"Choose your Adventure" is back on the road!
I've never been to a Steampunk convention before. The July "Convivial" is one of a number of events of that name held around the country on different dates. This one was in New Malden in Greater London. It was held over two days, Saturday and Sunday. Looking at the cost of a hotel in the area, it seemed sensible for me to just dip my toe into the water and treat it as a day trip this first time. (Sorting the trains out took some finagling but I eventually managed to beat even the Split Ticketing websites on cost and flexibility.)
The convention seems to be knowing celebration of the great British Eccentric with events such as Teapot Racing, Tea Duelling, Worseminton etc.
So I got up stupid o'clock in the morning and travelled down to London. The route and connections are actually very straightforward once you've done the journey. The event is close to New Malden station and is based in a Church and a pub over the road (or vice versa).
I was based in the middle of the trading area in the main church hall, surrounded by a dozen or so stalls. Amongst the clothes and other Steampunk items, there was a table full of crystals and - next to each other - a stall selling knitwear octopi and a stand with half a dozen live snakes for people to hold. Eclectic.
The Church Hall was directly adjacent to the main body of the church where music acts were "setting up". The noise level gave me concerns that - once they started playing - I wouldn't be able to hear any players I might get. I suggested to the organiser that I move to the Foyer of the hall but he said I could over to other part of the event in the the pub if I wanted.
The Pub.
I moved right over!
The actual event was in the function room upstairs and seemed full so I set up on a table in the main part of the pub. Getting interest was intermittent but I did get to run three games:
Two parents and a son played through my standard "The Evolution of Species" introductory scenario. This was fun as always with the son's character whipping up an ambulatory flame thrower at the end which ended up killing as many hostages as bad guys.
This climax was watched by a couple of people who I corralled into an immediate game. As they'd seen the climax of my usual scenario, I brought out one of the two new ones I'd thought up for this convention. "One of our Dinosaurs is Missing". I thought: evil scientist, shrink ray, kidnapped Brontosaurus. No problem. I wasn't expecting the character's souped up automobile leading a Godzilla sized Brontosaur on a chase across the Home Counties before luring it into an unstable quarry via a "Thelma and Louise" style leap. One of the players bought the game and bought me a drink.
Then it was a long wait until, just before the end, I had a young couple play through "Evolution of Species" again. In a rare turn of events, they did as asked and took evidence to the Police instead of trying to sort matters out themselves. This gave them Police back-up and they resolved the final battle extremely well - capturing the bad guy and converting his Frankenstein-type creation to their side. They bought me a drink as well.
Because of my positioning, I didn't see much of the rest of the event - though there was some good mass ukulele playing in the beer garden. The costumes were great as you'd expect with a predominance of Pith helmets and Khaki due to the weather. Everyone was very friendly and though I only had three games I had a lot of interesting chats.
Was it worth it? The jury's out. Maybe thinking a bit more about the position of my table would help and if we can build up a repeated presence, people might start expecting it and looking for it. But it's competing in a convention jam-packed with myriad other events. There was a lot of waiting about but the three games I played were - as always - so much FUN that it just about made up for it. One to go to if it fits a gap in my diary, I think, but as a one day visit. Not worth paying for a hotel yet, for me.
Saturday, 28 July 2018
Monday, 23 July 2018
Continuum 2018
TLDR: excellent long running, well organised, quirky (in a good way) residential convention. Superb organising committee, lovely, amiable fellow attendees. Only ran 3 out of 8 game sessions to small groups. My games don't match the demographic. But all three games were great. Played 4 in fun games. A win! Should be put on every year.
Continuum is a long running, well organised and successful residential convention in Leicester. It runs from Friday afternoon until Monday morning (Monday is checkout only). As well as TTRPGs it also offers "FreeForms" (sort of LARPS, I think) a small trade hall and a range of seminars. And drinking. It runs once every two years - in the years which are even numbered. It is based in student accommodation at Leicester university.
Because of its long history, the convention has a unique character and a number of traditions, both explicit and covert. It has a large number of Runequest/Gloranthan/Cthulhu games on offer. However, the choice is widening and becoming more eclectic. You still don't see much standard fare in the vein of D&D 5th etc. though.
Booking is done in advance via the website. You pay for the convention and accommodation up front. Spaces are limited - 160 - and it does sell out.
You can offer to run TTRPGs when you arrive at the event itself but the organisers prefer that you submit games in advance so they can promote them on the website, check they've got enough etc. In order to encourage this, you get a free advance sign up in a game you want to play for each game you submit. This is well managed by the convention TTRPG games Tsar, the excellent and personable Keary. There are 8 game slots - 2 on Friday and 3 each on Saturday and Sunday.
