Cons
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.
Run a Game at KapCon!!
KapCon is New Zealand’s biggest RPG convention and happens here in Wellington every January. It is two packed days of games and if you’re in the area, and interested it is well worth coming to. However there seems to be a bit of reluctance for people to GM games. So I’m going to do my bit to help pimp the idea.
I’m running three games. Derby of the Damned, Project Breather and A.C.O.R.N.. All of these are written up over at the site. Also to get more back ground nip over the The NZRag boards.
Con Report – Fright Night ’08
Fright Night ’08 took place in Turnbull House, Wellington last night. It is a two session Con that goes into the night with all games having a Horror theme. There are a strictly limited number of player slots (based on the number of GMs) and people pre-register.
This was my first Fright Night, but the second to be run. Originally I had intended to just come along and play, but was asked to run a game when another GM wasn’t able to make it. I was looking forward to a couple slick games with GMs really passionate about their work. I wasn’t disappointed.
Turnbull House is an awesome location for a Con, especially a horror con, and it’s old building vibes certainly helped to create the mood.
A really great night of gaming was had and I’m already looking forward to Fright Night ’09!
Actual Play – Geiger Counter @ Fright Night ’08
Geiger Counter is an rpg that allows you to recreate survival horror movies. It’s a shared narration/creation game where you create the premise of the movie, characters and plot once you sit down to play. It’s perfect for pick up play and cons. Not to mention being a whole lot of fun. I played a game run by Mike Sands at Fright Night ’08 and managed to survive!
Actual Play – Project Breather @ Fright Night ’08
Tonight was Wellington’s Horror Con, Fright Night. I ran a Hot War game I like to call Project Breather.