Mug and Game - May 2019

Mug and Game May 2019

I go to a LOT of conventions. I probably COULDN’T go to one every weekend but I’d give it a try. This ambition it thwarted by three things:

• Real life (I DO have one)
• The fact that sometimes conventions fall on the same weekend, sometimes three or more on the same date. (Glut)
• The fact that sometimes there are weekends where there are no conventions on at all. (Drought)

One of these great droughts seems to fall in May. I guess this is because “the big one’ UK GAMES EXPO takes place at the end of May and everyone is gearing up for for it.

In the middle of May was the wonderful NorthStar SciFi TTRPG convention but I had a (rare) Real Life commitment that prevented me attending. Though it was successful, it seems attendance was smaller than that it deserved, probably part of the pre-Expo phenomenon.

When I don’t have conventions to go to I look around for other events where I can offer my games. (This can, as you know, include non-gaming events). An online friend of mine who is also a great convention goer and advocate posted about possibly going to “Mug and Game” - a games convention in Congleton. I couldn’t find any other reference to the event elsewhere, including the usual convention listings, and their Facebook Page and Web-site were extremely light on traffic. And I had no idea where Congleton was. 

A quick check showed it was only slightly over an hour away from Birmingham by train, so I dropped the organisers a note explaining who I was and offering games. They kindly accepted my offer but because I’d over stressed my bona fides and mentioned my authorship of Golden Heroes, they asked me to offer a game of that. (It’s not something I offer these days.)

So prior to the event I had to do some preparation. To my surprise I found that the convention scenario I’d run when first demonstrating Squadron UK - a really neat time stop mystery called “The Long Minute” - existed as completely finished and formatted document on my old laptop. Apparently I’d originally written it up for the banned and illegal Golden Heroes v.2 I’d once worked on. THAT was a time saver!  (And I was also impressed by my layout.)

I don’t have GH pre-generated characters so I took the example character from the banned rules and produced a second character sheet with an alternate gender. I then put aside a couple of evenings to create 5 new characters. (Mug and Game insist on 6 players per TTRPG table.) As its turned out, it only took a couple of hours. Rather than produce dual character sheets with alternate genders, I produced the characters as part-gens with full attributes and powers, a suggested partial rationale and left the players to round out the background and fill in name, gender, height, weight etc.

It was massive fun and easier to do than I remembered.

Because the journey from Birmingham to Congleton was relatively short, I didn’t have to get up at stupid o’clock to set out. On the way I checked FaceBook to find the organisers had posted a “we’re all set up and ready” post, so I posted a reply 

promoting my two games.

Changing trains at Stoke on Trent I ran into my Internet friend. Well, I was travelling on the logically best train. When we got off at Congleton it turned out the train was also carrying another Convention acquaintance of mine - apparently I’d first run a game for him in the 1980’s at Dragonmeet when he was eight years old - and his (11 year old?) son. So we all shared a taxi to the venue.

The venue is said to be a mile and a half from the station and the taxi cost £4.50. 

The venue is reached via a very well maintained graveyard next to a perfect country church and seems to a vicarage which has been converted to an extremely high standard into a church hall. The signposting was excellent, starting with poster at the end of the side road leading to the church with multiple further posters throughout the graveyard leading to a big sign on the door. It’s the best signposting of any convention I’ve been to.

Entry is £3 and everyone pays, even Referees. However, I was given a ticket with my name on entitling me to a free meal and drink, which was a good reward. 

The event is basically an all-day, 2 slot, games day which is an off-shoot of the local games club which meets at the venue. But the organisers clearly want to do it “properly” and have organisation which rivals or even exceeds that of other conventions. 

There was the ubiquitous hatch serving drinks and food. All the food is homemade - I was able to resist the £1 charity brownies but the 50p charity cookies - as large and tasty as you’d get from a professional outlet - proved to be my downfall. The official “Mug and Game” mugs the coffee was served in were surprisingly and pleasantly over-sized. “Gamers Mugs” I was told. 