Despite the broadening tastes and offerings at Continuum, I'm aware that my games don't match the demographic and expect to struggle to get sign ups. If you're desperate to referee, offering a game set in Glorantha, or a Runequest variant or a Cthulhu game should garner interest, provided it's something new. (This crowd have played all the classic stuff.)
Shortly before the event I discovered that I wasn't at work Monday morning and so was able to change my booking from 2 nights (Friday/Saturday) to three. Basically I paid a £30 supplement to play one extra game.
I was still at work on the Friday. So I missed the first game slot and arrived well in time for the second session. I bought some supplies for my room from the Tesco express next to the station. There's an Asda 10-15 mins walk from the event but it's best to come supplied.
However, like an idiot I'd missed the instructions for the printing and bringing my own signup sheets. Though I'd submitted games for Friday Evening and Saturday morning, the sheets for those slots were already up when I arrived. There were no sign up sheets up for my games. I borrowed a pen and quickly wrote up a handwritten sheet for my Saturday morning game. But it looked rubbish next to some of the other sheets. And people had already signed for games in that slot so I didn't hold out much hope of getting players. A friend advised/forced me not to put up a last minute hand written sheet for my Friday game so I signed up for a game of Lady Blackbird.
I checked into my room and attended the opening ceremony. For tea I ate sandwiches etc I'd brought from Tesco. The accomodation is student rooms. They don't have TV sets and are basic. But they're clean with free wifi and there are shared kitchens. There are no pots and pans, crockery or cutlery but there is a Microwave. If Continuum were every year, I might have remembered this and bought some microwaveable meals from Tesco. I also dropped off some games in the Bring and Buy.
My evening game turned out to be a good choice. I've heard people raving about Lady Blackbird at convention after convention. I've downloaded it and tried to read it but have never understood it. It was expertly run by Rae - the Wyntercon games Tsar. There was a full table of excellent, fun, players. I played the Amazonian bodyguard. This version of the game tended towards the Steampunk but when one player forgot this and referred to security cameras - suddenly we had a demon-based security system. There were a couple of things that didn't suit my personal tastes. Some people had played the game before and were replaying it. Though it's supposed to be repayable and different every time, I don't think there's enough variation to enable this to happen successfully IMHO. I also found the mismatch between players with experience and those without a bit jarring. The second was the habit that some players (Lloyd, the excellent Expo Games on DemandTsar) seem to have developed of deliberately introducing complications into a game to make it more fun. I'm old school and think complications should come from poor choices, the dice or the Referee. Oh, and there was only one member of staff on the bar.
But these are minor moans. Fun players, excellent referee, good game. (I still think it deserves expansion and publishing in a more detailed, printed, commercial version). An excellent session and I now know that I could run this game if I was asked to by a convention Games Tsar.
The bar is stocked with some real ales especially for the convention, is open until 2am and full of gaming luminaries. So it's tempting to stay up but I chose to try to get to sleep before midnight.
Overnight I had a brainwave. I used my iPad to download my game descriptions from the convention website, and quickly produced some typed signup sheets with added convention logo and appropriate other images. I emailed these to the accommodation front desk and they printed them for me. Free. Wow! My concerns about not getting sign ups because of grotty handwritten sheets were allayed. My shower wasn't working but I got some great technical advice from the front desk ("give it some welly!") that did the job. Good work all round.
Breakfast is included and does the job but is basic.
My morning game didn't get any sign ups so I grabbed the last place in Phil Masters' steampunk GURPS game. Then something unfortunate happened. Just about every other player who'd signed up for the game crossed their name off at the last minute. I don't think it was seeing my name on the sheet! I think what had happened is that someone had stuck up another game they fancied and they all decamped en masse with minutes to go. Not very good manners if you ask me. We scraped together three players and Phil ran the game. Great setting, good GM, well prepared. As usual the GURPS character sheets were rammed with information which must have been a nightmare to produce but made playing the game easy. I played the Amazonian second in command (a trend?) Despite all of this, however, I think this has finally cemented my view that GURPS is not the game for me.
Phil, however, delivered a good game. Upon being given my character sheet my eyes fell upon the words "Bomb Gun". Of course I got to unleash this to destroy an airship in the game's climax - so I call that a win.
Lunch was more Tesco sandwiches (I'd stocked up).
For the afternoon I had three players sign up for my "Orville" rip off. Using my Manifold rules but that's irrelevant really. One of the players was Marcus Rowland. This was like a classic White Dwarf contributor meet up! This was fun as always. I just run a straight Star Trek scenario - blatantly ripping off two classic episodes - and watch the TTRPG players dismantle it.
