Are we Relating?

At the March Endgame MiniCon I played in games of Spirit of the Century and Don't Rest Your Head. Each of these games started with character creation. I did the same thing in my InSpectres game earlier, but got lessons from these games about how to do it much better.

I usually avoid any Convention game that has the following in the description, "Characters created together at start". I don't want to waste valuable game time creating characters. I spend hours and hours preparing interesting characters for convention games. At DunDraCon one of the bad games I played in was a D20 Modern game in which we all had to create characters at the beginning. This took 1.5 hrs! Now the game was scheduled for 8 hours. We ended up 'playing' for 9. Hmmm... InSpectres characters can be created in about 15 minutes and it's part of the fun. I gave the Players a brief description of some cases their characters had worked and moved ahead. It worked, but the following method worked better.

Both GM's used a Q&A process to create the characters and more importantly - establish the relationships between the characters. These are only 4-hr long games, so tick-tock on the session from the get. The 1st game was Shadowrun (using Spirit of the Century) and the GM (Brian Isikoff) flat out told us it was a revenge story. Our group had been hosed on a job 10 years earlier and now that the last of us was getting out of jail, we were after some payback - if we could figure out who screwed us.

Brian asked which one of us was the one getting out of jail. Someone volunteered. Brian asked their position in the group. They picked a job.

Who had been the leader of the group? Someone volunteered. Brian asked how he felt about the job going south. The group leader decided that he felt personally responsible for it going wrong.

Brian nodded and asked who had set up the job. I found myself volunteering. It came to me that it was a contact provided by someone I'd worked with before. I'd brought the job to the crew. How did I feel about setting up a hose job? I needed to regain respect from the crew. What was my job? Driver and repair tech, I decided.

More nodding from Brian. He asked if anyone distrusted my character for setting up the job. Someone volunteered...

And so it went until we'd established the characters and how they all felt about the incident 10 years back. We even decided if the mistrust was likely to break out into an internal gunfight, or if people were just leery of each other. The characters were loosely created in a few minutes and we were off.

With that, a simple revenge story turned into a great roleplaying experience. It was more about the character relationships than the story and everyone got into it because we understood how our characters felt about the 'situation' and each other. Brian incorporated some of the aspects of our characters into the story and the resolution had not just guns-ablazin' payback, but emotional impact. Dang!

Ryan Macklin started the Don't Rest Your Head game in a similar manner. We played 1st grade kids in the same class (I don't like games in which adults play kids). The game uses 5 questions as the primary tool in character creation. Ryan expanded this to 10, adding questions specific to the adventure. Questions like "What do the kids in your class think of you?" and "What is home life really like?" got us into the characters and their relationships. He encouraged us to start with stereotypes, the Smart Kid, the Cute Kid, the New Kid, the Fat Kid, etc. and build on that base.

We bounced around the table from Player to Player getting an idea of the what the characters thought of each other and Ryan encouraged us to twist the character concepts as far as we liked. One of the SF group, Freak Master Gil Travizo, was also in this game. He played New Kid, who seemed to have a call girl for a mom. I played Wealthy Stuck-up Kid who had no home life, a completely controlled schedule and wished his parents saw him as a person. Military Kid had a 'more loved' brother serving in Iraq. Cute Kid had a mother who always called him a fat pig and put him on a new wierd diet every few weeks. He just reeeealy wanted to eat a pizza, like other kids.

What did we think of these other kids? We got down and dirty, like only kids can. Their lunch smelled funny, they had cheap toys, they didn't have a personal chef, their clothes didn't fit right, but at least they talked to New Kid, they know all about guns - which is kinda cool.

In short order we had not only created interesting characters, but as in Brian's game established the relationships between them. When we got into the game it was a breeze to drop into character and play off of each other.

Ryan did another cool thing which was to allow us to create the villain we faced. We drew from our characters' worst nightmares and it didn't take long until we had a truly creeping bad-guy. In fact, I described the villain to someone (a non-horror fan). It actually gave them nightmares!!!

I play tested my Terror at 6666 Feet game with the SF group. The characters are on a group vacation together and the tour guide asks them all to "tell us a bit about yourself". I wasn't sure about this and I think that it added extra time to the game. I'd planned to cut it for the convention session, but since the MiniCon experiences, have decided to keep it as it sets up relationships between the characters.

Now I'm looking at using this tool for other games as well. This would be very interesting in a Call of Cthulhu Game. It so won't work in Paranoia though... Thanks Brian & Ryan!!!

Whatcha Been Up To?

I've been up to no good and proud to say so. Best news is I haven't been caught.

OK - the reality is that I've been up to quite a bit on the game front, but not made the time to sit down & write about it. Went to the first Endgame MiniCon of '08 a couple of weeks ago and ended up having dinner with fellow GM Brian Isikoff. He has a gaming podcast '2d6 In A Random Direction' with Endgame co-owner Chris Hanrahan. Cool stuff. We talked about blogging a bit. A couple of days after the MiniCon, Chris sends out a note that he's back on his blog. A few days after that, my archaeologist & gamer friend Matt Armstrong http://www.anthroslug.blogspot.com/ e-mailed his fellow gamers to let us know that he'd re-started his blog. Sooooo, I'm back on mine.

