Furnace - Sheffield 11th and 12th October 2025. (2)

Saturday 11th October - Travel and arrival

I’d taken a leisurely approach to getting to the Concrete Cow convention in Milton Keynes the previous weekend and missed grabbing a breakfast on my way in. So I got up early - 6am -dressed and grabbed my pre packed Furnace #10 bag and set out.

Macdonalds breakfast on the way (other options are available but I’m easily pleased). Caught my train c.8am and was at Sheffield station well before 9:30am with the convention due to start at 10am. 

Traditionally I’ve always caught a taxi from the station to the venue but now I’ve got my free old person bus pass I’d looked into the possibility of catching public transport. I could have done this but with only half an hour to play with, I wanted to be sure. So Taxi it was.

Though it’s been five years since I’ve visited the Garrison hotel, the years fell away. I confidently went in through the front door, through the empty bar and up the stairs to the room, where I knew  everyone would be, to collect my badge and wait for the opening speech.

The room was there, set up for games but it was empty. Clearly the opening ceremony had been moved. I’d just assumed nothing would have changed. I went back downstairs to search for everybody just to find them all trekking into the bar area which had been deserted just a few minutes earlier.

(Long story short: there are usually other events on at the Hotel alongside Furnace. This year there weren’t so the convention has expanded to use the restaurant area as its main base. The organisers had set up there to do sign-ins and introductions but the Staff needed a few minutes to redress it after Breakfast. So everyone rapidly decamped into the bar.)

I swapped a few bot mots with people. Some I haven’t seen for five years, some I’d only seen last weekend.

The welcome was short, humorous and professional. Almost as if the speaker had done this many, many times before. This was the 20th Furnace and much fun was had in the speech from saying everyone was 20th level and (eg) able to cast “Wish” spells.

Then a queue formed for people to collect their free giveaway (another dice tray) and any (REALLY nice) gaming bags they’d ordered. I waited for the queue to die down not realising that I could have gone somewhere else to collect my badge in the meantime. Collecting your (personalised, naturally) badge seems to be all you need to do to sign in.

Given the trouble I’d had getting a slot in the convention, I was disappointed to see some unclaimed badges. I hope all those people were able to inform the organisers in time to allow some people on the reserve list to attend at the last minute.

With all of this I was late getting to my first session.

Session 1: 10:00-13:00 - “Calli’s Heroes” Mongoose Traveller

Over 20 years Furnace had evolved. It not longer tries to slavishly run 3 four hour sessions in a day - which used to be the standard convention model. These days, this first session is timed at 3 hours. However, with the introduction and everything it did start a bit late. One of our players was actually one of the convention organisers who was further delayed by at least one other game failing to run and having to reallocate those players.

(Another disappointment. I hope the Referee concerned had a really good reason for this. I noted they didn’t me to run in a fill-in game…)

So the session was basically two and half hours long. But we had a classic game system, an experienced and well-prepared Referee who’d run the adventure before and an experienced group of great players who made the session an absolute blast. 

It was a riff on the film “Kelly’s Heroes” with us as a rag tag group of detached infantry trying to pull off a heist under the noses of both sides in an interstellar war. Because of the quality of, for example, the maps we assumed this was a published scenario rather than one the Referee had designed himself. We urged him publish it. He returned the compliment by noting how we’d made it easier for him to fit it into the reduced time by the way we expertly finessed encounters rather than simply trying to blast our way through everything as previous groups had done.

This game was in the upstairs room. This feels like a set of Nottingham Castle from a classic Robin Hood movie. We were playing on a raised area overlooking the four gaol cells. Each cell had a game in. The raised area had three game tables with screens in between. At the end was a bar (not in use) with an urn of hot water and infinite free coffee supplies. (I’d grabbed a packet of digestives from M&S at Sheffield station for exactly this reason). Also access to toilets and an outdoor balcony/patio area. VERY nice.