We had the ship's Captain (a sentient cloud of Flies), a prototype Android weapons officer and Kevin - from Tech. support. They were initially extremely successful. They went in and out quick and completed the first mission perfectly, short cutting the scenario. Then things went belly up on the follow up mission. They lost the ship, 277 out of 300 crewmen and the prototype android. Technically they completed the mission but the inquiries will drag on for years....... Great fun with great players.
In the evening, I sampled the food from the on-site kitchen. The Continuum "main Hall" is basically the students' hall of residence cafeteria. The kitchen is set up to provide students with cheap meals. As such, in past conventions there have been some complaints about the quality of the food and some effort has been made upgrade it. Not that successfully I'm afraid. My (£6.95) meal was a limited portion of beef chilli on a plate full of rice, new potatoes and boiled broccoli. Not enough sauce/chilli to cover the otherwise dry ingredients. Warm, filling, not overly expensive. Some people got pizzas or went out for other meals. I don't blame them. There's a two hour gap between afternoon and evening games so there's load of time to do this.
For the evening game I had three players sign up. I ran Paul Baldowski's scenario from his award winning "Trail of the Wendigo" book, but using my Manifold rules rather than his Cthulhu Hack. When asked for a reason why their characters were driving In the Canadian wilds, the players decided that they were two Mounties bringing in a fugitive. A classic trope! It was made even more perfect by the meta overlap. The two Mounties were two guys who were friends and had come to the convention together. The female grifter was a charming young lady who'd been providing table after table with homemade cake through the day. They weren't exactly playing themselves but it was close.
Despite only having three players again, I loved this session. It is a slow build horror story with a really really sick theme. Because they were Mounties, rather than say a family group, this turned into more "The Wicker Man meets Assault on District 19" than "Hostel" with a brutal final scene which flirted with a TPK.
During the game Keary checked in with me. I love the way he goes around and checks in with and talks to every Referee. Every. Single. One. And because I'd run two games, he gave me drinks tokens for two free drinks. This convention pays you in beer. Unfortunately, the bar was starting to run out of some beers.
I went to bed before midnight again.
I got up and checked my signup sheet for the morning game. No players. I had breakfast - functional again - and went to my room to collect my gaming stuff expecting to come down and have to find a game to play in. In the short gap, I'd garnered three players!
This was a playtest of my d6 Hack rules being developed as part of Role Play Relief. I offered the players a choice between the old White Dwarf investigative scenario "Plague from the Past" and Dyson Logos' "Goblin Gully". It being early morning after the night before, they chose to twat goblins rather than use their brains.
The game went well, good classic low level D&D with no obvious difference through just using d6's. Lots of great tactical interplay between the goblins and the party. Many goblins slaughtered but the chief and a couple of other survivors escaped with their treasure
Amazingly I still had some food left from my shopping burst on Friday so lunch was more cold stuff from Tescos. (I could have kept it fresher in the fridge in the kitchen.)
In the afternoon I'd pre-booked into the latest instalment of Martin Pickett's "Victorian Colony of Mars" series. I first met Martin when he wrote and ran "The Great Martian Tripod Race" for my The Code of Steam and Steel game. He's now converted the scenarios set in that world to Manifold. This was the first time I've PLAYED my game. And Martin has adapted the rules for Steampunk as you would do to produce a sourcebook. Both of these things made this session special for me.
Martin had chosen to run the game in a seminar room in one of the houses up the road from the main convention hall. It's quiet and a good place to play but - for me - too far away from the hustle and bustle of the convention (and the bar). We also had players trying to deliberately introduce complications again (see above). And we DID resolve things through auditing the bad guys' accounts rather than high adventure.
But we went from "Carry On Airship Police" at the a start, to being a really effective team, efficiently stopping the wrong doing and individually rounding up two key figures from each faction almost automatically. And all the players were awesome - especially Simon Beaver*. As author of "Stiff Upper Lip" - a FATE game set in the era of British Adventuring (get it printed Simon!) - his immense historical knowledge leant massive verisimilitude to our Law Officer'd actions.
* there were at least THREE "Simon B's" at the convention!
I attended the closing ceremony. Apparently there's going to be a questionnaire coming out. I hope EVERYONE votes to make it an annual event.
For tea I ate the canteen food again. It's easy to get. This was basically a roast turkey dinner and was much more acceptable than the previous night's efforts.
By this time the convention was winding down and most people had gone. The bar was out of most draft beers so I was on cider but had two staff on - now it was quiet - rather than the single harassed guy when it was busy Friday night. Go figure.
