Overall, I really enjoyed BigBadCon. The focus seems more in the area of independent RPGs and LARPs. My favorite two experiences were Jason Morningstar's The Climb and Shaun Hayworth's Lotus Blossom's Bridal Path. The other games were a lot of fun too.
The only one thing I would change about BBC is that I would only allow 2/3 of the seats as early sign-ups and then let the other 1/3 seats be filled by first-come, first-served sign-ins. This would encourage more people to attend BBC. I think making 100% of the seats as early sign-ups fills all the games early and people sign up for more games than they can play in. One Chinese phrase is "Your eyes are larger than your stomach." I think that is true for the sleep-deprived gamers who sign up for games -- they sign up for more games than they can play.
Minimum spoilers below about the games I was in.
I hide spoilers with JavaScript. If you have JavaScript turned off, you can skip the spoiler sections I have marked.
Three Kings
Date/Time - Oct 4, 7:00 PM - 1:00 AM Format: RPG GM: Paul "Bezultek" S. System: Achtung! Cthulhu Maturity Rating: PG-13 Number of Players: 6 Game Length: 6 Characters: Provided Description: 1939. The Nazis occupy Czechoslovakia. You, and other members of the British intelligence service Section D,
will parachute into Czechoslovakia. Your mission is to contact the
Three Kings, leaders of the Czech resistance movement. The game uses the Achtung! Cthulhu setting, based on the call of Cthulhu mechanic.
I saw the Kickstarter for this game only after it was funded and was curious as to the game. I'm a fan of Godlike, so Cthulhu and WWII also interested me.
I met Paul at other conventions and he's a strong player, so I wanted to see his GMing style. After picking our characters, Paul handed us our sealed orders (in a manila envelope). Inside was background information on our mission and our identity papers.
The identity papers was our character sheets in a booklet format. Paul was nice enough to put credits on the back thanking Gil T. for the idea. See my comments on Gil's game: Here
We were a mix of Allies: Brits, Americans, a German, and a Czech. Our mission was to contact the Czech resistance and to perform a mission for them. We parachuted behind enemy lines wearing German uniforms. Well, we spent 4 hours trying to contact the Resistance and failed miserably due to bad die rolls. This is when "Trail of Cthulhu" (ToC) players shake their heads and wag their fingers at Call of Cthulhu (CoC) players. But I actually liked the failures. It was actually pretty entertaining and interesting.
In our game, our leader decided to play a bad Nazis and round up the villagers and question them about the Resistance. My character had a high psychology skill, so I could figure out if they were lying or not. When we found someone who was lying about the Resistance, we would take them into another room and "question" them. In the other room, we would reveal ourselves and try to convince them that we were there to help. Well, all three of us in the room failed our persuade rolls. The villager would then say, "Oh, as I've told you many times before, I know nothing about the resistance. I can't believe you Nazis would go through this charade to get me to tell you something I know nothing about. Nazis speaking in a British accent and pretending to be British spies. I tell you, I know nothing." That was pretty entertaining.
In ToC, a player would just do a spend and succeed. How boring.
But the downside was that we spent 4 hours just to get our mission from the Czech Resistance, so Paul had to skip the middle of the game and we just went to the end game.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
One funny
bit, was a player and his buddy who acted like D&D players; they
were itching to kill some Nazis. After flagging down a half-track, we
hitched a ride. I know how deadly CoC is, especially with guns at
point-blank range. Our leader wanted to kill all the Nazis. But since
we had already convinced them that we were "one of them," I thought they
would have been more useful as future contacts and started pumping
information from them. After I was done talking to them, our leader
asked the Nazis to pull over so he could take a leak. Once out of the
half-track, he started shooting, so we wound up killing all the Nazis
and got lucky -- no one on our side got hurt.
When we found our contact, a priest, I impaled my spot hidden and found that the family Bible clutched tightly to his chest was actually an arcane tome. I told my team that, but I guess, if the priest was going to throw some Cthulhu rituals at Nazis, they didn't care.
Our mission was to enter the citadel and rescue the children that were being tortured there. Our ruse was that we had captured the priest and several Czech resistance fighters and were bringing them in.
One of my favorite bits in the game was when my character went insane
and started a scalpel fight with a mad Nazi scientist in the citadel. The scalpel did
1d3 and I wore leather which reduced the damage by one point. So, the
fight would have lasted forever except the scientist went for a gun and
one of the other players shot him first.
By then the priest had summoned something horrible and gigantic out of a well and it was killing everything in sight. I believe all the PCs eventually escaped, but with massive san loss.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
He Who Laughs Last
Date/Time - Oct 5, 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM Format: RPG GM: Dave Sokolowski System: Cthulhu Dark Maturity Rating: Adult themes Number of Players: 6 Game Length: 6 Characters: Provided Description: Hollywood – Your friend Becca’s tragic suicide has brought you
together, but still doesn’t make sense. Perhaps her job as a personal
assistant to a wildly successful comedian is related? Cthulhu Dark is a
rules-light, atmosphere-heavy game system of supernatural horror and
weirdness. Fans of modern horror encouraged to apply.
Dave has run this game several times and has been preparing it for publication. All of the characters are people in the movie business: Actors, Stunt Men, Body Guards, Special Effects Experts, etc.
I really enjoyed the system. Each character had about six areas of expertise (a house rule). The official rule gives you a single profession instead. You get to roll 1d6. If you try an action in your area of expertise or is related to it, you get to roll another 1d6. If you want to risk your sanity, you can roll another 1d6. You look at your highest die roll. 1 = barely successful, 6 = extraordinary success. But if your sanity die is the highest die roll, you have to roll 1d6 and if it is higher than your current insanity, you increase your insanity and go bonkers. If your insanity goes reaches 6, you go incurably insane. You may also risk insanity by re-rolling and adding an insanity die if you already haven't done so.
There were two great moments in the game, detailed in the spoiler section.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
While investigating a house, we found a ritual room. Mike G.'s character decided to leave and pickup the pyrotechnical device he had in his truck so he could burn the place down. One player triggered a gate and Becca's killer showed up and cast uncontrollable laughter on us. We laughed ourselves unconscious. Mike tussled with the killer and fled. It was tension filled
for us and for Mike as we didn't know our fate. We were not told if we lived or died.
Mike returned later, but didn't find us. So he set the incendiary device and left the house. We woke up in a locked metal septic tank piled with burned bodies. Luckily, Mike heard our banging and let us out. How Dave handled the split party and tension building was masterful.
I also loved the dramatic ending.
My character was an actress and Becca's suicide seemed more like a murder. Near the beginning of the game, we searched Becca's apartment and I took several of Becca's signature outfits in order to disguise myself as her. I didn't know when it would be useful, but I wanted to be prepared.
In the end, as Becca's killer performed in the Hollywood Bowl, I walked on stage disguised as Becca. I accused him of my murder; stunned and flabbergasted, he couldn't respond. Finally, he broke out of his apoplexy and he started his killing joke that would slay the audience. I wore an amulet that gave me protection from his spell as I strode up to him and stabbed him to death with a glass dagger and he exploded in a flood of blood like the scene out of The Shining, bathing the audience in blood.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
At the Movies
Date/Time - Oct 5, 3:00 PM - 7:00 PM Format: RPG GM: Morgan Hua System: A Penny For My Thoughts Variations: Streamlined with less psycho babble. Number of Players: 4 Game Length: 4 Characters: Created in play Description: Players will pick a movie that they haven’t seen yet, but have seen
the trailer. We’ll improv our way through our own version of that
movie.
The plan was to pick a movie, but that didn't happen and we picked superhero-noir as a unifying theme. The reason I like to pick movie trailers is that it sets the mood, setting, and characters. Without such an agreement, A Penny for My Thoughts sometimes runs off the rails. I wanted to run with 4 players since the GM actually participates, so that's 5 players. Unfortunately, I thought one player was a no-show, and I let a friend of one of the players in to fill the game at 4 players. After I explained the mechanics, the no-show showed up, so I let him in the game. By the end of the game, the narrations were beginning to get a bit long. Thus reinforcing my thought that Penny should be max out at 4 players. The narrations went a bit wild too as it looked like one of the players was getting punch-drunk from lack of sleep and started spewing out a stream of consciousness that sometimes made sense.
