For your reading pleasure:
Happy Birthday, Harry: We Have A Target
and
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDresdenFiles
(That latter link will keep you reading for HOURS.)
ALSO, because I am a tres geeky fanboi, I was thinking today that if I saw a story where Harry Dresden and Vlad Taltos teamed-up, I'd probably plotz.
(Then, I thought about Vlad teaming up with Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen, and I DID plotz. Then, I thought about the Three Musketeers teaming up with Cyrano and Captain Alatriste, and plotzed halfway through the thought. We shall not speak of the Kirk and Sheridan team up, or the Matthew Gideon and Malcolm Reynolds team up.)
Camp Nerdly 3: The Blogging
This past weekend was Camp Nerdly 3.
Short form: Had great conversations, played fun games, drank regional sodas (Cheerwine and Dr. Enuf FTW!), and made silly faces at well-behaved babies. An all-around win.
Also, for the vid-inclined, Jason Morningstar's One Cool Thing I Saw At Camp Nerdly 3 on YouTube.
Otherwise, the long day-by-day breakdown behind the cut...
(Apologies ahead of time, I'm not going to try and get everyone's LJ username... but feel free to chime in with comments!)
WEDNESDAY
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
macklinr flew into BWI in the evening; I picked him up; we swung by drivingblind's place -- it's on the way back -- to chew the fat a bit.
Much talk regarding games, girls, the gaming industry, and keeping your head on straight.
Good times.
THURSDAY
Purchasing final bits of gear, packing, and puttering.
FRIDAY
Drove down in the early afternoon. Freaking hot and humid. Registered, found my cabin, unpacked, said hellos, checked the schedule, explored the campsite.
Played my first game of 1000 Blank White Cards -- I really dug it. Then, later, a game of Misspent Youth, where our Youthful Offenders (YOs) ended up, uh, kinda worse than the Authority. Good times. (See my Overview of MS.)
Oh, and also kept Ryan awake all night with my snoring -- with an able ripsaw-assist from Buddha.
I need a new sleeping bag: my mummy bag only fits up to mid-torso: my chest and shoulders don't fit into the damned thing. Luckily, I had a blanket. And despite the heat of the days, the nights were cold and damp, even in the cabins. Note for next time!
SATURDAY
Chatting in the morning, then playstormednikotesla's game Xenon.
After lunch, took a long, solitary walk up to the deserted Camp A. Lots of solo thinkery on issues of current concern, while communing with nature in the Big Blue Room. Went back to my bunk and nap-crashed for an hour or two.
Learned how to play Jungle Speed, which I will be purchasing soon. Played JS until it was time for me to go and be an Oven Master (cook) for dinner.
Ran the stove for dinner: cooking soup, pasta, sauce, and a balsamic glazed chicken for around 55 people with Emily Care Boss, Epidiah Ravachol, and Joshua Riley.
Played MythEnder, and helped End the Migard Serpent! Boo-yeah! Gotta say, some of the other players' characters had some full-octane insanity that I was envious of... like "The Tongueless Last Emperor of Rome" as a Companion Weapon or the Drowned Pirate Captain who wants to "kill the ocean" demanding a terrified farmer tell her a children's story as a was to regain Mortality. Awesome. (See my Overview of ME.)
Late (around midnight), I ran a game of PDQ# Space Opera. We started with two facts:
#1. This is all Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers: swords and rayguns.
#2. All of the planets have the names of elements from the Periodic Table.
As we worked through "setting the dials" and character creation, and then later in play, we added more facts to the setting. In almost exactly two hours, we went from nada to a setting described by 20 or so facts, four fully-statted PCs and 2 NPCs (a villain and an archvillain; the latter, alas, didn't show up in play), and three action-filled, entertaining, hilarious scenes -- complete with immediate adventure resolution and a cliffhanger!
I think PDQ# SpOp ("spop!") is going to be my minimal prep game to run at conventions. I'll type up my notes tonight and try to bash together some simple handouts and forms to fill out to facilitate even speedier play. Then I'll print out a bunch and slap them in a folder to put in my game bag.
SUNDAY
Played a version of the game Fred describes as "the Grateful Dead concert of Indie Gaming" (I'll let him chime in on that when he gets a chance), Ganakagok in the morning, and it was great! Nine of us played the newish "jeepforged" version of the game. The best way I can describe it is that it's a structured, freeform, one-room LARP.