Lunchtime: 13:00-14:30

Like many conventions, Furnace seems to have changed things to give longer breaks between meals for eating and socialising. (The shortest break I’ve experienced was 15 minutes. Rush out, grab some fish and chips, run back in.)

Again this is well organised. You can order hotel food from a preset menu prior to the event. This stops 100 “covers” suddenly hitting the kitchen all at once. You finish the game, you come down to he bar area. Your food is all ready, or nearly ready, you collect it and sit down to eat. Good food, lovely surroundings. It’s the sensible way to do it if it suits your budget. The same for Dinner and the Sunday Lunch.

If you’re cost conscious then you nip to Morrisons next door. (McDonalds and KFC are also an easy walk away.)

I had lunch at the Morrisons Cafe. A mistake. (Microwaved) and bought a couple of meal deals. One for my dinner and one in case I needed something in the budget hotel room later.

I spent the rest of my lunchtime quietly at a table in the, now deserted, upstairs room updating my social media.

Session 2: 14:30-18:00 - “The Marque of a Man” Roll out the Guns

Upstairs room again. This time on the next table along.

I hadn’t heard of this game but it was Referred by someone I knew and trusted. I just assumed it was another game he was developing. I expected three and a half hours of pirate fun.

I was wrong. This was actually a legendary older product which he’d managed to acquire on the Internet. He’d decided to give it a try out to see if it was bad as its legend portrayed. Most of the other players were there to find out as well.

He’d also acquired a children’s Pirate Game with a pop up Pirate ship and fluffy cannonballs which he included to sweeten the mix. If we hit the ship with a cannonball, we got a bonus on our die rolls.

The game was a bad as expected. For example, my character started with “an extra rudder”. The referee assured me he’d checked and that was the only reference to rudders in the whole thing. (He gave me an extra fluffy cannonball to compensate.)

Not at all what I was expecting, this was a ”it’s so bad it’s good” experience with an expert Referee making the best of a bad thing and expert players chewing the scenery, no matter how bad it tasted.

Dinner: 18:00-19:30

I was beginning to miss having a room to go to and drop my bag. Lugging everything around with me was becoming a bit of a bind. I ate my Morrisons meal deal quietly on my own in the upstairs room informing everyone online how good the Furnace convention was. Most people were probably down in the bar enjoying a pint, a conversation and their pre-ordered meal.

Session 3: 19:30-Midnight - “Wight Wedding” Daggerheart

I’ve always looked askance at Session 3 of Furnace. Some Referees - usually running Call of Cthulhu - seemed to take it as an opportunity to run a marathon game running into the wee small hours of the morning, which made them and their players tired for the following day. The organisers seem to have tried to accommodate this by making it a massive four and a half hour slot.

This is the game I’d been personally invited into. It was a game set in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. There have been two official Discworld TTRPGs. The first was too complex and mechanical. The more recent one is barely a game at all. More a framework to allow improvisational theatre. In my opinion, of course, but also the opinion of my friend who was running the game. He’d decided to mate the setting with the fashionable new TTRPG called Daggerheart. It was good match.

I assumed he wouldn’t want to run until Midnight but he did. However a player who was driving into Sheffield after the game offered to give me a lift into the City Centre. Result!

The setup for the game was pure Pratchett. A serious contemporary issue looked at through the lens of fantasy. In this case a riff on Beauty and the Beast but Beauty had been killed by her father before she could bring dishonour on the family by marrying the Beast. We were the group of characters hired by the Beast to bring his bride back to him so that they could still marry and lift his curse.

I was the Undergraduate Necromancer from Unseen University. As an example I was provided with a character sheet, the Daggerheart “side car”, all the myriad cards my character needed, standees for my character and the pet hamster he kept resurrecting, a wizard’s hat to wear and a 2ft tall rat skeleton to sit on the table next to me to represent my pet - “Buttons”. Because the Referee been forced to use a rat skeleton and the standee also showed a rat, I said that Buttons was clearly a “Siberian Hamster” - a joke that flew over the heads of the younger players.

