Morgan's BigBadCon 2012 Adventures

BigBadCon is one of the best RPG conventions in the Bay Area.  Last year, the RPG rooms had four tables each, partitioned by thick heavy curtains that went a bit too high and blocked the air flow.  This year, the partitions were better configured and there were private gaming rooms.  Sean Nittner has done an incredible job, recruiting and getting the best GMs to run games at BigBadCon.  He and his staff has also implemented an amazing slew of innovative ideas for an RPG convention:  Big Bad GM; specific rooms show casing and dedicated to Evil Hat, Burning Wheel, and Carl Rigney; RPG games on demand.  Not only that, BigBadCon raises money for charity.

BBC also lets you pre-register for games.  Before I showed up, I had my whole schedule.

I had a great time and put BigBadCon as the top RPG convention this year.

The theme of this write up is:  Saying, "Yes."

I hide spoiler sections with JavaScript. If you have JavaScript turned off, you can skip the spoiler sections I have marked.

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The Seige of Peking
Date/Time -  Oct 5, 7:00 PM - 1:00 AM
GM: Janyce Hill
System: Call of Cthulhu
Power Level: Moderate - emphasis on role playing
Maturity Rating: Adult
Number of Players: 6
Game Length: 6
Characters: Provided

Like a horrific clockwork mechanism that can be neither altered or stopped the events of June 1900 have unwound themselves in bloodshed and death. Telegraph lines have been cut, all mail and communication with the world outside the walls of Peking have been halted. The Japanese Chancellor and the German Foreign Minister both murdered in the streets by members of the Boxer Rebellion.

A group of diverse personalities have been caught up in this moment of chaos and violence. The Chinese people revolting against the unfettered influences of Europe.

Or — amongst the smoke of burning buildings and the cries of the dieing — is there something more unnaturally evil at work?

I signed up for this game because Shannon told me that Janyce was one of the authors of "Beyond the Mountain of Madness."  A Google search seemed to confirm what Shannon said.  But it is not guaranteed that a good game designer is a good GM.  Jaynce showed up a bit late from SFO, having just flown back to the Bay Area, and she didn't have with her the pre-generated character sheets, maps, or her notes.

As players, we didn't have a problem with that.

We proceeded by creating character concepts and she noted a few things about each character and then she started describing the city and history surrounding the Boxer Rebellion in Peking.  For sanity rolls, she gave us a choice of either just taking the sanity loss or rolling dice and then deciding.  Since the PCs had no stats, we actually decided what was appropriate even though some of us did go through the motions of rolling dice.  The depth of detail she recalled from memory was amazing.  It makes me think that there would be a CoC supplement with this background material someday.

At one point, the characters went off the reservation and Janyce went with it and we still had a satisfying game.  Her level of description and ability to run a game where other GMs would have failed made her a top GM in my book.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

We started with Peking under siege and we were tasked to scout out the rail lines so that a refugee train could take people out before the rebellion arrived.

Then weird things started happening.

I wanted to stay in Peking resolve the escalating horror, but the other characters decided to proceed with our mission and leave.

Well, we were actually supposed to stay in Peking, so we had actually left the scenario. But Jaynce was unperturbed and we continued without any knowledge that we had left the beaten track.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

We as players said, "Yes," to what could have been a disastrous game, trusting in the GM.  And the GM said, "Yes" to use doing unexpected things and we had a satisfying game, nonetheless.

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Little Trouble in Big China
Date/Time -  Oct 6, 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Format: RPG
GM: Morgan Hua
System: Feng Shui
Power Level: Jackie Chan/Chow Yun-Fat
Maturity Rating: Blood, Violence, Cannibalism, Sex if you're Lucky
Number of Players: 6
Game Length: 6
Characters: Provided

You are all Triad members in modern day Hong Kong. This game will be a mix of John Woo over the top action with Jackie Chan stunts, Big Trouble in Little China oddness, tests of loyalty and betrayal, Yakuza, other competing Triads, and sometimes the PTU (Police Tactical Unit) will show up at the most inopportune time.

The Dragon Head, the master of your Triad, has sent you on a job. You better not F this one up like last time. Very few people get a second chance, those who disappoint him windup inside the Steamed Pork Dumplings on Food Street. Sounds like a simple job, so why are there so many of us involved? That Dragon Head is one tricky fellow, there’s something big going on and he’s not telling.

