Extremes in Gaming

June 23rd, 2007 (boy am I behind in my posts!Thanks to Todd for prodding me) Endgame in Oakland sponsored Good Omens Productions very own Good Omens Con (GoCon!). I'm not a member of this fab group of GM's but they tend to run fine games. They run more toward the indie direction. Fine by me. They're dedicated to bringing more interesting games to conventions. More power to 'em. The entry fee to GoCon was a can of food which they then donated to charity. Way to go guys & gals!

Sean Nittner ran a Wilderness of Mirrors game. This is an unpublished Superspy game written by John Wick. A superb game, with simple mechanics. It's also a collaborative storytelling game. Since I'm going to be running InSpectres for my home group, I jumped into this game. Sean and I played in Todd Furler's Unknown Armies game at KublaCon. Cool to see him again. The game just flat-out rocked! It has a fabulous opening concept: The players put their characters through the exposition portion of most Superspy movies - y'know, that scene where the agent is briefed on the bad-guy [click! goes the slide show] and their minions as well as their secret lair [blueprints appear on a computer screen] and the obligatory hot chick [click! click!! click!!!]. In this game we created that scene ourselves and made up all of our own obstacles (and hot chicks. oh yeah and Tibetan Female Ninjas). The GM took notes and after we had enough to fill the 6 hour slot, he (as the commander of our top-secret unit) sent us out on the mission.

Collaborative Story Games rely heavily on good players (who aren't afraid to complicate things for themselves) and a nimble GM who mostly backs out, but throws in twists when needed. We had both and the game just flowed from one groovy moment to the next. The Superspys were cool and backstabbing. The villains were rotten and 1.5 dimensional. Perfect for the genre. We won, of course, and blew up the evil volcanic lair.

Dinner with my friends Basil and Gil (Gil played in the supersy game with me) and then back to Endgame. GoCon had 2 time-slots with 6-hour games. Endgame's mini-cons have 3, 4-hour slots. I gotta say that the 6-hour slots work better. Unless, of course, the game isn't up to snuff...

Gil, Basil and myself all signed up for a different collaborative story game after the dinner break. This was the opposite experience of Wilderness of Mirrors. The system was difficult to grasp and I gotta say, wasn't explained very well. Veteran players all and 2 hours into the game, the system still wasn't clear. I finally gave up and let the GM tell me what was up. Good players again and we managed to pull a story together, but it was a struggle. The GM kept asking us what we wanted to do next, or suggesting the kinds of scenes we should try. There just wasn't enough guidance for us to create the kickin' story that we'd experienced in the AM. It was a tough 5.5 hours. Yep, we actually wrapped early.

Enough whining. I was in a great game, and a not so good game. This gave me the extremes of what I might expect when I ran my own collaborative story game, InSpectres. Now I'm afraid - very afraid. But first, I had to get through the next Mini-con.

Bonus! Basil, Gil and I (along with some other KublaCon gamers) had planned on getting together for a monthly game. Some trick since we live 60+ miles apart. 2 of the players live 90+ miles from The City. Basil and I were able to strong-arm Gil into running a Call of Cthulhu game.