Morgan's Celesticon 2013 Adventures

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

It was a lot of fun.

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