WynterCon 2017 Day One

WynterCon 2017 Day One.

Realise my reports are usually long and detailed but this one is going to be longer than normal.

So: TLDR: WynterCon Eastbourne. Massive eclectic geek event held under big top. Ran 6 games on Saturday - flipping loved it!

Wyntercon is held in the classic English seaside town of Eastbourne. This is its fourth year. I attended the first two but wasn't able to make WynterCon 3 last year because it was on the same weekend as another convention I attend. There seems to be be a small period -.between the end of the summer convention drought and the petering out time around Christmas - which is absolutely rammed with events. And it's about to get even more crammed with the recent announcement of a large new convention in London in October 2018. In fact, WynterCon 4 conflicted with another convention - the wonderful, marvellous, essential (fully booked) Furnace in Sheffield - which is easier and cheaper for me to get to. So, originally, it was my intention to attend that one but I somehow messed up my booking.

Eastbourne from Birmingham is not an easy journey and not cheap. But I found a way cut costs using a budget hotel and some strange train routes (travelling down Friday night and returning stupid o'clock Sunday evening.) So I made a last minute decision to attend. It was pleasing that the organisers of the Roleplaying area were pleased to receive my last minute offer to run games.

The journey down was fine but I arrived too late to hook up with anyone for drinks. There's nothing official on Friday evening, but people that know each other tend to meet up at one of Eastbourne's many hostelries. My hotel was a bit tired, but had a great sea view and did the job for me. Eastbourne as a town  just seems to be one long beach promenade and was probably a fantastic destination in the 1950's and 60's. But it seems to have gone the way of many such places and is now rather faded.......

The convention failed the Simon Burley taxi-driver test. Neither the driver taking me from the train station to my hotel Friday night or from the Hotel to the event Saturday morning knew anything about the convention.

Like DragonDaze, last weekend, WynterCon is the result of the singular vision of one man who has moved heaven and earth to make it happen. Unlike DragonDaze - which is clearly an analogue gaming convention - WynterCon is much more eclectic. It started off as a SteamPunk convention, but now has an unusual range of offerings. There are celebrities - from Privaeval, Star Wars, even...... Tregard from Knighmare! (He looks like he could still pull on the wizard's robes.) There's fantasy film puppetry and makeup and realistic my life-sized walking dinosaurs. There's cosplay, steampunk and comic memorabilia. There's a stage which, this year, had a life sized Jabba the Hutt on it. Accompanied by a young lady in the full slave-Leia outfit. (Of course when I say "full" I mean the opposite. But it doesn't affect me like it used to. I've now reached the "I wouldn't let my daughter go out wearing that!" stage.) There's loads to see and do but I doubt any one person would appreciate every stand. It's too broad. However, loads of people probably enjoy different sub sets of WynterCon's programme.

The first the conventions were held in Eastbourne's historic Winter Gardens. For reasons I'm not privy to, this year's event was held in a park on the edge of town under a massive big top tent. Not a marquee. No. A flipping big top. And a BIG one. With blue and yellow candy stripes. Needless to say, I loved it! Some of my best gaming experiences have been under canvass.

Inside the massive interior, you could see the entire panoply of WynterCon laid out before you. Amazing! The Roleplaying area was slap bang in the middle, five tables - all the right size for each referee, with enough chairs and sufficient space between them so there was no overlap of sound or games. There was me, a table of one-dice games, 5th edition D&D, Golden Sky stories and a table running a mix of made up stuff, Boss Monster and other things. The first WynterCon suffered from the usual syndrome of offering RPGs without really knowing how to do it. Referees turned up expecting to run their usual four hour convention games but convention goers knew nothing about RPGs and weren't ready seek out or sign up for them. The following year some of us turned up with shorter demo games and the area was grabbed by the scruff of the neck by young couple who now run things superbly. It has become an entirely drop-in, run on demand, event. Referees are required to bring pregens and offer one hour games. The RPG has a front desk where the organisers grab passersby and allocate them to games. After months of running by "Choose Your Adventure" set up on my own - and playing the "front man" for RPGs at various events, it was a lovely feeling to have someone else taking the load. Well, sharing the load, actually. Because several referees seem to share my enthusiasm about broadening the hobby and we were all snaring people on all sides, holding forth about the games and encouraging them to play. I felt like I'd found a family.

Shortly after the convention started, we got going. My first game was a a Dr Who intro. Most of the players seems to be people who'd played their first RPGs at previous WynterCons and seemed almost desperate to play. One of them was a female Viking warrior - the player not the character - who's husband was running the hog-roast stand and who'd been dragged along to her first geek convention. She was a bit overwhelmed by the event, let alone RPGs. I was a bit worried she might be put off by all the high level, almost shouty, Roleplaying that began as soon as I started the game. All my usual pregens were in play and the student Timelord and Tardis maintenance droid immediately started arguing about whose fault it was the Tardis museum exhibit had taken off with them aboard, as if they'd been playing the characters for years.

