Morgan's DundraCon 47 Adventures

If I homebrew my own scenario, I generally run it all year through the con circuit. I last ran A Place for Wellness at BigBadCon in 2019 and COVID hit and I never got to finish running it at the other conventions. So, I'll finally be able to finish running the game through the con circuit this year. I'll be running it at KublaCon and that'll be it.

The Shuffler hated me this year. I only got into one game via the Shuffler and it was my 2nd choice for that slot. Drouin's game was via a priority slip. So game-wise, it was very disappointing. I only got to play in 2 games.

For some reason, 16 games got cancelled. I also felt compared to years before there were fewer games. This could all be due to Covid concerns (very few people were wearing masks, I counted 3), the new location, or the economy. Because of this, I noticed games were oversubscribed. One game had 45 first choice requests for 6 available seats.

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A Place for Wellness

Friday Noon in 149 for 4 Hours

GM: Morgan Hua

Type: RPG

System: Cthulhu Dark

Players: 6 (C Scott, J Scott, N Winters, P Perez, J Gonzalez, L Ruifrok)

Provided: All characters provided by GM

Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome

Game Content: Mature Themes

You will play various characters from movies such as Terminator, Halloween, Hellraiser, IT, Psycho, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. All are new patients in an insane asylum. Patients suffer from various persecution complexes, delusions, paranoia, and some have violent tendencies. When not playing a Patient, you will play as Doctors in charge of evaluating patients, recommending therapies, and administering outdated therapies to the patients.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. 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.

I had a table of exceptional players and the game play was very good.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

After the initial interview with patients, a few Players said they felt sorry for Laurie Strode. Laurie hid the pills she was supposed to take, passed a 2nd evaluation, and one of the Doctors just let her out the back door. Hey, you're supposed to fill out the release form first. That's against Hospital policy!

In the end, 2 of 6 patients got lobotomized. 4 escaped. 2 died. 

Pennywise and Pinhead slaughtered the hospital staff, shook hands and departed with mutual respect.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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Torn: The University

Saturday 8 AM in 145 for 4 Hours

GM: Steven Drouin

Type: RPG

System: TORN

Players: 5 (D Brubeck, L Saunders, N Fuller, S Phelan, Morgan Hua)

Provided: Characters created for game

Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome

Game Content: Mainstream

You awake in the small village of Point Reyes Station, with no memory of who you were. Artifacts and documents will help you will learn who you were and then you will tear yourself apart to learn what happened to you. Torn is a mystery/horror RPG system rooted heavily in media, character development, and narrative improvisation. No knowledge of the system is required, but willingness to role play is a must.

Steven always delivers a good game. He's the author of this game system. It's chockfull of props and handouts. I had a really good time.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

We wake up with no memories, but we're given 5 objects to choose from (1 for each PC) and to create a memory based on it. I picked a yes/no coin and told the following story: Death is Random. I met a guy in a bar and he told me, "Death is Random." To show me, he pointed at a person and asked, "Is that person going to live?" He flipped a coin and it landed on, "No." That person just keeled over and died. So, I decided to influence chance and murdered him and took the coin. Yes, death is random, but you can influence the outcome. 

From this I also got to label this memory. I called it: "I know how to kill people."

Sean picked a small cup and decided it had something to do with his winery.

The next thing we got to see was something familiar in our bedroom. I decided it was a large hourglass filled with children's teeth. Most have fallen to the bottom half, but 3 were caught on the upper half, poised like grains of sand.

Then we went to a living room and there were various posters, letters, journals, etc. We got to pick one that we liked. One was a flier for a lost cat that liked hats.

Then we got to build a memory with another PC that had to have cause us regret. Sean and I got together and decided that Sean's winery required renewal of the wine terroir with a human sacrifice, but strangers won't do, it has to be people who had a connection with the land, so we chose a cousin. That cousin had a dog and it would sleep where the cousin's remains were spread and it would howl all the time, to shut it up, we had to feed it, but it would return to its vigil, so now it's a fat, sad dog. That was our regret. In the future, the human sacrifice couldn't have a pet.

We found we couldn't influence anything in the house except for things we had a strong connection to. One PC wanted to turn on the TV, so he sacrificed one of his memories (tearing it out of his character sheet -- thus the system name TORN), to turn it on.

We escaped the house and one PC put his hand in running water and lost a piece of his soul. At some point, we concluded that we were ghosts of some sort.

The clues pointed us to the multiCULTural Day event. We explored the event and got more clues. Sean got attacked by the cat wearing a sailor's hat; it toyed with Sean's PC and then tore away a part of his soul and ate it. We went to the University President's Office and got more clues. In the end, we had to trick a djinn back into its lamp (Sean's cup was its stopper) and undo a wish that held back the sea.