My game - based on Fireball XL5 - garnered no players, again. I think I need to retire it, unplayed. It's just too niche. By this time there was one space left in one game - the Great Gloranthan Duck Race game. An RPG based on Wargames rules played on a kind of snakes and ladder board set on the Runequest world of Glorantha and played for laughs as various crews - mostly non human - vied to win a boat race by any means necessary , unnecessary and just downright funny. Not exactly in MY wheelhouse but a pleasant way to end the convention. There was a traditional end of convention sing song somewhere else but we were too busy playing to go.
Was it worth the extra £30 for that game? That's debatable. But it WAS worth it through making the Sunday much more relaxed. I could concentrate on enjoying the event, get a good nights sleep and pack at my leisure rather than worrying about checking out, carrying all my worldly goods around with me for the afternoon and rushing to catch the last train home, as I do at so many events. If you can stay until Monday I thoroughly recommend it
Continuum is a superior residential convention. It has no drawbacks and some truly excellent features. We don't have enough residential TTRPG conventions in this country. We NEED to have Continuum every year.
Continuum is a long running, well organised and successful residential convention in Leicester. It runs from Friday afternoon until Monday morning (Monday is checkout only). As well as TTRPGs it also offers "FreeForms" (sort of LARPS, I think) a small trade hall and a range of seminars. And drinking. It runs once every two years - in the years which are even numbered. It is based in student accommodation at Leicester university.
Because of its long history, the convention has a unique character and a number of traditions, both explicit and covert. It has a large number of Runequest/Gloranthan/Cthulhu games on offer. However, the choice is widening and becoming more eclectic. You still don't see much standard fare in the vein of D&D 5th etc. though.
Booking is done in advance via the website. You pay for the convention and accommodation up front. Spaces are limited - 160 - and it does sell out.
You can offer to run TTRPGs when you arrive at the event itself but the organisers prefer that you submit games in advance so they can promote them on the website, check they've got enough etc. In order to encourage this, you get a free advance sign up in a game you want to play for each game you submit. This is well managed by the convention TTRPG games Tsar, the excellent and personable Keary. There are 8 game slots - 2 on Friday and 3 each on Saturday and Sunday.
Despite the broadening tastes and offerings at Continuum, I'm aware that my games don't match the demographic and expect to struggle to get sign ups. If you're desperate to referee, offering a game set in Glorantha, or a Runequest variant or a Cthulhu game should garner interest, provided it's something new. (This crowd have played all the classic stuff.)
Shortly before the event I discovered that I wasn't at work Monday morning and so was able to change my booking from 2 nights (Friday/Saturday) to three. Basically I paid a £30 supplement to play one extra game.
I was still at work on the Friday. So I missed the first game slot and arrived well in time for the second session. I bought some supplies for my room from the Tesco express next to the station. There's an Asda 10-15 mins walk from the event but it's best to come supplied.
However, like an idiot I'd missed the instructions for the printing and bringing my own signup sheets. Though I'd submitted games for Friday Evening and Saturday morning, the sheets for those slots were already up when I arrived. There were no sign up sheets up for my games. I borrowed a pen and quickly wrote up a handwritten sheet for my Saturday morning game. But it looked rubbish next to some of the other sheets. And people had already signed for games in that slot so I didn't hold out much hope of getting players. A friend advised/forced me not to put up a last minute hand written sheet for my Friday game so I signed up for a game of Lady Blackbird.
I checked into my room and attended the opening ceremony. For tea I ate sandwiches etc I'd brought from Tesco. The accomodation is student rooms. They don't have TV sets and are basic. But they're clean with free wifi and there are shared kitchens. There are no pots and pans, crockery or cutlery but there is a Microwave. If Continuum were every year, I might have remembered this and bought some microwaveable meals from Tesco. I also dropped off some games in the Bring and Buy.
My evening game turned out to be a good choice. I've heard people raving about Lady Blackbird at convention after convention. I've downloaded it and tried to read it but have never understood it. It was expertly run by Rae - the Wyntercon games Tsar. There was a full table of excellent, fun, players. I played the Amazonian bodyguard. This version of the game tended towards the Steampunk but when one player forgot this and referred to security cameras - suddenly we had a demon-based security system. There were a couple of things that didn't suit my personal tastes. Some people had played the game before and were replaying it. Though it's supposed to be repayable and different every time, I don't think there's enough variation to enable this to happen successfully IMHO. I also found the mismatch between players with experience and those without a bit jarring. The second was the habit that some players (Lloyd, the excellent Expo Games on DemandTsar) seem to have developed of deliberately introducing complications into a game to make it more fun. I'm old school and think complications should come from poor choices, the dice or the Referee. Oh, and there was only one member of staff on the bar.
