Gen Con: Day 4 Report

My last day at Gen Con was dominated by a single, very long RPG that had a lot of promise. It was a Doctor Who/Firefly mash-up run in Savage Worlds. I know, right?

This was probably the game I was most excited about playing in since I first saw the listing months ago. Titled "The Great T.A.R.D.I.S. Robbery," this game was going to put together two of my favorite sci-fi franchises, both of which should compliment each other nicely. A real chocolate and peanut butter situation.

There were three other players at the table and all three immediately grabbed up Doctor Who characters. There was the tenth Doctor, River Song and Captain Jack. Immediately our fan fiction switches were flipped. Since I didn't want Firefly to be unrepresented in the game, I grabbed the sheet for Captain Mal. It would appear that one Serenity crew member wasn't enough for the GM, so he had me also play as another Firefly character. I naturally picked Zoe but I was wary of playing two characters at the same time.

(I'd like to point out that the player who grabbed the Doctor only did so when prompted by the GM. The Doctor has to be the single hardest established character to role player, simply because he knows the very things about every situation that only a GM should know. No one should be forced to play the Doctor. I can't see how it could be fun for anyone.)

The adventure started out well enough. Mal and Zoe agreed to help the Doctor and companions get their TARDIS back from the local magical repairman (with intentions of selling them out to get free repairs) but the plan quickly changed when Inara was captured by crazed cultists. Our inevitable betrayal had to be put on hold.

It seemed like the GM was weaving in a lot of different elements and was withholding information from players based on their series of origin. This was pretty cool until I figured out where all the weird confusing stuff was coming from: Classic Battlestar Galactica.

You know that peanut butter and chocolate analogy I used earlier? It still applies, but now some fresh dog shit has been mixed in. Now nothing tastes good in the slightest.

Yeah, characters and technology from the old Battlestar Galactica started popping up and I'm pretty sure that only the GM was having fun with it. The other players were just confused. I was just frustrated because I had no idea what to do with this shit. We ran into two crew members of some battlestar and they proceeded to do pretty much everything important in the story while we just hatched schemes that the GM wouldn't acknowledge. The GM actually started acting bored with everything we were doing and would not allow us to progress the plot. Might I add that I paid $8 for this?

Here's the weird part about all the Battlestar crap that was added: it was both pointless and the only stuff that mattered. If you were to remove all of it, we would have had the same story since the players had no idea how to actually use or care about anything not from Who or Firefly. At the same time, the GM ignored any solutions we offered and instead let the douchebags from the wrong franchise swoop in an solve every problem.

This was pretty much the textbook case of how not to run a con game and it left a very bad taste in my mouth. By the time the climax came around, I couldn't even feel good about victory. Once it was clear that the game was done, I got up and booked it to the exhibit hall. I bought some more weird dice and got the hell out of Indy.

Gen Con: Day 3 Report

My third day of Gen Con was all walking and RPGs. Remind me when event registration comes around next year to write a post about how to make the most of your schedule while taking into account the distance between the different venues. This year I learned that the JW Marriott and Union Stations are the anchors of the venue conglomerate when I had to walk nearly a mile of crowded halls to make it from one game to the other.

I had three different RPGs on Saturday, each one a game that I had purchased in the past but have yet to run. Now, as the books and boxes gather dust on my shelf, I can at least say I played the games once.

Because of the tight schedule, no purchases were made. My wallet thanked me later.

DC Heroes

I have been waiting to play this game for probably twenty years. It was the very first RPG I ever purchased as a kid and I never got past geeking out over all the statted out superheroes. Here was my chance to finally take this beauty for a ride.

The game was titled "Time Bubble Trouble" and had the Justice League jumping around in time and space looking to put things right. Because I showed up early, I had one of the first picks of heroes, so I couldn't resist playing as Batman. As others filed in, we formed a team of mostly heavy hitters, but Metamorpho and Black Canary allowed for some fun, unexpected situations.