The Climb
Date/Time - Oct 5, 8:00 PM - 10:00 PM Format: LARP GM: Jason Morningstar System: Custom Maturity Rating: Mature themes Number of Players: 5 Game Length: 2 Characters: Provided Description: Six climbers are on an illegal expedition in Bhutan. They are close
to the summit, but only three will ascend – who stays and who goes? The
Climb is a structured freeform larp in the Nordic tradition.
This game was brilliant. Jason put three blankets on the ground that represented 3-men tents. GM + 5 players = 6 players. He turned off the lights and handed out one flashlight per tent. We started with two players in each tent. He also put up a soundtrack of blowing wind and snow. At the 40 minute mark, there's a Chinese weather report and 5 minutes after that, there would be break in the storm and at that time, 3 players would head to Camp IV and from there 2 of the 3 would Summit. Because of the sound track, we could only hear muffled conversations in the other tents. Before the 3-man team leaves for Camp IV, each player has to put a coupon in a folder. Each player can put in either a help or hinder coupon. 45 minutes later, the sound track would end and that would signal the end of the game.
In this game, only two people put in help coupons. The result was two deaths, and injury, and a successful summit.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
I had read Into Thin Air and several other accounts of that Everest
disaster. I've also seen several documentaries about that incident. I
knew that survival at the altitude was hard and so, I decided to
conserve energy and stay in my tent. Every time someone left or
returned to the tent, I would tell them to just stay put and conserve
their energy. There was a lot of running from tent to tent in this
game.
Jason's character had almost got me killed in a previous climb, and wouldn't you know it, we were in the same starting tent. One of the first questions he asked me was whether I was still pissed at him. I told him that I still was. I also berated him for leaving the flashlight on as we need to conserve power in case anything happens.
The Climb was being financed by a millionaire novice climber. I argued that if the millionaire was healthy, the three to go would be Jason's character, me, and the millionaire. If the millionaire was not going, I would be happy to stay at Camp III with him. The weather conditions were horrible and maybe next year it would be better. It was clear that the millionaire would be willing to finance a second expedition next year.
I put in a help coupon even though the hinder coupon would have probably killed Jason as the coupon lists the order of death and Jason was first up. Jason told me he was retiring after this climb and he was coughing at altitude, so I figure, this was the last I was going to see of him anyway.
Well, it wound up that I was left behind with the millionaire and the meteorologist, another weak climber. During our wait at Camp III, I got the millionaire to promise he'll let me train him on various
mountains before we reattempted this mountain next year. We finally got radio contact from Camp IV telling us what a great view they had and what a great time they had. They also figured out that I had tossed in a titanium screw that helped them get past a crevasse and they thanked me -- or rubbed it in my face it as it seemed at that time. It was then that both the meteorologist and the millionaire privately boasted that they left surprises for the group that went to Camp IV.
Later, disaster struck Camp IV and I had to
take the millionaire with me to Camp IV. On the way there, the millionaire died. Once there, I discovered that Jason's character
died and the team leader was seriously injured. All the climbers
returned to Camp III and before the game ended, the meteorologist
broke down and confessed that she had caused one of the deaths by putting in frayed
rope. She had a connection with the millionaire and didn't expect him to die and thought that maybe she had caused his death.
In the game wrap up, we found out that only the team doctor and I had put in help coupons. Karen T. played the doctor. Each character sheet had told us how we felt about each of the other climbers. She said I didn't act like the character summary that she received, so she was weirded out -- I was too nice, so I must have had an ulterior motive. So, she decided there was something wrong with me and left me in Camp III even though I was one of the strongest climbers. Go figure. Hey, I lived to climb another day.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Lotus Blossom’s Bridal Path
Date/Time - Oct 6, 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM Format: RPG GM: Shaun Hayworth System: Tenra Bansho Zero Maturity Rating: PG-13 Number of Players: 6 Game Length: 6 Characters: Provided Description: Toki wa Sengoku – an age of warring states. The world is stained by
hundreds of years of continuous war, with no end in sight. This is but
one tale of many in the land called Tenra. . . a tale of war, loss, and
struggle. . . a tale of pain and bravery. . . the tale of Lotus
Blossom’s bloody bridal path.
The Ayanokoji and Takatsukasa clans have been at war for many
decades. It is a war that has cost the lives of many men, destroyed many
rice fields, caused much pain and suffering. It is a war that has cost
Lord Ayanokoji the life of his son. It is a war that must end.
Lord Ayanokoji is so convinced of this fact that he has made a
decision to sacrifice one of his most precious treasures: the kugutsu
named Lotus Blossom. He is sending this priceless treasure to the lands
of his longtime enemy to marry the young lord of the Takatsukasa: the
dashing Lord Shinji. It is the hope of Lord Ayanokoji that this gift
will serve as such a gesture of goodwill that the heart of his enemy will be softened, and that this bloody war may be brought to a final conclusion.
But there are those who wish to see the war continue. Bandits who
prey upon the dead and dying. Neighboring kingdoms rightfully fear a
possible alliance between these two powerful nations. Samurai and
warriors who have given themselves to hate and cannot let go of their
swords. Even the inscrutable Shinto Priesthood have their own reasons to
oppose the coming peace.
Lotus Blossom’s bridal path will be paved in blood.
At first I was worried that the world was a mish-mash of every conceivable anime concept possible. Most systems like that fail. I didn't know that this system was very popular in Japan and is over 10 years old, so it has been extensively tested and updated. When I mentioned my concerns about the world to Shaun, he said he had the same concerns, but it actually works, and he's right, it does.
I highly recommend the game and system. It is designed for one-shots and to finish in one sitting. The escalation of skills and abilities is all focused towards a climatic ending.
The game starts off with individual introductions, called Zero Act, a technique that Duane O'B. uses in his games. We get Aiki chips for creating cool moments. Points can be awarded by either the GM or other players.
We then convert Aiki chips to Kiai points based on our Fates and die rolls. Spent Kiai points add to your Karma which let you increase your Fates. It sounds complicated, but it works as each step powers up your character. Since the only way to gain Aiki is good role playing, good role players get awarded power ups faster than power gamers.
The game is played in scenes with intermissions where characters power up. At our final boss battle, one PC was rolling 48d6 on a single attack.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
I'm going to complain about a player. I won't reveal his name,
but he was in Dave's "He Who Laughs Last" game also. In that game, one
character was an EMT with medical skills and evidence collection. This
player was sitting next to me. I asked him several times to go to the
morgue and to look through the autopsy files of our dead mutual friend.
He refused several times and finally told me that he didn't want to
risk losing his job. WTF? Well, this guy never really did anything
throughout the game. Luckily, we really didn't need him.
So,
guess who shows up for this game? Yep, the same guy. Shaun lays out
the PCs and says that luckily we are short one player because his 6th
character didn't really print out and it was really a backup character
-- a loner sniper. So, we discuss which characters we're interested in.
I mention that I would be interested in the General who is escorting
Lotus Blossom or the Samurai with devices that burst out of his body. Meanwhile, this guy has
picked up the General's character sheet and has clutched it to his chest
and says, "I have him." I retort with, "Choosing him doesn't mean you
can keep him." Picture a man with greying hair clutching a sheet of
paper to his chest like a favorite teddy bear that his parents wants
to take away from him. Yeah, it was like that. So, I ignored him and
finally decided to pick Lotus Blossom. The other two female players
didn't want to play her. What I was afraid of was the two main drivers
for this game were Lotus Blossom and the General. I didn't want that
guy to ruin the game by doing nothing. Sitting next to me was Joseph H.
and he tells me that that guy was in three of his games and nods
knowingly. Luckily, after looking over the General's character sheet,
the guy gives him up and Joseph winds up with the General. The guy
picks the loner sniper. I think he gave up the General because he found
out the General had become a man of peace.
