It's a bit sad because this is the last 3d6 Con since EndGame will be closing Feb 2019. The new lease for their property was going to double in price and they couldn't afford it.
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Todd has incredible props for this game, especially the character sheets. They look like the cardboard backing for an action figure toy.
Front of Character Sheets
Trailer Park
This game was crazy fun and all our Nicholas Cage's lost our $#!%. Savage Worlds is very swingy in die rolls and perfect for a B-movie pulp adventure game.
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Backs of the Character Sheets
In our game, we had: Cameron Poe (Colin F), Rick Santoro (Dave L), Caster Troy (Badger M), H.I. McDunnough (Tom I), and Big Daddy (my character).
The Nick Cages find another Nick Cage, Ben Franklin Gates from National Treasure, dead in a trailer park as it slowly gets flooded by salt water. A variety of odd NPCs show up and we interact with them. We find a treasure map and fight sharks as the flood waters rise.
One of the NPCs gives us a Book on Mason secrets that's been annotated by Ben Franklin Gates and we start decoding a Mason code on the back of the map. We save as many people as we can from the trailer park.
We then run into a preacher and his crazy jetski bikers (Water World anyone?) who wants our map. After defeating him, we get a page of Ben Franklin Gate's notes off his body.
We break into a Mason Temple (found via the map) and using the annotated Book on Masons we open up a secret set of stairs, escape the sharks breaking into the temple, defeat the bee sting stair trap, the Mason pipe organ, the Mason Secret Handshake Dummies (that punch the hell out of you when you fail), and find a weird cryostasis chamber. The Mason tricks and traps were very innovative and interesting. I think Todd gave National Treasure a good run for their money. National Treasure 3 anyone?
Inside the cryostasis chamber is another Nick Cage, this one frozen in the far past. He teaches Rick Santoro a ritual that'll cool down the world and save it from Climate Change. We escape on a rubber dinghy and run into the Sharknado. After beating back sharks, the ritual is completed, and we save the world from Climate Change.
My favorite bits:
Sharks and more sharks. Sharks jumping trailer park homes, trying to chomp on people on the roofs, and the Sharknado.
Diving in the way of a Meth-fueled Shark (my fault), to save an NPC, and then deciding to go in deeper, and then coming out the other side.
The Punch-O-matic Mason Automatons.
And telling Early Man Nick Cage that his family must've survived the Ice Age because, "Look at us. We all look like you, so your family must have survived." His response, "It must be true, because you all look so handsome."
AetherCon is a free online RPG convention. There's a good variety of games and easy to get a seat, but unfortunately since it's free to play, some people who sign up for a game don't show. One game I was in the GM didn't show due to illness; in another, I was the only player who showed up (1 out of 2), so the game got canceled.
I also got in a drawing for prizes and won this gorgeous book:
513 pages of full page maps (two versions: GM and Players map, 227 locations). It also came with digital versions of the maps for online play.
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Stealing the Eye
System
RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha
Date / Time
Friday, November 9, 2018; 11 AM - 2 PM PST
GM
Steve Parish
Description
Stealing the Eye: (Publisher Game: Chaosium) -- The Hero Wars have begun! The oppressive Lunar Empire has been thrown back and now your clan has sent you on a mission, a mission that will be a step in the liberation of your homelands. You have been given the task of of stealing the massive jewel that forms the eye in the central statue of a Lunar temple. It will take bravery and cunning, and the favour of your gods. Can you succeed? This is an opportunity to play an official convention demonstration adventure for the newly released RuneQuest: Adventures in Glorantha. The adventure introduces the game; its much loved stetting of Glorantha and its time tested mechanics. Simplified pre-generated characters for 2 -4 players are provided. RuneQuest was one of the first RPGs to be released, and gained a devoted following, particularly in Europe. It uses an easy to pick up 1d100 mechanics that are best known from its daughter game of Call of Chuthulu. Glorantha is one of the most well developed of all of the Fantasy RPGs game settings, and takes its inspiration from the ancient epics such as Gilgamesh and the Iliad. It is set in an imaginary Bronze Age, a feature which is emphasised even more in the new edition, and player characters seek to emulate the mythic deeds of their divine patrons. [Game Table Stats: 4 Hours; Pregen Characters: Yes]
It was an intro game to RuneQuest (RQ). I played a short game of RQ in the 1980s and wasn't too impressed by it. At that time, I was playing mostly my own homebrew version of AD&D and mostly hack and slash, murder-hoboing creatures and taking their treasure.
