BigBadCon (BBC) is the best Indie RPG convention in the Bay Area and probably anywhere. Each year, Sean Nittner makes it better and better.
This year, there was the first PoC Meet & Greet. But the big small thing was a stack of sponsored PC Name Tents in every game room. GMs generally bring 3x5 cards for Players to write their PC names on them and use them as Name Tents, so other Players know how to address them at the table. Well, this year, every room had a stack of cards that you can write your names on and fold. Once folded, the names are written on both sides, so Players on both sides of the table can read them. The underside of the Name Tents are logos of sponsors who paid for the Name Tents. Amazingly simple and a great new thing for BBC.
Overall, lots of great games.
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System: 1001 Nights
Length: 4 hrs
GM: John Kim
Characters: Created at Table
4 Players: Jenny W, Walter G, Tom I, Morgan Hua
Mysterious strangers. Beautiful women. Enchanted swords. Talking camels. You play members of the Sultan’s Court, whiling away the sultry nights by telling pointed stories to advance your own ambitions. Navigate the social maze and you could win your heart’s desire; offend the wrong person and you suffer the Sultan’s wrath.
We could play with a predesigned set of characters, or create a situation from whole cloth.
I never heard of this game, so I looked it up and found that you were supposed to cast the other PCs as characters in your tale being told. You can do this by alluding to their traits, manners, or background. I was at first worried that it would be a narrative PvP game and wondered how that would work without it becoming a nasty hot mess. Well, the game actually played very well and I enjoyed it.
The GM brought two play sets and we actually mixed and matched the PCs from the two play sets.
We picked the setting where the current Sultana (widow of the Sultan) rules and belongs to the Mamluk military caste where as the dead Sultan was an Arabian.
The PCs picked were: Spoiled Bloodthirsty Prince (my PC, son of the Sultan, but of a different wife than the current Sultana), Dirty Grandma (grandmother to the dead Sultan), Witchy Aunt (sister of the dead Sultan), Wednesday Girl (half-breed cousin of the Spoiled Prince), Stern Governess (caretaker of the Prince and Wednesday). Once our Courtier is picked, we write down the PC's Senses: Hearing, Sight, Smell, Taste, Touch, Clothing. The Senses could be from either an internal view point or external or abstract. e.g. Smell for my PC was everything smells rotten, but I smell rotten too. We also write down Envies in our relationship to the other PCs. e.g. I envied my Aunt's horrible visions of doom. All these aspects are shared with the other players.
Basically, each PC tells a story and during the story, the other PCs can interject and ask yes-no questions and grabs a die from a bowl of dice (bowl of gems). If the storyteller answers Yes or No, then the questioner gets to roll the die and on evens, keeps the gem; on odds, hands the gem to the storyteller. Once the storyteller gets 8 gems, no more questions can be asked and the storyteller can finish the tale. If the storyteller doesn't answer the question, the gem is held in a holding pattern until the question is answered. If at the end of the story and the question is never answered (or when the questioner forgets the question), the gem is returned to the bowl. So, we quickly learned to ask questions that would get answered right away.
Once all PCs have told a story, the round ends, and the gems are allocated into 3 pools. Safety, Ambition, and Freedom. After the dice are allocated, you may take any of your gems to thwart another PC's Ambition on a 1-for-2 basis. e.g. take gems from any of your pools, but each gem will negate 2 gems from the other PC's Ambition pool. Roll your dice. Any even die rolls are successes and returned to the bowl. Odd die rolls are retained for the next end of round. Any successes in Safety prevents your PC from being harmed (for the story you told somehow making it's way back to the Sultan), 5 successes are needed to get your Ambition, 7 successes are needed to get your Freedom.
We played 2 rounds (normally 3).
Where the fun is, is where we bring in the other PCs, in veiled manners (or not so veiled) and then we'd manipulate the storyteller with hot buttons. Wednesday wanted a pet tiger. So, at one point, the Aunt asked, "Is there a magical tiger?" Of course, Wednesday would immediately say, "Yes." Or the Aunt hated the Governess, so she would ask, "Did the Governess (in the story), die a spinster?" or "Was that Governess ugly?" My Prince was obsessed with poison and would always ask, "Was it poisoned?" It got tiresome (in character, but it was funny) and later the storytellers would just ignore my question. 😊
I told a story about a magnificent hen house where the rooster was killed and a little male chick (me) was surrounded by hens (the other PCs). Each hen had aspects which identified them as a specific PC. When the rooster (Sultan) was killed, there was no rooster to wake up the sun and the land was in darkness. The farmer takes a hen and kills one each day. In the end, my chick, anointed by the dead rooster's blood, grew up to be the new rooster and made the sun rise again before all the hens were killed.