My character was a gorgeous living doll with the ability to direct people's dreams whether they were awake or asleep. She was also a Zen archer. My handmaiden was a super Ninja. The General was a bad-ass who wouldn't kill. His two underlings was a Samurai who Hulks out and the Ronin Sniper who destroys Mechs. Our mission was to take Lotus Blossom to the enemy's territory for a wedding so that peace would reign between our territories.
The first set of scenes were our introductions:
The General is on a battle field and is told that one of his men lost control and kill several prisoners. He winds up executing the Samurai himself. Then the Daimyo shows up to congratulate the General on defeating the enemy's army and while speaking to the General, the Ninja shows up and tells the Daimyo that his son is dead.
Next scene, a flashback, the Ninja is guarding the Daimyo's son. A Mech does a surprise attack, the Ninja's family attacks and disables the Mech, but in this world the Mech is controlled by innocent children. Once they lose their innocence, they cannot pilot the mech. When they finally disable the mech, the hatch pops open and the child inside brings up a fire arm and fatally shoots the Daimyo's son.
Next scene, flash forward, Lotus Blossom who is betrothed to the Daimyo's son, is embroidering a robe for him. She hears approaching footsteps and puts the work aside and waits. The Ninja shows up and tells her of the news. Lotus Blossom orders that the castle should be prepared for mourning and should be ready when the body is brought back to the castle. After the Ninja leaves, she starts undoing the embroidery.
After these scenes we power up.
The second set of scenes were character interactions as we are told of the betrothal and prepare for our trip. That was when I found out that my betrothed loved strategy and I bought a beautiful Go set for him as a gift. I also wanted the General to teach me Go, so I would have something in common with my husband to be. The General refused, on the grounds that it was too warlike for a lady. After several letters, going back and forth, I failed to convince him. I had separate Go board that I would use to learn how to play with as I would not play with the Go set that would be a gift -- as that would be inappropriate. The last shot of the 2nd scenes would be a weathered homemade Go board sitting by itself in Lotus Blossom's quarters -- a shaft of moonlight illuminating it in the darkness.
After these scenes we power up.
We board a luxurious dirigible and live in state rooms as we fly to our enemy's domain. To while away the time, the General trains with the Samurai. Lotus Blossom writes poetry and sends a Haiku back to her Daimyo as a parting gift. Enroute, air pirates attack our dirigible. We beat them off, but the pirate boss, Flying Razor, cuts our dirigible in half and we crash land.
After these scenes we power up.
We travel by land and we find that our destination is undersiege by the Flying Razor.
We sneak through enemy lines and gain audience with the Daimyo. I use my dream ability to convince the Daimyo to let the General lead his troops. And we also seal the marriage deal.
After these scenes we power up.
We go out and do the boss battle with Flying Razor and defeat him. One interesting mechanic is that damage is based on the difference between successes. One point of damage per difference. One option is to "take it." In that instance, you do full damage to your opponent, but he will do the same thing to you. Flying Razor rolled 50d6 vs the General's 48d6. By then, the General had removed his pacifism Fate, so he was allowed to kill.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
The Only Good Bug is a Dead Bug!
Date/Time - Oct 6, 3:00 PM - 9:00 PM Format: RPG GM: Morgan Hua System: Nemesis/ORE Number of Players: 6 Game Length: 6 Characters: Provided Description: Mars settlement went dark and your squad of Space Marines have been sent in to find out if Bugs have infested Mars. Your mission: find survivors, kill bugs, and get out alive. Solider, what else do you need to know? — Would you like to know more? See below. — The game is set in the Starship Troopers movie universe. The system is ORE which is a very deadly game system that uses up to
10d10. As a Space Marine, you’ll have state of the art weapons and
armor, but if you bite it, you might have to play a Civilian. This is not a pure combat game. It will be part investigation and
part combat as your squad tries to figure out what’s really going on. If
you don’t, you might all just die.
I play tested this game and ran it at KublaCon and Celesticon, so this was the last time I was going to run this game. I wound up on the last timeslot of BigBadCon. Due to gaming fatigue, I wound up with only 3 players even though 6 people had signed up. Since I had a full squad as PCs, running the game with only half a squad would be a challenge as they would not have all their full complement of equipment or skills.
I think this game turned out ok, but not as good as the previous times I ran it. Sorry, Chris O. I don't think the game was as good as it could have been. This run felt a bit rail-roady to me, but since it's a Paul Verhoeven movie, you can't end the game by just leaving the planet in the 2nd Act without facing the big baddie in the 3rd Act. The producers spent a lot of money on sets and special effects and the audience who paid for a ticket need to get their monies worth.
Detailed construction of the game in the spoiler section below.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Mars
I wanted to build a game that was the movie Aliens, but I wanted surpises, so I decided I was going to do a Starship Troopers/Aliens hybrid. Then I can use not only the Starship Troopers Bugs, but also throw in Alien Xenomorphs, and Bug Alien hybrids. As a bit of fun, I wanted to use the Aliens terraforming colony, but put it on Mars.
I was able to get pictures of Mars terrain from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover program.
To get them into the mood and see the world setting, I show them a video clip of Starship Troopers proproganda.
Mars Terrain
Mars Terrain
Aliens Terraforming Colony
The first bit was how do I get the players onto Mars. Well, I loved Felix Baumgartner's Orbital Jump. So, I got video of him entering from orbit and made a short video with Starship Trooper's background music. I wanted to players to solve the problems themselves without the ability to call for help, so I basically told them that Mars colony went dark, but the military is too busy taking the Dreadnaughts to Klendathu to fight the bugs. So, on the way from Earth, they're going to just drop them in their battlesuits via orbital insertion. This is when I show them the video. To prevent them from just radioing for help, I had the bugs generate a jamming field that prevents radio broadcasts from the planet. As a hint, I let them notice that there's two periods of ionization blackout. There should have been only one -- the second one is bug generated. One of the Terraforming chimneys is inoperative and inside are special bugs that are jamming the signals. The Terraforming plant is several miles from the Colony.
Terraforming Chimneys
I looked up what a squad and fireteam is in the Marines and Army and decided on a hybrid since fireteams consisted of four members. I needed a fireteam of 6 for the game. I wound up with: Team Leader, Grenadier and Radio Man with Tactical Nukes, Automatic Rifleman with SAW, Medic and Psychic, Sniper with 50 cal., and Scout with Chameleon Suit. I didn't reveal their special equipment or abilities until they picked their characters. In this case the specials were Nukes, Psychic, and Chameleon Suit.
The colony has about 50 personnel, enough to give me survivors and victims to turn into Aliens.
Since we're using ORE, I had to make hit location charts for the beasties.
Alien-Human Hybrid
Warrior Bug
I also had to find pictures of people in space suits to be used as NPCs.
The game is pretty straight forward. The players land, but get separated, they fight bugs, and find the colony has been attacked. They find survivors and several holed up in the command center. On the landing pad is a damaged shuttle. Electronics are severed and the gas tank is punctured, but it can be repaired over 5-8 hours.
Encounters with Bugs, Alien-Bugs, Alien-Humans, Alien-Queen, Alien-Hive, Alien-Eggs, all cause sanity checks. Earlier on, I had players fill out a background questionnaire, I will use that to determine their insanity if they go insane based on their I love/hate answers. As an added twist, in addition to picking fight/flight/freeze when they "lose it," I then shuffle their responses and deal them back randomly. This only applies when more than one person "loses it" at the same time.
In their exploration of the colony, they should run into a Bug/Alien hybrid with acid blood. When killed in close proximity, their blood will reduce the player's armor by a point.