What's been happening since June of '07? The San Francisco game group has been going strong. Almost everyone in the group has run something. Without exception, they've been great games. We only missed one month and that was a last-minute break-down. I've run Paranoia, Unknown Armies and my own Blood Brothers style game using BRP (Chaosium) rules. B-Movie Horror mayhem with influences from the Grindhouse films. I'll run it as a single 8 hour 2-part session at KublaCon '08. Anyway, it's a kick-ass group and I'm glad it's come together.

At the home game, I concluded Feng Shui, then ran InSpectres for awhile and moved on to Serenity using BRP rules. Chaosium is supposed to publish BRP as a stand-alone system and I keep hoping it will come out. Still waiting guys...since October guys... Anyway, the Serenity game just wrapped. We called it Metamorphosis as we were using BRP (though I did buy the Serenity RPG for ref material). The captain named the ship Metamorphosis and we went with it. The game started well, but drug on and got a bit out of control. Gonna have to do some damage control, have a chat with someone. It was fun to create character sheets from scratch and start from the basics adapting BRP. Gotta say I was actually glad to be done with it. Unlikely I'll go back to it, but ya never know. At least 1/3 of the players expressed some dislike for the game - something that's never happened to me before. Others had a really great time! Go figure.

So I'm taking a break from GM'ing the weekly group. More time to get to my writing projects - like this blog. I also need time to prep my games for KublaCon. It's still months away, but I want to be completely ready beforehand as I'm running 4 games, most of which run 8 hours and don't start until 8PM (don't get me started on that - maybe later).

I haven't been doing anything on the screenwriting front. OK, not quite true. I went to the screenwriting Expo in Oct 2007. Great event as always and I came back deciding to stay in touch with people and work on making my own horror film. Have an idea for a re-write of one of my scripts and an original zombie idea. Exchanged e-mails with several people for a time and then faded, as usual. Got people excited about the project and then pfffff, I couldn't maintain. All I've really managed to do is put games together and attend several good games. Can't read a novel, can't get much writing done, haven't made it to the movies, have had the same Netflix selection since December. I did get most of the interior of my house painted. I also got a ton done at my dayjob - even got a raise. Also got hooked on Pandora online radio. Soooo coooool...

Actually went to DunDraCon this year. Didn't get it together to actually run. Went for Sat-Sun. Was in 4 games. 2 rocked. 2 bit. Took fellow gamer/friend James. His 1st convention. Now he's talking about going to Kubla!!! Good lessons from the one's that blew. Got to play Dunwich Horror boardgame. I now own 2 new boardgames - Redneck Life & Zombies!!!. Have been able to play them both with the weekly group as the Metamorphosis game failed to wrap. Big time fun with both. Anyway, I got to hang with the Chaosium folks and talk about products with them - like BRP...

Most recently there's been the EndGame MiniCon. I ran InSpectres in the 10AM slot with only 3 people. The 4th person didn't show. Still, we had a great time and one of the players bought a copy of the game. Cool!! He'd been playing Prime Time Adventures and wasn't having as good of a time. Was supposed to run BRP Horror for the second session, but player flakage caused cancellation. Got into Brian Isikoff's game instead. Good to meet and hang with Brian, who also runs Paranoia. Also got to try out the Spirit of the Century system. Very cool system. Next post I'll discuss some elements of the 2 games I played in that I'll look to incorporate into other games.

Really wanted to get into the Don't Rest Your Head game in the last slot, but initially it was full. Then Brian Isikoff's girlfriend had to cancel and I got her slot. Thanks Jenna! (I think it's Jenna) Anyway, Ryan Macklin ran this most excellent game. I gotta get me a copy - maybe when I go up for GoCon #2. Meanwhile I've been trying to read the rules for Fear Itself. As with other Robin D Laws stuff, I love the essence, but have a difficult time with the writing. That plus I only have a few minutes at a time to read. Gotta find a block of 4 hours to read the whole thing. It's now a freakin' jumble in my head.

That's it. Waaaaay to much for a new post, but I mostly just wanna more foward from here. If you've read this far, you must be very bored indeed. Thanks!

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.

Paranoid when Tired

I love to run Paranoia. I usually run Monday AM because everyone is sleep deprived and Paranoia works well when you can't quite get all of your thoughts together. However, 9AM is just too freakin' early. Next year, 10AM. I realized almost immediately that I was so tired that I couldn't actually remember the rules. Seriously! Turns out that it didn't really matter. Did I mention I love running Paranoia!?

OK, even with a 9AM start, the game filled with players (again no-show slots filled by crashers). I had a few new twists, such as people starting off on their 3rd or 4th clone and then progressing past the original 6, each clone less and less perfect (copy of a copy of a copy, ya know). I started the game with the characters finishing a de-briefing from a previous mission and getting sent out on a new mission immediately. I also had the corridor outside of the de-briefing room repainted while they were being de-briefed, insuring that they'd commit treason just by stepping out of the room. Several clones were lost before they ever got out of the room. We were off to a fine start.