RQ is now into its 4th edition and I wanted to try it out again as my taste in RPGs has changed.
Overall, the world is really different, so it's something new to explore: different gods, different races, different creatures. The setting is faux bronze age.
I played a warrior with a few spells and runes that aided in combat. The spells and runes definitely helped a lot in letting you survive the brutality of a d100 system with hit locations.
I thought the game was ok, but nothing to really write home about.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
We were sent to retrieve the large opal eye from a Lunar temple statue. Told that during the new moon, the priestesses were out of commission, so that's when we decided to stealth in.
We got in and moved a heavy ox cart to block the door of the garrison barracks, then entered the temple. There was evidence that the temple was originally an Earth temple, but reconsecrated to the Lunars.
As we pried off the statue's eye, it came to life and I got a lucky hit and actually took out one of the statue's legs. It toppled and earth spirits which one of the PCs summoned bound it, then we chopped the statue up into bits. We followed up by taking a heavy ornamental altar to the Lunars (as loot) and found buried beneath it were old Earth temple offerings and sacred objects.
A PC summoned an air elemental to hoist the heavy altar to the ox cart, hitched up the ox, then took all our loot away.
Easy peasy.
On the way out, we ran into a Lunar light patrol, but with stealthy disguise and hiding, we passed off our cart as a peasant's carrying sod. Quickly chasing the Lunar patrol was a horde of boar riders which passed us by. A few turned to look at us, but a PC convinced them that the fleeing Lunar light patrol was much better pickings.
Once we returned home, we were hailed as heroes.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Your Sister's Keeper
System
Fantaji
Date / Time
Friday, November 9, 2018; 4 - 9 PM PST
GM
Calvin Johns
Description
Your Sister's Keeper: (Publisher Game: Anthropos Games) -- Your older sister has been captured by kobolds and taken to the Land of Nod, what the books call Wonderland. It’s up to you and your schoolmates to brave the oddities and nonsense of a dark world where nothing is at it seems and bring her back before she goes insane… or worse. You will leave the boarding school behind and travel into another world. Battle the Queen of Hearts, survive Jack the Ripper, and match wits with an unruly satyr in this twisted tale. An adventure like "Kingdom Hearts," "Sucker Punch," or Marvel’s "Dr. Strange." [Game Table Stats: 4 Hours; Pregen Characters: Yes]
Calvin Johns wrote Fantaji, so I get to play the game with the creator. He's a really good GM with great improv skills.
I liked the system. Basically, there's Theme cards (1 or 2) and characters get Traits (starting 2) and Powers (starting 2). If you can make up a description of what you do that touches the themes and your traits, you get to roll a d10s equal to the number of themes and traits that you touch, plus any Drama tokens you have banked. So typically, if you're good at describing things, you can get 2 Themes, 2 Traits, and # Drama Tokens in d10s to roll. In Contests, it's an opposed roll, so your opponent does the same thing and you see which die rolls are higher than the other and each die that does that is a success. e.g. I roll 8d10 (1, 2, 2, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9). My opponent rolls 3d10 (1, 5, 7). The result is 3 successes in my favor. If it's a tie, then both die rollers get an additional Drama Token, and nothing happens. The number of successes can then be spent to do damage, add conditions, or to remove Drama Tokens from your opponent.
The only issue that I had is that you have to keep on coming up with new things to do, otherwise the character would be doing the same moves over and over again, and that's a bit boring. So for extended combats, it gets exhausting.
Overall, I like the system better than FATE.
The game we played in used a new playbook set in a twisted Grimm / Wonderland / Narnia world. I love playing kids in settings like this.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
We got to pick our character template out of about 8 templates. I picked Icon, a diva who had a flashlight that she can shine on kids to give them a Drama Token. She's a singing and dance sensation named Alice.
Another player picked Tymm the Scoundrel. And another picked Oliver, the Underworld Gang Boss with connections. We're all kids, so Oliver is really a mini-gang boss and he has to spend 3 Drama Tokens to recruit gang members.
The PCs started in the boiler room of a boarding school. A gang of Kobalds open up a portal in the floor and take a kidnapped girl with them (in a sack). Just as the Kobalds disappear, the girl screams out the name of Oliver, so we realize in our hiding space that the Kobalds just kidnapped Oliver's sister, Penelope.