Ryan and I packed up, loaded the car, came back to the Deluxe Apartment in the Sky-y-y to eat something, take showers, and do laundry. Then I drove Ryan back up to Fred's so he could crash there before flying out today. Had a nice long discussion covering much ground, and also got the 411 on the "end of Season 1" D&D4e game I missed on Saturday.
Got home, ordered a pizza for the first time in two weeks, ate, watched Batman: Brave & the Bold (with Bat-Mite! How cool is that?), then did freelance editing into the wee hours. Then I crashed like the Hindenberg.
SUMMARY: Had oodles of fun. Will try to go again next year!
Short form: Had great conversations, played fun games, drank regional sodas (Cheerwine and Dr. Enuf FTW!), and made silly faces at well-behaved babies. An all-around win.
Also, for the vid-inclined, Jason Morningstar's One Cool Thing I Saw At Camp Nerdly 3 on YouTube.
Otherwise, the long day-by-day breakdown behind the cut...
(Apologies ahead of time, I'm not going to try and get everyone's LJ username... but feel free to chime in with comments!)
WEDNESDAY
macklinr flew into BWI in the evening; I picked him up; we swung by drivingblind's place -- it's on the way back -- to chew the fat a bit.Much talk regarding games, girls, the gaming industry, and keeping your head on straight.
Good times.
THURSDAY
Purchasing final bits of gear, packing, and puttering.
FRIDAY
Drove down in the early afternoon. Freaking hot and humid. Registered, found my cabin, unpacked, said hellos, checked the schedule, explored the campsite.
Played my first game of 1000 Blank White Cards -- I really dug it. Then, later, a game of Misspent Youth, where our Youthful Offenders (YOs) ended up, uh, kinda worse than the Authority. Good times. (See my Overview of MS.)
Oh, and also kept Ryan awake all night with my snoring -- with an able ripsaw-assist from Buddha.
I need a new sleeping bag: my mummy bag only fits up to mid-torso: my chest and shoulders don't fit into the damned thing. Luckily, I had a blanket. And despite the heat of the days, the nights were cold and damp, even in the cabins. Note for next time!
SATURDAY
Chatting in the morning, then playstormed
nikotesla's game Xenon.After lunch, took a long, solitary walk up to the deserted Camp A. Lots of solo thinkery on issues of current concern, while communing with nature in the Big Blue Room. Went back to my bunk and nap-crashed for an hour or two.
Learned how to play Jungle Speed, which I will be purchasing soon. Played JS until it was time for me to go and be an Oven Master (cook) for dinner.
Ran the stove for dinner: cooking soup, pasta, sauce, and a balsamic glazed chicken for around 55 people with Emily Care Boss, Epidiah Ravachol, and Joshua Riley.
Played MythEnder, and helped End the Migard Serpent! Boo-yeah! Gotta say, some of the other players' characters had some full-octane insanity that I was envious of... like "The Tongueless Last Emperor of Rome" as a Companion Weapon or the Drowned Pirate Captain who wants to "kill the ocean" demanding a terrified farmer tell her a children's story as a was to regain Mortality. Awesome. (See my Overview of ME.)
Late (around midnight), I ran a game of PDQ# Space Opera. We started with two facts:
#1. This is all Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers: swords and rayguns.
#2. All of the planets have the names of elements from the Periodic Table.
As we worked through "setting the dials" and character creation, and then later in play, we added more facts to the setting. In almost exactly two hours, we went from nada to a setting described by 20 or so facts, four fully-statted PCs and 2 NPCs (a villain and an archvillain; the latter, alas, didn't show up in play), and three action-filled, entertaining, hilarious scenes -- complete with immediate adventure resolution and a cliffhanger!
I think PDQ# SpOp ("spop!") is going to be my minimal prep game to run at conventions. I'll type up my notes tonight and try to bash together some simple handouts and forms to fill out to facilitate even speedier play. Then I'll print out a bunch and slap them in a folder to put in my game bag.
SUNDAY
Played a version of the game Fred describes as "the Grateful Dead concert of Indie Gaming" (I'll let him chime in on that when he gets a chance), Ganakagok in the morning, and it was great! Nine of us played the newish "jeepforged" version of the game. The best way I can describe it is that it's a structured, freeform, one-room LARP.
Ryan and I packed up, loaded the car, came back to the Deluxe Apartment in the Sky-y-y to eat something, take showers, and do laundry. Then I drove Ryan back up to Fred's so he could crash there before flying out today. Had a nice long discussion covering much ground, and also got the 411 on the "end of Season 1" D&D4e game I missed on Saturday.
