Overall, a well run convention. The Shuffler is well described this time and how the waitlist works is well described. But some of my friends still had questions about the process because they didn't read the process on Discord, but only read the Player's Handbook. Maybe including the process in the Player's Handbook next time would be better.
I got into 3 games and was able to get into a 4th via the waitlist. The waitlist only works until the first game starts, then you have to lurk on the awwgf-waitlists channel to see when seats open up due to no shows and cancellations.
People were quick on the trigger and when any seat opened up, it generally disappeared in a minute. A good sign people were desperate to play.
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Slot 1: 2/17/2022, 4:30pm-8:30pm PST (4 hrs).
The Warren for ALIEN: The Roleplaying Game Offered by Diesel
For 3-5 players, ages 18 and older. This game is beginner friendly. Pre-generated character will be provided.
On Sartouli Station, the United Americas engages in xenomorph research. What are their behavioral responses? How do they procreate? What do they do with the victims they take away? Every precaution is taken, but everyone knows the risks. Still, there have been reports of missing staff, with the list of accounted for crew dropping.
Your team has been sent to both replace the missing personnel and to assist the station with finding what might have happened to them. You step off your transport ship knowing that there won't be another supply run to the station for another month...
This game will be a mix of mystery and survival horror. There is a very good chance that the PCs never leave the space station.
Content Warnings: Body horror
Additional Safety Tools: Pre-game Discussion, X-Card, Lines and Veils
5 Players: KaratePenguin, your friend nate, MaxCrashington, Posh Gandalf, Morgan Hua
I liked it, but the structure of this game is a bit odd.
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Dharma White (a pilot): Posh Gandalf
Sam Paxton (an officer): Morgan Hua
Jordan Taylor (a marine): MaxCrashington
Lena Reid (a roughneck): your friend nate
Violet Banks (a scientist): KaratePenguin
Generally, Alien games follow the movie tropes where it slowly escalates and then goes full throttle. This game starts off very slow, then escalates very quickly at the end of Act 1. Then Act 2 starts off at a lower level of tension and rises, but never gets to the same level of tension as the end of Act 1.
Act 1. We started with Marines arriving at a research space station. Things are a bit off, we don't get assignments and have nothing to do, so we investigate as to what research is happening and what had happened to various personnel. We finally get invited to see the Col running the place in the research basement. Then things get deadly really fast and we get a TPK. Due to my PC's agenda, I turn on the other PCs and actually become the only survivor.
Act 2. The Xenomorphs have been released into the whole station. We get replacement PCs, normal workers, who's only goal is to escape. Luckily, my replacement PC is already infected by a Facehugger, but the other PCs don't know this. This allows my PC to escape the space station and fulfill my 2nd PC's hidden agenda. I got to earn 2 story points! Hurrah!
One fun bit for my character in the 2nd act was wearing an empty cardboard box (very Scooby-Doo) and sneaking down a corridor to get by a Xenomorph. Of course the Xenomorph spots the moving box, it comes by, sniffs at the box and lets it go, because I'm exhaling Xenomorph molecules. The other PCs had decided to use the air ducts instead and run into a Xenomorph there.
Another bit was where some Facehuggers attacked us, based on initiative, all the PCs who could move first ran for it. After all but my PC and another were left behind, the Facehuggers concentrated on the other PC. There's no point in facehugging someone that was already infected. 😊
Actually, another PC was also infected, she was able to squeeze by the Xenomorph in the air duct after pleading that she was pregnant and that the Xenomorph should let her baby (a Xeno-abomination) live. The Xenomorph let her through, but not the other PCs. That was pretty funny, because I figured out what was going on, but not some of the players (who've never played before), and the next PC tried to talk their way through and that didn't work. 😊
I think the only thing I would change in this scenario is to actually assign jobs to the arriving Marines and give them nonsense "make work" jobs. And have us notice weird and off things, giving us hints that things aren't quite right. This would help direct the PCs early on. But I did notice that some of the other PCs did have secret agendas that made them investigate more than others.
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Slot 6: 2/18/2022, 4:30-8:30pm PST (4 hrs).
