3:16
A Day of Games
Despite the recent lull in blogging things have been pretty busy on the geeking front, not least of which was my desicion to run a small, one day RPG con a couple of months ago. The reasons for this were two fold.
- There are heaps of fantastic small print games out there that I wanted to have an oppertunity to play.
- I thought that the Wellington gaming scene would respond well to an event mid year.
So I stole an idea from New Zealand’s biggest RPG con, KapCon (which is held every January), and based my Day of Games on the Games on Demand room. The deal here is that there are a group of facilitators who each agree to run certain games that they’re really excited about and then people come, vote on which games seem cool and go play. Sounds easy right?
Well as I found out this supposidly easy concept needs (not surprisingly) more organisation that I thought it would. Choosing a date in mid-May which was roughly half way between KapCon and the one of the other main RPG events in Wellington, ConFusion which is held in August was easy. As was picking the old faithful, Turnbull House for a venue. I pimped my idea on the NZRag boards to get people to come and run games and even made fliers to go into the FLGS. I kind of forgot to set up a Facebook event until a few days before but dispite that lapse the day arrived an we had a pretty good turn out, even a guy who was from the US and travelling around NZ. After some discussion I decided to do a slightly different time table. Rather than the traditional 3 hour slot I split the day into two 4 hour slots and four 2 hour slots. This way if you wanted to play in a game that required more set up you’d still get time to play.
This was kind of where my grand idea fell down a little. I had a big white board and session times/lengths all worked out, but I felt there was too much standing around waiting and discussing what would happen next. Also a number of the GMs didn’t get to play in games that they wanted to due to having to run games. So I’ve been thinking about how to smooth out those waits and give everyone the oppertunity to play if they wanted to. So here is what I’m going to do next year, assuming there is interest:
- Get a clear list of games from each GM so other GMs can indicate what they’d also like to play in.
- Set up the whole day’s timetable to begin with so if people finish their session they know where to go next and time isn’t eaten up in the short sessions with arranging things.
In terms of my own Day of Games experience it was good. I ran an awesome game of 3: 16 for three Americans who really got into their roles as Space Marines. Then I “ran” an utterly terrible session of Capes (a game I’d never read, played in or even come across before) which I thought would be an easy supers pick game but confused me and all of the players with it’s unusual conflict mechanic. However I did really like the way characters were generated. Finally I brought out Hot War and actually got to run through game creation. This was my most satisfying game of the day and made me want to play in a multi-session game of this even more.
All in all it was a good day and the comments from others made me think that it could continue to grow in the furture. So I’m thinking that Day of Games will be around for another year yet.
An interview with Gregor Hutton
Things have been a tad quiet around here with me moving into the house I’ve just bought and Nick running around sorting out his next big step, but I thought I’d kick things off again with an interview with Gregor Hutton.
I was very pleased to meet Gregor earlier this year at KapCon when he was in town for a friend’s wedding. A little while later I asked if he’d mind answering a few questions and here are his answers. › Continue reading
Derby of the Damned – a kind of game
So a couple of years ago I bought a t-shirt from Threadless called “Derby of the Damned”. A few months later I went to my first KapCon and came away flush with ideas and concepts for new adventures using many and varied different game systems. One of those ideas was based on the t-shirt, partly because I thought it would be cool to play a Roller Derby girl and partly because I thought Derby of the Damned would be a great name for a scenario.
This idea bounced around in my head for months, every now and then I would try to make it work with an existing system. I tired All Flesh Must Be Eaten (the Unisystem zombie game from Eden Studios), Savage Worlds, True 20 and even Best Friends. But none of them quite seemed to fit with my idea with how this should play out.
It was around about this time that I was introduced to shared narrative games, most specifically 3: 16 Carnage Amongst the Stars. Something about the extremely quick character creation, low-fi stat/ability system and free for all nature of the game totally clicked with my idea of what I wanted Derby of the Damned to be. This minor epiphany also made me think that Derby didn’t need to just be a one off scenario, but possibly a shared narrative game in it’s own right.
I worked pretty hard on it after this change in direction, getting a set of rules I thought I could work with together with the intention of Derby making its debut at Kapcon 18. However I totally chickened out at the play test stage and decided against it in the end. Since then I’ve pretty much shelved the project, and I think it might be time to pull it back off the shelf.
So I’ve decided to write a series of blog posts on the different elements that I’ve thought about during this design process to try and kick start it again. They will be around:
- Character creation
- How the dice roll
- Creating stories
Hopefully by the end I’ll be back in the head space to finish this off and actually get a game going.
The first post will show up sometime next week, so check back soon if you’re interested to see my somewhat bunny hopping creative process unfold.
Recreation on Kandinsky aka What happened to Jose?
Last night my gaming group and I sat down to play a little something, and decided in the end to take on a planet in 3: 16. I was stoked as I’d wanted to run more of this game for some time as the last opportunity I’d had was via Skype, which didn’t have quite the same feel.
2008′s Best RPGs
Over on NZRaG there has been a post about this years best RPGs. My two are:
3: 16 – as a game of kick arse space marines doing what they do best, it is excellent. As a game of moral conundrums and difficult calls it forces the player to do more than just kill aliens. The system is simple, elegant and ultimately easy to learn and use. I also love the fact that character gen really only takes 5 minutes.
Hot War – I’ve talked a lot about this game and a large part of what appeals to me is the alt history setting that is much a character as any of the PCs. It is dark and difficult and allows the telling of stories that don’t always go the way you think. The collaborative nature of the game play means that as a GM unexpected things happen which just adds to the richness. Also the use of traits and relationships instead of skills makes for really well rounded and complex characters.
However since I wrote this I have actually brought another game which I think I’d like to add. Mongoose Publishing has gained the licence for the classic Sci Fi RPG, Traveller and I think have done a damn fine job. I’ve never read any of the other versions of this game but I’ve found this version excellent. I’ll be writing up a full review soon.
3: 16…. by SKYPE!!
Due to it’s extremely fast character creation and use of a rather abstract range map, 3: 16 lends itself very well to ‘distance play’. I have a number of friend’s in far off lands (and when you’re in New Zealand that isn’t hard) who I would love to play this game with. Enter the joy of Skype, a virtual game table tool called Maptools and the creativity and ingenuity of fellow 3: 16 fans. These coupled with the before mentioned friend’s give way to the opportunity to play a table top game like an multi-player PC game. Though to be honest, more fun!
Hopefully we’ll be able to kick off this weekend, so look out for actual play reports to come in the following weeks.
3: 16 Carnage Among the Stars
I’m not sure where I first heard of this game. Either it was on the NZRag boards or perhaps Story Games. Where ever it was the premise grabbed me immediately.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about this is a game about Space Marines. Space Marines who are members of Terra’s Expeditionary Force, the 16th Brigade of the 3rd Army to be precise. An army whose main directive is to go into the stars, find life and kill it. However the subtleties and possibilities open to a gamer with a bit of imagination and willingness to do things differently is huge.