Got home, ordered a pizza for the first time in two weeks, ate, watched Batman: Brave & the Bold (with Bat-Mite! How cool is that?), then did freelance editing into the wee hours. Then I crashed like the Hindenberg.
SUMMARY: Had oodles of fun. Will try to go again next year!
[s7s] Sumday: Roundtable & Ride Home (plus Beta Playtest Update)
On Sumday, I mostly hung around in the morning, wandering around and chatting with folks, seeing what everyone was playing, and reading Dictionary of Mu.
In the afternoon, I attended the Indie Roundtable... which rocked pretty hard. (See Rob's post here for details.)
Afterwards, I buttonholed Luke Crane and![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
nikotesla for a short, but very fruitful, chat about a couple S7S issues. Talking to Luke helped me refine the game's elevator pitch a bit: "Flying sailing ships. Pirates. Musketeers. Style wins."
Afterdrivingblind took care of some IPR business, he, rob_donoghue, and I hit the road back to the Metro DC area.
Mixed in with general chat about the events and people and games at the convention, we had a several hour debriefing about my S7S demos, discoveries, and issues -- both at the con and from watching the discussions on the beta playtester list. The three of us brainstormed like mad, bringing up crazy ideas at the drop of a fancy hat. In the dark, I scribbled like a madman in my notebook to catch the best of the thoughts. (See the playtesting update section below for more details.)
We rolled into Chez Donoghue around 8:30ish, anddebela soon arrived to offer us entry and tea. A couple more hours of game-talk ensued, mostly hearing about past campaigns of Fred, Rob, and Deborah's (all sounded kickass), and fiddling with some cool cards that Rob had come up with as Amber DRPG aids. I'm certain they can be adapted to what I'm coming to think of as my "S7S demo kit."
Fred dropped me off at Greenbelt, and I caught the metro train to Braddock Road. I got home around midnight, exhausted and on fire. After cuddling my cats, unpacking my bags, and getting changed into slobby clothes, I started typing up my notes. At 5 am, I finally rolled into bed.
Good con experience. It was really my first serious, full-on gaming con experience (the CastleCon and EveCon I attended a couple years ago was more broadly focused, while Dreamation was more focused).
I will be going back.
S7S Beta Playtest Update
We are halfway through the beta playtest period at this point; it'll end on February 29th.
Since getting back from Dreamation, I've been working this week on boiling down and "awesomifying" the setting material of S7S. My experiences demoing at the con convinced me to pare back a lot of the useless and expansive details -- they're not really necessary. Better to focus on tone and character and adventure concepts rather than population numbers, GNP, and details that aren't focused on instant explosions of ideas.
In other words, show, don't tell.
Chapters 1 (the World), 3 (The Mystical & The Faithful), and 4 (Skyhips & Skysailing) all run about 15 to 20 pages, and that feels right. They'll get tightened up a bit, no doubt.
But Chapter 2 (Cloud-Islands of the 7 Skies) was 46 pages.
Some of the beta playtesters found it rather dry and too long, so that's why I'm focusing on it first. Trying to eliminate unnecessary text, and rein in the ridiculous amount of passive voice in the setting material, to get it away from "why am I reading an atlas?" and more towards "cool, I wanna do that!"
I'm aiming for 30 to 35 pages for the text of Chapter 2. That'll give each major Island 4 or 5 pages of details, with some extra space for other stuff.
Ruleswise, I'm pretty sure I've got the groundwork for the gamma draft of the rules. In some ways, S7S's underlying PDQ# system will drift a bit farther from vanilla PDQ, yet in other ways it'll drift back. I'm planning on hacking off a lot of the confusing cruft that's accumulated, ripping out problematic mechanics and replacing with more efficient ones, and rewiring some bits to work closer to my original intent (though in a smaller space).
However, I'm not touching the rules stuff until all of the betas have turned in their playtest reports. I'm just letting the new ideas bubble in the back of my head. With luck and elbow grease, the new ideas will address any playtester problems and holes that come up at the end of the month.
Then, rewriting like a fiend and gamma playtesting here at home.
That is, as they say, tha Plan (tm).
In the afternoon, I attended the Indie Roundtable... which rocked pretty hard. (See Rob's post here for details.)