But these are minor moans. Fun players, excellent referee, good game. (I still think it deserves expansion and publishing in a more detailed, printed, commercial version). An excellent session and I now know that I could run this game if I was asked to by a convention Games Tsar.
The bar is stocked with some real ales especially for the convention, is open until 2am and full of gaming luminaries. So it's tempting to stay up but I chose to try to get to sleep before midnight.
Overnight I had a brainwave. I used my iPad to download my game descriptions from the convention website, and quickly produced some typed signup sheets with added convention logo and appropriate other images. I emailed these to the accommodation front desk and they printed them for me. Free. Wow! My concerns about not getting sign ups because of grotty handwritten sheets were allayed. My shower wasn't working but I got some great technical advice from the front desk ("give it some welly!") that did the job. Good work all round.
Breakfast is included and does the job but is basic.
My morning game didn't get any sign ups so I grabbed the last place in Phil Masters' steampunk GURPS game. Then something unfortunate happened. Just about every other player who'd signed up for the game crossed their name off at the last minute. I don't think it was seeing my name on the sheet! I think what had happened is that someone had stuck up another game they fancied and they all decamped en masse with minutes to go. Not very good manners if you ask me. We scraped together three players and Phil ran the game. Great setting, good GM, well prepared. As usual the GURPS character sheets were rammed with information which must have been a nightmare to produce but made playing the game easy. I played the Amazonian second in command (a trend?) Despite all of this, however, I think this has finally cemented my view that GURPS is not the game for me.
Phil, however, delivered a good game. Upon being given my character sheet my eyes fell upon the words "Bomb Gun". Of course I got to unleash this to destroy an airship in the game's climax - so I call that a win.
Lunch was more Tesco sandwiches (I'd stocked up).
For the afternoon I had three players sign up for my "Orville" rip off. Using my Manifold rules but that's irrelevant really. One of the players was Marcus Rowland. This was like a classic White Dwarf contributor meet up! This was fun as always. I just run a straight Star Trek scenario - blatantly ripping off two classic episodes - and watch the TTRPG players dismantle it.
We had the ship's Captain (a sentient cloud of Flies), a prototype Android weapons officer and Kevin - from Tech. support. They were initially extremely successful. They went in and out quick and completed the first mission perfectly, short cutting the scenario. Then things went belly up on the follow up mission. They lost the ship, 277 out of 300 crewmen and the prototype android. Technically they completed the mission but the inquiries will drag on for years....... Great fun with great players.
In the evening, I sampled the food from the on-site kitchen. The Continuum "main Hall" is basically the students' hall of residence cafeteria. The kitchen is set up to provide students with cheap meals. As such, in past conventions there have been some complaints about the quality of the food and some effort has been made upgrade it. Not that successfully I'm afraid. My (£6.95) meal was a limited portion of beef chilli on a plate full of rice, new potatoes and boiled broccoli. Not enough sauce/chilli to cover the otherwise dry ingredients. Warm, filling, not overly expensive. Some people got pizzas or went out for other meals. I don't blame them. There's a two hour gap between afternoon and evening games so there's load of time to do this.
For the evening game I had three players sign up. I ran Paul Baldowski's scenario from his award winning "Trail of the Wendigo" book, but using my Manifold rules rather than his Cthulhu Hack. When asked for a reason why their characters were driving In the Canadian wilds, the players decided that they were two Mounties bringing in a fugitive. A classic trope! It was made even more perfect by the meta overlap. The two Mounties were two guys who were friends and had come to the convention together. The female grifter was a charming young lady who'd been providing table after table with homemade cake through the day. They weren't exactly playing themselves but it was close.
Despite only having three players again, I loved this session. It is a slow build horror story with a really really sick theme. Because they were Mounties, rather than say a family group, this turned into more "The Wicker Man meets Assault on District 19" than "Hostel" with a brutal final scene which flirted with a TPK.
During the game Keary checked in with me. I love the way he goes around and checks in with and talks to every Referee. Every. Single. One. And because I'd run two games, he gave me drinks tokens for two free drinks. This convention pays you in beer. Unfortunately, the bar was starting to run out of some beers.
I went to bed before midnight again.
I got up and checked my signup sheet for the morning game. No players. I had breakfast - functional again - and went to my room to collect my gaming stuff expecting to come down and have to find a game to play in. In the short gap, I'd garnered three players!
This was a playtest of my d6 Hack rules being developed as part of Role Play Relief. I offered the players a choice between the old White Dwarf investigative scenario "Plague from the Past" and Dyson Logos' "Goblin Gully". It being early morning after the night before, they chose to twat goblins rather than use their brains.