Every player was given similar props. My friend was over-prepared.

The game was great. We collected all the items needed for the ritual and raised the bride as asked. Mostly.

But that wasn’t the end. She had a list of requirements she wanted before she could get married. She was a real Bridezilla. One of her requests was wedding guests. This required us being given yet another list of people we had to find and invite - including warring families and family members. If was like a Russian Doll scenario. The more lists we completed, the more lists appeared.

Throw in monster hunters sent to kill the Beast (and some of our party who - technically - counts as monsters) and it was great fun. The fastest for and half hours I’ve ever played.

As I said I had a lift to my hotel and slept soundly.

Furnace - Sheffield 11th and 12th October 2025. (1)

Normally I rush back from a convention and write up my notes as soon as possible and publish them straight away. But because Furnace was such a packed event for me and I wasn’t able to publish as I went along (and I didn’t publish my planning and preparation section before the event) there’s just so much I need to write about. It’s turned out so long that I don’t anyone could read it in a  single session. So I’ve decided to split this report into four sections published with a few days in between each one.

Introduction and history

Apparently the British Army had a garrison of soldiers based in a Barracks in what is now know as Hillsborough, near Sheffield, in Napoleonic times. I don't know why. I'm not an expert on military history.

In recent years the barracks has been converted to an interesting shopping centre. The old parade ground forms the car park around which everything is built. The armoury and gaol of the barracks was converted into a very characterful little hotel known as the Garrison Hotel. I always says feels like a Motel built within a castle.

https://garrisonhotel.co.uk/

20 years ago some people started running a TableTop RolePlaying Games convention called Furnace. I don't know why it's called Furnace or if it's always been based at the Garrison. But it's always been based there for the many years I've been going. As far as I know it has always been purely a TTRPG convention with only a couple of strange outliers occasionally playing a board game or something.

It is not a residential convention but since it's based at the Garrison hotel it makes sense to stay there if you can.

Being built for the army in the early Victorian Era,  the building is largely constructed from large blocks of raw unfaced sandstone and is decorated appropriately. It feel like playing in a Castle. Best of all the old gaol cells, despite being on an upper floor, look and feel exactly like small Dungeons and Dragons dungeon rooms with each one being able to accommodate a single game.

Fortunately there are several other larger areas available for play and the guest rooms  are more up to date.

This convention has always attracted an extremely high calibre of TTRPG Referees and been organised exceptionally well. This organisation has been refined over the years. Because of this it became extremely popular and has been forced to put a cap on the number of attendees. Currently almost exactly 100.

Furnace takes place once per year. But because of its popularity other people started running similar conventions at the same venue. Currently there are four such events. Unlike Furnace they're devoted to a particular game or theme.  Furnace offers all types of TTRPGS, there there don't seem to be many of the more commercial games. (It isn’t dominated by Dungeons and Dragons.)

Detail of all the conventions currently held at the Garrison can be found here.

https://garrison.omnihedron.co.uk/ 

Organisation at the Convention is extremely labour intensive and attendee focussed. Because of the cap on attendees the organisers register every attendee by name and keep an extensive database. Several months before the event, they send an email to attendees to ask who wishes to submit a game to be Refereed.

The convention has 5 gaming slots, three on Saturday and two on Sunday. Some people choose to travel up and check into the hotel on Friday night but this is a more social event - meeting up for a drink and a chat in the bar - and there is no formal gaming.

Because of the plethora of excellent referees, everyone is limited to offering only two games.

This is so important to the feel of the convention, so I’ll stress it here. Furnace has many, many (possibly too many) excellent TTRPG Referees so they have to strictly limit how many games each one can Referees.  

The "Games Tsar" - or as it happens "Tsarina"  - takes the game submissions and allocates them to gaming locations and gaming slots, creating  a large public spreadsheet. The organisers know almost every attendee personally and if too many games are submitted everyone trusts them to arrange things fairly.