CLEAN LIVING for Homebrew (Delta Green-based)
Offered by mellonbread
For 2-4 players, ages 18 and older. This game is beginner friendly. Pre-generated characters will be provided.
All is not as it seems in Squiddler’s Patch, a rural town in the Colville National Forest where an unknown party is hoarding black market Bio Organic Weapons. The Division of Security Operations fears a bioterror attack in the making.
The elite Agents of the WAKING MANDALAS are on the
case.
A Resident Evil adventure for two to four players.
4 Players: zapogee (Snot), Shannon Mac (Helmet), fieryangel (Kroger), Morgan Hua (Filler)
Our GM did a lot of work building out the lore for this game. Game was ok, but I wished there was a bit more complexity in the game.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
We're sent to Squiddler's Patch with undercover identities and full tactical gear load outs hidden in our plumber's van. We immediately figure out it's a doctor and her T103D Frankenstein bodyguard who goes to the library's computer to buy illegal Z-pathogens online. She also belongs to the Clean Living cult compound nearby. The cult members are a back to basics group with pale skin and allergies to manmade materials. Through clues, we figure that the doctor is creating a way to suppress the Z-pathogens and allow people to retain their humanity even though they're infected. But when they die, they Hulk-out; they're also allergic to all man-made materials. She's ordering all variety of Z-pathogens in order to suppress all of them.
We surveil her place with drones and we find a lab a short distance from the compound. During the farmer's market, where the Clean Living cult sells food, we infiltrate the lab. We capture two lab techs, but before we can get underground, the doctor, her T103D, and four Clean Living cultists head towards us. There's a fight and we capture the doctor, destroy the T103D, kill one cultist, and either knockout or chase away the other cultists.
Pretty straight forward, but I think we played it smart with a decoy package, enough research, and caution.
The only thing I really wanted was some sort of Raccoon City underground exploration with strange Z-threats. The GM gave us only 2 hazmat suits, at the entrance of the lab, and we needed 4, one for each PC. If we had that, we would have gone underground. I think that would have made the game more interesting.
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Slot 9: 2/19/2022, 7-11am PST (4 hrs).
Satyrs of Slaughter for Mörk Borg
Offered by carnel
For 3-7 players, ages 18 and over. This game is beginner friendly. Characters will be created during or before play by the players.
You have been cursed by a plague druid and your only hope of survival is the blessing of the Solar Child. On arriving at their shrine you discover that the child has been stolen by the goat men of the Bleeding Woods. There is no choice, to continue your wretched existence you must enter the woods and rescue the blessed infant.
I heard a lot about Mörk Borg and really looked forward to trying this. It did not disappoint. I loved the setting and game. The PCs are very, very colorful and gives you lots of things to play off of.
The world is dying and The Calendar of Nechrubel foretells the ending of the world. Five Miseries have come to pass (randomly rolled from the calendar), the seventh is the end of the world, the sixth will come soon. Each Misery does have an impact on the world.
This was my favorite game of the convention.
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The Miseries that have come to pass were: 1. Those who walk on two legs will be nameless (we forgot our names, but we have labels). 2. Blood Countess drank all the color from the world (B&W world, with shades of grey). 3. What the mighty have built, stone buildings will crumble and fall. 4. A Hord will put kingdoms to the torch (going west to east). 5. The earth will bring black serpents forth.
We were also all afflicted by: A rotting from within, a plague spirit will occupy our dead bodies.
We also had to name our band. I suggested 3 random words that are Heavy Metal Band themed. We wound up with: Horned Graveyard Mortals
I rolled up an Occult Herbmaster. Most of the concoctions he makes have modern day analogs such as marijuana, cocaine, poisonous frogs, mushrooms, etc. The other randomly generated PCs were just as interesting. One of my favorites was the Wretched Royalty who had a Court Jester which buffed all of us during combat by annoying the monsters.
The game was pretty straight forward and great for an introduction.
We arrive at the Solar Child's village, finding that he has been stolen, and satyrs had taken him. We fight a few creatures (some goblin things) and bend them to our will to lead us to the satyrs. Then we kill our goblin guides due to a misunderstanding (one of our PCs fumbled and decided it was a trap, once the killing started, it didn't stop until the deed was done). Then we ran into two satyrs with two human females feasting on a human body, and a villager was impaled on a tree. We killed them and then used a Speak to Dead to find where the Solar Child was. Once we got to the satyr village, we actually cut a deal and we bathed in the light of the Solar Child, curing our curses. Then we left. A few of us went back to the ex-Solar Child village to wait out the end of days.
