Weekend of Games
Day of Games last Saturday was the centrepeice to a great weekend. More than that, it bled over into my subsequent week in interesting and awkward ways.
Let's start at the beginning. I arrived in Wellington on Wednesday evening and spent Thursday with surrealfish and prolegomenon before the arrival of k2vsate, javelin_nz and confusiontempst. Thus began the drinking and the Dominion. There was a brief and perhaps ill-advised flirtation with Battlestar Gallactica - a game which certainly fits in my "dedicated strategy games" pile, as opposed to the "casual pick-up pile", as the night required. At any rate, aside from a couple of games of Race for the Galaxy, the weekend was pretty much a sea of Dominion.
So that was Friday as well. Interspersed with the drinking and the Dominion was work on my final Geospatial Analysis project, Facebook madness, and food expeditions.
Day of Games on Saturday, a one day, three session, Games-on-Demand-style convention, was the impetus for this gathering in Wellington, and it began on an awesome note with drbunnyhops' So Cold in Alaska. After hearing fantastic reviews from Kapcon 2011 attendees of this harrowing tale centered on intergenerational cycles of domestic and child abuse, I was very excited to play it, but also forewarned that it might not be run. It was, and it was everything I'd hoped for. I'll discuss the game in a future post as my discussion will deal with wider issues in gaming and it deserves the space.
Alaska prepped me for a day of dark gaming, and in a way, that's what I got, but by comparison, the subsequent Hot War scenario dealing with racially motivated mass murder seemed light. There were four slots and five keen players, so as I'd just read the rulebook and was thinking about writing my own scenario, I quickly whipped up a fifth character for myself. Sophie integrated him well into the game, but given the divergent trajectories of the characters, the game would have probably been better with only four stories to follow. That said, it was a great game, I'm glad I got to play Hot War with it's local cheerleader, and I'm excited to run it in the future. Most immediately at Buckets of Dice.
The final game was Monster of the Week, Mike Sands' Urban Fantasy moster hunting (Buffy/Angel/Supernatural) Apocalypse World hack, again run by Sophie. I'm a sucker for Apocalypse World, and this was a well done hack. It's interesting to see how people unfamiliar with Apocalypse World deal with the style of gaming that the moves produce. It was much slower paced than my previous Apocalypse World experiences, which, admittedly have all been MCed by Colin, and I didn't get a single advance. I think the main driver here might have been the investigative nature of the scenario, but I'm sure the play styles at the table had something to do with it too. The final fight against a band of restless spirits of murdered Irish rail workers ended in a TPK as the three-hour slot came to an end and the rest of the con began to accumulate back in the main room in which we were playing, so it was a fun, high-energy end to the con. Rarely for me (but a strength of the community in Wellington), I was the only guy at the table.
Unfortunately, a day of playing Dominion on the floor had messed with my back something fierce by that point, so I wasn't up to the post-con curry with k2vsate, javelin_nz, who, by the sound of their Harry Potter Slash-fic Fiasco game across the room, were out of Mojitos and much in need of a curry! Instead, I caught a lift to the after-party with Mashugenah. It just occured to me that it would have been a great chance to expand the Barcon heresy, but I was too focused on the Whisk(e)y and the good times.
SAGA is going to try to get a pre-Buckets social event together this year, and I hope they can facilitate the kind of comraderie that the Wellington community has.
Thanks to all the GMs, players, designers and others who contributed to a great con and a great weekend!
Let's start at the beginning. I arrived in Wellington on Wednesday evening and spent Thursday with surrealfish and prolegomenon before the arrival of k2vsate, javelin_nz and confusiontempst. Thus began the drinking and the Dominion. There was a brief and perhaps ill-advised flirtation with Battlestar Gallactica - a game which certainly fits in my "dedicated strategy games" pile, as opposed to the "casual pick-up pile", as the night required. At any rate, aside from a couple of games of Race for the Galaxy, the weekend was pretty much a sea of Dominion.
So that was Friday as well. Interspersed with the drinking and the Dominion was work on my final Geospatial Analysis project, Facebook madness, and food expeditions.
Day of Games on Saturday, a one day, three session, Games-on-Demand-style convention, was the impetus for this gathering in Wellington, and it began on an awesome note with drbunnyhops' So Cold in Alaska. After hearing fantastic reviews from Kapcon 2011 attendees of this harrowing tale centered on intergenerational cycles of domestic and child abuse, I was very excited to play it, but also forewarned that it might not be run. It was, and it was everything I'd hoped for. I'll discuss the game in a future post as my discussion will deal with wider issues in gaming and it deserves the space.
Alaska prepped me for a day of dark gaming, and in a way, that's what I got, but by comparison, the subsequent Hot War scenario dealing with racially motivated mass murder seemed light. There were four slots and five keen players, so as I'd just read the rulebook and was thinking about writing my own scenario, I quickly whipped up a fifth character for myself. Sophie integrated him well into the game, but given the divergent trajectories of the characters, the game would have probably been better with only four stories to follow. That said, it was a great game, I'm glad I got to play Hot War with it's local cheerleader, and I'm excited to run it in the future. Most immediately at Buckets of Dice.
The final game was Monster of the Week, Mike Sands' Urban Fantasy moster hunting (Buffy/Angel/Supernatural) Apocalypse World hack, again run by Sophie. I'm a sucker for Apocalypse World, and this was a well done hack. It's interesting to see how people unfamiliar with Apocalypse World deal with the style of gaming that the moves produce. It was much slower paced than my previous Apocalypse World experiences, which, admittedly have all been MCed by Colin, and I didn't get a single advance. I think the main driver here might have been the investigative nature of the scenario, but I'm sure the play styles at the table had something to do with it too. The final fight against a band of restless spirits of murdered Irish rail workers ended in a TPK as the three-hour slot came to an end and the rest of the con began to accumulate back in the main room in which we were playing, so it was a fun, high-energy end to the con. Rarely for me (but a strength of the community in Wellington), I was the only guy at the table.
Unfortunately, a day of playing Dominion on the floor had messed with my back something fierce by that point, so I wasn't up to the post-con curry with k2vsate, javelin_nz, who, by the sound of their Harry Potter Slash-fic Fiasco game across the room, were out of Mojitos and much in need of a curry! Instead, I caught a lift to the after-party with Mashugenah. It just occured to me that it would have been a great chance to expand the Barcon heresy, but I was too focused on the Whisk(e)y and the good times.
SAGA is going to try to get a pre-Buckets social event together this year, and I hope they can facilitate the kind of comraderie that the Wellington community has.
Thanks to all the GMs, players, designers and others who contributed to a great con and a great weekend!