Gen Con 2010 Sunday Overview

I was amazed I made it up in time to not only get packed, take a SHOWER and still make it to my 800 am  game of Serenity.  Ended up being a little on the low energy side as it was early for all those involved.  I have never played the Serenity version of the Savage Worlds system so this was new ground for me here.

I guess I must have been under another impression that you could spend plot points to make things happen as I was shut down more than once trying to advance the plot.  So we meandered around for three and a half hours before we got anywhere close to the end of the adventure.  Then the most awesome part of the whole game took place.  We had no time for a long and drawn out assault on the bad guys fortified hideout, so the GM called for a combined roll.  He assigned difficulty numbers for the different outcomes.  We were able to achieve the most beneficial outcome due to not being allowed to spend our plot points.

This got me thinking we need some kind of fast forward button we can hit like the easy button when games bog down.  This wouldn't be so much of an issue but with con games limited 4 hour slots you can feel like you are wasting your time quite a bit.

If I ended up getting into any future Serenity games I will go back and do a little research as I felt like it had been a VERY long time since I had watched the show and was a little like a fish out of water.  Still overall a fun-ish experience.

Gen Con 2010 Saturday Overview

I was beginning to feel the lack of sleep catch up with me and I was playing 12 hours more of scheduled games so Saturday was brought to you by the letter 5 Hour Energy.

The first game I played in Saturday was Cave of Wanders: Wanton Destruction a Donjon game.  Donjon is a Clinton R. Nixon game, one that I have long been interested in.  Donjon is all about player control exclusively so it is something that I have never seen in the con events listings, until this year.  We ended up making our characters up on the spot, which took about 30 to 45 minutes, which wasn't too bad as we had great fun making what had to be the craziest group of adventurers.  A beholder holding a double docotorate, a thief who would play dead at the first sight of anything, an elf with an amazing fear of getting hit in the face and a smelly ogre named Violet.

We had a good time goofing off and ended the adventure in time for me to make a mad dash across Indy for my next event, so that was a plus.  I can cross "Play Donjon" off of my bucket list now, but I will never play it again, lesson learned.

The game I was dashing from Donjon to play was The Babalon Working a Call of Cthulhu Gumshoe game.  I like Cthulhu games, a lot.  You usually go mad and / or die so there is a real sense of danger that you don't always have in most con games.  This was also an opportunity for me to learn the Gumshoe system.

The pre-generated characters were all science fiction writers and associated.  I was greatly pleased to be able to play Phillip K Dick, the craziest man who ever lived!  The GM had obviously run this adventure many times and he did a great job with chits representing who all was where making investigation easier.  The other players were great.  Especially the Robert Heinlein player, he had an amazing amount of actual historical knowledge of the character.

After unsuccessfully trying to reach the local police and the highway patrol, I got to have my break the con moment . . . "My name is Phillip K Dick, and I will be taking you hostage!"  table rolled with laughter.

Overall I was surprised how simple this system was.  This might have been how the GM was playing it as I had nothing else to compare it too but it still seemed to be barely any mechanics at all.  I would give it another play through to see if it was a little more crunchy.  If not, I couldn't see myself playing it instead of traditional Cthulhu events.

Every train must, eventually, have its wreck.  This was mine for the con.  I should have know I was in for something special when the same caffeinated and COCAINE  fortified girl from my Raiders of Meadbrook Mine was sitting and waiting for me at the table for my Terror on Emerald Fields Game.  Why didn't I run?  Because I'm a glutton for punishment, and punishment we all got in spades, four hours worth.

The GM was somehow affiliated with the company that produced Legendary Realms so he was knowledgeable about the setting and the mechanics.  We started out by creating our characters which consisted of everybody getting a book and flipping through it at our own pace.  In a convention setting this is unacceptable.  Pregenerated characters are a must, at least they should be there to use as an example if not actually played.  So, we soldiered on and created our characters.  We then spent the next four hours being "entertained" by the same girl from the Meadbrook mine game.

When the event was mercifully over I gave the GM feedback that pregen characters would've made this process run smoother and some small layout modifications to the character sheets and the rule book.  By this time the girl in question had left after her father made her apologize to the other people for "using the f-word."  Since we were all 30-40 year old guys we assured her we all understood.