Steven asked what our last words were as the wall of water came to wash us away. I asked, "Will I live?" I flipped the coin in the air, all the Players leaned in to see how it landed. The answer was "Yes."

Everybody did their epilogues. I woke up to the cat kneading my chest, and I coughed up brackish water. A new sea shore was here and a Point Reyes Lighthouse which I would reside in for the rest of my life as I combed the beach for a lost coin and an old lamp.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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The Valley of Multifarious Deaths

Sunday 10 AM in 139 for 8 Hours

GM: Norm Albert

Type: RPG

System: John Carter of Mars

Edition: Modiphius (2d20)

Players: 8 (full table, 2 crashers got in)

Provided: All characters provided by GM

Power Level: Hyper-competent, like true ERB heroes

Rules Knowledge: Useful

Game Content: Mainstream

What starts as an expedition of commerce quickly devolves into a fight for survival in the unknown lands west of Bantoom where a new threat lurks, threatening all Barsoom!

Not my first choice because there's 8 players and that's always a bad sign, but the game is an 8 hour game, so I assumed I'd get enough screen time and I was right.

My main issue is with the GM. He didn't explain the system, dice mechanics, nor the world. So, I had to explain the dice mechanics to the people on either side of me, and the person next to me had to explain it to his neighbor. Several people still didn't understand the dice mechanics half way into the game, by the end, I think everybody finally figured it out. But yeah, this should have been explained at the very start.

The GM also had to continually look up the rules. Also when someone had a question, he'd get side tracked and would wait forever until the table talk quieted down before speaking. But since he took so long, side conversations would start up and then he'd wait again. So, the GM had no table control.

I actually enjoyed the system, one of the lightest 2d20 systems. And once we figured out the combinations for various actions (and wrote them down instead of asking the GM), things went quicker.

The adventure was as advertised and we had a good group of Players who made our own fun and numerous jokes while we waited for the GM.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

We were given a map and told to take an airship and find the ancient and forgotten land of Kobal. We were a diplomatic trade mission. Our direct route took us over an ancient crater. Once over the crater, our airship gets shot down.

Our water stores are destroyed and we decide to descend into the crater because it's green with jungle growth and thus a source of water. Inside, we run in to various creatures and conclude that the crater is really some sort of zoo or breeding pen.

We rescue a Kobalian, a lone survivor, whose scientific party was wiped out. She was holed up in a cave that the scientists had previously cleared and made safe.

We find a "temple" where great white apes are mind controlled and harvested for their blood. Tentacled Martians with advanced technology are the big bad things here. We kill a number of them and escape.

We capture Kobalian mounts that were roaming free and get to Kobal to complete our trade mission.

Overall, it wasn't a bad adventure.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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A Place for Wellness

Friday Noon in 149 for 4 Hours

GM: Morgan Hua

Type: RPG

System: Cthulhu Dark

Players: 6 (A Zisch, V Garcia, 2 crashers got in, 4 no shows)

Provided: All characters provided by GM

Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome

Game Content: Mature Themes

You will play various characters from movies such as Terminator, Halloween, Hellraiser, IT, Psycho, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. All are new patients in an insane asylum. Patients suffer from various persecution complexes, delusions, paranoia, and some have violent tendencies. When not playing a Patient, you will play as Doctors 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. 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.

The game was designed for a full table, but I only had 4 Players, so it wasn't as good as an experience as I had hoped for.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

The players used the Word Association and Ink Blots several times to good effect.

In the end, one patient got lobotomized. Sarah Conner escaped. Mother killed Laurie Strode and McMurphy. And the Joker blew up the Hospital.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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D-Day 80th Anniversary

Saturday 2:00 PM in the Monterey Room for 2 hours

Presenter(s): Dana Lombardy

June 2024 will see the 80th anniversary of the huge Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe along the Normandy coast of France. Dana worked with acclaimed artist Keith Rocco to publish a comic and hardcover book based upon the two huge wall murals Rocco created for the First Division Museum. Hear the backstory of the murals and the books, PLUS help playtest Dana’s new solitaire and 2-player board game Bloody Omaha: The Big Red One at D-Day.

This was basically a waste of time. The Presenter basically did a sales pitch for a hardcover book, a comic book, and a related game for Omaha beach. He also pitched another book with cartoon versions of WW2 aircraft and a previously published card game.

He wasn't able to get the art for the Omaha boardgame from his artist in time, so there was no play test material, so the event ran for only 1 hour.

There was virtually no content about D-Day. The game was supposed to be an educational game, so if we were able to do the play test, I assume we would have learned something about Omaha beach.

I added my contact info to his mailing list which he promised to send info on the playtest material when it became available. So, not a total loss.