Origins Gaming

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

We got back from Origins yesterday, the biggest little gaming convention. Lots of fun, much exhausting. Here's the theory and practice of my schedule, 40 hours of gaming scheduled, 32 actually played. I reckon I earned my green Go Play sticker.

Wednesday: The first time we flew out early enough for me to make a Wednesday game, thanks to the holiday.

7 pm to 11 pm, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Ages: Unsung Saga. Ran as promised. Good, solid scenario. The author, Oscar Rios, watched, and bit his nails, trying not to backseat drive.

Thursday: Much shopping, one gentle spill down the steps. One smart move on my part: Letting go of all the books in my arms as I fell. Gentle spill, no bruises.

6 pm to 10 pm: Hands and Faces. No show GM. Didn't show last year when ebartley had her game with him. Hm. Did some resting and some yiming for a pbem game.

11 pm to 3 am: Call of Cthulhu: Setting Sun, Rising Tide. Japanese soldiers in WWII. Awesome. Written and run by Oscar Rios. I'd wondered just how often one could do the "pretend your characters know absolutely nothing about the mythos". Answer: As long as someone keeps coming up with scenarios like this one. I've played in indie games that ran less edgy than this.

Friday: Felt like crud, and discovered that a spicey Alaska roll works better than a heavy breakfast to perk me up under such circumstances.

10 am to 2 pm: Pendragon, A Knight to Remember. The adventure set before the one I played in last year. Not as jaw-droppingly awesome, but a good, solid adventure, run and written by Tara Lydick.

6 pm to 10 pm: Scheduled: Dogs in the Vineyard: Doga of New Canaan. Upon learning that it was the same GM who didn't show yesterday, I rescheduled for Unknown Armies: Throw a Penny. Good move: DitV GM didn't show. And he had a full table, including one guy who'd bound his copy of DitV in leather, with a tree of life on it. The UA game was run by Lori Piper, who, as she put it, studied at the Todd Furler school of running games. jlighton genericed into this one, and did a good job of playing the delicate psychic. Todd and Lori noted the problem of not knowing the latest status of their games, as Lori had thought her game was sold out, finding out otherwise only because I told her that when I bought my ticket, at 3 pm, there had been 3 open slots and were now 2.

11 pm to 3 am: Call of Cthulhu: The Dean in Yellow. By 3 am, I reckon there were 1-3 hours worth of play left to go. Someone had already gone to crash by then. I was blacking out in my seat, so I bowed out as well. Reasonable CoC game, but I'm not sure how it could run in a 4 hour slot. mnemex listened to my incoherent account of what happened during the parts I played in and said, "Aggressive scene framing." The most powerful scene for me was the one set at the coroner's office, where some, ah, delicate questions needed to be asked. This was part of the Burke University series of adventures. Anyone reading this who played out the adventure? If so, tell me how it ended.

Saturday: And I thought I felt like crud on Friday! Ah, the revivifying power of La Krema's buckeye shakes.

1 pm to 5 pm: Unknown Armies: Thy Will, written and run by Todd Furler. 4 of 6 spots filled, which did some interesting things to the game. One female PC that, in Todd's experience, is best played by a woman. Philosophical, edgy, harrowing, and with simple, but useful guidelines for making this work. I've a minor philosophical nit, but it's not an important one, as it only applies outside the context of this being an rpg scenario.

6 pm to 10 pm: octaNe: Reign of Blood, Parts I and II, written and run by Todd Furler. As comedic as Thy Will was serious, if not more so. I was able to do the thing my character sheet said I should try to do. Interesting object lesson on what just plain isn't important, as we raced at breakneck speed to cover as much ground as possible. Much laughter. And five minutes of wacky parachute hijinks inflicted on the PCs by their own players. When I asked, Todd said that yes, this does seem to happen a lot in octaNe -- the hijinks, not necessarily the parachutes.

10 pm to 2 am: Call of Cthulhu: The Convicts. I sold the ticket back on this one and alerted one of the folks running the Cthulhu room. I'd have liked to make it, but I knew my body was just not up to this. I packed, showered, and slept instead.

Sunday: Got checked out, grabbed food.

1 pm to 5 pm: Cat: Toccata and Fur in A Minor: Lots of fun. On the spot lightning quick character generation. Only sour note: No copies of Cat available for sale at the con.

I'm glad I didn't cancel that one, as our flight got delayed.

