Morgan's AetherCon 2015 Adventures

This free convention is completely online with painting contests, video panels, quiz contests, and of course, online RPGs.  I played in four games and listened to two panels, and one one prize at the quiz contest.

I had a good time, below are a few issues I ran into:

An issue with AetherCon, a virtual convention, is that the players and GM are in different time zones. The schedule is a cryptic GMT-05.  Unless the players or GMs can figure out when events are run in their local time, there's a danger of no shows.


Their website is also a bit cryptic with no FAQ, so be prepared to spend time figuring out where things are and what you might need to download.  Various GMs may use Roll20 or Google Hangouts or Skype, and I've seen issues where players don't have their tech figured out and winds up being a time-suck as the GM waits for the player to solve their tech problems.


Events registration is on the warhorn.net site, but when you click on the "home" link for aethercon on the events page, it takes you to the warhorn.net/aethercon page which has no information as to where any of the conference rooms are.  There's also information about having to use AnyMeeting, but no information as to whether that needs to be installed.  Well, I found the links to the conference rooms on the AetherCon home page.  So navigation is horrible.

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

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White Out

Friday, 13 Nov, 3-8pm (GMT-05)

Outbreak: Undead (2nd Edition)

The icy chill surrounds you, the quiet and desolate landscape of the arctic Yukon is shrouded by high winds and blizzards pouring through the glacial valley.

Large, hairless dogs were chasing you and your sled dogs throughout the night. Now you, and your dogs are hungry, and you only have a few ounces of gasoline left for the furnace back at camp, what do you do? Can you reach salvation in time?

GM: Christopher J De La Rosa

Minimum Amount of Players: 2

Maximum Amount of Players: 4

Length of Scenario: 4 Hours

Characters Provided for Players: Yes

Newbies Welcome: Yes

This game was actually run at noon local time.  The GM thought it was at 3pm.  I emailed the GM and luckily, the game actually happened at 1:30pm.  I happened to walk by my computer when the GM tried to call us and we actually had the game.  Chris was a good GM and the other player was also pretty good.  So, I had a good time and enjoyed the game.

The system was a bit crunchy and there was a lot of math where you're multiplying numbers and adding bonuses for skill checks.  The system is a percentile system with d5! which was innovative.  d5! = 1d6, but a 6 is equal to a 5 that explodes.  So, if you roll a 6, it's a 5 and you roll another d6 and add to the die roll.  So, you can get 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, (5 + 1 =) 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, (5 + 5 + 1 =) 11, etc.  Whereas other exploding dice skips specific numbers, for example 1d6 which explodes on 6's = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, (6 + 1 =) 7, (6 + 2 = ) 8, 9, 10, 11, (6 + 6 + 1 =) 13, etc, skips all multiples of 6 because if you roll a 6, you roll another 1d6 and add it to the previous 6s that were rolled.

What I didn't like about the system was there was a lot of math to add an extra 3 or 6 percent to a skill (out of percentile die roll), it seemed like a lot of work for some minor bonuses.

What was interesting was each degree of success/failure (every 10% on the die roll below/above the skill check = 1 degree of success/failure) can re-enforce or cancel an action.  It is like the adjustments CoC 7th did to fix the "whiff" factor of combat where nothing happens.  So, even if both sides of combat misses, if one side misses more than the other, the degrees of missing can cause damage to the one worse off.  e.g. in combat, person A has 2 degrees of failure, the person B has 1 degree of failure, then it actually means that person B will have one degree of success.

The GM is also allowed to take some successes away (for game balance) and use them later in the game.  This is a cool idea.  e.g. an early death to a PC can be avoided and the threat is saved for a later part of the game when the GM can cash in the successes for more dramatic purposes.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

The game started with my character (a military nurse) and a military pilot going out to do some ice climbing.  Of course the zombie outbreak starts without us knowing and we're to deal with the effects of it.