I then tried to make the GM feel a little better by saying that I had felt the same pain as I had played another game with this girl too.  That was when he dropped the bombshell to end all bombshells . . . THAT WAS THE THIRD GAME HE HAD PLAYED WITH HER!  I shook my head and ran for it screaming.

What I learned was that I will not be playing anymore Legendary Realms games, and if I see this girl again at a game I will get a couple of pitchers of beer, the table will need them, badly.

Gen Con 2010 Friday Overview

After having a pretty shaky experience in Meadbrook mine I was really looking forward to Pulp Friday.  I really enjoy the setting personally and I think it lends itself very well to con play as characters tend to be awesome doing amazing things!

First off was Men without Minds a Spirit of the Century / FATE game I was surprised I was able to get into at all.  Two of the people playing in this Spirit game were the same people I had played Inspectres with last year so I knew I was in for a fun game.  The GM has pre-generated almost all of our character's back-story leaving only the last novel for us to do so we could tie our characters together and see how the novel system of back-story development worked.  This was a great idea as it took a little time and gave us a taste as to what the system was like.  I highly recommended anyone else running this in a con setting to do the same thing.

The plot was pretty standard pulp but we all had a fun time tracking down the big bad guy to his lair.  This was the first time I had played Spirit so I was a little disappointed as to how it handed combat with multiple lesser opponents.  I like FATE / FUDGE but I was a little let down, probably due to my to extremely high expectations.  Overall, it was a good game and I learned a lot as well.  I would definitely play in another Spirit game con registration system willing.

Pulp Friday continued with Frogs in the Machine an Adventure! game.  I have owned this book for quite awhile and it has been gathering dust on the shelf so I was looking forward to cracking it out.

The characters for this game were great.  One was a sentient gorilla scientist, to help set the stage.  I got to play what I would later refer to as "the worst monster a child could ever imagine" trust me the monster under the bed had nothing on this guy.  We were playing in pre-WWII England and I was a German character who was a dentist.  Not just any dentist, but, "THE GREATEST DENTIST IN THE WORLD"  it said so, right on the character sheet.  So we were already off to a cracking start.  The GM for the game had an amazing array of different British accents and he was always consistent with the accents as he changed NPCs.

The other players were all very interesting and we had a great time getting to the bottom of the mystery.  I would definitely like to play more games with the same group of guys.  Upon reflection I doubt that I will be playing in any more Adventure! games in the future.  I like the game just not as much as I like Hollow Earth Expeditions so sorry Adventure! off to Half-Priced books you go!

Gen Con 2010 Thursday Overview

One of the games I was most looking forward to play was my first game of the con, Trouble in Hochen a Burning Wheel game.  I arrived in the room a little early so I was killing time looking at the events in the book.  As game time approached I began to worry that I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, so I double checked the event time with the con program . . . and was surprised to see that Luke Crane himself was listed as running the game, the creator of Burning Wheel himself.  As it turned out the person running the game showed up shortly in the person of Thor Olavsrud an editor / developer of the game.

The four slot game had immediately sold out as do all Burning Wheel events but somehow we had only three of the four slots filled, without anyone with generics tickets waiting in the wings.  We bravely soldiered on and ended up becoming the heroes of Hochen.  I had a great time playing in Trouble as I have been wanting to see what  the Burning Wheel system looked like in action.  Action was what we had in this adventure, we had a Duel of Wits as well as a three on one sided combat that was both very satisfying and informative.

Everyone who participated in this event seemed to have a good time and I got many of my questions answered so I considered this event a great start to the con.  If things keep getting better from here by Sunday I will be rolling nothing but crits and shooting laser beams from my eyes . . . unfortunately I was wrong.

My other game on Thursday was The Raiders of Meadbrook Mine and could well be descibed as my inspiration to follow up on my events in the blog.  Adventures in Fantasy 2nd edition is a homebrewed system lovingly crafted with obviously a lot of work put into it. Unfortunately, lots of work and loving crafting in this case still didn't add up to a system that was better than Savage Worlds, which from here on out will be considered my Mendoza line when it comes to this style of gaming.  The actual adventure itself was standard dungeon crawling which was fine as most of the players were very nice funny people, excepting a 13ish year old girl who had been drinking caffeinated beverages and eating COCAINE all day.  To the GM's and other player's credit we kept her mosly in check, mostly, so playing was still enjoyable.  I will not be playing in any more Adventures in Fantasy games not because they are bad people, or have a bad system, just after two playings I feel I have gotten all that I can out of the system.