The game went well, good classic low level D&D with no obvious difference through just using d6's. Lots of great tactical interplay between the goblins and the party. Many goblins slaughtered but the chief and a couple of other survivors escaped with their treasure
Amazingly I still had some food left from my shopping burst on Friday so lunch was more cold stuff from Tescos. (I could have kept it fresher in the fridge in the kitchen.)
In the afternoon I'd pre-booked into the latest instalment of Martin Pickett's "Victorian Colony of Mars" series. I first met Martin when he wrote and ran "The Great Martian Tripod Race" for my The Code of Steam and Steel game. He's now converted the scenarios set in that world to Manifold. This was the first time I've PLAYED my game. And Martin has adapted the rules for Steampunk as you would do to produce a sourcebook. Both of these things made this session special for me.
Martin had chosen to run the game in a seminar room in one of the houses up the road from the main convention hall. It's quiet and a good place to play but - for me - too far away from the hustle and bustle of the convention (and the bar). We also had players trying to deliberately introduce complications again (see above). And we DID resolve things through auditing the bad guys' accounts rather than high adventure.
But we went from "Carry On Airship Police" at the a start, to being a really effective team, efficiently stopping the wrong doing and individually rounding up two key figures from each faction almost automatically. And all the players were awesome - especially Simon Beaver*. As author of "Stiff Upper Lip" - a FATE game set in the era of British Adventuring (get it printed Simon!) - his immense historical knowledge leant massive verisimilitude to our Law Officer'd actions.
* there were at least THREE "Simon B's" at the convention!
I attended the closing ceremony. Apparently there's going to be a questionnaire coming out. I hope EVERYONE votes to make it an annual event.
For tea I ate the canteen food again. It's easy to get. This was basically a roast turkey dinner and was much more acceptable than the previous night's efforts.
By this time the convention was winding down and most people had gone. The bar was out of most draft beers so I was on cider but had two staff on - now it was quiet - rather than the single harassed guy when it was busy Friday night. Go figure.
My game - based on Fireball XL5 - garnered no players, again. I think I need to retire it, unplayed. It's just too niche. By this time there was one space left in one game - the Great Gloranthan Duck Race game. An RPG based on Wargames rules played on a kind of snakes and ladder board set on the Runequest world of Glorantha and played for laughs as various crews - mostly non human - vied to win a boat race by any means necessary , unnecessary and just downright funny. Not exactly in MY wheelhouse but a pleasant way to end the convention. There was a traditional end of convention sing song somewhere else but we were too busy playing to go.
Was it worth the extra £30 for that game? That's debatable. But it WAS worth it through making the Sunday much more relaxed. I could concentrate on enjoying the event, get a good nights sleep and pack at my leisure rather than worrying about checking out, carrying all my worldly goods around with me for the afternoon and rushing to catch the last train home, as I do at so many events. If you can stay until Monday I thoroughly recommend it
Continuum is a superior residential convention. It has no drawbacks and some truly excellent features. We don't have enough residential TTRPG conventions in this country. We NEED to have Continuum every year.
Adventures in Roleplaying
Simon's adventures in Role playing.....
I don't have a home group or regular game but am just off 7 solid days of RPGs. Here's how the first four went:
I recently ran a couple of TTRPG sessions for colleagues at my school as part of "wellness sessions" on training days. A member of staff asked me to run more so I agreed to run three sessions during three lunchtimes in the last week of school
I decided to run my Steampunk rules "The Code of Steam and Steel" and my standard introductory scenario "The Evolution of Species".
The teacher who'd ASKED for the games couldn't make Monday but said she was free from Tuesday onwards. On Monday only two people turned up. They made a Lord and a Spy. We had enough time for them to be briefed on the disappearances across London and start some investigation.
Tuesday the third teacher joined us. She made an ex-hunter with a Steam Rifle - with maximum score in Steam Rifle. The group tracked clues to sewer grate near one of the disappearances and were attacked by giant mechanised rats. With the aid of the experienced Hunter they fought them off.
Then one of the players used a double to introduce a new plot element of the bad guys' secret stock of explosives going off, creating a hole the characters could use to track them. The session ended with them finding the villain in his lair.
Wednesday, the original player who'd asked for the game was busy and couldn't make it so I was down to two players again. We fought the climactic battle but with the Hunter as an NPC with that massive Steam Rifle the battle was a bit easy.
I enjoyed the games. The people I played with were great. But there weren't enough players, there wasn't enough interest and there isn't enough time in school. So I won't try to set up an ongoing TTRPG group.