As the helicopter drops us off for our vacation, a moose comes out of nowhere and actually hits the helicopter and destroys it (GM got a critical success).  After the moose leaves, we find that the pilot is dead and we radio in our situation and scavenge what we can from the crashed copter.

We radio in and are told to go to a research station a few days away.   We take the dead pilot's body with us and in the middle of the night, the pilot animates and is fighting with some wolves. We actually kill/scare off the wolves and then windup having to fight the animated corpse.  After we dispatch the body, we bury it in the snow and leave.

At the fenced off research station, some of the people there were getting sick, but there are no undead.

We get a disturbance at night and the research station winds up getting infected.   We wind up killing a few undead (research station people dying in the middle of the night from the sickness) and getting into a misunderstanding with the remaining occupants of the research station.  In the end, the remaining NPC tries to kill us and opens the gate to let in the wild crazed wolves.  We windup hitting him with ice axes, taking his shotgun away, and shooting him in the head.  We then close up the gate and then cleanup the crime scene.

I had fun and it was a good game.

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Blessed Are the Damned

Friday, 13 Nov, 9pm-2am (GMT-05)

Call of Cthulhu

The stars are right and the Old Ones walk the Earth again. Mankind teeters on the edge of extinction.

A small band of nuns from St. Teresa's Abbey will attempt the treacherous journey to New Vegas Outpost along the remnants of old Route 66, the so-called Devil's Tail. They will risk cannibals, cultists, and nameless horrors all to rescue one girl - a girl who may just be the key to man's redemption - or his final doom.

GM: Ed Possing

Minimum Amount of Players: 3

Maximum Amount of Players: 5

Length of Scenario: 4 Hours

Characters Provided for Players: Yes

Newbies Welcome: Yes

I had fun in this game.  It was more pulpy (think Mad Max: Fury Road) than scary.  We had a lot of good role playing and good fun.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

We start off given a mission from Mother Claire to go to New Vegas and rescue her niece.  Sand Dwellers were on the rampage and wiping out existing strongholds of men.

Our strong hold, St. Teresa is protected by a Maze similar to Bryce Canyon.  At it's entrance we find the aftermath of some sort of ambush.  We find the survivors, a baby and mother, and are ambushed ourselves.  The baby is actually a mustached midget.

On the way to New Vegas, we drop by a hermit's hideout and find that ghouls who live in tunnels in the Maze were wiped out by Sand Dwellers.  We send the hermit to warn Mother Claire about this as we continue on our mission.

In New Vegas we find Faith, Mother Claire's niece, and a hidden cache of arms.  We also find that the person who told Mother Claire about the Sand Dwellers was the same person who tried to capture Faith and was also responsible for leading the Sand Dwellers, so we return to St. Teresa, armed to the teeth.

We find the whole abbey captured and being prepared for a ritual sacrifice.  The cult leader is standing right next to Mother Claire and is going to sacrifice her as part of the ritual. Surrounding them are scores of Sand Dwellers.  Shannon's character throws a grenade and actually gets extreme success and kills Mother Claire and the cult leader.  The Sand Dwellers, freed from the cult leader's control, flee.  This stops the ritual and we save the world.

My favorite bits were the ineffective midget in disguise and Shannon's surprise grenade attack.
We also found another stronghold that was wiped out and filled with books -- that was pretty cool.

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The Haunting

Saturday, 14 Nov, 3-8am (GMT-05)

Call of Cthulhu

Boston is a city steeped in history, And one house in an affluent neighborhood seems to be cloaked in a shadow of mystery and misery. The investigators are hired to put a final end to bad mojo surrounding the home so the landlord can finally rent the home out again.

Open and shut case. What could go wrong?

GM: Jon Hook

Minimum Amount of Players: 3

Maximum Amount of Players: 6

Length of Scenario: 4 Hours

Characters Provided for Players: Yes

Newbies Welcome: Yes

This was an expanded and revised version of "The Haunting," a sample scenario available in most versions of CoC.  For CoC 7th edition, they replaced the scenario with two new scenarios and put "The Haunting" in the Quickstart rule book.  I read the scenario when it was in the 3rd edition and it was called "The Haunted House."  it's been years if not decades since I've read the scenario and since everybody I know has either read the scenario or played in it, I've never had a chance to play or run the scenario.

