Saturday, October 26, 2013

Morgan's BigBadCon 2013 Adventures

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.




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.




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.




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.






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.