My second story was about Pirates and all the other PCs were members of the crew. They attacked a ship and took a genie bottle from the other ship. The genie (me) gave each PC a wish. The PCs then gave the bottle to the Sultan (who was evil, determined by a yes-no question) who then promptly wished everyone was dead (my PC had this as one of his tag lines - you want everyone dead) - THE END.
We had stories about poisoned orchards (that's where the poison started), Hansel and Gretel (Prince and Wednesday, The Evil Witch was the Governess), a jungle with animals (and yes, a magical tiger with a thorn in his paw; and the Governess got eaten), and other tales.
In the end, the Prince and Aunt got their Freedom, Grandma and Wednesday got their Ambition (Grandma got handsome oiled well-muscled guards, Wednesday got a pet tiger), and the Governess got nothing (she wanted free reign to punish the children, so the children and Aunt thwarted her Ambition).
I enjoyed this game and would run definitely run this with my regular gaming group.
A Place for Wellness
System: Cthulhu Dark
Length: 4 hrs
GM: Morgan Hua
Characters: Provided
5 Players: Matt S, Jason M, John A, Honda, Gil T
You will play various movie characters: Sarah Conner (Terminator 2), Laurie Strode (Halloween), Kirsty Cotton (Hellraiser I & II), Norman Bates (Psycho), RP McMurphy (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Richie Tozier (IT). All are new patients in an insane asylum. When not playing a patient, you will play as hospital staff in charge of evaluating patients, recommending therapies, and administering outdated therapies to the patients.
The asylum is modern and similar in tone to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
This is a PvP game where the Patients are pitted against the Doctors and the system. This is a game about perceptions, observation, deception, and human cruelty.
This game uses the very simple Cthulhu Dark system where a single d6 models your sanity. This game in no way represents real psychological problems nor effective treatments. This is a horror game.
Remember: The Institute for Wellness is here for your safety and well-being. Patience is a virtue and a patient is only released when they’re ready to face the world.
Tags: Dark, Drama, Emotional, Gore, Graphic Violence, Horror, Improv, Modern, Noir, Play to find out, Player antagonism, Potentially triggering*, Provocative, Serious PvP, heavy roleplaying at table - almost LARP.
I had an amazing table of players and the game's pace went at a gallop and I had loads of fun.
I watched Gil turn into Ben Hascome (IT) during the game (oops, I guess I changed PCs after submitting the game description).
This game was amaze-balls for me because when I designed it, I had various hopes of how it would turn out and the Players really shined in embracing their roles, and I felt the game's tone and pace ran close to how I envisioned it.
I had an amazing table of players and the game's pace went at a gallop and I had loads of fun.
I watched Gil turn into Ben Hascome (IT) during the game (oops, I guess I changed PCs after submitting the game description).
This game was amaze-balls for me because when I designed it, I had various hopes of how it would turn out and the Players really shined in embracing their roles, and I felt the game's tone and pace ran close to how I envisioned it.
Fri Oct 11, 8:00 PM - 12:00 AM
System: Trail of Cthulhu
Length: 4 hrs
GM: Steven Drouin
Characters: Provided
4 Players: Christine H, Daniel B, Shannon P, Morgan Hua
You are cordially invited to attend “The Park at Dark”, a once in a lifetime event at Walt’s magical kingdom in sunny Southern California. The event brings together a few of the worlds most aspiring minds in a collaborative competition of mystery, cunning, and wit, with a life changing surprise at the end! If you are able to attend, [this Trail of Cthulhu mystery/horror RPG] please RSVP at your earliest convenience.
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 and interacting with your fellow investigators.
My favorite game of the Convention. Steven brought an amazing amount of Disney lore to this game. For me, the perfect games are investigative and immersed in history or lore where I learn something new and true.
Steven delivered this in spades.