Afterwards, I buttonholed Luke Crane and
nikotesla for a short, but very fruitful, chat about a couple S7S issues. Talking to Luke helped me refine the game's elevator pitch a bit: "Flying sailing ships. Pirates. Musketeers. Style wins."After
drivingblind took care of some IPR business, he, rob_donoghue, and I hit the road back to the Metro DC area.Mixed in with general chat about the events and people and games at the convention, we had a several hour debriefing about my S7S demos, discoveries, and issues -- both at the con and from watching the discussions on the beta playtester list. The three of us brainstormed like mad, bringing up crazy ideas at the drop of a fancy hat. In the dark, I scribbled like a madman in my notebook to catch the best of the thoughts. (See the playtesting update section below for more details.)
We rolled into Chez Donoghue around 8:30ish, and
debela soon arrived to offer us entry and tea. A couple more hours of game-talk ensued, mostly hearing about past campaigns of Fred, Rob, and Deborah's (all sounded kickass), and fiddling with some cool cards that Rob had come up with as Amber DRPG aids. I'm certain they can be adapted to what I'm coming to think of as my "S7S demo kit."Fred dropped me off at Greenbelt, and I caught the metro train to Braddock Road. I got home around midnight, exhausted and on fire. After cuddling my cats, unpacking my bags, and getting changed into slobby clothes, I started typing up my notes. At 5 am, I finally rolled into bed.
Good con experience. It was really my first serious, full-on gaming con experience (the CastleCon and EveCon I attended a couple years ago was more broadly focused, while Dreamation was more focused).
I will be going back.
S7S Beta Playtest Update
We are halfway through the beta playtest period at this point; it'll end on February 29th.
Since getting back from Dreamation, I've been working this week on boiling down and "awesomifying" the setting material of S7S. My experiences demoing at the con convinced me to pare back a lot of the useless and expansive details -- they're not really necessary. Better to focus on tone and character and adventure concepts rather than population numbers, GNP, and details that aren't focused on instant explosions of ideas.
In other words, show, don't tell.
Chapters 1 (the World), 3 (The Mystical & The Faithful), and 4 (Skyhips & Skysailing) all run about 15 to 20 pages, and that feels right. They'll get tightened up a bit, no doubt.
But Chapter 2 (Cloud-Islands of the 7 Skies) was 46 pages.
Some of the beta playtesters found it rather dry and too long, so that's why I'm focusing on it first. Trying to eliminate unnecessary text, and rein in the ridiculous amount of passive voice in the setting material, to get it away from "why am I reading an atlas?" and more towards "cool, I wanna do that!"
I'm aiming for 30 to 35 pages for the text of Chapter 2. That'll give each major Island 4 or 5 pages of details, with some extra space for other stuff.
Ruleswise, I'm pretty sure I've got the groundwork for the gamma draft of the rules. In some ways, S7S's underlying PDQ# system will drift a bit farther from vanilla PDQ, yet in other ways it'll drift back. I'm planning on hacking off a lot of the confusing cruft that's accumulated, ripping out problematic mechanics and replacing with more efficient ones, and rewiring some bits to work closer to my original intent (though in a smaller space).
However, I'm not touching the rules stuff until all of the betas have turned in their playtest reports. I'm just letting the new ideas bubble in the back of my head. With luck and elbow grease, the new ideas will address any playtester problems and holes that come up at the end of the month.
Then, rewriting like a fiend and gamma playtesting here at home.
That is, as they say, tha Plan (tm).
[s7s] Sabaday: Demo & Drink
Quick links where I or S7S are mentioned:
http://rob-donoghue.livejournal.com/281736.html
http://macklinr.livejournal.com/579012.html
I spent most of Sabaday morning hanging out and prepping for my pick-up game of S7S, scheduled for 2:30, to catch people who missed other game slots.
It filled up in like 5 minutes.
The players werenikotesla, drcpunk, Mark Causey, and Remi Treuer.
Chargen went a helluva lot quicker, using the suggestions given to me by my peeps on Fliday. After getting them squared away, I went for a quick smoke and to buy another bottle of water. I had their write-ups in hand, and used the "Campaign Cartography" rules in S7S to come up with a cool scenario for them, based on their characters.
Of course we did not play it. Instead, these folks broke my game. Again.
In a decade of on-and-off development and several playtest sessions, no one has gone for player-vs.-player. Not once. The Sabady demo group did.
And it was pretty cool.
The system played fairly well, and having different folks game it spotlighted a bunch of hole to fix for the gamma draft. There was also some egeregious abuse of the Style Point economy (...Remi!).
However, the roleplay kicked ass over and above the awesome of finding flaws in the system. A fencing duel and a duel of wits. (If you check out Lisa's post that I linked to the other day, you'll catch a whiff of the awesome.)