We enter the portal and drop into a winter wonderland. Very Narnia. We follow a trail and find Kobalds taking a sack out of a Satyr's hut. We beat the Kobalds and find that inside the sack isn't Penelope, but another girl. She tells us that she escaped from The Factory where Jack is making them spin hay into silver. We ask for her help in freeing Penelope who undoubtedly was taken there, but she would only help if we help locate her sister Emily, who had escaped with her.
We locate Emily in a pirate bar and through song and dance and combat, we retrieve her. We trade a map of our portal for a map to the secret entrance to The Factory.
In The Factory, we start a fire, free the shackled kids, fight mechanized Nutcrackers, Kobalds, and Spring Heeled Jack (the Ripper). We find Penelope and escape with all the children (and some recruited Kobalds) on a sled pulled by Jackalopes. Behind us, Jack and Kobalds are on another sled pulled by Jack Rabbits.
After a chase and fight scene, we escape. Yay!
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Ides of Winter
System
Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)
Date / Time
Friday, November 9, 2018; 9 PM - 12 AM PST
GM
Edward A Kabara
Description
Ides of Winter: (Publisher Game: Chaosium) -- Investigators are embroiled in a mysterious death at a local pub. But even once that is solved, mysterious events & the appearance of ghosts lead them to believe more is afoot. Soon after arriving by train in Northumberland, the investigators are embroiled in a mysterious death at a local pub. But even once that is solved, mysterious events and the appearance of ghosts lead them to believe more is afoot. Classic 1920s Cthulhu, Pre-gens provided. (Call of Cthulhu 7th ed. 4 hr duration.) Learn how to play Call of Cthulhu in the intro game! [Game Table Stats: 4 Hours; Pregen Characters: Yes]
Though a simple mystery, it felt really different from other CoC games I've played in due to the appearance of the ghosts. I really enjoyed this game.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Pre-gens are all family members going for family reunion at Uncle Stanley's. On the way from the train station, we see the local doctor walking down the road. We pick him up and give him a ride to the Rose & Crown. There we find the local pub's owner dying. We follow some clues and find he was murdered by a hired hand. We get evidence and get the murderer arrested.
In Uncle Stanley's den, we find he's been digging up some Roman artifacts near the local church which was built on top of an old Roman fort. That night a procession of ghostly Roman soldiers show up and then a Yeti-Spider shows up and does battle with it. My character was a priest with Latin, so I questioned the Roman Commander and he tells us about defeating the evil in the past and burying his blessed sword, The Sword of Winter, in an underground crypt. We realize it's the old fort that Uncle Stanley's been working on, but he didn't have permission to excavate on consecrated land, so his excavations have been incomplete.
We wake up the local pastor and I convinced him to let us checkout a slab of stone that the church had covered up in the nave. We open it up and find a temple dedicated to Mithras and a shiny new Gladius. The PC who picked up the Gladius got a flashback of beating the evil and the location is familiar, at the Rose and Crown.
We go there, bringing the local pastor with us hoping to have him bring back the pub owner's body and the pub owner's wife (as a distraction) as we dig around looking for the cave where the evil was.
When we arrive, the Rose & Crown is blasted to the ground with eerie lights streaming from it, and there's the Yeti-Spider thing facing us. We fight it and the zombie-ish pub's owner. The thing that does kill the creatures was the magical Gladius. All the firearms we took with us from Uncle Stanley's den didn't do much.
In the end, we found out that the evil had taken over the body of the pub owner and that was who we really needed to kill. Once we killed the zombie (more of an evil spirit inhabiting the body), all the mystical lights and feeling of horror disappeared.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Plans within Plans - Putting Intrigue, Conspiracies, and Subterfuge in your Campaign
Event Type
Panel
Date / Time
Saturday, November 10, 2018; 4:30 - 6 PM PST
Description
Themed Panel: Plans within Plans - Putting Intrigue, Conspiracies, and Subterfuge in your Campaign :
AetherCon moved their panels to YouTube channels, but I had problems viewing them while live. I was only able to get to the video after the broadcast. Due to panelists on various computers, internet availability, and audio equipment, the sound was either very good or horrible, mostly horrible.
There's a few good nuggets of info in the broadcast and some amusing stories.