The game was redirected when the guy playing the 1960's hippy decided he just wanted the Tardis to land in a cafeteria because he had the munchies. Unfortunately when he said "Area 51" he meant the Andy Warhol place and I thought he meant THE Area 51! Cue the Tardis landing in the middle of an Army Mess full of soldiers...... Massive fun.

As soon as that game was over, the RPG organisers brought me seven players for a game. Seven. I'll repeat that. SEVEN! I normally struggle to run for six players. Seven was a stretch. And none of my demo games have seven pregens. However, a bit of stream crossing and the Tardis picked up a Wookie and Protocol droid along with the usual crew of misfits. As I always do with large tables I refereed standing up and I think I coped very well. The large group size meant that one player got away with being quiet and a bit of a spectator but that was my only slight self criticism.  This was the same scenario I'd just run. However it stuck closer to my original storyline, with the Tardis rocking up on a space station being  stripped by the evil Solomon (c'mon you Whovians....) and his crew. I enjoyed it with some great interplay between Solomon's crotchety war robots and the protocol droid.

Just as in finished THAT, I had a table of people for The Black Hack D&D. This was basically split in half. A couple of teenagers (mid?) who'd never played before and some guys who'd played some D&D. This was (as always) Matt Colville's "Delian Tomb". (It's on You-Tube, look it up). This went perfectly to plan with the kidnapped children being rescued. Only 10% of parties solve the final riddle and find the hidden room. This party not only did that but did it in record time. One of the newbies cracked it immediately.

Then it all went to pot. Having opened the door by reciting the Oath, the Priest tried it on the skeletal warriors defending the tomb. OK, so I allowed this as a Turn Undead. When he failed his roll he refused to give it up. Having succeeded once in using it, he was determined to use it again, and again. He rushed into the tomb, abasing himself at the bier the skeletons were defending, repeating the oath over and over. Cue all the skeletons turning on him and chopping his prone form to pieces.

This left the party too weak to take the room but, then, they did what parties NEVER do. They shut the secret door, left the undead inside. Went out. Recovered. Planned. And came back at full force. Sorted!

Just as I'd finished THAT, I found three teenagers who'd never played D&D before and ran the same adventure for them. This is why I love RPGs so much. The self same super simple adventure. The same pregenerated characters. Totally different experience. These three tried to overplan every step - so concerned about failing. I don't know if you think me mean but I had to have the monsters respond logically. So when they got the drop on the goblin guards but chose to talk and talk and plan about how they were going to take them out, I had the goblins hear something and prod their smallest member into going to investigate while the rest took cover with their bows. When he found the party, screamed and ran away, they finally attacked but one goblin wasn't dropped in the first wave of attacks and chose to run away into the dungeon. Rather than pursue, this group chose to lie in ambush outside the dungeon to catch the monsters off guard as they rushed out. Unfortunately, they didn't know the goblins were led by smart bugbear who had the exact same thoughts. Cue a standoff with the Bugbear starting to do unmentionable things to lure them into the dungeon.

Long story short:

"Good news - we rescued your son. Bad news. We didn't manage to rescue your daughter. Good news - we managed to bring back one of her hands......"

Before I could take a break, I was introduced to a couple who wanted to try The Cthulhu Hack. This went well, with good use of Flashlights and Smokes (I think I've sussed that part of the system). Then, knowing the warehouse was guarded, the couple's Sikh Warrior character chose to just walk in a door. When one of the guards they - mutually - surprised, called out an alarm, instead of fleeing they chose to continue to try and infiltrate the place. Long story short - total party kill and no tentacles involved. They seemed to enjoy it, though.

After this game I walked to the front desk, having played solidly all day. The organiser said "take a break, you've got a group coming in at 4:00pm." It was 3:55!

I grabbed some fruit from the charity free fruit stall (great idea) and a really good portion on lasagne and ran my last game of the day. The Comics Code - Superheroes vs. Dinosaurs. (Thanks, Matt!). Two characters spent ages trying mend the time portal leaving the Speedster to tackle the big brute alone. He was being tossed about like a limp rag doll by the time they arrived.

The convention wrapped up at 6pm on the Saturday. There was an event with a Steampunk stand up comic in town, but I cover not to attend. I returned to relax in my hotel room. It was easy to find food and other necessities. As a seaside town everything you need was close to hand.

My night had a surreal ending. No-one had warned me about the "drum festival". Hundreds of torch wielding drummers marching past my room. Hundreds. And then, turning around and marching past again in the other direction. Unexpected and loud.