Con-Quest Announced

Four old hands from the gaming scene have seen a Midlands shaped hole in the UK gaming calendar. Much like taking your own games to run at cons if other people aren’t providing them, we decided to provide our own convention as no-one else seemed to be putting a show on. What could possibly go wrong?

With all that’s good in gaming and a broad church appeal that will see everything from D&D 4e to Indie publishing, via home brew settings and systems any other flavour you can think of, we aim to have the best in RPGs, board games, card games, miniatures, whatever the gaming public demands – plus a select array of traders.

We’re currently getting the website built, but initial information can be found on UK Roleplayers and we’ve already had game submissions in the first 24 hours. So if you can make it on 10-4-10 (that’s 10th April 2010) to the Derby Assembly Rooms (that’s UK for you colonials) for a full day of sociable, varied gaming, you’d be well advised to come on down and say hello.

My only current worry is not getting to play or run any games myself, I’ll just have to organise. But maybe if I’m sneaky… regardless, we’ll have the other Smart Party members there in force, so come along and jump on in for the big win!

Evilgaz Dragonmeet Report

For me DM started with a stopover at Lemur’s house on the Friday, and boy was I disturbed to note the picture of geese in the spare room, worrying that he might be subconsciously brainwashing me into playing Mouseguard the following day. I need not have feared…

Hot Character Sheet Action

Having played Hot War / Delta Green cross over at IndieCon and getting the right vibes from my character sheets from the assembled masses, it only seems right to pimp them on the blog a bit. Here’s thumbnails of the front and each of the alternate backs. I’ve blurred out the text in case I need to use them again.

Paintshop Pro is the weapon of choice, dropping an image into the back ground of Excel for the stats and using formulas and conditional formatting to get the agendas made easy for future use.

Con Conflict Characters

I was asked at a Con recently how I got conflicts into my games – so much happening from three or four statements. Not sure if it’ll translate to text well, without the full demo, but here’s a stab at giving people the first go at getting some intra-party rivalry into their convention games.

Evilgaz First Time Virgin IndieCon Report

IndieCon is a new and slowly growing little convention right in the south of England, ostensibly catering to small press publishers, but open to anyone and any game really – although the emphasis is on new games, independent concerns and trying different things. Sometimes using Jenga or magnetic fish as a resolution mechanic…

Playtesy review: 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars

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.

Evilgaz Furnace Report

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.

First Post Dance

…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.

Furnace Findings

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.

Fast Furious Furnace Flyers

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…

The Fey Team

The Night Riders