Afterwards, we had about a 15 minute "What was Good?/Bad?/Ugly?" discussion, which gave even better feedback. And Remi did something that my DC area friends would label "extremely punk rock" -- he gave me his recently-purchased copy of Vincent Baker's In A Wicked Age..., because the Sabaday playtesters believed I needed to read it. (Cock-blocking Mark a bit, though -- Mark offered me his PDF since he'd bought a print version.)
I only accepted if Remi would take an ASMP PDF in return; he agreed, and all was well. (I believe he chose ZoZ, eventually.)
The Indie Games Pizza Party was okay, and I talked to a bunch of tres cool people. Indeed, there are two folks that I perceive a weird connection to: Joshua A.C. Newman /nikotesla and Mindy Kerr. The were familiar, as if we'd hung out together in the past. While granted that nikotesla has a mild physical resemblance to cjpetherick (especially when I first met Chris), it's more than that. It's odd and familiar all at once, that "don't I know you?" vibe. Mindy claimed that perhaps we knew each other in a past life. Whatevs, but I know I wasn't the only one to feel the vibe.
I had to kill a couple of hours between the pizza party and a demo I hoped to play in. So I hit the bar.
Big. Mistake.
QUESTION: What sort of people hang out at a hotel bar, when that hotel is the middle of an industrial park in NJ?
ANSWER: A freaking deeply weird and disturbing sector of the population. Mostly single, middle-aged Sopranos rejects, looking for massive meat-/meet-market action with other middle-aged Sopranos rejects.
I was sincerely freaked out. Seriously. Listening to the discussions between folks, I could inerrantly tell what the next words out of their mouths would be. The 50 yr old, relatively hot trophy wife hitting on the closeted gay Marine on leave: I knew exactly what each of them would say before they said it. Almost verbatim. It was almost like I was reading the subtitles of the movie ahead of the dialogue, and was deeply disturbing.
Add to that political discussions with some extremely stupid people (even those who were on "my side" and even allowing for the cognition-clouding properties of alcohol), and I got nervous and freaked.
I am dead serious. I was creeped out immensely, more than I would have expected.
So I drank. A lot. Way more than I should've.
Sleep-dep plus massive quantities of booze = Chad insanely drunk off his ass.
While I made it to the table fordrivingblind's demo, something in me recognized I wouldn't make it through the game. So, before they started, I got up and left. Alas, I only made it to the elevator bank and the "comfy" chair sitting there.
I eventually made it back to the room without mishap, and slept like the dead.
Thank God I am not a mopey or loud drunk.
http://rob-donoghue.livejournal.com/281736.html
http://macklinr.livejournal.com/579012.html
I spent most of Sabaday morning hanging out and prepping for my pick-up game of S7S, scheduled for 2:30, to catch people who missed other game slots.
It filled up in like 5 minutes.
The players were
nikotesla, drcpunk, Mark Causey, and Remi Treuer. Chargen went a helluva lot quicker, using the suggestions given to me by my peeps on Fliday. After getting them squared away, I went for a quick smoke and to buy another bottle of water. I had their write-ups in hand, and used the "Campaign Cartography" rules in S7S to come up with a cool scenario for them, based on their characters.
Of course we did not play it. Instead, these folks broke my game. Again.
In a decade of on-and-off development and several playtest sessions, no one has gone for player-vs.-player. Not once. The Sabady demo group did.
And it was pretty cool.
The system played fairly well, and having different folks game it spotlighted a bunch of hole to fix for the gamma draft. There was also some egeregious abuse of the Style Point economy (...Remi!).
However, the roleplay kicked ass over and above the awesome of finding flaws in the system. A fencing duel and a duel of wits. (If you check out Lisa's post that I linked to the other day, you'll catch a whiff of the awesome.)
Afterwards, we had about a 15 minute "What was Good?/Bad?/Ugly?" discussion, which gave even better feedback. And Remi did something that my DC area friends would label "extremely punk rock" -- he gave me his recently-purchased copy of Vincent Baker's In A Wicked Age..., because the Sabaday playtesters believed I needed to read it. (Cock-blocking Mark a bit, though -- Mark offered me his PDF since he'd bought a print version.)
I only accepted if Remi would take an ASMP PDF in return; he agreed, and all was well. (I believe he chose ZoZ, eventually.)