Heart in a Jar: (Publisher Game: Rogue Games, Inc.) -- The Philips House has always been rumored to have something not quiet right with it. Now the house has seem to come alive and it is just your luck that you have been asked to look into it. [Game Table Stats: 4 Hours; Pregen Characters: Yes]
Richard Iorio II wrote Colonial Gothic and I bought the Bundle of Holding for this game and really wanted to try this, unfortunately Richard was a no show. I found out later he's in the hospital and couldn't attend.
Escape the Rok
System
Warhammer 40k RPG (Wrath & Glory)
Date / Time
Sunday, November 11, 2018; 11 AM - 4 PM PST
GM
Matt
Description
Escape the Rok: (Publisher Game: Ulisses North America) -- Cardinal Ignator has asked you to retrieve a megalithic statue of the God-Emperor for display in the Gilead system. But the statue comes with a lot more baggage than you had bargained for... [Game Table Stats: 4 Hours; Pregen Characters: Yes]
This was a new system and I wanted to try it, but I was the only player to show up, so the game got cancelled. The GM was a replacement GM as the original GM couldn't make it (I didn't get the replacement GM's last name), but I got to chat with him a little about the new system.
System is basically Attribute + Skill as a d6 dice pool. 1-3: failure; 4-5: 1 success; 6 = 2 successes. Count total # of successes.
Themed Panel: Four on the Floor and Six in the Chamber - Post Apocalyptic RPGs
Event Type
Panel
Date / Time
Sunday, November 11, 2018; 10:30 AM - 12 PM PST
Description
Themed Panel: Four on the Floor and Six in the Chamber - Post Apocalyptic RPGs :
“The more you know, the more you know you don't know.”― Aristotle
In CoC, when PCs encounter something horrible or unexplained, the GM asks for a SAN check.
But do you describe the horribleness first and then ask for the SAN check or do you ask for SAN check and then describe what they see?
Sandy Petersen was a proponent of the former: Describe what the PCs see and then ask for the SAN check.
He said this at his Creating a Horror RPG Scenario the Sandy Petersen Way at GenCon 2018.
He wanted to keep the mechanics away from the storytelling as long as possible.
In my games, I used to do it both ways.
If I had a picture, I'd show a picture of the Mythos creature and then ask for a SAN check. The only issue is that sometimes the pictures aren't horrible enough.
Sometimes, I'd asked for the SAN check first, then described what the PCs saw because I wanted it to be a surprise. Also it got the book keeping out of the way because if I describe the horrible thing first, the Players always want to act right away before I can ask for the SAN check, and sometimes I'd forget and the Players would conveniently forget too.
But after Sandy's lecture, I started to pay more attention to this when other GMs ran a game and I came to the conclusion that Sandy's way is best.
This was how I came to this conclusion:
When you ask for a SAN check before describing the horribleness, the games comes to a complete stop as everyone rolls dice and if someone loses 5 SAN or 20%, then more dice rolls. This may take several minutes and that pulls everyone out of the narrative. Then when you're ready to describe the great horribleness, the atmosphere at the table has been destroyed and I argue less effective than if you had completed describing the great horribleness and then asked for the SAN check.
If I can describe something creepy and horrible enough, I can sometimes get a Player to voluntarily ask for a SAN check. This is great because it makes me feel like I did my job right. And if there was supposed to be a SAN check, then I'd say to the rest of the Players, "You should all make SAN checks too."
If no one asks for a voluntary SAN check, then I'd say, "Everyone make a SAN check."
Also as you finish describing the great horribleness, the Players probably have already decided their plan of action (most likely running for their lives), so when you then have them roll the SAN check and those that get A Bout of Madness will have a leg up on how they would want to react (if you gave them a choice).
So for better flow and heightened frights, I now go with describe first, SAN check second.
Here's another opinion with a slightly different take. Using more of a sandwich approach.
1. Hint at the horribleness with some vague description.
You see something moving in the dark, hidden behind some hanging chains and machinery.
2. Ask for SAN check.
PC loses 5 SAN and has a bout of madness. He has an involuntary reaction and freezes.
3. Complete the description based on the amount of SAN lost.
Its dripping fangs open up impossibly big as venom drips from its sharp teeth! You cannot move, frozen in fear as thoughts of its mouth snapping shut on your head, no around your neck, makes you unable to swallow. You've cut the palms of your hands with the nails of your clenched fists. How is that possible? You've dropped your shotgun. You don't remember doing this, but you must have. It's there on the ground only a few feet away, but impossibly far away.