Thursday the Birmingham Central Roleplayers moved from Ladywood - which is inconvenient to me - to Selly Oak, just down the road. So I threw some games into my bag and travelled down. Though I thought I was on time, the room was full when I got there and almost everyone was already playing their on-going games. There was another Referee new to the group looking to run D&D 5th. He had one player. I joined them and we played a two player low level D&D adventure. The Referee was excellent. He's gone from self teaching himself the game to a massively clever and experienced referee in a matter of a few months. He's running regular sessions of D&D 5th for home groups and at venues like Geek Retreat - where he's run for up to 14 players at once.
I'd forgotten just how much fun a simple low level adventure can be. There was bugger all fighting but lots of tricks and traps to solve as we were caught in an ancient tomb. "The penitent man shall pass" sort of thing. A good adventure with a superior Referee.
I don't have a home group or regular game but am just off 7 solid days of RPGs. Here's how the first four went:
I recently ran a couple of TTRPG sessions for colleagues at my school as part of "wellness sessions" on training days. A member of staff asked me to run more so I agreed to run three sessions during three lunchtimes in the last week of school
I decided to run my Steampunk rules "The Code of Steam and Steel" and my standard introductory scenario "The Evolution of Species".
The teacher who'd ASKED for the games couldn't make Monday but said she was free from Tuesday onwards. On Monday only two people turned up. They made a Lord and a Spy. We had enough time for them to be briefed on the disappearances across London and start some investigation.
Tuesday the third teacher joined us. She made an ex-hunter with a Steam Rifle - with maximum score in Steam Rifle. The group tracked clues to sewer grate near one of the disappearances and were attacked by giant mechanised rats. With the aid of the experienced Hunter they fought them off.
Then one of the players used a double to introduce a new plot element of the bad guys' secret stock of explosives going off, creating a hole the characters could use to track them. The session ended with them finding the villain in his lair.
Wednesday, the original player who'd asked for the game was busy and couldn't make it so I was down to two players again. We fought the climactic battle but with the Hunter as an NPC with that massive Steam Rifle the battle was a bit easy.
I enjoyed the games. The people I played with were great. But there weren't enough players, there wasn't enough interest and there isn't enough time in school. So I won't try to set up an ongoing TTRPG group.
Thursday the Birmingham Central Roleplayers moved from Ladywood - which is inconvenient to me - to Selly Oak, just down the road. So I threw some games into my bag and travelled down. Though I thought I was on time, the room was full when I got there and almost everyone was already playing their on-going games. There was another Referee new to the group looking to run D&D 5th. He had one player. I joined them and we played a two player low level D&D adventure. The Referee was excellent. He's gone from self teaching himself the game to a massively clever and experienced referee in a matter of a few months. He's running regular sessions of D&D 5th for home groups and at venues like Geek Retreat - where he's run for up to 14 players at once.
I'd forgotten just how much fun a simple low level adventure can be. There was bugger all fighting but lots of tricks and traps to solve as we were caught in an ancient tomb. "The penitent man shall pass" sort of thing. A good adventure with a superior Referee.
Monday, 9 July 2018
Summer StabCon 2018
This weekend brought a choice of two conventions.
The first of these was the excellent LongCon. This is a weekend where you can play one game that lasts the whole weekend. An excellent concept and a great alternative to the usual 4 hour slots of most events. Held at the almost ubiquitous Garrison Hotel in Sheffield, it should be an essential.
BUT the alternative is the long running StabCon in Stockport. Though primarily a board gaming convention, StabCon has strong RPG element. Once you're acclimatised to it, it's like being a member of a family. I couldn't not go.
Friday night I always play in an ongoing Savage World's campaign, currently a pulp/Dieselpunk just prior to WW2 series of adventures. The wonderful inventive Referee always tries to start at 7pm and always fails. We finally got going sometime after 8 and had some great espionage in pre-War Vienna. However, we were all tired and it was very hot, so we wrapped it up before a fight scene, rather than playing into the early hours. You can do this sort of thing in ongoing campaigns at a twice yearly convention like StabCon.
Saturday morning I tired to kill two birds with one stone - playtest my "d6 Hack" rules (D&D using just 3d6, for new players, for inclusion in the Comic Relief book) using an investigative scenario from an old White Dwarf I'd always wanted to play. We had the full suite of 4 character classes (two warriors).
I dropped the adventure down from mid to low level. But this proved a bridge too far. A more straightforward scenario would have suited the players' style and we had virtually a TPK.
But the rules worked - well, according to the players.
I now need to decide if I'm going to continue to offer this particular scenario at Continuum. I reckon if I give the characters an extra level, the more experienced demographic of that convention should cope. I hope.