I had a great group of players.  When I first envisioned this game, I was thinking of "Infernal Affairs" which was remade as "The Departed."  I also wanted John Woo action and Jackie Chan stunts.  But I had no system to run this game with.  Sean Nittner gave me a few suggestions and I wound up using Feng Shui.  It was the perfect system for this game.  I actually ran part of my Scooby-Doo game with this and did some of the rules wrong, so I re-read rules in question and ran a play test of this game with my gaming group.  During the play test and Scooby-Doo game, only two players actually got the feel of embellishing stunts and one player tried really hard.  One player was a Wushu Kung Fu movie fan and wasn't able to come up with cool stunts.  Somehow it was beyond him to come up with or copy martial arts moves he'd seen in the movies he loved.  So, I was worried that Feng Shui might become a stumbling block.  Part of the fun is embellishing the stunts.

To help people understand the Hong Kong setting and the John Woo stunts, I made an 8 minute video of movie clips showcasing several characters.  Since I couldn't make clips of all the characters (I had technical issues with ripping scenes from some movies), I only took clips for 3 characters and followed it with slide shows of the other characters in various clothing and poses and also a progressive slide show of the Hong Kong skyline and streets.  If I was able to rip video from other movies, I think the video would have been too long, so some difficulties helped me make a good decision.

I also let the players to pick jobs in the Triad, pick a Chinese Chess token to represent themselves (unknown to them, I would later randomly draw tokens to see who would get phone calls), and handed random secrets to each player.  I then asked them to tell everyone a story of how they F*ed-up.

I also explained how they can make phone calls or get phone calls and they can say whatever they wanted.  When they hang up, they can hand me a note with what they really said.  I gave them "dollar bills" as paper.

Mike G. embraced his inner John Woo.  He played "Baby Face" (Chow Yun-Fat) and he entered a book store by crashing his motorcycle through the window and firing Uzi's with both hands using his Gun-Fu.  We had injury by Greeting Cards, a Cat thrown and baseball-batted out of the store, Flaming Book-Fu, 50 Shades of Grey as a Weapon-Fu, a player grabbed another player's hand to slap the head of a Hopping Vampire, some Player vs Player-Fu, and an extended fight scene in the women's bathroom.   I also loved how Mike said he wasn't going to shoot anybody and then went ahead and did it at the Gala. It reminded me of the story where a Scorpion hitches a ride on a Frog across a river and promises not to sting the Frog and does so anyway.  The Frog asked, "Why?" as they both drown and the Scorpion said, "It's my nature."

There was a incredibly tension filled player vs player show down between Mike and Adam D.  I could feel the air thicken.  Wow.

Adam also executed the most incredible subterfuge I've ever seen.  Nice Job.

It was an awesome game.  The ending needs some adjustment though since a number of players got left out of the final big boss battle.  But I think I've figured out a fix for that.  I originally thought the big boss battle was short enough that I didn't need to fix it.  At my play test, we ran out of time and just talked through it quickly, so I didn't think it was a major problem.  I now stand corrected.

Here's a "Yes" for more character involvement and listening to feedback.

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The CompleX Men
Date/Time -  Oct 6, 4:00 PM - 12:00 AM
Format: RPG
GM: Ezra Denney
System: Paranoia (1st Edition)
Variations: not available at your security clearance
Power Level: not nearly enough
Maturity Rating: not nearly enough
Number of Players: 6
Game Length: 8
Characters: Provided

You are the Computers secret weapon. Turning our greatest weakness into our greatest strength. You are a team of registered mutants, sworn to protect Alpha Complex from all commie mutant traitors. Can you live up to the awesome pressure of proving that not all mutants are traitors? Can you prove that homo superior is really superior? Join, the CompleX Men!

I had a lot of fun in Ezra's game.  It was a laugh a minute. He does an amazing Funbot-4000.  Ezra runs a kinder and gentler Paranoia.  There's lots of computer mess-ups and foul-ups, but he doesn't kill you in a mean, petty way.  I finished the game with my 3rd clone.

It was a great game.  But after the game, at one point Ezra said, "I'm disappointed in myself.  I wanted to say yes to everything.  I should have said, 'Yes,' to Felipe."  Felipe M. wanted to find a doorway to the outside and Ezra didn't give it to him.  It wouldn't have changed the game and Ezra realized too late that it may have decreased Felipe's enjoyment of the game.

