The shuffler gods were kind to me this year. My first 3 games were my #1 choices and then of course, I got into nothing for Sunday afternoon and evening, but Todd Furler came to the rescue and I got to try out the new edition of TORG Eternity. I probably would have gotten into something on Monday. When I woke up on Sunday, I was tired and I decided I would be completely a vegetable on Monday and cancelled all my shuffler choices for Monday and get some needed rest.
Most of the games I was in were of the highest quality - one of the reasons KublaCon is one of my favorite RPG conventions.
KublaCon switched from a prize table to giving out $5 gift certificates to various vendors in the Dealers Room. I picked up some neat tokens from Dapper Devil LLC, War of Ashes from Zombie Smith, and dice from Chessex.
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System: One-Roll Engine/Nemesis
GM: Dovi Anderson
6 Players: Morgan H, William L, Matt S, Gil T, Morgan R, Ryan R
Duration: 8 hrs.
Characters: Iron Age Smallholders.
Description:
Loch Tay, Central Scotland, 450 BCE.
The burning of the druid’s Sacred Grove has wrought a fierce and deadly winter, and the rains of ash have returned. You must hold fast within the timbered walls and thatched roof of your family’s stilted crannog.
Dovi visited Scotland and was inspired to run a horror period game. This game was the result of that visit, not to imply that Scotland is a horrible place or horror inspiring. 😀 Let's just say it's inspiring.
We got the deluxe 8 hour edition of Dovi's game; The game was run at Dead of Winter for 6 hrs. Normally, Matt S turns into a pumpkin by midnight and this game ran til 2am. We joked that we would force a TPK, so Matt could get some sleep, but we were totally engaged and wide awake at 2am. A wonderful start to KublaCon. And my favorite game of the convention. Dovi set a high bar.
Our table was full of experienced GMs and we totally bought into the setting and mood. We also built our narratives on each other's character stories, enriching the improv that naturally came with play. When one of the characters finally died, there was a touching moment a natural reaction, but what was incredible was that there were many touching moments that felt right and weren't forced throughout the game. Excellent character choices by the players and great storytelling by Dovi.
My Little Sister Wants You To Suffer
System: Call of Cthulhu, 6th Ed.
GM: Steven Drouin
6 Players: Ezra D, Morgan H, Shannan M, Scott M, Anna P, Vernon P
Duration: 5 hrs.
Description:
Lost and onboard a doomed spaceship, a disparate group of investigators must try to remember who they are and why they are here... As players slowly recover their memory, they begin to learn what has happened to them, how they are connected to their peers, who they can trust, and what fate has in store for them.
This game is an excellent introduction to the Call of Cthulhu gaming system, but is also "different enough" that seasoned investigators will enjoy their own spiral into madness and desperation.
I do not run pulp-y Cthulhu games. You are sacks of hair, meat, and bone, thrust into an increasingly incomprehensible situations, with relatively little hope of surviving whole. As such, emphasis is placed on uncovering the mystery at hand, while interacting with your fellow investigators. So, if cooperating with and at times against 5 other lost souls in such a desperate situation sounds like a great way to spend your holiday weekend, then sign up!An excellent scenario written by Paul Fricker, known for writing two other classic CoC scenarios: "Dockside Dogs" and "Gatsby and the Great Race." I tried to get into a ToC game by Steven last year, but even being first crasher, I was denied. This year, I got into this game.
I've never played in a game run by Steven, but I'll definitely look for future games run by him. The start of the game was a bit chaotic with cross talk, but people settled in and the game took off.
This game has potential for PvP action, this is not a spoiler as the game description heavy hints at this.
This was another table mostly full of GMs. What was nice was that at some points due to the party being split into several groups, the players were cognizant of giving other players their due screen time and letting various scenes play out before taking their turns without interrupting.
Even though the characters had memory problems and given very slim backstories due to the amnesia, the players were excellent at picking up various hints and portraying their characters amazingly well and they didn't shy away from conflict.
Steven had great props and preparation and even though the game ended early and ran in about 4 hours, the pacing was excellent and I felt we got through an amazing amount of story in that short time period. I had a blast.
Assault on Singularity Base
System: Cypher System
7 GMs: Matt Steele, Ezra Denney, Jack Young, Shannon Mac, Morgan Hua, Andy Hull, Sean Phelan
Players: 36 (too many to list)
Duration: 6 hrs.
Description:
7 GMs: Matt Steele, Ezra Denney, Jack Young, Shannon Mac, Morgan Hua, Andy Hull, Sean Phelan
Players: 36 (too many to list)
Duration: 6 hrs.
