Prelude
Many years ago there used to be an excellent residential convention in Dorset at an out of season caravan/holiday home park. When the owners of the park chose to change their business model and sell off the accommodation to individual private owners, the convention was forced to stop running.
It was so popular, though, that some fans of the convention created a temporary replacement at the same time of year called Con-tingency. This is “temporary” convention is still going and - possibly - has even eclipsed the original convention that spawned it.
This group of fans has evolved into The Wyrd Sisters:
A group of three women who seem to have a flair for organising conventions.
As well as Contingency their site mentions two other events, Con-densed and Con-ducked. I know nothing about Con-ducked but I signed up to Con-densed knowing how good Contingency is and expecting more of the same.
It isn’t.
There is very little information on-line about Con-densed. It doesn’t seem to have its own web-site or facebook page. By talking to people I knew on-line or at events, I discovered that its USP is that it runs longer slots. Rather than the standard 5 or 6 four hour slots across the weekend, it ran 4 six hour slots in the past.
This gave me a conundrum. I am VERY good with short games. What could I offer that would fill a six hour slot?
I knew some people were going who were too young to have experienced my Superhero Role-playing game from the 1980’s - Golden Heroes - so I chose to offer that in one slot. There is a classic dungeon from a magazine in the 1980’s I enjoy running, so I offered to run that in another slot.
I decided to be a player rather than a Referee in the other two slots.
Games were organised in advance of the event using Warhorn. My Golden Heroes game booked out immediately months ahead of the date.
Nearer the event I discovered, in passing, that the slot lengths had been reduced from six hours to five hours to allow more time for eating and socialising. I also discovered that my old Golden Heroes rules, figure and game boards were so securely stored, I couldn’t get to them before the event and had to buy a replacement set of rules on line.
But I did find an inexpensive Bed and Breakfast place near the venue. Other attendees recommended it to me but I’d already discovered it for myself and booked it by then.
Friday 14th November
As a special favour I’d been allowed to keep my first slot at six hours - from 4pm to 10pm.
Even though Worthing is some distance from Birmingham I was able to get there in good time.
I exited the station, turned left and walked along a road to my Bed and Breakfast in less than 15 minutes, passing the event venue and a row of food take-aways on the way. I signed into my room, dropped my luggage, grabbed my Golden Heroes gear and walked down to the venue, passing all the take-always on the way.
The whole area is perfect for a convention. My B&B, a convenience store, every conceivable sort of food take-away and the convention venue all on the same road within a 5 minutes walk of each other.
The Venue itself is a well appointed Sea Cadet Training Centre/Drill Hall. I was given a room full of tables and chairs to set up and run my game as I saw fit.
The game ran from 4pm to 10pm as planned, with a break at around 6pm for everyone to nip out and get take-away food to eat.
I’ll be honest, I was not happy with the way it went. It was forty years since I’ve run the game so rules which used to be second nature to me, I had to look up. Working with cardboard figures and black and white photocopies of the maps from the rulebook made it feel less engaging. The chip shop messed up my order, so the whole table lost time as I was late getting back. I had to short-cut one encounter to fit everything in.
If I ever run Golden Heroes again, I’ll know what to do better. It was fine but I expect more from myself and my games.
Saturday 15th November
I had a personally cooked breakfast in my Bed and Breakfast and walked down to the venue. At the venue the organiser was cooking breakfast for some of the attendees and had a large pot of soup on the go for later in the day.
I set up for my classic dungeon crawl. I used my own Dungeons and Dragons type rules - the one which only use six-sided dice. Again this session was fine but I felt I was a bit rusty. It ran from 9am to 2pm. I bought a meal deal from the convenience store.
In the afternoon/evening I played in a “Powered by the Apocalypse” game about escaping from an Island full of Dinosaurs.
This felt EXACTLY like the game I’d played in at Furnace a month before. But that game had had a big shiny box full of full colour character sheets and cards whereas this one had been downloaded from “Itch” for a fraction of the price. And it was just as much fun.
The game finished early. Some players left. After going out for a takeaway (Chinese this time. Faster and testier than the Fish & Chips) those of us remaining played another short game downloaded from Itch about a haunted house. More simple fun.
Sunday 16th November
I booked my breakfast for a bit earlier and checked out of my lodgings.
In the morning I played a fascinating experimental game Refereed by an experienced published game designer. Engaging setting. Enjoyable unfolding story. But it was all about solving an ancient mystery and decoding ancient runes and was a bit too cerebral for my tastes. It was excellent and intricately constructed but I like a bit more action in my games.
It was an easy walk down to the station and a good journey home.
Summary
I keep this blog to show that not all conventions are the same. Con-densed is a case in point. It is an excellent convention. Well organised with games going up well in advance on Warhorn and sign-up sheets showing all games and all players being printed out at the event. Tea and Coffee, cakes and biscuits freely available (for a donation). Breakfast and soup provided on request. If you are on a budget you can sleep at the training centre on a camp bed for a nominal fee. This could be an extremely cheap convention - almost certainly the cheapest on the circuit.
The longer slots make it a unique experience.
It had twenty people attending.
This makes little difference to those taking part. You get four games whether 20 or 100 people attending. Possibly you see the same faces at a couple of games, but that’s it. 20 people is more than enough for three tables.
But these low number must make it difficult to keep it viable. Money WAS raised for the Sea Cadets, though, so I suppose it was a success.
It’s organised as if it were a much bigger event and could easily accommodate far far more people. I’m not sure all of us Refereeing games made best use of the longer slots but all the games on offer were good and eclectic.
Maybe it needs its own web-site and more promotion rather than being lost in the shadow if its larger cousin, Contingency. The venue and local area alone make it a great event and the longer slots could make it something really special.
Costs:
Registration/ticket: £0 (I was Refereeing. It would have been £10 if I wasn’t.)
Train ticket: £50.84 (after 1/3 off for senior rail card)
Accommodation: £160
Total: £210.84
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