So just say, "Yes."

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Midnight Tribunal
Date/Time -  Oct 6, 12 Midnight - 2:00 AM
Format: LARP
GM: Jason Morningstar
System: Tribunal
Variations: Midnight game
Maturity Rating: Mature
Number of Players: 12
Game Length: 2
Characters: Provided

Two soldiers from your unit have been charged with the crime of stealing bread. If found guilty, they will be shot. The problem is that they are innocent.

The Tribunal is a short, intense participatory scenario about the mechanics of oppression, inspired by Orwell, Krylov, and Büchner. The scenario takes place in a space of waiting, just before the first one of you is called in to testify in front of the military tribunal. Each of you will face the judges alone, not knowing what the others will say. So if you want to make a difference, or be sure you survive, you need to discuss and deal now. The Tribunal has been played all over the world and won the 2010 Larpwrtiter’s Challenge award and is an approachable point of entry for learning about Nordic larp.

This game was very interesting.  It was like "Twelve Angry Men" except we were deciding our own fate. We were mainly in a small room and we discussed what we wanted to testify about.  At the end, we individually testified without knowing what the others said or would say.  A fascinating character study.  There were a few LARPers who overacted in the room, but it was interesting nonetheless.

There was one guy who played an incredible "Mouse."  I was a steadfast and loyal "Dog.

Below in the spoiler is the results of the Tribunal.  If you plan on playing this game, don't read the spoiler.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

At the end, we found out that we all hung tough except for Karen T. as "Peacock" who lied and confessed to the crime. We all stuck to our story and all of us lived except for Karen T. -- she was executed.

Jason Morningstar told us that he has run this 4 times and all the other times, the soldiers broke into different factions and gave conflicting stories and all of them were executed.

We were the first group to hang tough by telling the truth.

During the game I gave two key arguments.

1. If we blamed Pig for the theft, we had no proof. Also our argument was that we were with the two accused soldiers, so what would happen if we find out that Pig was with other officers during the theft, then we would be all executed. So, the best tact was to tell the truth, that we were with the two accused and we did not steal the bread and we did not know who stole the bread.

2. I offered that if we must blame someone, one of us could confess and we could all agree to say that one person stole the bread. At that point only Karen T. offered to sacrifice herself. But after more discussion, we decided she wasn't serious and returned to our original plan.

Other key events that took us to our decision were:

Shannon M. as "Wolf" tried to bully us into one decision. He said we should all make a decision and stick with it. His heavy handedness pissed everyone off and no one wanted anything to do with his Alpha-maleness.

A guy (I didn't get his name) played "Mouse" and kept on trying to make us pick "Pig" and then "Fox" as possible scapegoats. He did an excellent job as "Mouse." But his nervousness and blame everybody approach showed us what not to do.

A redheaded gal (I didn't get her name) played "Raven" and after we decided to tell the truth, she ran us through a group building exercise, where we talked about what we liked about each other, which kept our minds off of what was happening and got us into a good mood until it was time to give our testimony. I think the timing of this was key. Done earlier and it would have worn off and we would have started new arguments as to what to do.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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Improv for Gamers Workshop
Date/Time -  Oct 7, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Format: Workshop
GM: Mia Blankensop, Karen Twelves, and Matthew Klein
System: Improv Workshop
Number of Players: 21
Game Length: 4

Improv theater teaches many skills that can make your game rock: collaboration, embracing failure, and generally feeling comfortable looking stupid. Yet, there is a divide to cross to get the gamer onto the stage. So Big Bad Con has brought the mountain to Mohammed. Come to the workshop and you’re going to explore dynamic characters, collaborative scene-building, and the success/complication model as it applies to role-playing games.

The workshop will be led by local improv instructor Mia Blankensop with co-organizers Karen Twelves and Matthew Klein.

I was on my High School's Speech and Debate team.  I specialized in Improv.  They gave you and your opponent a topic and you only had a few minutes before we did our opening arguments and counter arguments.  So, I thought I already knew about improv and was hesitant about attending, but Shannon went to the Improv Workshop at End Game and told me it was great.  Well, this workshop is actually about improv acting and improv comedy, a totally different kettle of fish.