I’d guess there were about a dozen tables crammed into the hall, most of them set up for board/war game hybrids - Bloodbowl and the like. I think about three were devoted to TTRPGs. I’d forgotten to print sign up sheets but the organisers had already done that for me - to a far higher standard than I usually do. A neat touch was that my sheets were clearly marked with a green “meeple” and a large green wooden meeple was sitting on my table. 

I noticed that my Referee’s chair was positioned adjacent to and backing onto another game table covered with terrain and figures of Gods and Monsters and switched myself to the other side to be as far away from it as possible, backed up against a wall.

The event officially started at 10:00am with games due to start at 10:30, but most of my players were early to arrive and we got most of the organisation dealt with early.

Though I was ready for 6 players and 6 had signed up, only 5 played. This was my 13th Doctor game, so most of the players played Jodie and her three mates, whilst the 5th player was a silurian warrior picked up along the way. This was the usual blast but I was a bit ring rusty, forgot some of the initial set-up (the “storylines” - those of your who know my Code of the Spacelanes game know what I’m talking about), slightly rushed the scenario through my over familiarity with it, resolved two major fights with critical failure rolls, forgot to set up my hourly alarms on my phone,  and - without the usual character generation - wrapped it all up in 2.5 hours rather than the recommended 3-3.5. I tried to tack on a gratuitous Dalek Mothership but clever play from my Grognard player (playing “Graham” natch) and ANOTHER critical roll from the Doctor meant even that didn’t prove much of a threat. I apologised to the players but they had all had a great time and didn’t mind. Two of them had an afternoon event elsewhere, anyway.

Lunch was my free meal. Had my game gone on, I could have ordered it at my table through the regular and attentive table service. I had choice of homemade mac and cheese, cous cous and chilli with french bread. I chose the latter. The long lunch break meant I had plenty of time to chat with the lovely people there and set up my GH game. At the front of the hall was a pile of board games - presumably the club’s library - and some old magazines. One of these was the issue of White Dwarf which contained “The American Dream” my GH scenario with the Super Army and for a moment I considered swapping out my afternoon game for that adventure. (I also showed it to I anyone that would listen.)

My GH game in the afternoon again had 5 players rather than 6 and one of those said he had to leave early. Of course I said I’d accommodate him.

This game went better than I had an hope to expect. Balance was perfect. There were some extremely satisfying character arcs, including a character who was seen to “go vigilante” in full view of the other characters and Police. I’d forgotten just what a bastard the final villain in this scenario is but soon remembered. The last Hero standing, seeing flamethrowers held to the heads of his paralysed comrades, had no option but to let the villain escape with his ill-gotten goods only for the vigilante to ride to the rescue and - putting all of Birmingham at risk - pull off an end-game type 

dusting of just the bad guys. (It was one of my random roll tables.) 

Tables and chairs were being cleared as my game ended so I think the timing was perfect this time. I thanked the organisers and left via shared taxi and train home.

Mug and Game was a thoroughly lovely day out. Great people, at a good venue with exemplary at-event organisation.

I don’t usually mention areas for improvement but the only two minor details were pre-convention promotion and the fact that tables were a bit too close together. The TTRPGs were spread out though, seeming to be set in the corners of the rooms.

And there I think there were people who turned up on spec who couldn’t find a TTRPG to play in, but some of these may have been looking as a couple (I could be wrong).  So there seems to be space for growth/more referees.

The event is run 4 times a year. This was the third. They are looking to expand into the upper floor of the venue if they can get enough up front bookings. Numbers were already bigger than events such as Spaghetti ConJunction - at its smallest - and, I think, NorthStar. and that was without some locals turning up because of the Bank Holiday weekend.

This is one to watch. It’s a lovely event and sure to grow. I know I’ll b doing my damnedest to be back in September - the weekend after Concrete Cow.