I’ve been peripherally aware of this game for a little while now but had never had the chance to play. When I saw it on the list at this years Furnace I grabbed the chance to give it a go. My preconceptions were that the game was indie, it’s focus is on fighting as a space marine against a horde of aliens, that success is measured in kills, and that’s about it. Turns out I was right.
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Furnace starts on a Saturday morning, but unofficially some delegates meet up on the Friday, with one or two organisers for a pint. I’ve done this once before out of the previous three Furnaces, and as some of the Smart Party were joining in this time, we thought we may as well make a proper weekend of it. Friday rush hour traffic being what it is, even finishing at half three with their lazy part-time-teacher hours Lemur and G2 couldn’t get to mine until after seven, but that still left us plenty of time to get up to Sheffield for a few social ones.
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…right, let’s try this blogging lark…
…wonder what this button do…
Hi all,
Inspired by the weekend’s events, I’ve decided to try my hands at using my fingers to wordalise some of my own gaming thoughts. They are few and far between, and that’s why I’m hiding them behind a few introductory words of guff. At worst, they’ll give Evilgaz apathetic headaches. At best, they’ll give him dyspeptic ulcers, and provide some light relief or deep thoughts for the rest of us.
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This year I attended my first Furnace, a smallish con held in Sheffield, now in it’s 4th year. The Smart Party were four strong for this outing, and between us we had 8 games to run that covered the gamut of gaming.
The location was really cool, a converted gaolhouse including the original cells to play in. There was a cosy bar that served excellent food. I’d have liked it to stay open a little later but they had beer in vending machines for the desperate, so not so bad after all. The rooms were ‘motel’ like, which means they were fine for getting your head down, but not for much else. That’s all I need from a Con though, and at £25 a night I can’t complain. Breakfast was perfunctory, but appreciated after a long night of game talk.
I’m set to run two games at this year’s Furnace. Here’s what the frothing horde will see at the sign up scrum…
As mentioned elsewhere, I went on the spur of the moment to CONcrete Cow recently, a jolly little affair, which charges to cover costs of the room hire and has a couple of traders and three game slots. Typically the morning slot is oversubscribed, with diminishing returns as the day goes on. This one felt under-attended compared to the Spring version, but there were still happy faces about the place. I got there early and was able to sign up to a game of Spite. Nutters on the fringe of society bringing down renegade Angels who are judging people too early and occasionally annihilating entire US states on their way. Sounds down my alley.
So, its been quiet round here? Well, yes, the Smart Party have been heavily involved in weekly games and organising campaigns and not so much of the one-shots we’re here to talk about. With summer over however (did it ever really begin?) there’s a convention a month into the new year starting with last weekend’s CONcrete Cow in Milton Keynes. This is a one day con Ideal for one shot adventures, and although I could only go last minute and hence didn’t get much chance to prep games or get involved in advance, I did get chance to play in a game of Spite: the second book of Pandemonium – following on from Dread (the first book, not the game involving Jenga as a resolution mechanic). Ably refereed by the always-reliable Mr Dorward and good fun as it was, it reintroduced me to the world of Playing RPGs With People You Don’t Know and threw up some behaviours I observed around the table; behaviours I think we could all do with trying to avoid… Read the rest of this entry »
Its definitely a Good Thing to add your own customer character sheets to a game, it can make all the difference. For starters, they look better generally, they can have all the information on you need and none of it that you don’t… flavour text, bits of rules, things specific to each character, images, the list goes on.
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The Ennies are up for voting now, so get yours in. I can probably write down on a piece of paper who’ll win what and then post it up here when the results are out, but I shan’t. All I will say is that if you’re wondering what to vote for in the (9.) Best Setting category then you could do a lot worse than going for The Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor, by Arc Dream Publishing. If you don’t believe me, run off and buy it now, and then read it and you’ll convince yourself to vote for it. Its halfway between trad and hippie, superbly written and immense fun. Have I ever let you down before?
When making characters for your convention game, then the first things to bear in mind are :
Make them appropriate to the scenario (not just the setting).
Ensure they’re different enough (in feel and statistics) to give a broad flavour and give everyone their moment to shine
So, with that in mind, here are a few pointers:
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