This was a very fun and incredible workshop.  We had a large number of exercises to help us say, "Yes."  How to embrace what other people bring in and build on it and to not say, "No," or to contradict anything that was brought in earlier.  There were exercises for building scenes and situations in very short order. I think every RPG player and GM should attend this workshop.  It'll improve your game and outlook in so many ways.

I also found out that some people were very quick on their feet and some not.  There were people I would want in my gaming group and others I would not touch with a ten foot pole.  I think I might steal some of these exercises in order to test if someone was a good player or not.

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Horror at the Large Hadron Collider
Date/Time -  Oct 7, 3:00 PM - 9:00 PM
GM: Craig Vilbig
System: Dread
Maturity Rating: There will be blood. Not a game for the squeamish
Number of Players: 5
Game Length: 6
Characters: Created in session

The top scientists in the world released a press statement regarding the Higgs-Boson particle.  All the news stations sent their top reporters to the Large Hadron Collider.  But then: nothing.  Interpol has sent your team to investigate.

I was supposed to play in "The Last Voyage of Skergi Frosthammer" but the GM was sick.  Sean N. asked me and Jack Y. whether we wanted to run a substitute game.  I said, "Sure," but since this was late on Sunday, only three people showed up for this game and one left when he found out it wasn't Conan.  With only two players, we decided to find other games to play in.  Next door was Gil T. and Will R. and an open seat in their game.  I gladly joined them.

The game went from bad to really bad to so incredibly bad that it was great.  The 6 hour game finished in 2 hours.  Gil called this our gaming Vietnam -- we'll talk about this for a whole generation.  I think we (not the characters, we the players) lost so many sanity points during that game that we went insane and started to like it.  We laughed hysterically at what was going on.  There were two other players in our game and they were hysterically funny, playing two brothers: one German, one French.  One guy was in my Improv Workshop, Chris O. (German).  The other player was Alex T. (French).  If Matt G. and Mike M. of Infrno had long lost cousins, these two people were them.  They didn't look like Matt or Mike, but they acted like them.

Gil, Will, and I went to the bar afterwards and talked about the game for four hours -- well, we did talk about other gaming things too.  Bryan H. showed up and we chatted with him.  By then, Gil had already told the story of our Vietnam several times.  Gil had gotten down the GM's voice and manner to a T.  Gil would draw this clockwise circle with his finger saying, "It started out bad, then worse," as his finger descended.  "Then it circled around and became awesome," as his finger rounded the bottom and came back to the top.  "My mind is blown.  I can't play anything anymore."

At one point, during a lull in our conversation about something else, I told Gil, "We're thinking about the same thing."  Gil said, "No, I was thinking about the game."  I said, "That's what I was thinking about too."

The GM did have a lot of props and prepared a lot of things, so Will thinks this guy, if he got his act together would be a good GM one day.  This was the guy's first time as a GM at a convention and he had run a few games for his friends.  The GM did have good enough instincts to end the game after 2 hours -- it turned out perfect.

Will said that this game was so bad it knocked two of his worst games out of his memory and this is on the top of his list of bad games, not because it was bad, but because it was so awesome.

We talked about how we could try to recreate this experience somehow, whether we could make a meta game where we could capture the awfulness of this and make it just as funny.

At one point, Gil said he thought of leaving the game, but felt guilty about abandoning both Will and me to THE GAME.  Both Will and I confessed that we had the same thoughts too.

Well, we stayed and said, "Yes," to the game and we had a once in a lifetime experience.  We had our Vietnam of gaming.

We talked until Duane was ready to run "Goblin Ninjas Flipping Out And Killing Like A Hundred Guys."  I called Travis S. and Shannon M. to join us in the Goblin Ninja game.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

No spoilers about what had happened in game. I'll fill this in later after we all get to tell the full story in person. If you run into us, just ask and we'll tell you the story. I doubt we'll forget what had happened and the story over time will just grow into something more epic -- like the "Eye of Argon."

Updated: 9/26/2013.  It's been about a year, so I'll write this down before I forget.

The game started with the GM giving us a stack of handouts.  One was a bad xerox copy of the Dread rule book -- you know, a copy where the toner is running out and you get this barely readable grey text that fades in and out.  One was a copy of a LARP the GM had created, but has nothing to do with the game.  A feedback sheet about the game.  And finally, a multiple page character questionnaire for the Dread game.

