Try as I might, I can't get to every convention in the UK. This weekend I was busy with real-life stuff and missed the wonderful NorthStar Convention.
This is a typical "Garrison" convention. I've posted about these many times, so you know what to expect. A two day event at a wonderful hotel in Sheffield.
The USP of NorthStar is that all the games offered have to be SciFi.
It seems to have gone well and I've read many positive reports. Here is a typical one from Jason Bratley - reproduced with permission:
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I loved this Con. A big shout out to the organisers from me.
Game one was a fantastic locked room murder mystery set in the star wars universe. I played (no suprises here) a Droid. G8-T3 which I totally failed to notice that its name was Gate. Doh. But I had fun, lots of fun and it took my mind off my anxiety about running my game next. Also I managed to play a light-side character in a star wars game. That's a first for me.
Game two was my game. Grief I had been as anxious as hell before running. Had I done enough prep? I asked myself, certain that I hadn't. My background in GMing is helped that I used to be an ad-lib actor. I'd originally had an idea of a title for my game. I spent a good 15 mins when Dom reminded me that I needed to post a blurb working on a general expansion of that. Did I do any more prep? Well I reread the rules. Mostly. So my anxiety was mainly self created, but also unavoidable. I have problems remembering things. I can quite happily plan a scenario. Remembering it afterwards. If I'm lucky sure.
Oh and I'd bought a prop. "Cowboys. A book for ages 5-6" it was the historical document the players (all playing robots) had to teach them about the world outside their home that they were forced to abandon.
The players were awesome. I had a couple of veterans from my last game and everyone else seemed to be new to the system. Every one of them had their moment where they shone. I honestly couldn't have had a better group. They helped shape the world according to their own theories. I certainly wont look at a cowboy hat in the same light. We actually had a moment where a couple of players were crying with laughter. Awesome.
And awesome is how I'd describe the next game. P.... ran a brilliant game of The Cthulhu Hack - Valkyrie-9. This time for a change I played a drone. Actually we all did and in truth we were something more sinister. My character didn't quite get the trouble it was in. It was a survey drone and at character gen I started to wonder, why was it designated so. I came up with the idea that as it spent a large time away from the humans and other drones and it was praised whenever it found valuable mineral deposits that after a while it had started to be a little... Fixated on rocks. To the point that my companions had at one point explain a situation to me in the terms of rocks.
The next morning we had R....'s game of John Carter. I'd been looking forward to this. This was the one game I'd bought but only skimmed through and the mechanics were eluding me. I needed to see the game run by someone and R... is a great GM. I played a dashing sky pilot over Barsooms dunes. Sword fights, lasers and eggs. It was a fantastical daring romp.
Finally we gathered for our final game of the Con. Inspectres in Space. It was a great game set with a different pace to it. This was a build the universe as we go along game. We were a group searching the outer rim of the known worlds on a colony ship come cathedral for a jump gate. Our ship was maintained by a group of highly religious droids who were dumb as rocks when alone but due to hive mentality more intelligent and more fanatical when in groups. Our GM guided us through the game with skill and we held the distinction of being last game running. Which shows how invested we were in the game. Oh, in that one I played a weeping willow.
There were so many games I wanted to be in. They all looked so much fun. Thanks to all you awesome people.
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