Let me focus on the positives first. The couple playing as Black Canary and Green Lantern were awesome and knew their shit. At one point we encountered an alternate reality version of Guy Gardner, who was naturally being a dick. I had enough and decided it was time to reenact one of the greatest moments in JLA history.

One. Punch.

Using more than a few hero points, I insured that I would be knocking out Guy in one punch. The player controlling Black Canary was there to joyfully announce that she finally got to see it happen and wished someone had been taping it.

Most of the other players, especially those playing Green Lantern and Metamorpho were very inventive in the use of their powers. They were a lot of fun to play with.

And then there was the guy who was playing Superman. Good god, he was the worst. He was a nightmare, an amalgamation of every bad trait a role player could have in a single package. He hogged the spotlight, role played the character terribly, metagamed constantly, outright cheated at least once, and farted in my general direction. And he thought he was entitled to be this douchebag because he was the god damn Superman.

At one point we had to take on the evil Russian Superman from Red Son and came up with an excellent plan of turning Metamorpho into a giant kyptonite bomb. And then our idiot Superman got between us and the target, as if he hadn't heard a fucking thing we said in the fifteen minutes we took to formulate our plan. I had to save his life as he plummeted to earth wrapped in a ball of 50 different types of kryptonite and he didn't even notice.

He was That Guy. Don't ever be That Guy.

The GM did nothing to reign him in or question his outright stupidity. I understand being a "yes and" GM, but none of us have chosen to play with this guy. Telling him to chill out or making him suffer for his idiotic actions might have damped his experience, but it would have greatly improved the game for the five other people at the table.

At least he helped me channel a decent pissed off Batman.

I ended up having to book it to my next game, which was a mile away. The plot seemed to crumble at the end of the session and I have no idea why we had to beat up on Darkseid or what the Time Trapper was even attempting. I would have loved to pick the GMs brain, but I had to go and get away from Superdouche.

Vampire: The Requiem

The next game was my first experience of the World of Darkness games. I had read most of the rules for nWoD and some of the fluff for V:tR, but the was probably the one system I had least of a gasp on.

There were only three players in this game, which was expected to have about six. This is probably for the best because this was going to end up being the most role playing focused game I've ever been in. When one of the players introduced himself his vampire completely in character with a Louisiana accent without skipping a beat, I thought I was going to be in trouble. On the role playing style spectrum, I am as far from the Actor end as possible.

But by the end of the game, especially during the lengthy debate and political posturing that developed in the story, I ended up speaking almost entirely in character. It was exciting to be so out of my comfort zone.

Of all the games I played at Gen Con, I suspect that this was the most improvised by the GM. This was probably for the best since things got a little crazy towards the end. I'll spare you a detailed plot summary, but the endgame scenario had us choosing between sticking with our Prince or siding with a insane ancient vampire with giant mutant animals in his control. Because we were only baby vampires, the smooth talking "face" of the group outright bailed from the story, seeing it as a zero-sum outcome.

I was of a similar opinion, but I felt that at a con game there is no reason to ever give up and not go out in a blaze of glory. In the end, I was able to harness the power of poor decision making, badass betrayal and snappy one-liners to muster the strength to ambush the Prince and tear her head from her body.

In my first game of Vampire I ended up becoming the Prince. It doesn't get much better than that.

Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space

I don't know his name or where he came from, but this GM was amazing. He had put together an adventure and a cast of characters actually worthy of the Doctor Who name. It could have been an episode of the show. It was that cool.

(UPDATE: Actually, I do know his name. He's Clinton Boomer. He's an author, which explains a lot. You can kickstart the publishing of some of his books right now.)

Each character had a secret agenda and a history that tied in perfectly to the story. As we played, things kept clicking into place, forming a unified whole. It was astounding to experience. I can only imagine how much time and effort this took to plan.

