• 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.

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.

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!

The game set up was very collaborative and we ended up being people who were involved with an astroid minning colony called Eclipse. I was a former military pilot, Jana Cabot, who after a disgrace of some sort was kicked out of the service and now makes her living shipping ore back to Earth and bring “assorted” other items back, on her barge the Hell Hath No Fury (or Barge 269).

The other characters were:

Zoey Clark – a engineer who spent most of her time running the black market
Col. Martin Hacket – a Military auditor on the base to dig up dirt
Jay McQueen – a prostitute
Dallas – also and engineer
Pvt Ryan Laws – member of the Military security forces on the base

We also established that the menace would be a nano virus of some sort that was being transmited through radio signals and Total Eclipse – The Movie was born!

From the get go the game ran like a well oiled machine with all of us throwing in scenes that added to the dramatic tension and allowed the story to move along. My character, was thrown into the thick of things from the very beginning as she went to investigate a marooned civilian ship which had been taken over by the virus in the opening scene.

The relationship between the characters was set up from the very beginning with the solider boy, Ryan, trying to keep his “business deallings” with Jay secret from his girlfriend Zoey, only to be thwarted by the fact they were attempting to survive the chaos together. Col. Hacket was shot by Ryan, but managed to somehow survive only to be taken over by the virus. Dallas almost made it off the astroid with his retirement fund (stolen from the coloney) only to be set on fire and sucked out to space, screaming as it happens, “Who says you can’t take it with you!!”.

In the end Jana and Jay ended up blasting away from the colony and destroying it in the process as well as being able to overcome the virus which had infected them.

It was a great game, and one that I look forward to playing again.

At it’s heart Project Breather is about the horror that comes from with in people, and that the monsters are not just the ones with the crazy powers and disfigurment. The horror from within was the theme I tried to promote through out the game, by placing the characters in situations where they could let their darkest side loose.

There are 5 characters in Project breather, and different to the book I had them as members of an agency called the Office of Internal Affairs rather than members of the Special Situations Group. The team is:

Captain Brad Harris – An American Air Force pilot
Lieutenant Julian Stevens – Royal Naval Intelligence
Samantha Askew – A former journelist
Sargent Jock Smith – A London policeman
Herbert Jenkins – A disgraced politician

These 5 were asked to go into SSG, and basically dig up dirt on their operation under the guise of an audit. All things considered it doesn’t take long and the investigation begins. In the course of the investigation the team find out that certain Doctor has suspected of a rather horrible crime and that the SSG are trying to cover it up. Obviously they do everything in their power to uncover what actually happened.

Firstly in preparation for this event I ran through this game twice. And I don’t think these run throughs were all that great. They didn’t suck, but they were missing something. However they were valuable experiences as they helped me farm ideas and scenes that happened in the actual game. In the game tonight all (even though it ran a little long) those little titbits I’d picked up along the way meshed really well. I had a real sense of the London portrayed in Hot War as well as a greater understanding of what had to happen.

I can’t speak for the players, but I think that the pace of the game went really well. I was letting little bits of information slip through out the game that lead to a growing sense of understanding and dread as they realised what was happening. But at the same time there were enough unknowns that they still had “Oh fuck” moments at the end. It’s a real shame that we got cut off as I think I might have been able to take out a couple of them given another 1/2 hour.

I also used the players suggestions and questions to shape the adventure around them. I had written the backstory of what had lead to this situation, however I hadn’t actually written the story of how the situation is resolved. In a game like Hot War with so much collaboration written into the game mechanics I think this is crucial for running succesfully.

I had a blast running this game and hope the players enjoyed it as much as I did. I hope to have it uploaded for others to use at some point soon.