I thought this would be a good chance for me to play in an official CoC 7th scenario and see if I'm running the system correctly.  I had playtested CoC 7th and contributed to the kickstarter.  I had been waiting for the hard copy before reading the new rules as the Core book is 448 pages and the Investigator's Handbook is 283 pages.  But I'm currently running the new version of "The Horror on the Orient Express."  So, I've been spot reading the new rules as needed and found that some of the rules from the playtest were either changed or made optional.

Jon Hook runs a great game.  We also had a good table of players.  Afterwards, Jon asked how many people had played in "The Haunting" before and only Shannon had.  But it seemed at least half the players including me had read the scenario before.  So, it is a tribute to the players that there was little metagaming and we did some stupid non-metagame stuff to stay in character.

For me, this was the best game I played in at AetherCon.  And one of the best overall convention games I've ever played in.  Jon was masterful and I hope he gets to update the existing Quickstart scenario with his new extended and revised version.  It gave new life to such an old creaky, scenario.

It's pretty ironic that I find "The Haunting" a fresh and fun game.

Oh yeah, we had a TPK.  Also we ran out of time, so Jon had to narrate the ending.  This was a first for me, having a GM narrate a TPK -- this blew my mind.  But he was right, if you look at what was happening, it was most certainly going to be a TPK.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

Jon added psychic batteries powered by tortured and murdered children buried on the Corbitt estate. If we put the children to rest, Corbitt's power would be reduced and we would have a better chance at defeating him.

My favorite bit was when one PC almost fell into a well/sewer/storm drain and he told us there was a ghost in there.  My PC decided he wanted to take a picture and wound up falling into it and being grabbed by the ghost of a drowned girl who was chained to the bottom.  I was being drowned and another player decided to try to save me and wound up falling on me instead.  We barely made it out.  I had asked the other players to get a septic tank pump so we could pump out the water and then give the girl a decent burial, but we were running out of game time (last hour), so they decided to go into the house instead.   Yeah, they should have listened to me.

In the house, we wound up trapped in the basement and lots of horrible things happened. Shannon's character went blind.  One character attacked another.  Another got horribly stabbed by the animated knife.  Two corpses animated and started attacking us.  It was all downhill from there.

One of the more interesting things that Jon did was even though we would get a clue, we would also get punished at the same time.  When we attacked or touched a ghost, we would take damage and get a vision as to how the ghost child was tortured/killed/buried.  So, we did have a chance to find the buried children and release them.  But since we were strapped for time, the players didn't follow this line of inquiry.  We even had uncovered clues about the psychic battery.  I was given a hint several times when the drowned girl ghost continued to plead for her release, but my character was too traumatized and -- the other players didn't want to listen to me. Yep, blame the other players for a TPK.  :-)  I liked how it was a mixed message.  You get a clue and get punished for it, so it wasn't clear cut as to what was going on.  I loved how it obscured the message and made it confusing.

The session was recorded and here's the recording.

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Live Publisher Q&A in The Coin and Quill with Chaosium

Saturday, 14 Nov, 3-4pm (GMT-05)

Reserve your table at The Coin & Quill and talk with the minds behind Chaosium about everything Call of Cthulhu.

Guest: Mike Mason
Guest: Jeff Richard
Guest: Michael O'Brian
Guest:

Moderator: Ron Blessing - Ron and his Amazing Friends

Well, the the panel started late and there were technical difficulties and one of the panelists didn't show up.  There were lots of dropouts and audio problems.

The panelists mainly pitched their products and it was mostly a waste of time.

