The Big Show

Saturday at KublaCon 2007:

The Big Day as far as I was concerned. My 6-hr Call of Cthulhu game was scheduled for 8PM - 2AM. Todd Furler's Unknown Armies game was scheduled for 3:30-7:30. Perfecto.

As a GM running 4 games and having slept through the AM games, I knew I'd get into Todd's Unknown Armies game titled 'Thy Will'. It was, as usual, a different sorta game. The characters were all regular, seemingly unrelated people who frequented or worked at a coffee shop/bookstore and right at closing time things began to go bad wrong. The game was laced with heavy duty religious discussions, horrifying realizations and frantic action, sometimes all at the same time. Once again, I lost the roll-off and was saddled with a character that I didn't initially want to play. Don't know that I'll ever forgive Todd for making me play a Republican. We had a good group of players and the game came off brilliantly.
Turns out that the person who play tested this character told Todd that he'd been forced to play "the enemy". Todd ran the game again on Sunday and our friend Matt DeHayes ended up playing the same character. I think Todd's pickin' on us. The only bummer about the game is that I had to dash off to my game without much feedback to Todd. We talked about it later and worked on some fine points. It's so cool to go to conventions and chat with fellow GM's about running games.
Sean Nittner, one of the Players, is a Good Omens GM. Check out his post about the game here: www.goodomensgames.com/index.php/2007/05/30/ Sean let me put the picture he took up here as well. I'm the tall blonde guy. Todd's behind me. Sean's behind the camera.

My C-O-C game titled 'The Foundation' went off quite well. The registration sheet was full and several people were there to crash if possible. To my joy both my gamer friends Basil and Dawson had signed up and gotten in. Dawson's pal Geoff didn't get in and wandered off to crash something else. This was one of two 'Mad Scientist' games that I ran during KublaCon. Kinda a theme this year. In this one, all of the characters play Mad Scientists going to an 'Alternative Science' conference. One of those 'great moments in gaming' occurred during the game. They were all trapped in a house while one of the crazed NPC's tried to change them into monsters. They were all fighting off the change (as I designed the scenario to run). Then it happened. One of the characters lost a bunch of sanity. The Player decided that the character was not just going to accept the change, but actually encourage it. I didn't expect that. Totally cool!

By this time it was past midnight and one of the Players decided to bow out. They had to drive home and wanted to do so safely. A good choice on their part. As luck would have it Geoff had finished his game and came to fill in. He also went full monster. The scenario as planned was supposed to be the return home of any characters who survived. Instead, they turned into monsters and ended up crashing on the Yithian home world. Only one of them survived the crash. There he was, a newly minted monster, arriving on a dead planet abandoned millennia ago. A perfect, dark, Cthulhu ending.

We rapped the game at about 3:30 AM and I was between the sheets by 4. A perfect day (except for the Republican part). Next: Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.