When they find the medical bay, they'll find cylinders with dead Alien Facehuggers. The Terran Federation has been experimenting with Aliens. Trying to infect Bugs with Facehuggers in an effort to wipe the Bugs out. Unfortunately some Bugs escaped and were never found. The scientists thought that the Bugs would just die out in the inhospitable terrain of Mars. One of the escaped infected Warrior Bugs actually converted into a Fertile Queen Bug.
They'll also find, if questioned that some colonists have been kidnapped by the Bugs which is unusual.
After finding there are survivors and maybe there might be survivors at the Terraforming plant, the players have two choices: either get to the plant overland or an underground tunnel.
If they go overland, they get ambushed by several Warrior Bugs and a Tanker Bug that throws flame.
If they go in the tunnel, they get ambushed by human-alien hybrids from the Aliens movie.
Once in the Terraforming plant, they can repair the control center and look at the factory's cameras. The camera in the inoperative chimney is out, but near the reactor core they see a survivor mouthing the words, "Help me."
If they investigate the chimney, they'll find a new kind of bug that causes radio interference. Electrical sparks dance on their wings. The shape of the chimney funnels their effects into the atmosphere. Once the bugs are eliminated, they would be able to contact Earth and get a transport ship to pick them up from Mars.
Interference Bugs
In the reactor core, they'll find resin coating the walls and further in they'll find survivors glued to the wall with strange egg-like objects in front of them.
Alien-Bug Egg
Some survivors will be infected. In the reactor room are Acid-Warrior Bugs and Aliens. They are protecting the Alien-Queen Bug.
Alien-Queen Bug
When they kill the Queen Bug, its pregnant sack will dissolve, flood the room with molecular acid and bug larvae.
Out of all the games I've run, only once was the Queen just shot and then the squad left by laying down suppressing fire. In the other three games, the players nuked the room. Twice the nuke-tastrophe was by an insane character (once by Scarecrow who stole the nuke, and once by Mecha) and once it was done deliberately by Ocean once he got his hands on a nuke. In the nuke-tastrophe, I give the PCs one chance to run for it before the nuke goes off. After all, it is a Paul Verhoeven movie.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
This year, I was only able to pre-register for one game, the early signups was at midnight and I went to bed before then. When I woke up at 3:45am, only one game that I wanted to play in had an open slot. So, I had to register for all the other games and brave the shuffler. Funny thing was that I actually got into all the games I wanted to play in. I used a GM's priority slip for Jeff Yin's game, but didn't get in, so I showed up 1/2 hour early and got lucky -- I was 2nd in line and two people didn't show up. The facilities at Celesticon were great. Every RPG had their own room. The open gaming and tournaments were in clean, well lighted places with excellent air flow. Each of the RPG rooms had several pitchers of iced water and stacks of cups and they were continuously refilled. At other cons where they put a urn of water in the hallway, the cups and water always ran out and the spillage and drippage always left a mess. The bathrooms at Celesticon were continuously cleaned and supplied with paper towels. I had a really good experience this year at Celesticon. In this article, I'm going to focus on GM style and pacing.
Minimum spoilers below about the games I was in.
I hide spoilers with JavaScript. If you have JavaScript turned off, you can skip the spoiler sections I have marked.
The Only Good Bug is a Dead Bug!
Saturday 9 AM in Alexander Valley for 6 hours GM: Morgan Hua Type: RPG System: Nemesis/ORE Players: 6 Provided: All characters provided by GM Power Level: Pre-Gen Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome Game Content: Mainstream
Mars settlement went dark and your squad of Space Marines have been sent in to find out if Bugs have infested Mars.
For some reason, when I submitted this game online, I thought the word limit was something like 150 words, so I cut the description way back. Then when the games were posted, I noticed I had the shortest game description for any game. Oops.
Actually, without the Starship Trooper / Aliens mashup reveal, I think it made the game more interesting and surprising. I try to wear a t-shirt related to the game I run. The observant players seem to pick up on this. In my Scooby-Doo game, I actually changed t-shirts between acts. Each t-shirt showed the character progression for the next act. For this game, I wore a "Weyland Industries" t-shirt. Several players commented on that in this game and the game I ran at KublaCon. So, yes, if you pay attention, you might get some meta-game info.
For convention games, I like the standard story arc pacing of rising
tension, several minor conflict/resolutions, and a big climax at the
end.
I think the pacing of this game wasn't as good as the one I ran at
KublaCon. I think the KublaCon game was creepier and more Aliens than Starship
Troopers and this game was more action oriented Starship Troopers than Aliens, but since
this game was supposed to be a mashup of both, I guess it didn't
matter.
I'm a visual oriented person and I have very good memories of movies and scenes from movies. So, for me, these games play out like a movie. Sometimes I wonder if my players see what I see in my mind's eye. From my writing experience, one thing I learned was that a scene slows down when you use more words and a scene speeds up when less words are used. The same in a RPG game. When the GM starts describing things, the scene slows down and when less words are used the scene speeds up. For building tension and anticipation, you need more words. During action scenes, the less words the better, unless you're in that slow-motion action shot where every detail jumps out at you as unspeakable violence happens to someone -- then speeds up again.
Since I wanted a fast paced game, I supplied a number of visual aids, so I didn't need to describe every scene in detail.
I'm running this game one more time at BigBadCon. After that, I'll detail the construction of this game at that time.
Imp-possible odds
Saturday 7 PM in Alexander Valley for 6 hours GM: Travis Smalley Type: RPG System: Storyboard Players: 6 Provided: All characters provided by GM Power Level: Small, small elementals Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome Game Content: Teen
Oliver
the elementalist never really wanted to be a hero. He wanted to help
villages whose wells dried up and whose farms were going barren and
maybe scare off the occasional group of bandits with a flashy display,
but he was a apprentice of modest goals and modest abilities. Two years
ago, when a broken cart axle made him late to his own apprenticeship
graduation, he managed to become the lone healthy mage after a serious
assault and a royal kidnapping. With some sneaking, some ingenuity, and a
whole lot of luck, Oliver managed to save the princess, earn himself
the title of 'Court elementalist', and great renown! But he didn't do it
alone - he was assisted by his six small elemental imps, who have
become not only his companions and assistants, but best friends. He's
been tutored by the best mages the kingdom has to offer, and is blooming
into a competent young magus. However, when he's invited to represent
his entire plane in an interdimensional competition, he isn't allowed to
say no, although it's incredibly obvious he's far out of his league.
Without his imps to help him, can he pull victory from the jaws of
defeat?! Well, no, actually. Flatly no. He's going to need some help to
place, let alone win. And if he doesn't place, the Magical
Authorization, Generation and Exploitation council will strip his home's
right to access magical energy from conventional sources! As tiny
magical creatures, this is very worrying for his little friends, and so
there's only one thing for an imp to do - Cheat. Cheat like the dickens.
This was a very fun game. We were underpowered imps with a few days to rig several contests so our master would win. Lots of good and smart players. Travis does many things well. In horror games, he does amazing clue trails and description of creepy things. In this game, his rendering of NPCs were pitch perfect. He does the voices and mannerisms so well that we can understand all the nuances and subtexts. He also has a great understanding of a satisfying story arc. In this game, we spent a lot of time understanding the contests and working our imp shenanigans. By the time we rigged the first three contests, I was worried because it looked like we were going to run out of game time, but Travis deftly gave us a way to quickly rig the last few contests which didn't feel too rushed. So, we not only finished the competition, but we also resolved some issues in the home plane having to deal with the Princess, the M.A.G.E council, and Oliver's familiar. So, that was pretty amazing. I think we ran over by a half hour to an hour, but it was worth it.