Comments

Dean in Yellow

[(Anonymous)]

I was the judge/writer of The Dean in Yellow, and you pretty much nailed in on the head when you said that it wasn't possible to finish in 4 hours. My greatest fear when I write CoC adventures for cons is that it won't be long enough, groups will rush right through it, and be like, "What a gyp, we only had a three-hour game!" when it's done. I wish playtesting was an option, but unfortunately my gaming group is all about the D+D/Warhammer. Adventures do get trimmed down after being run before, but parts 5 (Dean) and 6 (commencement) were brand new. The benefits of running the last slot of the day is that you can go as long as the players want, and since it is also late, the game can be a little more risque (with things such as the girl's diary and the morgue scene).

I'm not sure exactly when you left, but a music major sang a weird-sounding song from a book called Louange Du Rou (Praise of the King) during the talent show, and it caused her fiance's face to bubble and bleed profusely. At the bonfire rally, a spontaneous burst of violence broke out between 20-25 attendees, and subsided a minute later as quickly as it had started. At the footbal game, not only did the group create the Burke U spirit cheer ("Rah rah rah rah, Burke will #### you up!"), but a strange repeating chant broke out amongst the students and faculty of Burke. Some of the players joined in, whether they wanted to or not, while the others sat horrified at this phenomenon and the fact they could not stop their friends from chanting. When it was over, all participants lost a point of POW.

After the game (Burke won 10-6), the campus started getting cloudy, and since none of the characters had gotten costumes for the ball, they returned to the library. There, Dr. Hamill, who had skimmed Louange Du Roi, filled them in on some info. The main part was that there was a spell to bring Carcossa and the King in Yellow to earth. It involved consecrating 9 stones in the shape of a V by pouring a bowl of blood on each and then casting a spell (the characters recognized the chant at the football game as the spell - it was the chanting from the dream on Thursday night that you couldn't quite remember when you woke up). At that point, a preselected person would be the vessel for the King, He would still be weak at that point, and Carcossa and the King would return to space if one of the stones was destroyed or the King was killed before midnight.

The players had no idea who the vessel was (it was Richard Watt, not that HE knew), but Vlad figured out where the stones were by looking at the campus map. Dawn Cassiday killed herself in Lathrop Hall, Allen had made blood runes in the Student Union, Harris Hall, Barbour Hall, and Keen Hall, and the singer's boyfriend bleed all over Caston Hall. That made a pretty distinctive V-shape, leaving only Siberry Hall (the dorm where Vlad/Aloysius/Helen remembered Clayton Christianson bleeding to death), the med school building and the University Hospital (two places where blood was sure to be spilled). They decided the answer was to blow up one of the buildings. They picked Barbour Hall, because it was the smallest, and found 35 sticks of dynamite in the basement of the Engineering building. They made a Physics roll to figure out the best place to put it, but not a Demo roll for how much, and ended up using all the sticks. Before detonating the sticks, Byahkee flew out of the foggy sky and attacked. Because they used too much TNT, they did some damage to each adjacent building, but it caused Carcosa to recede into the night sky. Watt was found drooling and catatonic in his office.

Since the scenario is based more around shock than death, I wanted to have pretty colorful descriptions of things. I am sorry that it had too much to be completed in 4 hours.

[selki.livejournal.com]

Buckeye shakes?

I'd be interested in hearing more about the philosophical component of Unknown Armies: Thy Will.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Buckeye shake = a peanut butter and chocolate shake.

To say more about Thy Will is to give spoilers. You have an edress or something? (And are you likely to play with Todd Furler in the near future?)

[selki.livejournal.com]

a peanut butter and chocolate shake

Yum!

Not likely to play with Todd Furler to my knowledge. Have attempted to send email to your LJ address.

Re: Dean in Yellow

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the summary! I left, um, hm... It was getting a bit fuzzy. We were going to the ice cream social, but I'm not sure if we actually got there or not. Oddly, my favorite scene was the morgue scene. I'm not quite sure what this says about me.

Are the Burke adventures available for others to read and run?

For timing, two things I can think of that might help. The first is aggressive scene framing for things like the early scene where it would probably have been simplest to just say that we all saw the crowd heading toward Lathrop Hall. The second is much trickier -- figure out beforehand what you can cut if things run long. One of the many reasons this is tricky is that if there's a cuttable section in, say, hour two of the game, but you're not running long until hour three, that does you little good.

I enjoyed what I was conscious for. It's just that by Friday, I was starting to flag.