Description:
An amazing multi-group gaming experience!
The Empress Tahali V, leader of the Grand Imperium, controls the galaxy with her countless legions of Imperium troopers clad in glistening silver armor marked with her griffon symbol. But a ragtag band of Rebels fights against the Imperium, their determination, bravery, and skill making up for their lack of numbers and supplies.
The Rebels have recently discovered that the Grand Imperium is creating a superweapon that can destroy an entire star system. Rebel spies have tracked a prototype of this superweapon to an Imperium base—called Singularity Base— on a remote swamp world. Your group is one of six Rebel teams attacking in a coordinated but desperate assault. Each team has its own objective, contributing toward the common goal of eliminating the superweapon prototype.
Assault on Singularity Base is a unique adventure that pits not one, but six groups of PCs against the Imperium forces, run as a mega-event with 36 players and seven GMs. This adventure debuted as the official GenCon 2016 Cypher System event. It plays similar to the last act of Rogue 1, using the Cypher System's Rebel Galaxy setting.
Matt needed co-GMs for this game, so a number of us were recruited. We had a sample play through of one of the missions with the GMs taking turns at the helm. Then we had a full blown play test at Game Kastle with 35 players (one person didn't show up) before the big event at KublaCon.
We learned a lot from the play test, so we adjusted our games and added a final polish.
The game was written for GenCon as an introduction to the Cypher System, so each part of the game is necessarily simplistic, but it's the interactions and coordination between GMs that can cause issues.
I had an amazing table of players and they definitely elevated a very simple scenario into a very fun filled game.
I think some people are wary of a massive game and think it's some giant LARP with nothing for side characters to do or it's a giant cluster f*ck, but this game is well done and rarely can you get 43 people (36 players + 7 GMs) together to play a game, unless you're at a convention. Only Werewolf comes to mind, but that's a much simpler game.
We learned a lot from the play test, so we adjusted our games and added a final polish.
The game was written for GenCon as an introduction to the Cypher System, so each part of the game is necessarily simplistic, but it's the interactions and coordination between GMs that can cause issues.
I had an amazing table of players and they definitely elevated a very simple scenario into a very fun filled game.
I think some people are wary of a massive game and think it's some giant LARP with nothing for side characters to do or it's a giant cluster f*ck, but this game is well done and rarely can you get 43 people (36 players + 7 GMs) together to play a game, unless you're at a convention. Only Werewolf comes to mind, but that's a much simpler game.
Red Markets
System: Red Markets
GM: Hannah Gravius
Duration: 4 hrs.
6 Players: Josh C, Morgan H, William L, Aaron R, Conor S, Gil T
Description:
“Everyone east of the Mississippi thinks we’re dead, or worse, we’ve all got the Blight and become the undead. But we’re still here, and so’s the bottom line.”
Red Markets uses the traditional zombie genre to tell a story about surviving on the wrong end of the economy.
In Red Markets, you must risk your life trading between the massive quarantine zones containing a zombie outbreak and the remains of civilization.
You are one of many Takers: mercenary entrepreneurs unwilling to accept their abandonment. Bound together into competing crews, each Taker group seeks to profit from mankind’s near-extinction before it claims them.
Takers must hustle, scheme, and scam as hard as they fight if they hope to survive the competing factions and undead hordes the GM throws at them.
This game was in a shared room and the other table was very noisy, luckily I sat near the GM and could hear what she was saying. Gil looked like he was half dead and was about to fall asleep, but he perked up later. I'm running a few games at GenCon this year, my first, and I hear they're all massive shared rooms, so that's going to be a horror in itself.
I heard about Red Markets and wanted to try it out. Hannah didn't have a good handle on the negotiation rules, but I got the flavor of it. The general rules are simple and I can see a lot of promise for this game. Most post-apocalyptic zombie games are mostly kill zombies and other survivors and take their stuff. But this game is more of a how do you rebuild your society while dealing with zombies and other people.
We played the quickstart game. Quickstart at DriveThruRPG - it's a pay what you want PDF, so try it out for free then either pay them something later or buy the full product.
The system uses 2d10 of two different colors (one red, one black). The red die is your difficulty die, the black die is your success die. You add your skill level to the black die. If you roll natural pairs, no matter what your skill is, you either get a critical failure or critical success. A pair of natural evens (2s, 4s, 6s, 8s, 10s) is an auto crit success. A pair of natural odds (1s, 3s, 5s, 7s, 9s) is an auto crit failure. If it's not a crit, then your black die total must beat the red die roll to succeed, otherwise you fail. If you tie, "tie goes to the house," you fail. A very simple system.