The trick Travis pulled was that the last few contests were narrated by the GM, so less time was spent on player interaction. This way we sped through lots of story in the remaining time that we had. What made it engaging was that the narration relied on what we had previously done, so it wasn't like we were watching a pre-recorded ending, but the unfolding of something that we, as players, had set into motion. And the endings that we got fully rounded out the adventure we had started on, so it was very satisfying.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
There were 5 contests. Ten years ago, the previous mage contestant from our plane won 3 contests. The ranking determined how much magic your plane would receive. Our plane's oracle stated that he saw Oliver lose all 5 contests. So, we were told to help him win without him knowing. This became important as we found out that the Judges could read minds in order to see if a contestant cheated. We also figured that any untoward magic would be detected, so any direct intervention would be easily discovered.
The tests ranged from magical labyrinths, king of the hill, keeping a tower up vs taking the tower down, and creating beautiful art.
We had a hand in 3 of the contests and modified the rules for two of them, so Oliver won 4 contests.
Modifying the rules was the short-cut that Travis took. So, we found our way into the rules office and was able to slightly modify the last two contest rules. With the rules changed, Oliver was able to get an advantage. Since the last two contests were Oliver only, Travis could just narrate the outcomes without player interaction.
The subplots were:
1. The princess couldn't marry Oliver though she had a crush on him because he wasn't nobility. We suggested to Oliver's familiar, a talking armadillo, that he should ask for nobility if granted a boon and that happened when he returned to his own plane as a hero. Oliver was also horribly nerdy and totally mis-managed the romance, but we imps helped him out by rewriting some of his love letters.
2. The M.A.G.E council thought Oliver was above his station and would ruin them all. By doing so well in the competition, his standing and stature was raised in their eyes.
3. Oliver's familiar disliked us, but once he found out that we had helped Oliver, he thought better of us.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
After the End of Days
Sunday 4 PM in Alexander Valley for 6 hours GM: David Weinstein Type: RPG System: All Flesh Must Be Eaten Edition: 1 Players: 6 Provided: All characters provided by GM Power Level: Provided Normals Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome Game Content: Mature Themes
So
much for the world as we know it. Nobody knows where the Weeping
Sickness started, but it's effects have been roundly final thus far:
highly infectious secretions, fever, and an eventual comatose state.
Victims didn't stay comatose, though. Called, 'Weepers', they woke up
with a sole mission: spread the disease by any means possible.
You are some of the last uninfected, making a desperate run for the
coast, where rumors of a holdout have given hope for a future -- any
future.
I had played in David's game two Celesticon's ago and really enjoyed his game. Last year, Jill S. told me what a great time she had playing in David's game last year, so I wanted to get the David experience again.
This game was very creepy and scary. Players would partially open a door, then after a quick glance, close it and lie to the other players that there was nothing to be found.
David said his philosophy was that he put up the sign posts, but left the driving to the players. With half an hour of game time left, we seemed to have escaped, but from looking at the story arc, I knew we were only at the end of Chapter 1 and I said this out loud. Then David confirmed this and said we were only done with Act 1 of 3. Shannon and another player had to leave the game since they'd already promised to play in a scheduled Battlestar Galactica game with four other people. So, we got through the splitting off of those two characters in the remaining half hour. The rest of us wanted to continue with the game. So, David dropped Act 2 and we actually sped through Act 3. We finished 1-1/2 hours later and I was very glad that I did. The story arc was glorious and amazing.
I find the philosophy between David Weinstein and Todd Furler on the opposite ends of the spectrum and both work. David lets the game run at the pace the players want and Todd Furler runs his games at the pace that he wants. Act 1 of David's game felt very natural and fleshed out. The players were very careful which dictated a slow pace and he didn't rush us. His attention to descriptive detail matched our slow pace. Again, the more words the slower the game. But the details brought reality into the game and scared the heck out of us.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The game started with various characters arriving at a mostly looted truck stop/gas station/restaurant. We proceeded to explore and loot the place. The 1st Act was just all six characters meeting each other, looting, and getting out of there. Simple, huh? So, how and why did we spend 6 hours doing this?
As I mentioned before, the more description, the slower the pace and the longer the game.
First, I liked the character selection process. David dropped sealed envelopes on the table. Each envelope only had the character. Inside each envelope was either a short description of the character or quotes the character would say. My character was "Bucket, The Last One" and his slip was handwritten with crazy quotes written all over it. Later, I found that the others had nicely typed up slips probably with more descriptive text. The other characters were: "Sandy, the Wrench Monkey," "Big Jim," "Michelle, The Guardsman," "The Mean Old Man," and "The IT Guy." Once we read our slips, David handed out the character sheets.
As the characters met up at the gas station, we had to describe ourselves to each other. David also interjected and expanded the character concepts even further and helped pushed the envelope -- for example: describing how BIG "Big Jim" was.
Then as we explored each section of the building, David kept the tension up as people split up to look around. "Big Jim" refused to go into the dark shower area alone. We mostly explored in pairs.
Two of the creepiest rooms / scenes was the Women's Bathroom and The Storage Room with a Raccoon.
The Storage Room with a Raccoon was shear genius. We could only open the door part-way because a big barrel blocked the door from the other side, but only Big Jim could move it. Inside, we could see bags of rice and something that had damaged them. The room also smelled awfully bad. We can also hear some movement inside. Someone smaller could try to crawl inside or you can risk reaching inside to grab a bag or you an get Big Jim to open the door, but his bulk blocks the whole doorway. Us being chickens, got Big Jim to push the door wide enough so a smaller person could enter easily.
The Men's Bathroom smelled awfully bad and had a stall with seven dead bodies in it. Someone had dragged the bodies into the stall and the blood flowed from the stall to the drain in the middle of the room. When Big Jim saw the bodies, he failed a fortitude check and dry heaved for a long time. So, when the two women went to the Women's restroom which smelled awfully bad, they only checked the first two stalls and only used the first stall while the other stood guard. They refused to check the other stalls. We spent the night with no incidents. Later, in the morning, when Michelle had to go to the bathroom, she left her rifle behind and went alone. Then the thing in the bathroom woke up. It was a perfect setup, perfect timing, perfect pacing. We put the thing down, but the Weeper had puked on Michelle's clothing and hair. The puke was infectious and she had to quickly shower and shave her head, but the puke left welts on her scalp. And now she's not sure if she's infected. While showering, with the other woman on guard, she suddenly realized that maybe the thing wasn't dead and asked the other players to make sure. Everyone refused. So, we just put furniture to barricade the door to the Women's Room.
The Walk-In Fridge was also full of rotten and smelly food. Next to it was an office door. One character cracked the door open and smelled something awful and a splatter of blood on the far wall. He just closed the door and declared that the section was clear.
I've never seen players refuse to enter rooms like this before. The tension and creepiness of this game was incredible. David was a true master.
We, of course, fled the location in the morning when zombies started to surround us and gather outside.
For the 3rd Act, we went west and heard a pre-recorded radio broadcast about Salvation with coordinates. As we approached, the broadcast got interrupted and we found there as another competing settlement that claimed that Salvation was a trap.
At this point, the Mean Old Man and The IT Guy had to leave, so we left them at an abandoned farm (their choice) and continued towards Salvation.
When we get nearer to Salvation, we actually get to talk to Salvation over Michelle's HumVee's National Guardman's Radio and found out that they were religious nuts. We decide to go to the other settlement which was a by-the-book-military-type camp.
Let me explain the nature of the infection. Those infected actually became a disassociated hive-mind. If you recovered and didn't suffer any brain damage, you can telepathically command others that are infected. The infected ones call to each other, but in large numbers the communication becomes a giant bee hive of confusion as too many minds broadcast too many messages. With a strong mind, especially of someone who had recovered, they can control the hive-mind. Left alone, colonies of Weepers would either die out or finally gain purpose and emerge as separate hive-minds.
The various human settlements were each vying for dominance and so would the emerging colonies of hive-mind Weepers.
Bucket had recovered from the disease, but was brain damaged. He was safe from the Weepers; they ignored him. When he wore a Nixon mask, he can communicate with people normally, but with it off, he was mono-syllabic. Through various events, Bucket wound up curing Michelle. Michelle in turn convinced both Sandy and Jim to take the cure. Jim, the genius of our group decided he was going to rule the world with an army of Weepers once he was cured, and he would have except he botched two times during the cure process and wound up more brain damaged than Bucket. It was tragic and epic at the same time.