I introduced a new Bot. The TrackBot. It's supposed to track an item and lead the Troubleshooters to it. Their mission: To recover this item (which is above their security clearance) and return it to the Briefing Room. Unknown to them, this is a treasonous item, dumped into the Underplex by an Ultraviolet citizen. Worse, the entry port into the Underplex is located in the floor of a transtube and the TrackBot is too big to fit through the opening. Countless clones were lost trying to get into the Underplex. Finally, some well-placed explosives got the team into the Underplex. Some complications with a ScrubBot and some Experimental Weapons in a metal access tube and the party was completely wiped out. There endeth the tale. I warn new Paranoia Players that they should not be surprised if they never get to the adventure. Sure enough, they barely did and our 6 hours was up. (OK, it went 6.5 hours, but no one complained)

2 new Players for Paranoia (including one crasher from the previous day's Cthulhu game). I'm spreading the happiness. Hail The Computer! It was a really fun game with good Players.

I cleaned up the room and began the dismal task of hauling my gaming stuff and luggage to my car. Then I set off to find anyone remaining that I might bid 'farewell' to. I found Japji (who runs KublaCon) and thanked him for another great con. This is a difficult and somewhat depressing time for me. The convention is over, I'm tired, coming down off of adrenaline and I just don't want it to end. Well, this time it didn't.

I found Todd Furler, Matt DeHayes, Kim Hill, and Matt & Kim's friend Dwayne as they were starting a new round of 'Shadows over Camalot'. I don't do much boardgaming, and I was tired, but... I didn't want the Con to end and here are my friends inviting me to play, so...

I fear that Camalot was lost to the darkness due to my lack of concentration. 'Shadows' turned out to be a fun game (I'd play again) and I got to hang for awhile longer. The convention staff came and told us that the convention was technically over and if the hotel staff wanted us out of the meeting room, we'd have to clear out. Even as tired as they were, they had this much courtesy remaining. Have I mentioned how much KublaCon rocks!?

We wrapped up the game without the need for the hotel staff to shoo us away. That's when Matt & Co invited me to dinner. Now, Todd was taking a red-eye out and the rest had to drive a few hours, but there were 3 of them to share the driving. As much as I wanted to, I needed to get home before my Other Half thought I was dead in a ditch somewhere in the mountain pass I still needed to cross. Difficult as it was to tear myself away, I headed home. Still not willing to completely let go, I called my friend Jay Button in Colorado and blathered all the way home about how great KublaCon was and how I wished he'd been there. Finally, home safe and sound, I ate something and fell into bed, needing some sleep for re-entry.

How was KublaCon 2007? Nearly perfect. I can't wait for next year...

River Dance - Of Death

KublaCon 2007. Sunday. Slept until 11AM. Post shower I got to work on the last of my Paranoia details. Final touches on the character sheets.

Hung out in the Chaosium booth for awhile in the early afternoon. I was encouraged to submit a game to them via their Monograph series. I'm tempted, but I've just never submitted. Gotta do some soul searching and figure out why.

Running Call of Cthulhu at 3:30 , a 4 hour game. A River Runs Through it. Short, but I ran it at Endgame's Minicon and it worked. Another mad scientist game. This nut case finds a series of gateways that lead to 'Lost Cities' all over the world (and on other worlds). Sorta 'Stargate meets Endymion'. But these are lost cities of the Cthulhu mythos, soooo not very healthy to go there. The nice thing about this approach is that it can be a long game or a short one. I have several cities lined up, each more horrible than the last. I can run the players through as many as I need to. If they're fast, add another city. If they're slow, cut some out and get to the last city, then back home (if they survive).

It was interesting to run an adventure for a second time. I rarely do and I found that my GM'ing was improved and the game was as well. As with every game at this year's KublaCon, my game was full with people wanting to crash. Half the registered Players didn't show. I just don't understand this. Gamers constantly whine that they don't get into games at conventions. Then they do and they don't bother to show up? One friend of mine has nearly given up registering for games. They go to crash any game they want and almost always get in. Strange.

One of the Players who did show up asked if her 12-year-old daughter could play. Needing to fill the last spot, I agreed with the stipulation that this was a horror game and the mom had to be OK with this. She was and the two characters they chose were boyfriend/girlfriend. OK, that's a bit weird, but the cool thing is that I got to introduce a young player to Call of Cthulhu. There was also another new player, so I'm gaining more minions for the Elder Gods.

The game went well with everyone dying except one character that managed to make it back home. I take that back, the 12-year-old's character was lost in a non-euclidian city going slowly insane. I managed to get the game in at exactly 4 hours and everyone seemed to have a good time.

I trucked to the hotel sportsbar to grab some dinner and ended up next to the Justice Radio folks. These whacked-out people run an internet radio station for online gamers. They're super-fun people. I may run an event for them next year. They hang in City of heroes. Find 'em online at www.justiceradio.net

I meandered to Todd's Thy Will game to find my friend Matt DeHayes playing the same character I had. I hung for awhile, then back to the room to get some sleep before Paranoia on Monday AM.

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.

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'.