This spreadsheet is published. Anyone refereeing a game gets to select a game they want to play in for each game they Referee. Then every player who is not Refereeing is asked to submit - via email weeks before the event - a list of the games they'd like to play in in preference order. The organisers then look at these an allocate people to games as fairly as they can. The method for dealing with any clashes is published on the web-site so everyone can see that it is scrupulously fair.

That way, everyone should be allocated to several games they have chosen to play in months before attending the event, avoiding the crowding or jostling for games that happens at so many events. With the ideal arrangement being to Referee two games, choose two Referee "pre-signs" and one Attendee pre-sign. That way you have all 5 of your games sorted before your even attend. 

It must be a lot of work for the organisers but works incredibly well.

Planning for Furnace 2025

When I decided to start attending conventions regularly again, Furnace was one of the first events I looked into. I'd always really enjoyed it. Even though it was still in the first half of the year, the convention was already booked out. All one hundred attendee slots gone nigh on 6 months before the event.

Looks like I’d missed my chance to attend the 2025 Furnace and I’d have to wait for 2026. But I asked to be placed on the reserve list.
Luckily for me, someone must have cancelled - and had the decency to inform the organisers - and I was contacted to inform me a slot had opened up. I instantly filled in the on-line registration form and booked in.

Of course I’d missed my chance to offer to Referee any games. I offered to fill in if, for any reason, any Referees dropped out of the event, but I suspect the Furnace reserve Referee list is long and impressive.

The next thing I looked at was to book into the Garrison Hotel but, as I’d expected, it was fully booked.

If you know TTRPG events are based in a hotels, take a look at their booking pages. They’re always fully booked on the dates of the events. TTRPG conventions are good business for Hotels.

So I looked around for a cheap hotel nearby. There were none. Ended up booking a night in a cheap chain hotel in the centre of Sheffield and resigned myself to using a Taxi to get in and out. I only book for the Saturday night. I choose to travel up to Sheffield from Birmingham on Saturday morning and straight back Sunday evening. I don’t choose to pay for an extra night’s stay if I don’t need to.

From then on I checked the Garrison site every day to see if there’d been a cancellation and a room wad available. It never was.

I looked at the Spreadsheet and made my selection of games. Of course some of the games I wanted were already full but even so I was spoilt for choice. I sent them in and sat back waiting for the date to come around. Not Refereeing liberated me from having to do any preparation.

Then something absolutely remarkable happened. I was emailed out of the blue from a friend I’d played with at conventions years ago. He’d been checking the spreadsheet and noticed I hadn’t been allocated a game in slot 3. (I hadn’t noticed that.) He said he’d increase his number of players from 5 to 6 and create new pregenerated character especially so that I could join in. I bit his hand off without even checking what the game was. I knew it would be good whatever it was. (As it turned out, I was underestimating.)

People at Furnace are really, individually, looked after on a personal level. It’s like the TTRPG convention equivalent of “Cheers”.

We all received an email asking if we wanted to buy a branded Furnace #20 gaming bag. As I was still using my Furnace #10 bag, I ordered one.

Though I knew Referees would supply dice - and everything else if needed - I looked up the requirements for every game I was playing and threw them into my Furnace #10 bag alongside minimum toiletries and a change of smalls and I was ready to go.

Concrete Cow 2025.5

Saturday 4th October 2025 

Concrete Cow is a small but perfectly formed one day convention in Wolverton, near Milton Keynes. It runs twice a year - in March and October. It is the convention I've probably written and blogged about more than any other. It was the one I visited last before COVID derailed my convention going habit. So a lot of this report is going to be a repeat of what I've posted many times before.

Before the event

The convention has an informative and very useful web-site. This makes it clear that you don't have to submit or sign up to games in advance of the day. No preplanning is necessary. You can decide everything on the day.

However, many Referees choose to send in details of the games they intend to run so they can be posted on the web-site. This helps to promote the event and may help attract players to their game. Games tend to be newer or "indie". Often people will playtest their new games at the convention. I've been doing that for decades.

Before this year's event I made two decisions.