The biology of the Weepers, the whole story arc of curing humanity, destroying humanity, or enslaving humanity, the creepiness, and irony of everything made this a great game.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
The River Belle
Monday 10 AM in Alexander Valley for 6 hours GM: Jeff Yin Type: RPG System: Deadlands Noir Players: 6 Provided: All characters provided by GM Power Level: Standard Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome Game Content: Mainstream
It's
1924, and six strangers awake to find themselves on the River Belle.
How they got aboard the delta's most luxurious vessel, or what they were
doing before, is all a blur...
Gil T. and Jason F. told me about playing in an earlier Jeff Yin game similar to this. Jeff Yin gets his sister (with very legible hand writing) to write in invisible ink character skills and advantages and disads. The skills are revealed with a UV light pen as we try to succeed in various tasks. Jeff would tell us to reveal a skill at a specific line (such as line 8) when something happens. It's an interesting gimmick. Gil's game at Dead of Winter last year required different versions of character sheets with more and more skills revealed as we progressed through the game and recovered our memories. Skills were also revealed as we tried to do various tasks. After watching the play of both games, I think the disruption to the pacing of the game wasn't worth the attractiveness of the gimmick. It actually wears a bit thin as the GM fumbles around for your skill or in the case of this game sometimes telling players to reveal the wrong skill.
I still really enjoyed this game. Jeff did excellent NPCs (The Turk and The Sketcher were outstanding) and the ecosystem of the River Belle was really interesting. Near the end of the sixth hour (we had a hard stop at 4pm because the closing ceremonies were at that time, so we couldn't go over), Jeff skipped one combat scene and we got to act in the finale which was great since I've seen too many games where the whole ending got narrated. So, Jeff was smart enough to skip enough stuff, so we could interact at the very end of the game and determine our own fate.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
At about the halfway point, I was convinced we were in Purgatory. Some of us thought we were in Hell. The MacGuffin was a Golden Ticket out of Purgatory. At the end, only those who weren't selfish left the River Bell (or Styx).
The River Bell had the Exchange where Favors and Souls could be bought and sold. Below decks was the nefarious Game. People lost their memories or sold them for coins and everything of importance cost coin.
I loved Jeff's Turk who was the Fat Man from Casablanca. The Sketcher was this nerdy weaselly artist. We had an epic fight in his store. At one point, Max had a lighter threatening to burn The Sketcher's drawings. The Sketcher had a gun on Max. The Other Max (my character) had a gun on The Sketcher. Shannon's character was getting ready to beat up The Sketcher with his fists. The Sketcher agreed to tell us how to get into the Vault, but only to Max. I asked Max if he could trust The Sketcher and he said, "Yes." So my Max and Shannon's character backed out of The Sketcher's store. Once the door closed, The Sketcher shot Max. That double-cross was precious. Then an epic gun battle ensued with a shotgun, a possible hand grenade, and cops.
I haven't been to a Good Omens Con for a while. I found that the short time slots just gives you a good intro to a system and a very short and simple scenario. But this year, there were a number of good GMs running games and so I signed up. I don't have the game descriptions since the game events have been removed from End Game's website already -- it's only been one day since the event on July 20th. Both Rich and Gil won't be running the games again, so there are spoilers below in detail.
Ocean Blue
GM: Rich Taylor
System: World of Darkness
Duration: 4 hours
Players: 5
Paraphrased Description: You're the crew of a modern nuclear submarine and have been assigned to retrieve a cold war era's satelite's payload -- undeveloped film.
Interesting game and enough paranoia to keep us on our toes. We had a good group of players and I think we did everything right.
I got to play the scientist in charge of developing the film payload.
After finding the payload and developing the film, we found a picture of a giant space goat-eyeball looking down on the midlands of America. The Captain of the Submarine fainted on seeing the picture and fell sick for a short time. The sub then got attacked by a strange underwater creature which got scared off by a torpedo. Then two crew members went missing. We found one dead and eaten, but his uniform was neatly folded. We found the other hiding in an empty torpedo tube with a savage bite from a Piranha-Shark-Man.
We eventually suspected the top officers in the crew and weren't sure whether it was the Captain, the XO, and/or the Master of Arms who turned into this creature. We also weren't sure if it was a conspiracy. But once we got enough evidence on the Captain, we tried to get the XO to relieve the Captain of his duties. We didn't want to be labeled as mutineers. In the lab, while showing the XO the evidence, he turned into an Ogre-ish creature and we beat him up. We stabilized his wounds and restrained him. We then took his side-arm and broke into the weapons locker, took weapons, and jammed the weapons locker closed. Once armed, we revived and questioned him and he told us about his duty to protect the Captain as he now knows his true nature and they were awaiting the arrival of the Hydra for more instructions. After the interrogation, Shannon's character shot the XO twice in the head. Through the combat and interrogation, my character had video taped everything that had transpried as evidence -- I didn't want us to be tried as mutineers. We called the Captain to the lab telling hiim it was urgent and the XO needed him. We then ambushed the Captain, he turned into the Piranha-Shark-Man, and we shot him multiple times. Once dead, he reverted back to human form, just like the XO. The good news was that I had recorded everything, so when crew members rushed in to figure out what was going on, I could play it back. We were still thrown into the brig, but once back in port, we were recruited into a secret military hunter society.
What I really liked was that for a 4 hour game, we were able to have pretty good investigation and we had doubts as to whether the Captain was really the creature or whether he was being framed. The military structure also prevented us from taking the law in to our own hands without good proof -- if we were wrong, we'd be in deep trouble. The players did a great job, everyone acted smartly. I also did my best in trying to show everyone the giant eyeball in space and everyone was a good sport and took a look even though they knew they were going to have to make a stability check -- good role players. :-)
The Guns of Cap Gris Nez
GM: Gil Trevizo
System: Godlike
Duration: 4 hours
Players: 4
Paraphrased Desccription: You're part of D-Day. Your mission is to silence the guns of Cap Gris Nez.
Gil at the beginning warned us that because there's only 4 hours, there won't be much complexity and it'll be pretty simple and straight forward. This game was the prequel to a game that Paul, Shannon, and I played at KublaCon. So, we were stoked to enter Gil's world of Godlike again.
Basically, we were the characters from Saving Private Ryan, except we were all slightly damaged and twisted with Talents.
When we played at KublaCon, Gil gave us a choice of getting equipment, training, or R&R where we can gain some Will Points and if you include another player, they would gain some too. Due to time constraints, Gil only let us do some R&R.
My character was Private Caparzo (played by Vin Diesel). The write up was more Riddick than Caparzo -- Hyper-body with homocidal sociopathic tendencies. I was released from a mental institution, where I was being evaluated for a Lobotomy, so I could join D-Day. So, for my R&R, I decided to return to the mental institute and kill my evaluating doctor. Gil asked me whether I wanted to take someone along, so I had to choose between Paul's sniper who God told to kill bad people (I was worried that bringing him would be a bad idea since I didn't know if I would be considered a bad person), the Rube-Goldberg guy with a Psychic Healing machine (didn't think this was good idea either as he might think I have something against doctors), so I brought Shannon's Private Reiban character with me (he had a invisible psychic dog that kills people) and he decided he'd sic his bad dog on the whole hospital staff. After killing the doctor, I found my paperwork and the whole squad's paperwork. We were all slated for Lobotomies because we were all psycho killers of one sort or another. I destroyed the paperwork by starting a large fire. Shannon had already killed the rest of the hospital staff -- way to go Shannon.
So, we were really The Dirty Dozen played by the characters from Saving Private Ryan.
D-Day was just a meat grinder as every landing boat got sunk except for ours and another. We spotted a few German talents. One exuded an oil slick and another was the human torch. We just barely stopped our landing craft in time, but the other boat became a quick flambe.