Gil's character was a British scientist who's brother was at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Will's character was a Russian demolitions expert.
Chris's character was a German nihilist gun expert.
Daman's character was a French Catholic fencing (sword) expert.
My character was a American search and rescue expert with a body sniffing dog.
The German and French characters were brothers raised in the same house, but the mother was German and the father French.  Each insisted that a son must be raised with their respective culture, thus the two nationalities.  Their house sat on the French German border and one half of the house was exclusively French and the other German.  You were only allowed to speak French on the French side of the house and German on the German side.

We get called to the Interpol headquarters and are briefed.  We are told that it went dark, some cops were sent to investigate, and they never reported back.  We were to go and find out what's happened.
Also the LHC is guarded by machine guns.  WTF?

Gil asks where the Interpol HQ is.  I quip: "Interpoland."  And the GM says, "Interpoland."  Sorry Gil, you should blame me for that one.  :-)

Gil: What's the name of the guy briefing us?
GM: The Guy
Gil:  What?
Chris: Le Guy (Le Gui with French accent)
Gil: What's the name plate on his desk?
GM: The Guy.  Spelled G. U. Y.

Morgan: If the LHC is guarded by automatic machine guns, since we're Interpol, we can get a helicopter and we can land on the roof.
GM:  Sorry, due to budget cuts, you can't have a helicopter, but you have a bus.
Morgan:  What?
GM:  It's a chartered bus.
Morgan: Can we have a cooler of beer on the bus then?
GM:  No.  You're on duty.

Ok, so the bus stops at the LHC.  We're miles from anywhere.  The closest house is 10 miles away. After we get off the bus, IT DRIVES OFF.  What?  Is Interpol so poor, it has to sub-lease the bus to pick up school children for a field trip?

We see an electrified chain link fence.  I call Interpol with my cell phone to get the keypad combination to unlock the gate.  They give me the number.  I type it in and nothing happens.  It appears there's no power at the LHC.  The German body-checks me into the fence to see if it's electrified -- there seems to be some anti-American sentiment in the EC.  I survive.  The German pulls on the gate and it opens.  He calmly walks into the compound and machine guns fire at him and he dodges into the nearest building which appears to be housing for LHC scientists.

In the building, he finds a big red button.  He hits it and it supposedly disables the machine gun.  To test it he asks his brother to send the American, "it's safe."  I walk to the building and nothing happens.
"I guess that button really does turn off the machine guns."  Don't ask me how the machine guns work without power.  We must have missed the strings attached to their triggers.  The red button must activate a pair of scissors or something.

Once we go to where the red button is, we finally notice that someone must have thrown one of the scientists through a glass plate window and into the wall behind it.  A bloody body outline indented the cinder block wall.  At the base of the wall was the dead scientist.  Gee, I'm so glad we focused on finding the red button, otherwise we would have seen this when we entered the room instead.

We then search the rest of the scientist barracks.  We find a dead scientist in each room and some clues.  I mention that the creature must be incredibly fast because it looks like no one reacted as it looked like each scientist was surprised in their own rooms.  From the clues, we find a description of a demon that is immune to normal weapons, etc., etc.  It was almost written as if it came from a Monster Manual.  I then quip that this must have been a D&D game that went bad.  Little did we know.  The next thing we find is a copy of Deities and Demigods.  We also find a few letters that explained that one of the scientists summoned a demon and made a deal with it.  He traded extra-human knowledge for his soul.

Gil searches the body of one of the scientists and gets his car keys.  We go to the parking lot.  The tires to the car the keys go to are slashed.  Gil gets the keys from the other dead scientists. The tires of those cars are slashed.
Gil:  Are all the tires of all the cars slashed?
GM:  No, only the ones you have the keys to.
All:  (Stunned silence)

We also find the abandoned police car.  Its tires are slashed too.

Gil tries to call Interpol.  His cell phone doesn't work.
Morgan: What carrier do you have?
Gil:  AT&T
Morgan:  Mine's Verizon.  You must be out of your cell phone range.  My phone worked at the gate.
Gil goes back to the gate, his phone still doesn't work.  Mine doesn't work either.
(It would have been really funny if it was just a cell phone carrier difference.)