The first was to attend for just two sessions. The convention has three game sessions - Morning, Afternoon and Evening. If I stay for the evening game, it finishes too late to catch a train back to Birmingham and I have to pay for an evening at a hotel. Much as I'd like to, that's too expensive for one four hour game session.

The second was to submit, in advance, the details of the games I intended to offer. Looking at the great games other people were posting, I worried that I'd miss out getting players for my games if I didn't compete. So I sent in details of a play test of my forthcoming horror game - the scenario about issues with a historical brewery re-opening. Plus a scenario based on a recently streamed TV series set in the Alien franchise.

All that was left to do was prepare my game materials and book my train ticket. Despite my issues five years ago, I decided to book an open return so I could choose my travel times on the day. Now I'm familiar with the travel again, I may switch to advance singles for the event in March 2026 for a saving of about £8.

After booking the ticket an old friend contacted me via Facebook to offer me a lift. Checking my blog, this happened 5 years ago. Maybe I'll remember next March and not have to pay for a train at all.

In the morning

Despite booking an open return, I ended up on the exact train I always seem to travel on. The friend I always used to travel with was on the same train but we missed each other until we got off. Apparently in my previous blogs I'd posted about needing the journey time to finish my preparation and he was trying to give me space. Good man! (I didn't need it this year but I appreciated the thought.)

There is a short walk from the train station to the venue. Exactly the same walk I’ve taken so many time before. The years just fell away. We arrived shortly after 9am. There was a sign on the door but it wasn't open yet. So I nipped to the large Tesco conveniently sited right next door to grab a cheap packet of biscuits. By the time I returned, the door was open.

Concrete Cow takes place in a large, clean,bright community centre. There is a central hall - with a kitchen - and smaller rooms off. In the main hall a trader - the wonderful ubiquitous Leisure Games - was set up and a table where you sign in. It costs £5. Cash but there is an option to use PayPal. You get given a raffle (or tombola - I didn't check) ticket. As I was hoping to Referee games, I didn't need it. You also write your name on a sticky label to stick on your top. If you've got sign up sheets you hand them in. There's a pile of blank ones if you need to write one on the day.

The morning sheets are laid out on the table to allow people to peruse the available games. I noticed another prospective Referee had claimed a table and laid out their pregenerated character sheets, so I did the same. (A mistake as it turned out.) 

Shortly before 10am, an organiser welcomed everyone and explained the sign up system. The digits from zero to nine had been arranged in a random order. Each was called in turn from that list. As each was called, people with that digit as the last one on their ticket came up to pick their games and sign up. This reduces crowding seen at other events, with only 1/10 of the attendees signing up at any given time. In order to be fair, the order is reversed for the afternoon games. If you're in the last group called up in the morning, you'll be first in the afternoon. 

It works really well. The system wouldn't work for a larger event but for a boutique convention like Concrete Cow it's excellent.

By the end of the sign ups, some games had a full table of players, some had none and some - like mine - had only one player signed up. So I yielded my table to a Referee who had attracted enough players. 

There were two games which individually didn't have enough players to run but which, between them, had enough players to run one game - if you included the displaced Referees. I tried to get everyone to sign up for my game but eventually relented and suggested everyone play in the other Referee's.

Disappointed as I was at not Refereeing my own game, I was pleased with the game I was in. A younger man (they're all younger than me these days) playtesting a system of his own design. In the early days of the Holy Roman Empire, Christianity has dispatched Magic and Monsters. So when Monsters turn up, the authorities have to send magically gifted individuals to track, identify and deal wth them - whilst denying the very existence of those Monsters, Magic and Adventurers. 

A well researched game with some interesting features. During a break I nipped to be  kitchen to make myself a coffee using the freely provided resources. (Hence my cheap packet of biscuits.)

The game came to a very satisfying climax with the meticulously researched werewolf-type demon dispatched in brutal fashion in a busy market square.

The morning session is three and a half hours, running from 10:00am to 1:30pm.