We fought for every yard of beach and after many deaths (I was on my 3rd character at the end -- Private Mellish a Jewish SpiderMan who shot spider web from his butt. I tried to web some German Talents but only succeeded in mooning them), we finally got to the cliff side at the end of the 4th hour of gaming. We never got to the guns.
My favorite bit was the R&R and finding out how messed up the whole squad was. The beach landing was such a meat grinder it showed us the horror and hopelessness of combat.
I had run my own version of D-Day before with Godlike and I put them in an almost to scale beach assault. The beach actually ran from one end of the table to the other before you get to the cliffs. In D-Day, it was 200 yards of beach during high tide and I only let the players move 10 yards (2 squares) a round. Gil was nice to us and it was only 60 yards to the nearest Germans and he let us move much further, depending on our Run result.
Below was my D-Day setup.
Morgan's D-Day Setup (not Gil's) And, yes, I use green plastic army men for figures in Godlike.
D-Day diagram (from Morgan's D-Day game, not Gil's)
Again another very good year for me at KublaCon. The shuffler gods were very good to me and all the games I was in were excellent.
This time I'm going to talk about Great GMs and one of their particular strengths and what that brings to the table.
I hide spoiler sections with JavaScript. If you have JavaScript turned off, you can skip the spoiler sections I have marked.
D-Day, the Fifth of June
Game system
Godlike
Start time:
FRI, 6:00 PM
Category
RPG
Duration
8 Hours
Event ID
02007
Location
2071-A
# of Players:
6
GM / Judge
Gil Trevizo
Description
June 5, 1944: This day the soldiers of the First United States Army
Group set upon a mighty endeavor, to storm the beaches of Calais,
liberate occupied France from the yoke of Nazi tyranny, and begin the
Allied invasion of Western Europe. As the main amphibious force crosses
the narrow straits between Dover and Calais, you, the men and women of
the Third Talent Assault Group are to join the American 9th and 21st
Airborne Divisions to parachute deep behind enemy lines, take key
positions, and hold them against the onslaught of German infantry,
panzer, and SS-Überkommandogruppe that is certain to follow. History
will forever remember this place and this moment: Calais, the Fifth of
June.
GODLIKE is a game of super-powered role-playing set during
the Second World War. After the first superhuman appeared in 1936, over
150,000 “Talents” have since manifested across the globe by 1944. With
their abilities, the Talents can overwhelm mundane enemy soldiers, but
those same abilities make them vulnerable to other Talents, and even the
most powerful Talent can be killed by a single lucky bullet. In
GODLIKE, you play characters that are larger than life, but the war is
always larger than you.
The amount of prep work and attention to detail for this game was amazing. The combat system in Godlike is very deadly, so Gil pre-generated over 20 characters (I think he said 40). I've run Godlike before and I had to generate various NPCs with powers; It was a lot of work and requires a spreadsheet to keep track of the build points. Well, in addition to that, Gil also photoshopped pictures for all the PCs and NPCs. In my games, I just grab appropriate pictures from the internet for the character portraits. Gil actually matched up period clothing to the correct portrait angles and color corrected the pictures. That lead to a seamless portrait with nothing out of place. I had run "Castle Bravo" and that didn't include character portraits, so I decided I wanted John Wayne, Peter Lorrie, Danny Kaye, Spencer Tracy, and Basil Rathbone in my game as PCs. Well, I didn't find any with them in Navel uniform, so I had to photoshop them myself -- that took hours and I did a passing job; I found I could hide imperfections by zooming in and cropping out my errors. Also no one noticed I mainly used the same navel hat several times. Knowing this, I know that Gil spent days just doing the portraits.
Gil gave us period maps, complete list of equipment, and command hierarchy. He had also done a lot of research on the D-Day invasion.
All this prep work immersed us in the time period. What this buys the GM is the authority to tell the players, "Yes this is possible, No that is not possible." The verisimilitude gives the GM the authority to dictate various things without argument from the players.
I really enjoyed the game. My two favorite set pieces were the Sniper and the Beach where we had to make very difficult moral decisions. "That's some really f*cked up shit." and that's a quote from my character.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
I think another hallmark of a good GM are the little deceptions and mental kickers they build into their game. In Gil's game, we were only given choices between black characters and female characters. This was not revealed in the game description. I got to play Samuel L. Jackson, a veteran of WWI with 38 previous kills.
The Jackson character was a Zed, probably one of the least useful abilities in Godlike. I wanted to play a Zed just to see how useful he would be. In Godlike, Zeds can nullify another Talent's effect. The only thing is that it is only useful after the Zed can see what the other Talent's ability is. So if a Zed runs into a stranger Talent, he's going to get fried if the Talent decides to target the Zed first, since the Zed can't nullify the first use of the Talent. The good news was that we ran into German fliers that were strafing civilians on the road. Guess what happens when you nullify Flight? Splat! and Splat! "That's 42 and 43, you Hun Motherf*ckers!"
In the Sniper scene, it was a Friendly that had gone crazy that was killing a French village, one person at a time. We killed the Sniper, but then the Germans were coming and we had to decide if we were to help defend the French village or leave to complete our mission. Volunteers stayed as a holding action as the rest of the team left to complete the mission.
On the Beach, we found that a little boy was holding off the German army with illusionary toy soldiers, but it was clear that we were doomed. So, do you go against orders and save the boy, or hold out as long as you can?
My favorite moment was when two characters grabbed the boy (after some Player vs Player conflict over the fate of the boy) and started swimming from Calais to Dover. My character, torn between joining them and staying behind, stood on the beach and watched them swim away. The good news was that the remaining group of characters were surrounded by Germans and needed saving, so I got back into the action because some Hun Motherf*ckers needed killin'.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Fallen Sons
Game system
Unknown Armies
Start time:
SAT, 9:00 AM
Category
RPG
Duration
4 Hours
Event ID
22008
Location
2013-A
# of Players:
6
GM / Judge
Todd Furler
Description
This event is for mature players. A much-loved citizen of a small
Kansas town has lost his life in the War on Terror. The players are
townspeople who must, among other things, determine how to respond when a
hate group announces that they will picket the soldier's funeral.
Please
note that players will be exposed to the rhetoric of a real-world hate
group for part of this adventure.
Again amazing prep work. Todd knows his characters backwards and forwards and sideways. He gave us pages of background information for our characters and a relationship map to show how we were connected to the other people in the town. He also gave us real newsletters from the hate group.
But I'd like to focus on Todd's control over the game. I've heard a lot of good things about Todd's GMing and I wanted to experience it firsthand. First, he gives a very strong explanation of how he runs a game like a movie production. This explanation really sets the tone and his authority as producer and director of the game, so when he decides to cut a scene and move on, there is no argument. This is a great method to control pacing and game time.
It took about an hour to go over the game rules and our characters. Though that left 3 hours of game time, we had a very satisfying and enjoyable game. The reason for that was the tight control of scenes by Todd.
In another first, Todd was able to do a flash forward and then a flashback. It takes a lot of finesse to do that as most players may have an issue with fait accompli. With the flash forward, the fate of a character was set and then it was up to that player in the flashback to seamlessly merge the timeline. I think with a more difficult player it might have been a complete disaster.
Todd also does some interesting things with the Fight, Flight, Freeze responses when your character loses control and he takes over.
I can see why Todd likes to run 4 hour games as that is enough to get a full story arc for his gaming style. Most of us GMs take either 6 or 8 hours to do the same thing. Bravo.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
In the flash forward, a NPC is dead and a PC is in the hospital. So, when we flashback, the PC can't save the NPC and must become severely injured. Somehow Todd pulled this off.
As things unfold, people in the town are being sliced and diced by a crazy person with a magic sword.
The major reveal is that this was all the work of fallen angels or as they would like to put it, "Exiled, NOT Fallen."
As luck would have it, I picked one of the town's pastors as my character. I volunteered my church as the final battle ground and during the final confrontation, I was able to banish Lucifer back to Hell. Cool, huh?