The Last Boat
System: Ten Candles
Length: 4 hrs
GM: Scott Henderson
Characters: Created at Table
6 Players: Sean P, Finn E, Julie D, Philip R, Alex L, Morgan Hua
The island resort has turned into a nightmare. The beach sand has turned so thick with blood that not even the tide can wash it away. There aren’t many folks left… not since They came. Just the group of you, and from the crackled interference on the radio, it sounds like one other group holed up on the far end of the island at another resort. Maybe some locals further in-land too, who knows? You’ve sent out call after call for rescue, but only recently did you finally hear a reply. It was all crackle and static, but you were able to make out something about the Coast Guard, and the Northern Island. The reef ’s too taxing on boats here so you’ll have to make your way there. Of course that means finding a boat or swimming a quarter mile of ocean water. Not to mention navigating to the northern tip of the island and hoping the folks holed up there haven’t already taken the last boat across. The lights are flickering low. It’s time to move.
Tags: Apocalyptic, Collaborative, Dark, Drama, Horror, Mystery Tragic, Horror, RPG, Mystery, Collaborative.
This is a storytelling game where each Player takes turn telling the story.
The tone of this game was great. We had a good table of Players too. I decided my character was a fat lazy guy named The Dude who doesn't do much of anything but drink.
In the end, we all died. (Not a spoiler as that's supposed to happen in every game.)
I enjoyed the game, but felt there wasn't enough interaction between Players during the storytelling.
This is a storytelling game where each Player takes turn telling the story.
The tone of this game was great. We had a good table of Players too. I decided my character was a fat lazy guy named The Dude who doesn't do much of anything but drink.
In the end, we all died. (Not a spoiler as that's supposed to happen in every game.)
I enjoyed the game, but felt there wasn't enough interaction between Players during the storytelling.
A Place for Wellness
System: Cthulhu Dark
Length: 4 hrs
GM: Morgan Hua
Characters: Provided
5 Players: William L, Sal, Robin B, Christine H, Joseph F
This game in contrast to the first run the day before, was a slow burn, but the Player choices really surprised me and actually got to one of the more interesting endings.
William did an amazing job as Norman Bates.
This whole game is about Player choices and they were very interesting this time.
Sat Oct 12, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
PoC Meet & Greet
Hosts: Ajit George, Victoria Caña, and Whitney “Strix” Beltrán
Length: 2 hrs
100 Attendees
This was the first PoC Meet and Greet. Attendees pre-registered and our interests got matched up with various opportunities. At the door, we signed in and got handed a booklet for who we should meet.
There was free food (several appetizers), no drinks. The room was nice except 100 people made the noise level mostly unbearable. Lip readers have an advantage.
I was looking for some creative work in the RPG industry. Lo and behold, in my booklet, Cat Tobin of Pelgrane Press was looking for people. I had said hello to Cat Tobin at GenCon last year, since I have been play testing for them, but I didn't know they were looking for writers and Cat didn't know I was interested in other stuff, so 10 minutes into the Meet and Greet, I spoke to Cat and she told me about a project she thought I would be perfect for.
I did stick around and spoke to several other people. But, Yay!
System: Delta Green
Length: 6 hrs
GM: Trung Bui
Characters: Provided
6 Players: Bob B, Sarah H, John A, Jonathan K, Shannon M, Morgan Hua
Fall of 2015. Boston, Massachusetts. Delta Green dispatches agents to investigate and locate patients who have mysteriously gone missing from a DG-friendly psychiatric facility overnight.
Players involved in the “Night Floors” scenario may experience a slightly different experience than fresh. (This does not exclude new players from enjoying this scenario.)
Tags: Dark, Espionage, Horror, Intrigue, Investigation, Mystery, Potentially triggering*, Provocative, Serious, Strong storyline, Suspenseful Delta Green, The King in Yellow, mystery, investigation
The game description was a bit cryptic about "Night Floors," so I thought if you played Night Floors, this would have spoilers. Which would have been true, but in a good sense. This was actually a sequel to Night Floors and was intended as part of a series. I was not familiar with Night Floors.
This was a good game with a good table. "No plan survives first contact with the enemy." OMG, we totally went to places in the wrong order in this game.
Kudos to the GM for twisting things around so we got to experience most of the scenario. Otherwise, I think we would have been done in 2 hours with the PCs lost forever.
