTR SOPs alike!
Unlike the other annual events that feature a guiding theme each year, the GM’s Faire is left fairly wide open to enable participating volunteer GMs to run whatever excites them most in the moment. That said, we’ll try to tag games as “just for fun,” “showcasing a system,” “campaign recruitment,” etc. for the players’ benefit.
After a long hiatus, RTR’s famous GM’s Faire program will be returning this Spring, likely in April.
Tales of the Crimson Boar
Tales of the Crimson Boar is RTR’s very own annual fantasy gaming event. We recently marked 10 years of adventures in and around the Boar in 2020 with our first virtual Special Event!
The Boar is a unique and fantastical tavern designed by RTR membership over many years of collaboration, meant to be dropped into any setting or story our GMs can imagine. In the spirit of classic campaign openings, adventures typically start with a variation on, “You all meet in a tavern,” but thanks to annual themes like Mysterious Strangers, Strange Paths, and more, our GMs come up with an amazing variety of 3-4-hour adventures to run each year, using whatever systems they’d like!
Tales of the Crimson Boar takes place each year in the summer, typically in July.
The Dark Carnival
Each year, almost like the unseemly clockwork rotations of an unfathomable calendar, the Dark Carnival returns to ensnare a new generation of unwary souls. Spooky sights and dangerous delights alike await within its neon-tinged tents and attractions for those who dare!
The Dark Carnival is a horror-focused Quarterly event that lets local GMs show off their spookiest chops. Unlike some other events, The Dark Carnival rarely has a set theme; instead, GMs run whatever mysterious and frightful ideas strike their fancy. In any given year, you’ll see everything from psychological horror to action-packed zombie apocalypses, from tense and fraught mysteries to classic ghost stories reimagined.
The Dark Carnival takes place each year in the fall, typically in October.
Extra Life Charity Event
For many years, RTR was proud to co-host a charity-focused RPG event with other local organizations representing groups like the Pathfinder Society and D&D Adventurers’ League, primarily organized by RTR member Cassie Smith. While we had to take a break in 2020, we hope to bring this event back in the future!
These mini-cons’ donations and collections went directly toward supporting Extra Life, a gamer-organized charity that supports the Children’s Miracle Network of hospitals; players’ raffle ticket purchases, re-roll buy-ins, and modest attendance fees all went toward this awesome cause. Generally, GMs are encouraged to run whatever they’d like, be that greatest hits from their prior pool of one-shots, to pre-written adventures from professional publishers, to brand-new adventures made for this event.
The Extra Life Charity event, typically spread across two full days of gaming with up to 5 time blocks of games, previously took place each year in the late fall, usually in November. Going forward, we might adjust this schedule a little bit to help bring Extra Life back — after all, it’s for the kids!