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Origins, belatedly
Jul. 5th, 2010 12:45 amSo. Origins was good. We arrived on Thursday, wherein Matt had a game to run (Don't Rest Your Head) and we'd arranged to play in a zombie LARP that night. Took forever and a day to get a hotel room, as they didn't have one ready. This was mostly of great concern because we had the kiddos with us and the toddler needed a diaper change. We got through it though, aided by World Cup soccer being played on the tv in the lobby. Yay!
We did eventually get settled, then off to the dealer's room to buy stuff, including Dresden. Lovely, lovely Dresden Files RPG. Fred of Evil Hat also gave me FATE dice to use and keep, for which I was very grateful. I didn't watch Matt's game -- I took the time to prep for mine instead. Rising that night was fun, though my back was killing me and I felt sort of ambivilent about it going in. I had a lot of fun, though -- I'd likely do it again, except this time not as one of the zombies. That said, I think I made a pretty good zombie, all told. I had a great zombie shuffle down. :)
Friday was up in the morning and off to games. Matt took Teagan off to play Kids Rising and get shot in the head by his daughter, Dead-Eye Teagan, and I worked on stuff for my game still. I had tech fail... the fillable character sheet I'd used to build all the characters wouldn't print out on the business center's machine. It would print, but the only information to show was in the field the cursor was in. So we printed out a few character sheets, went off to the room, and I spent the hour beforehand filling out the sheets by hand -- and spending 10 minutes to look up the bits I couldn't remember for actually running the game. GAH.
That said, it went well. I had four players out of the registered six show up. They left out the paramedic and the ectomancer (ghost magician), which left me with the West Coast Junior Warden, the Wizard of the Castro in San Francisco, the TV reporter and the Red Court Infected to play with. I was going to play quite a bit with the nature of the Castro in SF and alternate sexuality, etc., but one of my players was 11 or so. I therefore dropped/glossed all but the tamest of the references, dialed down the encounter weight, and played heavily on the idea of the aspects and showing how they work.
As it is, I had four scenes scheduled. They circumvented the middle two scenes altogether and went from point A to point B directly, and then once there proceeded to seek out the baddie and get their fighty pants on. I figured out that I needed to diverge from the initial planned bad-guy fight, as it was too powerful for the players I had -- rather, they probably would have survived but they'd have looked like Harry after a fight, and not all of them would make it -- and this wasn't a group to welcome that sort of play. So I went with a simpler solution that one of my players suggested in his course of action and everyone was happy, feeling as though they put together a puzzle and took the necessary actions to solve it. It was good, all things considered. My players had fun at the very least and got a better handle on the system, so I did my job.
I ended up meeting up with my friend Eric after that, and we all went to dinner together -- me, Matt, Heather, Aaron, Eric, and the kids. Cory and Andrea were supposed to have come, but they were busy and couldn't make it. We ate at Barleys (I think) and it was good.
Saturday we had a game in the morning, Agents of Oblivion for Savage Worlds. It's not out yet but it's in beta. I ended up being given the double agent with the goal of getting the goods and getting away from the rest of the team, which I executed perfectly. :) Go me. It was a fun game and I enjoyed it -- I'd play the setting again.
Later, we played an IPR game by Jason Morningstar named Fiasco, and I have to say it was an amazingly good time. It doesn't have a GM -- everyone defines the relationships and mcguffins together using a simple dice resolution system. It's designed to be a Coen Brothers movie, more or less, but ours ended up more like a noir Tennesee Williams play, possibly. It was a tremendous amount of fun, and I can't recommend purchasing the game highly enough. It's optimal with four players and it's resolved in an evening. Excellent, excellent game.
We were going to go to karaoke that evening, but Origins didn't have any, which made me very sad. We ended up playing Dread, though, and that was awesome. Matt ran the game and we found a great group of players, all of which were enthusiastic, local, and interested in playing games they hadn't played before. Bonus! :)
Sunday was the dealer's room again and the art show and all manner of nifty things to see. I enjoyed it immensely, and saw old friends I hadn't seen in some time. Just a great, great con.
We did eventually get settled, then off to the dealer's room to buy stuff, including Dresden. Lovely, lovely Dresden Files RPG. Fred of Evil Hat also gave me FATE dice to use and keep, for which I was very grateful. I didn't watch Matt's game -- I took the time to prep for mine instead. Rising that night was fun, though my back was killing me and I felt sort of ambivilent about it going in. I had a lot of fun, though -- I'd likely do it again, except this time not as one of the zombies. That said, I think I made a pretty good zombie, all told. I had a great zombie shuffle down. :)
Friday was up in the morning and off to games. Matt took Teagan off to play Kids Rising and get shot in the head by his daughter, Dead-Eye Teagan, and I worked on stuff for my game still. I had tech fail... the fillable character sheet I'd used to build all the characters wouldn't print out on the business center's machine. It would print, but the only information to show was in the field the cursor was in. So we printed out a few character sheets, went off to the room, and I spent the hour beforehand filling out the sheets by hand -- and spending 10 minutes to look up the bits I couldn't remember for actually running the game. GAH.
That said, it went well. I had four players out of the registered six show up. They left out the paramedic and the ectomancer (ghost magician), which left me with the West Coast Junior Warden, the Wizard of the Castro in San Francisco, the TV reporter and the Red Court Infected to play with. I was going to play quite a bit with the nature of the Castro in SF and alternate sexuality, etc., but one of my players was 11 or so. I therefore dropped/glossed all but the tamest of the references, dialed down the encounter weight, and played heavily on the idea of the aspects and showing how they work.
As it is, I had four scenes scheduled. They circumvented the middle two scenes altogether and went from point A to point B directly, and then once there proceeded to seek out the baddie and get their fighty pants on. I figured out that I needed to diverge from the initial planned bad-guy fight, as it was too powerful for the players I had -- rather, they probably would have survived but they'd have looked like Harry after a fight, and not all of them would make it -- and this wasn't a group to welcome that sort of play. So I went with a simpler solution that one of my players suggested in his course of action and everyone was happy, feeling as though they put together a puzzle and took the necessary actions to solve it. It was good, all things considered. My players had fun at the very least and got a better handle on the system, so I did my job.
I ended up meeting up with my friend Eric after that, and we all went to dinner together -- me, Matt, Heather, Aaron, Eric, and the kids. Cory and Andrea were supposed to have come, but they were busy and couldn't make it. We ate at Barleys (I think) and it was good.
Saturday we had a game in the morning, Agents of Oblivion for Savage Worlds. It's not out yet but it's in beta. I ended up being given the double agent with the goal of getting the goods and getting away from the rest of the team, which I executed perfectly. :) Go me. It was a fun game and I enjoyed it -- I'd play the setting again.
Later, we played an IPR game by Jason Morningstar named Fiasco, and I have to say it was an amazingly good time. It doesn't have a GM -- everyone defines the relationships and mcguffins together using a simple dice resolution system. It's designed to be a Coen Brothers movie, more or less, but ours ended up more like a noir Tennesee Williams play, possibly. It was a tremendous amount of fun, and I can't recommend purchasing the game highly enough. It's optimal with four players and it's resolved in an evening. Excellent, excellent game.
We were going to go to karaoke that evening, but Origins didn't have any, which made me very sad. We ended up playing Dread, though, and that was awesome. Matt ran the game and we found a great group of players, all of which were enthusiastic, local, and interested in playing games they hadn't played before. Bonus! :)
Sunday was the dealer's room again and the art show and all manner of nifty things to see. I enjoyed it immensely, and saw old friends I hadn't seen in some time. Just a great, great con.