During the lunch break I went next door to Tesco to get a meal deal. There are many many food outlets on the road outside the community centre but I couldn't bring myself to smell out the venue with Pizza or Fish and Chips.

In the afternoon

Following my morning hubris, I didn't lay out my pregens for my afternoon game. This was my game based on the recent Alien: Earth streaming series. I'd run a short version of this at Tabletop Scotland as part of Games on Demand and it had worked. This was a full scenario.

Four players signed up for it and a fifth - one of the convention organisers - joined in.

This was a blast. The characters in the actual TV series are infamously incompetent. My players were experienced role-players who were both fun and supremely competent. But my system is so swingy and full of criticals that nothing was ever certain.

The afternoon session is four hours. 2:30pm to 6:30pm. I aimed to be finished by 6pm but it was well past that time when we wrapped up.

I didn't stay for the raffle. (I hate raffles at conventions. I understand why they exist and appreciate the good they do but they're not for me.) I thanked the organisers and left in good time to catch my train back to Birmingham.

Summary

Concrete Cow has been running successfully for decades. The organisation is now smooth and seamless. It is a really comfortable and friendly convention with excellent players, referees and organisers. Definitely tends towards Indie games and is a great place to test things out.

I was disappointed to see that the attendance wasn't massive. Nearer 50 people than 100. I can't think of a better, easier, day out.

Costs:

Train ticket - open return with Senior Railcard: £27.50

Entry: £5

Total £32.50

Hours of play: 7.5

Cost per hour: £4.33

Cost of a pint of Lager: n/a (but there's Tesco next door and nice pub over the road.)

Sent from my iPad

The Owl Bear and the Wizard’s Staff 12th September to 14th September 2025

A potted (and, hopefully, mostly accurate) History

There is a particular type of Role-player. They enjoy playing, enjoy going to events and wish there was an event near them. Some get together in small groups and set such events. Some brave souls decide to go it alone. Let’s call them Auteurs.

Setting up a simple little games day isn’t all that difficult. You find a venue and invite people to come and Referee games. The big thing is whether you can cope with the responsibility. Paying for the venue, hoping enough comes in from tickets to cover your costs. Keeping accounts. You rarely have to USE your Code of Conduct but you need to have one. And there’s always the fear that someone might do something silly. That’s why so few people end up putting on this sort of “boutique” TableTop RolePlaying convention. Those that do are Heroes - in my humble opinion.

About a decade ago - I don’t know the full story, I’m estimating - one of these brave souls popped his head up in Leamington Spa. He wanted to put on a little games day so he found a venue and invited a few people.

There are pubs everywhere called “The Bear and the Staff”. Apparently - I don’t know the full story - the phrase is particularly apposite in Leamington Spa. This was adapted to make it more “fantasy” and The Owlbear and the Wizard’s staff was born. I’ve even seen a short fantasy story purporting to explain the legend behind it.

For many reasons, the convention was lightning in a bottle.

Firstly, the Hero that organises it every year is personable, extremely hard-working, and makes simple, sensible decisions. The organisation looks extremely seamless. It is. But this must disguise a lot of work behind the scenes.

Secondly, Leamington Spa is central with good travel connections. Role-players from the North and South of the country can easily get there, making it a bit of a melting pot.

Finally, possibly because of its central location, it attracted a really high proportion of really good Referees. Maybe I’m biased because they’re people I’ve seen or interacted with on-line - but it seems to have a lot of “names” coming to offer games or - even - just to play.

Because of all this, the event has developed a very high reputation amongst people “in the know”. For many people it is the only games convention they visit in the year. It has grown in size and popularity over the years. It’s still a one-man show but I suspect it’s nearing 100 attendees and it now runs over three days.

My relationship with the convention

Before I took a break from convention-going, The Owlbear and The Wizard’s Staff was on the list of conventions that I attended. It was a bit of an old boys club. The venue closed at night and so going out for a meal and a drink was part of the whole thing. It’s one of the things that makes it so enjoyable for most people. It has a really strong and welcoming social side.