The Indie Games Pizza Party was okay, and I talked to a bunch of tres cool people. Indeed, there are two folks that I perceive a weird connection to: Joshua A.C. Newman /
nikotesla and Mindy Kerr. The were familiar, as if we'd hung out together in the past. While granted that nikotesla has a mild physical resemblance to cjpetherick (especially when I first met Chris), it's more than that. It's odd and familiar all at once, that "don't I know you?" vibe. Mindy claimed that perhaps we knew each other in a past life. Whatevs, but I know I wasn't the only one to feel the vibe.I had to kill a couple of hours between the pizza party and a demo I hoped to play in. So I hit the bar.
Big. Mistake.
QUESTION: What sort of people hang out at a hotel bar, when that hotel is the middle of an industrial park in NJ?
ANSWER: A freaking deeply weird and disturbing sector of the population. Mostly single, middle-aged Sopranos rejects, looking for massive meat-/meet-market action with other middle-aged Sopranos rejects.
I was sincerely freaked out. Seriously. Listening to the discussions between folks, I could inerrantly tell what the next words out of their mouths would be. The 50 yr old, relatively hot trophy wife hitting on the closeted gay Marine on leave: I knew exactly what each of them would say before they said it. Almost verbatim. It was almost like I was reading the subtitles of the movie ahead of the dialogue, and was deeply disturbing.
Add to that political discussions with some extremely stupid people (even those who were on "my side" and even allowing for the cognition-clouding properties of alcohol), and I got nervous and freaked.
I am dead serious. I was creeped out immensely, more than I would have expected.
So I drank. A lot. Way more than I should've.
Sleep-dep plus massive quantities of booze = Chad insanely drunk off his ass.
While I made it to the table for
drivingblind's demo, something in me recognized I wouldn't make it through the game. So, before they started, I got up and left. Alas, I only made it to the elevator bank and the "comfy" chair sitting there.I eventually made it back to the room without mishap, and slept like the dead.
Thank God I am not a mopey or loud drunk.
[s7s] Fliday: Scribble, Read, & Play (LONG)
On Fliday, I had a long chat with rob_donoghue over breakfast about my big flubs in running the S7S playtest Thorsday night. He gave me some ideas about simplifying chargen using index cards, riffing off a damncool idea he uses at home (and I saw those decks on Sumday, more about them then).
As I was walking out, I ran intomacklinr, and walked back into the cafe to have coffee and chat with Ryan as he ate breakfast. The Macklin is a con-demo machine, and gave me a vast amount of excellent con-game-running advice. There was also plenty of personal chat, since while he and I have been e-friends for a couple years, this was the first time we'd met in the flesh.
I bought some index cards at the hotel gift shop, and wandered into the game room to find a place to sit and create some quick chargen aids. I ended up sitting around the table wherecrnixon was running timgray's Questers of the Middle Realms PDQ-based game. Clinton was enthusiastic, and the players seemed to have a good time, from what I could tell as I scribbled notes down for a pick-up game of S7S (which I ran Sabaday afternoon).
Then, I went and purchased two books. (NOTE TO SELF: Next con, bring more money for books, food, and water.)
Because I had limited fundage for book buying, I'd spent all of Thorsday and most of Fliday morning and afternoon asking folks which two I should get. I ended up buyingjudd_sonofbert's Dictionary of Mu (Paka's Thread Games) and Matt Wilson's Primetime Adventures (Dog-eared Designs).
(I've finished both by this point, and they both rock. Each was recommended to help display solutions to some of the old issues in -- and some of the new ideas that I wish to incorporate into -- S7S. Both books have been helpful in different ways. Thanks, folks!)
Around Friday evening, I discovered that the hotel food was (by my lights) overpriced, undersatisfying, and made me vaguely unwell. Add to this the crap service in the cafe, and this may help explain why I spent so much time in the bar, getting my calories from beer with the aid of the much more friendly bartenders. (This would prove my undoing late Sabaday night, however!)
Fliday evening, I played in Bill White's kickass game of ice-age storytelling: Ganakagok. This was well and truly bigtimes fun for me. My crazytalking apprentice shaman had gone out onto the Blood Ice between our village and the enemy village, searching for his prodigal brother, as their father (the Old Shaman) had died and my character didn't know the funerary rites to stop Dear Old Dad from coming back as a Cannibal Ghoul. My character sacrificed himself and saved his brother by releasing his Heart of Fire on turn 3, melting the Blood Ice into the Lake of Blood and blocking the enemy villagers from attacking our village for a time.