I grab the entrance/exist roster list from the guard shack, so I can keep track of who might be missing.

We proceed into the LHC building.  There are bodies everywhere.  I start looking at employee badges and name tags and start marking people off my list.  I also start body bagging and labeling people.  Gil is also helping as he searches for his brother.

We look for a facilities map in the stairwell and we find it (I joked later at the pub with Gil and Will that it should have been slashed).  We go to the security office.  The monitors have been slashed.  Gil repairs the security camera system and we can see into the whole facility except for two locations. 

In the LHC corridors are 3 Segways, only one works.  Gil repairs them and we double up to ride it down the corridors toward the dark areas.

We find a section of the corridor that has been breached.  A dirt tunnel stretches into the darkness.  We explore the tunnel and find a chamber that is filled with bodies.  I help Gil look for his brother and we find the body.  I run out of body bags.  Chris and his brother continue to explore the dirt tunnel and run into the creature.  Chris opens fire with his guns.

I hand the Monster description to Gil and point at the line that says, "Immune to Normal Weapons."  We run back to the Segways and ride out of there.

Chris and his brother double up on the remaining Segway and are very slow.

Chris: Can I run faster than the Segway?
GM: Yes.
Chris: We run past the other two guys (Gil and Morgan).
Morgan:  How far are we from the exit?
GM:  1/4 mile
Morgan:  What?  We get off the Segways and run for it too.

Once outside, Chris flips through the Deities and Demigods and can't find the entry for the demon.
Chris: What good is this?
Will:  You see.  (with a Russian accent).  When you get too powerful and normal monsters aren't a challenge anymore, you use this book.
All:  (Laughter).
GM:  (Gives Will a bonus point for the joke.)

Gil:  I run down the street.
GM: The nearest house is 10 miles away.
Gil:  So what.  I run down the street.
Morgan:  I'm running too.
Will tries to break into the cop car.  But GM gives him a hard time.  Will then throws down the bonus point and says:  I tear the car door off.
He then progresses to rig the car with explosives.

GM:  You don't have tires.
Will:  There are still rims.  I don't need to drive it far.
GM:  Creature is coming out of the LHC.
Will:  I drive the car into it and blow us both up.  (He knocks down the Jenga tower for a heroic death).
All:  (Stunned silence.  We then rebuild the tower.)

GM: (to Gil and Morgan)  What do you do?
Gil and Morgan:  We keep on running.
GM: The cloud of dust and debris from the explosion finally clears.  You see that the creatures is dead.    The end. (with a dead pan delivery).
Chris:  (Laughing uproariously) This is the best game ever.
All:  (Uncontrollable laughter. I wipe tears from my eyes.)

GM:  Please fill out your comment sheets.
Will:  (Fills it out seriously and diligently.)
Gil:  (Writes: "Potato, Alligator, Yay." as one-word answers for his questions and turns it in.)

Months later, I pulled out the LARP rule set and Travis S. and Jack Y. took turns reading it out loud.  It was unintentionally funny too.  I gave it to Travis on the condition that he would run it for us.  Hey, Travis.  I'm still waiting for the Ghost Wolf Alien Abduction Hot Babe Fantasy in Caves with Theme Songs World Apocalypse Game.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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Goblin Ninjas Flipping Out And Killing Like A Hundred Guys
Sunday 9 PM - 2 AM (Unofficial Game)
GM: Duane O'Brien (A Terrible Idea)
Players: 6
Power Level: You're Freaking Goblin Ninjas!

One of the funniest games around.  Again Duane proves why he is one of the top GMs around.  Ninjas are one thing, but Goblin Ninjas are even more awesome.  Bryan H. had such a great time playing this game at Celesticon, he wanted to play it again.  The good thing was this was a sequel to the game that was run at Celesticon, so it wasn't a re-run for Bryan.

The highlights were:  Shannon's character using Breast-Fu and his two humping rats in a cage; my character scooping fish out of an aquarium and throwing them as weapons; Travis's Iron Chef Fight-off, Will's steady walk and setting everything on fire; Brian's Lightning-Fu; and Jason's combat in the restroom stall.

Gil was tired, but he did drop by before we started to say hello and told our Vietnam story once more before he left.

Gil, you missed a really good game.  You should have said, "Yes."