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Our Little Town
Game system
Nemesis (One Roll Engine)
Start time:
SAT, 5:00 PM
Category
RPG
Duration
7 Hours
Event ID
42111
Location
2070-A
# of Players:
6
GM / Judge
Matthulhu Steele
Description
You wake up in a quaint hotel in a quaint little town. You don't
remember checking into the hotel. You're trying to recall what happened
before you arrived here. Hey, why is the door locked? Is there anybody
out there? Hello?
Our Little Town is a game of psychological
horror among six strangers. These are normal, interesting and competent
people who find themselves in an unusual situation. Nemesis uses the One
Roll Engine from Wild Talents and Godlike, customized for horror.
Matt also did a lot of prep work.In this game, we were only given character portraits to pick characters from, then he handed us multi-page character sheets with extensive backgrounds.
In this game, the six strangers never really stayed together. Matt was a master of parallel action and scene switching. Throughout the game, there were at least 2 to 3 groups separated from each other doing parallel actions and it all flowed together very well.
Matt had a really good feel for the right amount of screen time for each player, when to switch between groups, and how to keep the tension up. In some games, I've seen other players get bored when it isn't their turn. This doesn't happen in Matt's games.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
In Our Little Town, the game started a little bit slow as each character explored their escape proof hotel room. The problem was that we were in separate rooms and there was little character interaction as we did each of our scenes. So, when one player explored the room, the other players had to wait their turn.
But as we started pounding on the walls and screaming, we were able to communicate with each other and eventually escape.
One fun moment was when one of the characters escaped with a lamp (held like a baseball bat) and ran into another that had a gun. Blam! I think it was Matt's excellent sense of timing and scene switching that caused this to happen. It was a great moment.
The deception Matt pulled on us was that this was a Cthulhu game and Cthulhu creatures did come out of the woodwork. But shhhhhh, it's a secret. You shouldn't be reading this spoiler section unless you've already played the game.
Another great moment was when a Cthulhu creature got pulled down out of the sky. Through parallel actions we all got to the gazebo and got to act against it even though a fair number of characters were initially spread out in different parts of the town. It was masterful.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
The Only Good Bug is a Dead Bug!
Game system
Nemesis/The One Roll Engine
Start time:
SUN, 10:00 AM
Category
RPG
Duration
6 Hours
Event ID
72004
Location
2062-A
# of Players:
6
GM / Judge
Morgan Hua
Description
Mars settlement went dark and your squad of Space Marines have been sent in to find out if Bugs have infested Mars.
Your mission: find survivors, kill bugs, and get out alive.
Solider, what else do you need to know?
---
Would you like to know more? See below.
---
The
system is ORE which is a very deadly game system that uses up to 10d10.
This is a mash-up of Starship Troopers and Aliens. As a Space Marine,
you'll have state of the art weapons and armor, but if you bite it, you
might have to play a Civilian.
This is not a pure combat game.
It will be part investigation and part combat as your squad tries to
figure out what's really going on. If you don't, you might all just
die.
The game went very well for me. I incorporated feed back from my play test and those suggestions pushed the game up a notch.
In my games, I like to incorporate some video at the beginning as a shortcut to set the mood and setting. A picture is worth a thousand words. I've been in some games where the GM must take a lot of time explaining the world and society. Two minutes of video can cut out half an hour of exposition. In my Ghost in the Shell game, half the players never saw the Anime -- and I wasn't prepped for explaining the world to them. I wished I had a short video segment where I could have shown them what the world was like. So, that was a big fail.
This time, I had a video clip from Starship Troopers and I also created a video of Felix Baumgartner's supersonic jump from space.
This also helps in the case a player admits that they've never seen Starship Troopers nor Aliens -- which happened to be the case, this time with Jill S.
Hell Rides For Delamar
Game system
Boneslingers
Start time:
SUN, 7:00 PM
Category
RPG
Duration
6 Hours
Event ID
Pickup Game
Location
Brdrm-2
# of Players:
6
GM / Judge
Duane O'Brien
Description
Getting by as an undead gunslinger is tough. You hope this job in
Delamar will give you a chance to lift your burden. It's time to kill
some bad men.
Delamar was one of the most notorious towns in the old west. It was known as The Widowmaker. You're going to find out why.
You'll
be playing undead gunslingers in a setting called Boneslingers. If
you've played The Putrescent Seven, this setting is an evolution of that
game.
Bad things will happen in this game.
The shuffler wasn't good to a large number of us on Sunday night, but Duane was nice enough to run a pickup game for us.
Again lots of prep work. Maps, painted undead gunslinger minis, extensive character backgrounds, period poker cards, and a great looking GM screen that's a wooden period desk-set.
So far, I haven't been disappointed by any of the games that Duane has run.
I'll only go over one aspect of how Duane runs a game: Character selection.
In the game The Island Of Misfortune, we were asked seemingly random questions and then characters were assigned to us.
In the game, Goblin Ninjas Flipping Out And Killing Like A Hundred Guys, we generated characters and then did our signaturevignette. And if during the course of play, we recreated it, we would gain bonus dice.
In this game, Duane made each player do a small vignette and asked pointed questions about the character we're playing. He'd take notes and then through some magic, decides which character fits us.
I think the refinement of doing a small vignetteand asking us who we are in the scene worked much better than just asking questions and it made character selection a part of the game.
This method for character selection works really well. So far, I haven't been disappointed.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The two big reveals in this game was that the group of bandits were women and Delamar is a terrible, terrible place to live and die in.
Both were key reveals and totally turned the game on it's head for us.
Nice.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
TS Emulator V2.2
Game system
Paranoia XP
Start time:
MON, 10:00 AM
Category
RPG
Duration
6 Hours
Event ID
112004
Location
2044-A
# of Players:
5
GM / Judge
Matthulhu Steele
Description
Greetings Troubleshooters! On this mission you will be accompanied
by the next generation of BotShooters - bots designed to replace
Troubleshooters for those rare dangerous missions. Now with the upgraded
Emulator V2.2 circuit installed, these bots will learn to act just like
the Troubleshooter they are assigned to. Soon these new heroes of Alpha
Complex will walk, talk, shoot and act like real Troubleshooters.
Hail the Computer!
Again lots of prep work. Multi-page character sheets.
Comedy requires perfect timing and perfect timing must be Matt's Talent. I laughed so much in this game, I had to wipe the tears away.
Again, lots of split scenes and parallel action. All the trouble shooters started out in different parts of Alpha Complex and had to get to the Briefing room. Hilarity ensued.
Wilson Z. never played Paranoia before, but I think he was a natural. If Wilson didn't have to leave early for his flight home, he would have won one of the prizes that were handed out. Sorry, Wilson.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Mateo C. got one of his clones killed before the game even started, by
explaining one of the rules -- knowing the rules is treasonous and
punishable by death. :-)
I wonder how many other players ever made it into the Briefing Room. The big reveal was when we got to the hallway to the Briefing Room, the corridor was painted Green, above our security clearance.
I think we spent more than half the game trying to get into the Briefing Room.
Once inside, we were to be Borged. I was able to dance/maneuver my BotShooter into the Borging-booth in my stead.
Once briefed, we were to go to HAL Sector, but I don't want to spoil that ending...
He Who Laughs Last
I really enjoyed the system. Each character had about six areas of expertise (a house rule). The official rule gives you a single profession instead. You get to roll 1d6. If you try an action in your area of expertise or is related to it, you get to roll another 1d6. If you want to risk your sanity, you can roll another 1d6. You look at your highest die roll. 1 = barely successful, 6 = extraordinary success. But if your sanity die is the highest die roll, you have to roll 1d6 and if it is higher than your current insanity, you increase your insanity and go bonkers. If your insanity goes reaches 6, you go incurably insane. You may also risk insanity by re-rolling and adding an insanity die if you already haven't done so.
At the Movies