Alas, as now my burning corpse was at the bottom of the Lake of Blood, no one could perform the funerary rites on me, and I came back as a Cannibal Ghoul. A Burning Cannibal Ghoul (according to Bill, the first he's seen in the game). Later, I was able to take a Gift, "Chieftain of the Cannibal Ghouls", because hey, he must be in charge because he's on fire!.
This had a great impact on the endgame, which took place in the Ice Labyrinth of the Cannibal Ghouls, where the deposed-but-now-restored chieftain of my village called upon the pact made between humans and Cannibal Ghouls in the long-ago to end the conflict between them. Add to that the support of the burning ghoul chieftain (me), the defiant shaman (my brother), and the romance between the Infant Blesser of my tribe and the chieftain's son of the enemy tribe, and the game wrapped up very nicely.
Of course, since most of the player characters (on my side of the table) had horrendous Bad Medicine scores, though we saved Ganakagok and The People, we all ended messily. I believe my character was pulled into the now-risen sun, to there burn for eternity.
Good times.
rob_donoghue over breakfast about my big flubs in running the S7S playtest Thorsday night. He gave me some ideas about simplifying chargen using index cards, riffing off a damncool idea he uses at home (and I saw those decks on Sumday, more about them then).As I was walking out, I ran into
macklinr, and walked back into the cafe to have coffee and chat with Ryan as he ate breakfast. The Macklin is a con-demo machine, and gave me a vast amount of excellent con-game-running advice. There was also plenty of personal chat, since while he and I have been e-friends for a couple years, this was the first time we'd met in the flesh.I bought some index cards at the hotel gift shop, and wandered into the game room to find a place to sit and create some quick chargen aids. I ended up sitting around the table where
crnixon was running timgray's Questers of the Middle Realms PDQ-based game. Clinton was enthusiastic, and the players seemed to have a good time, from what I could tell as I scribbled notes down for a pick-up game of S7S (which I ran Sabaday afternoon).Then, I went and purchased two books. (NOTE TO SELF: Next con, bring more money for books, food, and water.)
Because I had limited fundage for book buying, I'd spent all of Thorsday and most of Fliday morning and afternoon asking folks which two I should get. I ended up buying
judd_sonofbert's Dictionary of Mu (Paka's Thread Games) and Matt Wilson's Primetime Adventures (Dog-eared Designs).(I've finished both by this point, and they both rock. Each was recommended to help display solutions to some of the old issues in -- and some of the new ideas that I wish to incorporate into -- S7S. Both books have been helpful in different ways. Thanks, folks!)
Around Friday evening, I discovered that the hotel food was (by my lights) overpriced, undersatisfying, and made me vaguely unwell. Add to this the crap service in the cafe, and this may help explain why I spent so much time in the bar, getting my calories from beer with the aid of the much more friendly bartenders. (This would prove my undoing late Sabaday night, however!)
Fliday evening, I played in Bill White's kickass game of ice-age storytelling: Ganakagok. This was well and truly bigtimes fun for me. My crazytalking apprentice shaman had gone out onto the Blood Ice between our village and the enemy village, searching for his prodigal brother, as their father (the Old Shaman) had died and my character didn't know the funerary rites to stop Dear Old Dad from coming back as a Cannibal Ghoul. My character sacrificed himself and saved his brother by releasing his Heart of Fire on turn 3, melting the Blood Ice into the Lake of Blood and blocking the enemy villagers from attacking our village for a time.
Alas, as now my burning corpse was at the bottom of the Lake of Blood, no one could perform the funerary rites on me, and I came back as a Cannibal Ghoul. A Burning Cannibal Ghoul (according to Bill, the first he's seen in the game). Later, I was able to take a Gift, "Chieftain of the Cannibal Ghouls", because hey, he must be in charge because he's on fire!.
This had a great impact on the endgame, which took place in the Ice Labyrinth of the Cannibal Ghouls, where the deposed-but-now-restored chieftain of my village called upon the pact made between humans and Cannibal Ghouls in the long-ago to end the conflict between them. Add to that the support of the burning ghoul chieftain (me), the defiant shaman (my brother), and the romance between the Infant Blesser of my tribe and the chieftain's son of the enemy tribe, and the game wrapped up very nicely.
Of course, since most of the player characters (on my side of the table) had horrendous Bad Medicine scores, though we saved Ganakagok and The People, we all ended messily. I believe my character was pulled into the now-risen sun, to there burn for eternity.
Good times.
