Sunday 9 July 2017

Summer StabCon 2017 - Friday and Saturday

Summer StabCon 2017

If you know StabCon, you know StabCon. If you don't it takes some time to get your feet under the table and it's best to have a guide the first time you come. Despite it seeming to be at capacity at one point, it now seems - to me - to have the odd space and there are certainly newcomers who come all the time. Apparently the summer StabCon (it runs twice per year) is less busy than the winter event.

It's mainly a board game convention of c.300 people but there are loads of people who come to play RPGs - mainly in the GURPS, D&D and/or SciFi realm. Many people seem to flit happily between both.

It's also the cheapest residential convention on the circuit IMHO. £15 entry and just over £100 for two nights, including breakfast.

It's organised by a magnificent couple who have been doing it for years and who. Are it look easy. It's looks like they're doing nothing except booking a hotel and leaving attendees to look after themselves. But, in reality, it's well oiled machine with lots of work going on below the surface that makes it run so smoothly. They even print a name badge for each and every attendee. Not standard computer printouts which slip easily into lanyards like most conventions. No, these are hand pressed button badges. That's 300 odd name badges individually created for each convention. That's a lot of work. (But they make great souvenirs.)

The hotel is set up for the convention with reasonable convention food at the bar along with reasonably priced drinks. As much as you can drink free coffee and iced water on tap. Friendly and helpful staff but - as usual at conventions - a little overwhelmed because their bosses don't spring to pay for the extra couple that'd speed things up. But - hey - it's cheap, right?

I arrived early enough to nip over the road (turn left) to the local store to pick up some and relatively healthy table snacks. (I need to drop grapes and savouries on table when other people bring out the chocolates and biscuits I now should avoid.) I ordered a pizza and pint fro the bar. Most convention meals are under £7 but I ordered the mega pizza which was almost a tenner - but well worth it. Enough for two normal people but I was hungry. £3.90 a pint of lager.

My Friday evenings are sorted. I have a great mate I've made here who runs superb Savage Worlds games on a Friday night. It started when I lucked into a game he ran featuring Yorkshire Goblins. This turned into a mini-campaign across a couple of conventions. He then took the group that had been built around those games and ran a more serious extended campaign based upon - and paralleling the events in - David Gemmel's Drennai books. This time he asked us what we wanted and we've just started an Indiana Jones style Dieselpunk game. I'm playing a munitions specialist who got blown up in a tank (his own fault) during WW1 and now has a frame he clips on to replace his missing right arm and leg. The other players are an ex-Chicago Mobster, the world's greatest thief (being able to walk through walls helps) and a famous war hero. 1938 - dispatched by HM government to foil a Nazi plot to acquire an ancient artefact from a Czech researcher in pre-war post "peace in our time" Prague. The plot has led to Mexico - as it does. Magnificent fun. The way our characters unleashed hell on the Nazis was, frankly, awesome. But the  best thing about the scenario was the MAGNIFICENT level of wordplay and puns. When we realised what was going on, we suddenly thought back and spotted all the other ones this superb referee had hidden in plain sight that had passed us by. I'm not going to reveal any here because he's printed off a few copies and you might be able to get your hands on one. I'll try to convince him to publish it. If you like Savage Worlds Pulp, it's well worth a look.

I don't stay up into the early morning, as many people do, playing silly games and drinking potent alcohol. I turned in before midnight. My £100 bought me a family room for three people. It wasn't one of the refurbished rooms and the free wifi didn't reach it. But it seemed more than adequate to my needs.

Until I woke up and found someone had snapped off the control for the shower. Cue an unshaven and grubby Simon heading to reception to point this out. The room next door to mine had no-one in and I was invited to shower in it but not transfer to it. However, an alternative room was found for me before breakfast.

Breakfast is adequate but not as good as it was right after the upgrade. Simple things like putting little packets of biscuits by the coffee and pre toasting the toast were good but the quality of the rest of the food is lower than most convention hotels. It's cheap, yes, but the breakfast was actually GOOD at winter StabCon.

I only had one signup for my morning game and this was a friend who'd signed up for all my Saturday games and who's in my Sunday campaign. It was a playtest of my forthcoming THE CODE OF WARRIORS AND WIZARDRY rules. I guess it didn't appeal to the D&D aficionados at StabCon. So me and my mate decamped to a GURPS game where we played Para's in the Falklands conflict, heading across the island to mark out the minefields. Unfortunately we ran into some nightmare Lovecraft madness - no tentacles but "Colour out of Space" type business. Fun was had by all but I still have no idea what the hell was going on.

After lunch (sandwiches £2, two pork pies for £1) I ran "The Antiquaries of Mars", the second of Martin Pickett's adventures set on the Victorian Colony of Mars for my Code of Steam and Steel game. I love these adventures and really need to do a deal with him to get them into print.

Hired by a shady collector to track down "The Great Martian Sphere" were an ex-soldier, a steampunk version of Macguyer, a local guide and a Russian Countess. Things started really well with the team gelling and overcoming initial difficulties, successfully camouflaging their hover carriage from the local authorities hunting them. Then things went south, with the guide fluffing her roll and leading them straight into the hands of The Great Green Martian Horde.

"You're surrounded by 2,000 Martian warriors," I said "I have no idea how you're going to get out of this." I was telling the truth. Needless to say they did manage to disentangle themselves through clever use of my game system.

Then came the wonderful set piece which makes this scenario so interesting. As usual, the party acquired the sphere but much destruction ensued - in this iteration of the scenario taking their Hover Carriage with it. Luckily it turned out that this Martian sphere was lighter than air and the party were able to escape by throwing a tarpaulin over it and each holding on to one corner.  This led to the wonderful image of them drifting through the air above the Martian landscape - with no idea how to land. Riotous fun as always. Four hours just flew by.

Tea was a bar meal again. Afterwards was my Blakes Seven scenario . I'd been introduced to a lady at breakfast who'd really wanted to play but my game was fully signed up, so I'd pushed the boat out and agreed to run for six players.

Blake, Avon, Vila, Cally, Jenna and Tarrant. It was generally agreed that Tarrant was just on work experience with the crew. The players knew the series and played to all the tropes. The pacing was weird with the introductory section taking almost two hours and the main part of the scenario clocking in at just over an hour. Blake died an heroic but horrendous death, Tarrant turned out to be a Federation plant, the Liberator was blown out of space and the surviving crew were all captured.

Great fun with knowledgable players eating up the scenary. The high point was Vila suggesting that Tarrant be the one to enter the alien atrium full of dead mutated bodies.

"Do I LOOK stupid?" asked Tarrant. EVERYBODY at the table burst out laughing and
simply pointed to the picture on his character sheet.

We finished well before midnight, so I was able to turn in early and record my thoughts on another great day at a great convention.

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