Although the ripping off of a Prince's head was awesome fun, the following exchange was the single best role playing moment of the night:

GM (as immortal debutante in a house clearly occupied by Weeping Angels): "I have a guardian angel who protects me."

Me (a psychic con man who posses as a spiritualist): "An angel, you say? Can you show me this angel?"

GM: "It does not like to be seen! You will need to close your eyes."

Me: ...

GM: Covers his eyes with his hands.

Me: I close my eyes.

At that point I nearly had my head ripped off by a Weeping Angel in the exact same away I did to the Prince only a few hours before. I spent the rest of the game with my character at death's door screaming about ghosts and demons and using my psychic powers to feed clues to my fellow players.

Oh, and I spent the whole time speaking in a terrible British accent. We all did. That was silly fun.

It's worth noting that Doctor Who was the most rules-light game I played on Saturday and it was probably the only game in which all of the rules were actually followed. Vampire and DC Heroes were so fast and loose that the core mechanic was bullshitting.

Gen Con: Day 2 Report

I meant to blog regularly from Gen Con, but my full schedule meant early mornings and late nights. Between eating, calling home and playing games with friends, I didn't have much time for writing. So, I'll do my best to document my time at Gen Con after the fact.

Games
The day started at noon with yet another game of Arkham Horror, this time incorporating the King in Yellow expansion. Because of the extremely nasty nature of the expansion, our tactics immediately changed from the usual sealing of gates to intentionally waking up Nyarlathotep and punching him to death. This is the first time I've even encountered the Ancient One and not had everyone give up hope of winning. Our encounter with Eihort the previous night was an exercise in futility. Yet somehow we managed to beat the crap out of the Crawling Chaos and earn a win.

While my cohorts demoed Decent 2nd Edition, I fell into a demo of Blood Bowl Team Manager. Although the demo was very short, it left me with a good impression of the game. It combines elements of deck building and hand management that I love in a card game. Plus it has Warhammer races being goofy, which never fails to please me.

The day ended with a large group game of Castles & Crusades run by none other than +Stephen Chenault, the CEO of Troll Lord Games.

Not the best photo of the game, but the only one in which something awesome must have happened.

Because this was my first game of C&C as a player, I wanted to be a class that I've never seen at my table: the Wizard. I rolled up a level 5 wizard with completely random spells. This may have been a mistake since most of my spells ended up being about language and written words. These spells don't do much good in the middle of a grassland. Luckily, my Floating Disk did serve as a convenient elevator for our many chests of gold. Too bad those chests of gold had to be ditched soon after so that we had a chance to get away from the orc horde following us.

Steve did a great job running a game with at least 12 players without having it erupt into chaos. Everyone got a chance to shine (although the dice were much kinder to some) and he had an excellent scene of where characters where in a scene.

Acquisitions
I did a majority of my shopping on Friday since I had a large chunk of free time.

My first purchase was a bunch of weird dice from Impact Miniatures, who seemed to be the only vendor selling unusual dice in multiple colors. I especially liked their 7-sided die, which has a pretty brilliant design. I purchased the weird dice because a GM can never have too many in his dice bag, but having the unique dice in my possession made it easier to give in and purchase a copy of...

Dungeon Craw Classics! I'm not sure I'll ever run DCC over C&C, but the game is just too fun and strange to ignore. And $40 for a massive book seemed like hell of a deal. I purchased the level-0 adventure Sailors on the Starless Sea, which allowed for a cool dice bag to be included. This made me feel a little silly when I had just bought a dice bag from Crystal Caste. If only I had gotten my head out of my ass and bought DCC earlier, I could have saved some cash!

I also purchased a sleeve of 1100+ Magic: The Gathering cards. I'm not a collector but I like the idea of making cool decks and I just can't make anything coherent with the small sampling I have now. At only $12 for all those cards, I think I'll be just fine.

Gen Con: Day 1 Report

This is only half of the board.