Straight into my version of "The Orville" TV series. This was a romp from the get-go, using the Manifold rules naturally. Original characters created. The intrepid security chief and the grizzled old space hand were Human . The Engineer, Doctor and Captain were all different sorts of lizard humanoid. And the security officer looked just like the Devil. The Captain was brilliant. A kindly creature seeking consensus from her crew before proceeding. The old space hand - lots of experience very little talent - was in the pilot's chair. They were soon on to run from the Krill with their ship in tatters. After much fun and insanity, involving the energy barrier at the edge of the Galaxy (6 times), a Mirror Universe, a God, Demigods and Madness, the last two sane characters fled the ship in escape pods before it disappeared into the Spacial
Manifold. Technically close to another TPK but everyone was just laughing at the insanity, so I went with it.
In the Saturday evening at Stabcon I've sort of defaulted to running Manifold horror games. But my ideas for horror are few and far between. At the last minute I decided to run an scenario from the award winning "Three Faces of the Wendigo" which Paul Baldowski had kindly given me at Expo. I used Paul's own entry in the book because it was the best one and he is one sick puppy. I used Manifold rather than TCH (sorry Paul). I had virtually the same table of players as for the Orville game and they got to see the same rules used completely differently. Oddly only one character fatality this time.
I may stop forcing myself to offer horror at StabCon and only go for it if I'm in the right mood.
Apart from my games, there were loads of Board Games being played, naturally, and several RPGs in each slot. I really should look at these so I can report them. I know Dr Bob was running some military Sci Fi, but there were plenty of other RPGs being played.
Roll on Sunday!
The first of these was the excellent LongCon. This is a weekend where you can play one game that lasts the whole weekend. An excellent concept and a great alternative to the usual 4 hour slots of most events. Held at the almost ubiquitous Garrison Hotel in Sheffield, it should be an essential.
BUT the alternative is the long running StabCon in Stockport. Though primarily a board gaming convention, StabCon has strong RPG element. Once you're acclimatised to it, it's like being a member of a family. I couldn't not go.
Friday night I always play in an ongoing Savage World's campaign, currently a pulp/Dieselpunk just prior to WW2 series of adventures. The wonderful inventive Referee always tries to start at 7pm and always fails. We finally got going sometime after 8 and had some great espionage in pre-War Vienna. However, we were all tired and it was very hot, so we wrapped it up before a fight scene, rather than playing into the early hours. You can do this sort of thing in ongoing campaigns at a twice yearly convention like StabCon.
Saturday morning I tired to kill two birds with one stone - playtest my "d6 Hack" rules (D&D using just 3d6, for new players, for inclusion in the Comic Relief book) using an investigative scenario from an old White Dwarf I'd always wanted to play. We had the full suite of 4 character classes (two warriors).
I dropped the adventure down from mid to low level. But this proved a bridge too far. A more straightforward scenario would have suited the players' style and we had virtually a TPK.
But the rules worked - well, according to the players.
I now need to decide if I'm going to continue to offer this particular scenario at Continuum. I reckon if I give the characters an extra level, the more experienced demographic of that convention should cope. I hope.
Straight into my version of "The Orville" TV series. This was a romp from the get-go, using the Manifold rules naturally. Original characters created. The intrepid security chief and the grizzled old space hand were Human . The Engineer, Doctor and Captain were all different sorts of lizard humanoid. And the security officer looked just like the Devil. The Captain was brilliant. A kindly creature seeking consensus from her crew before proceeding. The old space hand - lots of experience very little talent - was in the pilot's chair. They were soon on to run from the Krill with their ship in tatters. After much fun and insanity, involving the energy barrier at the edge of the Galaxy (6 times), a Mirror Universe, a God, Demigods and Madness, the last two sane characters fled the ship in escape pods before it disappeared into the Spacial
Manifold. Technically close to another TPK but everyone was just laughing at the insanity, so I went with it.
In the Saturday evening at Stabcon I've sort of defaulted to running Manifold horror games. But my ideas for horror are few and far between. At the last minute I decided to run an scenario from the award winning "Three Faces of the Wendigo" which Paul Baldowski had kindly given me at Expo. I used Paul's own entry in the book because it was the best one and he is one sick puppy. I used Manifold rather than TCH (sorry Paul). I had virtually the same table of players as for the Orville game and they got to see the same rules used completely differently. Oddly only one character fatality this time.
I may stop forcing myself to offer horror at StabCon and only go for it if I'm in the right mood.
Apart from my games, there were loads of Board Games being played, naturally, and several RPGs in each slot. I really should look at these so I can report them. I know Dr Bob was running some military Sci Fi, but there were plenty of other RPGs being played.
Roll on Sunday!
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