The world assume there are various strongholds with survivors and the PCs is a team of Takers (a crew) who are looking for jobs. The game is broken down into various phases:
I heard about Red Markets and wanted to try it out. Hannah didn't have a good handle on the negotiation rules, but I got the flavor of it. The general rules are simple and I can see a lot of promise for this game. Most post-apocalyptic zombie games are mostly kill zombies and other survivors and take their stuff. But this game is more of a how do you rebuild your society while dealing with zombies and other people.
We played the quickstart game. Quickstart at DriveThruRPG - it's a pay what you want PDF, so try it out for free then either pay them something later or buy the full product.
The system uses 2d10 of two different colors (one red, one black). The red die is your difficulty die, the black die is your success die. You add your skill level to the black die. If you roll natural pairs, no matter what your skill is, you either get a critical failure or critical success. A pair of natural evens (2s, 4s, 6s, 8s, 10s) is an auto crit success. A pair of natural odds (1s, 3s, 5s, 7s, 9s) is an auto crit failure. If it's not a crit, then your black die total must beat the red die roll to succeed, otherwise you fail. If you tie, "tie goes to the house," you fail. A very simple system.
The world assume there are various strongholds with survivors and the PCs is a team of Takers (a crew) who are looking for jobs. The game is broken down into various phases:
- Locate a job
- Negotiate job payment and terms with a client
- Travel to jobsite
- Do the Job
- Get paid and upgrade your lifestyle and equipment
Locate the job: we skipped this part, but this is where the PCs can investigate rumors and about jobs and whether they are dangerous, a scam, etc. There are also job boards. You do due diligence and then pick a job.
Negotiate: this is an interesting mini game. The Face character (your best talker) negotiates with the client, but PCs can do individual flashbacks to get information that can help the Face make a better deal. There's a negotiation track and various successes or failures in the flashback affects the negotiation track. My only issue is that this seems like the Face player gets more screen time than the other players, but I guess in some other situations, you can have multiple PCs negotiate or even sometimes not have the Face negotiate due to external circumstances like the client already being hostile to your Face character. Payment is in Bounty, an abstract unit.
Travel: dice are rolled and this determines how many Legs (mini-scenes, each Leg is an abstract unit) are required to reach the job site. Each Leg of the trip uses up a ration. Each Leg has an event that's a scene that needs to be played out. There is opportunity for combat and scavenging during your journey. If you run into Cs (casualties or Zs in our popular vernacular), they are a number of Shambles (an abstract unit) away. Each round, the Cs can move up and reduce the distance by one Shamble. Combat goes in initiative order, 1d10 + mods, and uses the same 2d10 (red and black) for combat, but it is a close cousin to ORE. If you hit, black total > red die, then your black die determines damage amount and red die determines hit location. Like ORE, there's a body diagram with boxes to mark based on the amount of damage. Each point of damage marks off a box until that body part is filled with damage.
The Job: this is a full blown dramatic scene or scenes which is what is common in most RPGs. You return with your Haul, abstract units of loot.
Getting paid: returning home is anti-climatic and it is skipped. You get Bounty for completing your job and you pay for upgrades. If you have enough Bounty saved up, you can retire.
Overall, I really liked the system and the emphasis of storytelling. In our game, we saved a NPC who we tried to screw over (and kill), so that NPC crew now has mixed feelings towards us. Very unusual for a short one-shot scenario. So, I see a lot of promise for this game. Check it out.
You Oughta be in Pictures
System: TORG Eternity
GM: Todd Furler
Duration: 5 hrs.
6 Players
I was really tired by the end of Red Markets and didn't get into anymore games for the day, but I didn't want to go home yet. I was considering trying my luck in crashing a game, but...
Lo and behold, I ran into Todd Furler and he was nice enough to run a pick up game.
This was a very fun gonzo game.
The system was a bit weird in that you rolled dice, added bonuses and decided to add more dice, then that determined your overall bonus to be added to your skill level and that determined levels of success which determined whether you rolled more dice or gained various bennies. The system was a bit clunky. A game NOT for the math challenged.
The good thing was if you got a high enough number, you got to narrate some really crazy cinematic results.
Several players really got into the spirit and there were a good number of excellent moments. The game was a lot of fun and I was extremely pumped up and all that tiredness was gone during the game. I only felt how tired I was when I headed home.
Thanks Todd for a great game and a great note to end KublaCon on.