[s7s] Thorsday: Drive & Play
So, drivingblind picked me up from the Greenbelt metro station, and we went up Columbia way to pick up rob_donoghue.
During the drive to NJ, much was discussed -- S7S modifications, Dead Inside the Second Edition, and Hyperworld -- as long range plans.
(Unfortunately, actually running and talking about S7S has, in retrospect, invalidated about 90% of the S7S ideas generated on the drive up to Dreamation 2008.)
We got to the hotel, checked in, and had a couple hours before we could register at the con. This time was spent in the company of several kickass-cool people, most notablyptevis and macklinr.
Eventually, I was able to register, and prepped for my demo slot.
. . .
As far as I can tell, I made every single rookie mistake for running a demo/playtest session that you could:
* I allowed 7 people to participate in what is essentially a 4 person slot.
* I talked a lot -- probably at least an hour and fifteen for setting description and going through chargen.
* I offered the full scope of the entire game for chargen.
* I am craptastic at describing systemic issues verbally (written, I'm okay).
* The simple fact that 7 ppl around the table made it difficult to pay attention to everyone.
* I felt I gave short shrift to Dreamation playtesters Richard Flynn,spring_violet, miranda1369, and Steve Harvey.
All that being said: the session ROCKED. Everyone seemed to "get it" and were willing to run with it.
The biggest problems were narrative control (I blame myself for falling into old GMing patterns) and PDQ style damage (a recurring issue).
I feel bad about the former in general (it was my first con game, and I got nervous) and sincerely bad about the latter (the reduction of Ranks in PDQ games from damage is a constant roadbump; it's inobvious to many folks what I'm trying to do with it and how it works; biggest issue is the divide between trying to treat it as representational of something or just treating it as an ability).
Despite a hazy initial premise and some rules potholes, I think we ended up having an enjoyable gaming slot. Everybody seemed to have fun -- and that's what's important.
Afterwards, we did a short debriefing -- what I like to call "What Was Good? What Was BAd? What Was Ugly?" Fantastic comments given, which -- along with a discussion withmacklinr over brunch -- helped me refine stuff for running a pick-up game on Sabaday.
Good stuff, all around.
For a very brief comment on the Thorsday night game, see:
http://spring-violet.livejournal.com/248793.html
drivingblind picked me up from the Greenbelt metro station, and we went up Columbia way to pick up rob_donoghue.During the drive to NJ, much was discussed -- S7S modifications, Dead Inside the Second Edition, and Hyperworld -- as long range plans.
(Unfortunately, actually running and talking about S7S has, in retrospect, invalidated about 90% of the S7S ideas generated on the drive up to Dreamation 2008.)
We got to the hotel, checked in, and had a couple hours before we could register at the con. This time was spent in the company of several kickass-cool people, most notably
ptevis and macklinr.Eventually, I was able to register, and prepped for my demo slot.
. . .
As far as I can tell, I made every single rookie mistake for running a demo/playtest session that you could:
* I allowed 7 people to participate in what is essentially a 4 person slot.
* I talked a lot -- probably at least an hour and fifteen for setting description and going through chargen.
* I offered the full scope of the entire game for chargen.
* I am craptastic at describing systemic issues verbally (written, I'm okay).
* The simple fact that 7 ppl around the table made it difficult to pay attention to everyone.
* I felt I gave short shrift to Dreamation playtesters Richard Flynn,
spring_violet, miranda1369, and Steve Harvey.All that being said: the session ROCKED. Everyone seemed to "get it" and were willing to run with it.
The biggest problems were narrative control (I blame myself for falling into old GMing patterns) and PDQ style damage (a recurring issue).
I feel bad about the former in general (it was my first con game, and I got nervous) and sincerely bad about the latter (the reduction of Ranks in PDQ games from damage is a constant roadbump; it's inobvious to many folks what I'm trying to do with it and how it works; biggest issue is the divide between trying to treat it as representational of something or just treating it as an ability).
Despite a hazy initial premise and some rules potholes, I think we ended up having an enjoyable gaming slot. Everybody seemed to have fun -- and that's what's important.
Afterwards, we did a short debriefing -- what I like to call "What Was Good? What Was BAd? What Was Ugly?" Fantastic comments given, which -- along with a discussion with
macklinr over brunch -- helped me refine stuff for running a pick-up game on Sabaday.Good stuff, all around.
For a very brief comment on the Thorsday night game, see:
http://spring-violet.livejournal.com/248793.html
If you buy a physical book of ours from a brick & mortar store at full price, we’ll give you the PDF. Period.