Rather uneventful day. Played two games of Arkham Horror, one of which had all of the expansions in play. It was beautifully chaotic. The GM could have been better since a game with so many expansions and already overly complicated rules would require someone with encyclopedic knowledge of the game. Unlike the typical game of Arkham Horror, which is pure co-op strategy, this was more of a you're on your own survival horror experience.

Bought some weird dice but still unsure if I will purchase Dungeon Crawl Classics. It seems like a very fun game, but I'm pretty committed to Castles & Crusades. Also, purchased a sweet C&C screen.

What I Will Be Doing at Gen Con 2013

I will be attending Gen Con this year and with only nine days to go I am getting very excited. I attended last year but didn't really do much other than tool around the exhibition hall, play one game of Savage Worlds, play a single game of Dominion, and volunteer for four hours each day. It was still fun, but I couldn't help but feel like I missed out on the Gen Con experience.

This year will be different. I've taken full advantage of the event registration system and will not be volunteering at all. I will be playing in five different RPGs and a ton of Arkham Horror games. My schedule is so packed that I will be making rations packages because I will not have time to leave the convention center for a meal on some days. It's going to be a very busy four days.

Here is what I am looking forward to:

DC Heroes

I've been wanting to play this game since the early 1990s when I purchased the second edition box set and several supplements with my allowance. It was my first RPG but I just wanted it for the books of stats and background on various superheroes. I read some of the rules but never worked up the courage to ask someone to play it with me before eventually selling the set on ebay. It was a real missed opportunity since I didn't get to play an RPG until I was an adult.

I'll be playing in a Justice League game of DC Heroes at Gen Con. I"m currently re-reading the rules since I'm expected to know them for the game. This is probably the one game that I'm looking forward to the most because I can't wait to see how it actually plays at the table. The MEGS system seems like a strange rule set, but it's surprisingly simple and facilitates much more improvisation that its universal measurement system lets on.

Doctor Who Games

I'll be playing two different Doctor Who-related games. The first is a session of the Cubicle 7 official Doctor Who game. The second is a Savage Worlds game that mashes up Doctor Who with the Firefly universe. It seems that many of the games at Gen Con are big, high-concept, mash-up extravaganzas and The Great TARDIS Robbery sounds too cool to miss.

Ever since I registered for these games I have been binge-watching Doctor Who, viewing every episode from the beginning of the rebooted series. There's something terrifying about playing as characters from the series, especially the Doctor himself.

Dice

I'm not much for shopping in the exhibition hall, but it's very hard to resist the siren call of the giant bins of dice at the Chessex booth or the beautifully designed dice of Q-Workshop. Hopefully I will be able to resist buying another coffee mug worth of dice, but I will be on the lookout for unique dice that I can add to my GM arsenal.

Arkham Horror

I'll definitely be getting my Arkham Horror fix this year with three games, including a session of To the Barricades, which adds all of the expansions for a massive 18-player game. I don't play all that much Arkham Horror, so that game sounds terrifying for many reasons. I may be biting off more than I can chew, but the epic scale of the game is hard to pass up.

Being the Player

Since jumping into the hobby three years ago, I have been the player in a game only once and that was at last year's Gen Con. GMing a game is fun and exciting, but it is a very different experience than that of the player. The level of mystery and urgency isn't there. A game experience is so incredibly different when you are on the other side of the screen.

I'll also be playing in a Vampire: The Requiem and Castles & Crusades game, and I'll probably hang out at Games on Demand should I ever find myself without something to do for a good chunk of time.

Meeting New People

This is a weird thing for me to look forward to since I am an extreme introvert, but people at Gen Con are generally good people. Being surrounded by people with whom you have a shared interest and no pretense really helps bring the most staunch introvert out of his shell. I've heard a lot about people being dick heads at con games, but it seems to me that most people want to make the absolute best of their short time at Gen Con and are therefor on their best, most charitable behavior.