It’s pretty close to Birmingham, so I used catch a train down in the morning, play or Referee a couple of games, go for one drink in the evening and make my excuses.

As a “thank you” for Refereeing I’ve been given various items over the years. The ones I remember are:

- an actual figure of The Owlbear and The Wizards Staff and 

- a pop-up Neoprene dice tray, which I still use to this day.

Upon my return to the convention scene, it was one of the first conventions I looked out for. I discovered two things. 

Firstly, the event has now expanded to include games on Friday afternoon and Sunday morning.

Secondly, because it is so popular, all the games had already been organised - via Warhorn - months in advance. (Six months?) This is a convention people love so much, they’re desperate to get their feet under the table, so bookings open really early and fill up fast. People seem to want to enjoy their anticipation and planning for this event.

Luckily I was still able to book in to attend as a player. The attendance ticket is only £5! I payed mine via PayPal but I think other payment methods are available. 

As I was only just beginning to attend conventions again - and this event was in a run of several weekends of conventions one after the other - I decided to skip the Friday and Sunday and just attend for Saturday. This meant I didn’t have to worry about finding accommodation - which would have put the costs up significantly.

There were no available slots for me to offer to Referee a game so I signed up to play in two - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The games on offer, as you’ll have guessed from the clientele I’ve described, are varied, eclectic and of high quality. They seem to trend more towards “Chaosium” than D&D, but the variety of systems is excellent and I’m sure everyone would find several games they’d want to play. If there is an issue, it’s that the games book out on Warhorn very quickly. If you’re not quick, you’re left with a limited choice, as I was.

But even that limited choice of games is still excellent.

For “reasons”, I can no longer remember which morning game I signed into initially. However, my afternoon game  was a different matter. Someone was running Golden Heroes - my first game as an author - in the afternoon and there was still a place left! The chance to play in a game I’ve written comes along so rarely and I hadn’t played or Refereed Golden Heroes in decades. Of course I signed up.

Nearer to the event, the game I’d signed up to in the morning folded and was removed from Warhorn but I was able to switch to one of the (two?) other games that still had a space in.

Then the organiser sent out a message saying more slots were available. (I don’t know why. I suspect there was a lot of interest in the event and he re-looked at the venue and found some more tables or space.) This included slots to offer to Referee a game! So I immediately offered to run a playtest of my horror game.

Alas, a week before the event, a message was sent to say that the Golden Heroes game was also not going to run. For a brief moment I considered stepping up to offer to supervise a scenario in that slot but all of my Golden Heroes books and paraphernalia are still shut away and I doubted I’d be able to find everything I needed in such a short time.

Luckily, one of the other players offered to Referee a game (Call of Cthulhu) so the table was able to stay together. This was better than six players all trying to find other games.

I also received a message from the organiser. He’d been personally monitoring the signups for every game and noticed that mine only had two players signed up. Out of concern for me he was enquiring if I wanted to cancel my game in time to find another one to play in. This kind of personal service and care is rare and welcome.

Long ago, I’d decided - following advice - to always run games at conventions if I get two I players signed up. We all prefer at least three players but it possible to Referee for two and I’ll always do that, now. So I didn’t cancel.

There was another Referee with only two players and, as the week passed, she cancelled her game and I acquired her two players, with a fifth one signing up nearer the time. I had a full table!

Normally, I’ve found I have to book train tickets well in advance and book specific trains in order to keep the costs to a reasonable level. But with Leamington Spa this wasn’t an issue. I even had a choice of either of Birmingham’s main train stations and was able to choose the cheaper one. I think this is because Leamington Spa is on routes to London from both of them.

The event

Because Leamington spa is so near, I could lie in until a reasonable hour and eat breakfast at home. The train journey was only about half an hour and was very comfortable. My iPhone became my personal SatNav and guided me as I walked to the venue in a little over 10 minutes. (Even though it did miss a short cut through an underpass next to the station.) The walk was lovely. Leamington Spa is a delightful town. Middle Class, Middle England at its most charming.

