Gettin' Some Religion

My friend Naked Jen (nakedjen.blogs.com) says that if she had a religion it would be the Oregon Country Fair (oregoncountryfair.org) I went with her three years in a row and it's a great time. If I had a religion, it would be KublaCon (kublacon.com). [ain't I Mr. Pluggy] This is the best gaming convention on the west coast. Runs 4 days over Memorial Day weekend. This year I ran 4 games. Friday:

Arrived early and the Hotel staff freaked me out saying "We don't have any rooms. Do you have a preference?" Ummm I'd made a reservation. After a few uncomfortable moments it was revealed that they didn't have any clean rooms ready for me and my stuff. I was rooming with GM extraordinaire Todd Furler (anunlikelystory.com) who had not yet arrived. I got into the registration line 20 minutes before it opened. I was there chatting with convention friends Matt DeHayes, Kim and Dwayne & cheered when registration opened 5 minutes early.

I signed up for a 2PM Serenity game. I'm planning on running it for my regular group and wanted to see how the system worked. I'd played once before and now was ready to study the thing. This is one of the reasons I go to conventions - to try out new games. Buying a new game is about $100+ investment (Game book, GM screen, Sample adventure, maybe a sourcebook) and I want to spend my $ wisely. 15 people signed up for 8 slots playing the original cast. I don't usually like to do play the original cast in games based on movies/TV shows, but I was really there for the system so, whatever.

It looked like it was going to be cool. The GM had a 3D setup for the ship (but forgot the stands to do the 3D thing - ah well, a good idea). When the GM had finally settled who was in the game, we sat down and I noticed there were 10 Players - 10! Uh-oh. Turns out there are 9 cast members and he allowed one Player who reeeeeeaaaly wanted to play, be the ship. I leaned over to the Firefly geek next to me (he'd brought his copy of the game) and asked if I'd forgotten that the ship was intelligent or could interract with the crew. "Nope." Double Uh-Oh. 10 Players is too many for most RPG's and waaay too many for a con game (Ocean's 11-13 aside). Sooo, the guy playing the ship spent the entire game whining about the other Players not helping him out. I wanted to plat Jayne so that I could study the system and minimize my actual role-playing. I ended up losing a roll-off for Jayne and got Zoe instead - maximum role-playing as she has to work the relationships between herself, Mal and Wash. On top of that, I didn't care much for the system. Looks like I'll probably buy the game as source material and use another system. I may just work from Basic Role Playing. I'll let ya know.

During Serenity, Tod arrived, checked us into the hotel and gave me a key. The game took a short dinner break and I hauled my stuff to the room. It worked out nicely. Thanks Todd!

That evening, I ran Feng Shui from 8PM - 2AM. I had a good group of Players, though not all of them had signed up. Some just showed up to 'crash' the game. I'm glad they did because that filled the game up. I had a mix of Players. Some had played several times. Some had played a little (long ago) and one had never played FS. I really enjoy introducing new games to people, so it was fun for me. The Players were creative and worked the fun parts of the game system without abusing it. We finished right on time. I was stoked as this was my first time running FS at a convention and I think it went well.

Hit the sheets at about 2:45 and sleep poorly due to excitement and the alienness of Hotels. Saturday was planned as a big day with what I thought of as my 'premier game'.