Highlights: During the satyr fight, my PC had a mistaken notion that the blooming trees (unusual in this blighted world) were powering the satyrs because the wounds we inflicted kept on healing over with tree resin. So, I unimpaled the villager (and killed him due to a fumble), tried to chop down the tree for 2 rounds, then wrapped a strip of magnesium around the tree cuts and tried to set it on fire (fumbled again and it just sputtered out), then drank a Spider Climb potions, climbed up the tree and tried to pull it down (failed twice more), then went to get my 15-foot iron chain to pull the tree down. By then, the PCs killed all the bad guys. So, I got help from the other PCs in pulling the tree down. One Player said, years from now, he's going to forget most of this adventure, but he's going to remember the fight against the tree. Hell yeah! If you can't be effective, at least be amusing for the other Players. The only reason I went after the tree was because in an earlier fight with the low level goblins, I realized I couldn't hit anything and even if I did, the damage would be minimal. So, I'd be totally useless against the satyrs.
When we get to the satyr village, we see a lot of satyrs and we had a hard enough time killing two of them. Also we learned from the Speak with Dead that the Solar Child originally came from the satyr village. But we wanted to be cured of our curses. The satyrs wanted us to take off all our armor and drop our weapons before we could see the Solar Child. Definitely a non-starter, so I suggested that maybe we can do this one at a time. This was acceptable we were allowed in two at a time and no one went back on the deal. So, this was cool. The whole party got cured of all our darkness without a big fight.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Slot 10: 2/19/2022, 12-4pm PST (4 hrs)
CSI: Weyland-Yutani for ALIEN: The Roleplaying Game
Offered by Sue
For 4-5 players, ages 18 and over. This game is beginner friendly. Pre-generated characters will be provided.
Unauthorised Destruction of Corporate Assets investigation is a high priority at Weyland-Yutani. Your team is pretty insignificant, only working on cases of human resource destruction, or 'murder' as it's sometimes called. All the same, a stabbing in some remote mining colony in the Tartarus sector warrants investigation and your team is on the case.
5 Players: random-answer (Deputy), Hattifattener (Forensic Scientist), Chad B (Pilot), ABBAttoir (Marshall), Morgan Hua (Pathologist)
I liked the game, but I felt the pacing was a little bit slow.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Sue invented her own version of the Xenomorph which is cool. She modeled them after Vulture Bees and gave them their own signature attacks. She said she likes to look at real life examples and build monsters from them. A great idea.
We show up to investigate a murder, but the body has been moved to a drilling platform, so we can't check it out because the path to it needs to be cleared. So, we wind up poking around the mining colony and questioning people. We find someone's been supplementing the food the Roughnecks were getting, unfortunately with the proteins that were being mined.
In the second half of the game, we are allowed access to the body. We find something has burst out of his stomach. The giant Xeno-Hornet is still in the room and we kill it. It is then revealed that at the small mining colony of 10 people, there's a lot of interpersonal drama and we actually figure out who the two main suspects are and who the most likely perpetrator is. We decide to scan all the employees and try to remove the Xenos before they can hatch. We wind up saving about half the employees and luckily, both main suspects die before we need to arrest them.
Again, I made it out with +2 story points. 😊
A big plus for making your own unique Xeno. I understand, story-wise why the body was inaccessible, but sort of odd to do a CSI without a body for the first half of the game. What might be better is still have the body, but during the autopsy have the Xeno-Hornet come out at that time (unless it's too soon) or have the knife wound and the Xeno exit wound on the body, but no sign of the Xeno; it is hiding somewhere. The colony doctor could say, "That exit wound is new, it wasn't there before."
On Sartouli Station, the United Americas engages in xenomorph research. What are their behavioral responses? How do they procreate? What do they do with the victims they take away? Every precaution is taken, but everyone knows the risks. Still, there have been reports of missing staff, with the list of accounted for crew dropping.