The convention is based at an Irish club. It takes over the larger Bar downstairs and a large, bright, convention room upstairs. Tables were already laid out and - much like Tabletop Scotland the week before - each on had a printed label on it with the name of game.

I was about an hour early. The organiser offers infinite coffee and biscuits and that there would be some Samosas available at lunchtime - all included in the ticket price. However, I wanted to stock up on snacks and water so I asked him if there was a local shop nearby. He directed me a nearby newsagent. Following the instructions - I thought - I walked along a fascinating little street full of bijoux eateries and other interesting little stores until I thought I found the newsagent and bought some supplies. It was only on the way back that I spotted I’d taken a wrong turn. The shop I’d been directed to was a lot nearer and more convenient to the event.

There is a little kitchen off from the main room downstairs - near where the ubiquitous (and wonderful) All Rolled Up were setting up their stall. Inside the kitchen was an urn, a massive catering tub of instant coffee, piles of biscuits and sets of catering utensils. A sensible set-up for providing infinite coffee and biscuits.

As I said, I had 5 players for my first game. The organiser apologised that my “Table” was actually made up of 6 small round tables shoved together. We were playing in the bar downstairs.  I don’t use figures and maps so the slightly 

unusual table set-up wasn’t an issue for me.

I knew several of my players from when I used to go to conventions before. Two were new to me. All of them we excellent, but one of the ones I didn’t know was an absolutely brilliant younger gentleman. Every time I misread a die roll or someone made a slight miscalculation, he corrected us. He was the only person to play the full width of my system - resolving his “plotline”to gain a bonus point. We were using pregenerated characters and he spotted an arithmetical error on one that he wasn’t even playing. At then end he politely made some suggestions which will improve the game and my future Refereeing. 

In my opinion too many players are too “British” to give feedback - even when you’ve explicitly told them you’re playtesting a new game. People are polite and don’t want to offend.

I had some quick conversations with people I knew, either from previous conventions or on-line interactions. By the time I went to check all of the Samosas were gone. This was no problem because I’d bought a pastry and pie from the Newsagents. 

There was a small pleasant outdoor area next to the bar by some water -  a bit too small to be called a beer garden. I sat there to eat my lunch.

My afternoon game as in the upstairs conference room. It was the fill-in Call of Cthulhu scenario I’ve mentioned.  It was called “Blackwater Creek”. It’s the professionally produced scenario bundled in with the (new?) Referee’s screen for the game. I played the ex-army boxer. Good Referee, Good Scenario. Excellent players. It was fun even if it did suffer from the gratuitously over-the-top unbeatable final scene designers and referees seem to think appropriate for this game. Personally I’d prefer if a couple of characters barely escaped with their lives as opposed to the ubiquitous “total party kill”.

I said my goodbyes and left. The great majority of attendees were, presumably, staying on for a second evening of socialising and a further game session Sunday morning.

Because it was so convenient for me I was back home in time for tea.

Summary

It is unsurprising that so many people hold The Owl Bear and The Wizard’s Staff i such high regard.

I’ve already eulogised the organiser but his hard work and light touch are exemplary. The venue is excellent. It attracts top-notch TableTop RolePlaying Referees. And it is ridiculously good value. (I can’t comment upon the relative cost of finding accommodation in Leamington Spa.) 

Well worth getting your feet under the table with this one!

Cost calculations

(Be prepared for lots of exclamation marks!)

Attendance Ticket: £5.    !!!!!

Return train ticket from Birmingham to Leamington Spa: £9.54

Hours played: 2 x 3.5 = 7

Cost per hour: £2.08.            !!!!!

Cost of a pint of Lager…….. £3.60.     !!!!!

I am reliably informed that the cost of a pint of Worthington’s Bitter was a mere £2.60 !!!!!

 If I ever set up a convention again, I think I’ll be enquiring at my local Irish Clubs first!