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Silva Nigre ("The Dark Forest")

Saturday, 14 Nov, 9pm-2am (GMT-05)

Cthulhu Invictus

Trouble is brewing in the dark forests of Germania, again.

Gangs of barbarian bandits have begun savagely attacking travelers along the Accius Path. The survivors are few; usually a single person is allowed to escape by the bandit chieftain. The survivor always carries a message to the Roman authorities, often in the form of taunts and defiance. The bandits have declared that the Black Forest is now a free kingdom, and they are demanding outrageous tributes of silver to allow the Empire use of its own road! Sergius, the local Roman prefect would give them steel instead!

Your group, elements of the 21st Rapax (or predator) Legion are being sent into the Black Forest to gather intelligence. A combination of Roman legionnaires, local auxiliary troops, and barbarians, it is your job to see what this business is about. Is this a small band of upstart bandits, or a host of hundreds starting open rebellion? Have they occupied the old campsite inside the Black Forest, which the legions used during the previous campaign? From where in the forest are these bandits striking? How many troops are needed for total victory?

GM: Shannon MacNamara

Minimum Amount of Players: 3

Maximum Amount of Players: 5

Length of Scenario: 5 Hours

Characters Provided for Players: Yes

Newbies Welcome: Yes

Shannon enjoyed "The Haunting" so much he decided he wanted to run this game as CoC 7th vs the original 6th edition.  This was a playtest and we gave some useful feedback to Shannon.

It was a fun game, but a bit too much combat for me.  As Shannon said, this was a Sword and Sandals game, more combat than investigation.  We had some great players and some fun role playing.

Two of my characters were killed and the last one survived but went insane.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

We were told to resolve the barbarian issue and were given additional instructions to bring back five specific women from the trader's village.  I was playing second in command and Frank played the first in command.  We decided to not tell the rest of the PCs about the women.

Further up the road the village elder tells us a caravan had been ambushed.  So, we go up there and investigate and run into zombies.  We shield wall up and then head to an abandoned fort and shore it up.  The zombies attack and only a few PCs survive.  We head back to the trader village and are told that the women left and had earlier ensorcered the men.  Now that the women had left, they could tell us that the women were witches.  We head back out to the forest where they have a ritual area.  We attack them and face their big-bad-monster and barely defeat it.

My favorite bits:
Warning the PCs that they should not molest the women, but the men were fair game and then having to punish Rich's character with 5 lashings for back handing one of the women and then Frank telling me to tell the PCs that any fraternizing with the women would be met with castration.  Shep went ahead and sneaked away from the camp and had sex with one of the women and he botched several rolls, so I wound up catching him.  Well, we had a castration.

My PC pushing a roll to repair a fort's wall and failing and dying as the wall falls on him and crushing him to death.  He was down to his last hit points before he did the pushed roll.

My next PC jumping out of the fort to save himself from a mass of zombies.  Whistles to his attack dog to follow him which gave a zombie time to catch up with him.  The zombie attacks and gets a lucky hit and kills the PC.  The PC wasn't really a deserter, he was a traitor and actually a spy for the tribes that didn't like the Romans, so he thought that the Romans were doomed and decided to leave and return to his own tribe.

My 3rd PC survived the final encounter, but went permanently insane.  He's wondering around Rome somewhere as a homeless crazy person.

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Themed Panel in The Philosopher's Conundrum - Save vs Insanity: Masters of Horror

Sunday, 15 Nov, 1:30-3pm (GMT-05)

Grab a chair around the hearth in The Philosopher's Conundrum and take in the wisdom of the sages.

Guest: Shane Hensley - Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Guest: Mike Mason - Chaosium
Guest: Eddy Webb - Onyx Path Publishing

Moderator: Garrett Crowe - Threat from Galifrey

This panel was a lot more interesting and there were only one or two audio dropout issues.  Panel also started late because they waited for a late panelist.

This one has more content and has some interesting things worth listening to. Recordings of these sessions are available online. (I have no idea where, otherwise I'd link it -- again more bad navigation on their home website).