GenCon 2012: Monsters Everywhere
First up on Friday I was GMing in Games on Demand. I offered Dungeon World again. In this session, four characters ventured into the Wreck of the Mermaid Queen: Bob, dwarf cleric of Kalintir, god of healing and restoration; Korath the Righteous, Paladin of Kalintir; Apos, human wizard from a magical lineage with a dark secret; and Fade, aloof but curious elf bard. Korath's holy quest led him to the Wreck in search of the Mermaid Queen who bore the visage of his Goddess. They descended down a sheer cliff to the rocky shore, where Korath drove off a small band of attacking mermen with his divine authority; on the Wreck, Bob used the power of Kalintir to part a feasting band of ghost pirates; and a pitched battle against more mermen raged outside the Mermaid Queen's chambers. Finally, Korath confronted his goddess who invited him to consummate their divine relationship. Korath had a glimmer of a doubt, but enthusiastically accepted. Eventually, as the ritual union neared its climax, his companions learned that the Queen's last lover was now a ghost pirate and dragged him away. Discovering this, Korath spurned his goddess and the group fled her wrath, barely escaping the Wreck with their lives!
Little did they know what sexy horrors awaited them! Well, maybe the title gave it away... (Photo (c) Adam Koebel)
My only real foodie experience of GenCon was this lunch. Morgan, Jerry, Will and I wandered across the street to Harry and Izzy's for some of the famous St Elmo's horseradish sauce. It was suitably sinus clearing. The GenCon special Ale of Destiny by Sun King was pretty good too. I wasn't overly impressed by the prime rib sandwich I had, but I'd forgotten than I usually find those disappointing.
Back in Games on Demand, I had two back-to-back two-hour slots. I offered Monster of the Week and one of the three players preferred a two-hour game. I pitched a Night's Black Agents-style game in which the players were former members of an agency dedicated to protecting the world from monsters, but whom they had just discovered were controlled by monsters. Thus the Department of Demonic Control was born. I ran both slots with that premise, Chris and Sam played in both as respectively: Jack Cadillac, a Wronged whose wife had been killed and daughter taken by the DDC, and Merv, a Hardcase from a murky military background who had been persuaded to leave the DDC by the first game's third character, Dorothy Kowalski. Dorothy was an Expert formerly of the Demonic Demographics and Statistics Division whose niece had also been taken. In the first slot, Jack, Merv and Dorothy found their contact in Tuscon dead and followed the trail to an underground prison from which they rescued Dorothy's niece. While Dorothy delivered children back to their families, Jack and Merv continued their search for Jack's niece. In the second slot, they were joined by agents from other organisations in their hunt for a upper-level demon, Maali-alish. They were Mr Stirling, a Professional employed by a private individual and tasked with investigating Maali-alish (this had potential to set Mr Stirling up alliance with another demon, but the story didn't go in that direction), and Al-Shadim, and Initiate of the Brotherhood of the Silver Sword, tasked with killing Maali-alish. Mr Stirling attended to a small piece of professional business with the help of Merv, while Al-Shadim and Jack staked out a sighting of Maali-alish. They found him, chased him and caught him, but he bargained for his life using Jack's daughter as a pawn, then escaped to the crypt of a church. The group pursued him under the church to a pocket dimension in which a giant demonic engine was readying Jack's daughter for possession. A climactic battle ensued in which Mr Stirling collected evidence and de-powered the engine while Al-Shadim killed Maali-alish and Jack rescued his daughter, receiving a disfiguring and no-doubt thoroughly evil scar in the process.
I adjourned with Sam and Chris (and met up with the rest of our room contingents) for dinner at California Pizza Kitchen where a the chatty manager kept us entertained. Most of the guys went to an Irish bar for the evening, while I headed back to the Embassy Suites and was lucky enough to catch the Las Crucas clique about to play Undying, Paul's Apocalypse World hack of Vampire the Masquerade.
Paul discusses Undying on his blog. Essentially, it highlights two main aspects of Vampire that were central to the flavour text of the original, but largely absent from the mechanics: the internal struggle between human and beast (represented by the zero-sum stats Will and Humanity), and the struggle for dominance in vampire society )represented by Status as a stat and Debt as a currency). It works really well; certainly the rules for Vampire that I've played. I was Raphael, a Succubus (the playbook that more or less covers Toreador) with a high humanity, low will, and a burning ambition for status. Our game took place in a small Caribbean city in the age of piracy; there was a Liege of the city, his rival for power, a pirate captain, and the four PCs: Armando, the Nightmare; Elliot, the Wolf; and Shelly, the Puppet Master. After various expositions, confrontations and interactions we blew up the pirate king, and Raphael threw Elliot under the metaphorical bus for the Liege's favour. It would have set up nicely for a continuing game, and I look forward to playing this again in the future. It's as yet unreleased in any form, but look out for it.
By this point, was well into the swing of things and feeling pretty good about the amount of gaming I was getting in.
Little did they know what sexy horrors awaited them! Well, maybe the title gave it away... (Photo (c) Adam Koebel)
My only real foodie experience of GenCon was this lunch. Morgan, Jerry, Will and I wandered across the street to Harry and Izzy's for some of the famous St Elmo's horseradish sauce. It was suitably sinus clearing. The GenCon special Ale of Destiny by Sun King was pretty good too. I wasn't overly impressed by the prime rib sandwich I had, but I'd forgotten than I usually find those disappointing.
Back in Games on Demand, I had two back-to-back two-hour slots. I offered Monster of the Week and one of the three players preferred a two-hour game. I pitched a Night's Black Agents-style game in which the players were former members of an agency dedicated to protecting the world from monsters, but whom they had just discovered were controlled by monsters. Thus the Department of Demonic Control was born. I ran both slots with that premise, Chris and Sam played in both as respectively: Jack Cadillac, a Wronged whose wife had been killed and daughter taken by the DDC, and Merv, a Hardcase from a murky military background who had been persuaded to leave the DDC by the first game's third character, Dorothy Kowalski. Dorothy was an Expert formerly of the Demonic Demographics and Statistics Division whose niece had also been taken. In the first slot, Jack, Merv and Dorothy found their contact in Tuscon dead and followed the trail to an underground prison from which they rescued Dorothy's niece. While Dorothy delivered children back to their families, Jack and Merv continued their search for Jack's niece. In the second slot, they were joined by agents from other organisations in their hunt for a upper-level demon, Maali-alish. They were Mr Stirling, a Professional employed by a private individual and tasked with investigating Maali-alish (this had potential to set Mr Stirling up alliance with another demon, but the story didn't go in that direction), and Al-Shadim, and Initiate of the Brotherhood of the Silver Sword, tasked with killing Maali-alish. Mr Stirling attended to a small piece of professional business with the help of Merv, while Al-Shadim and Jack staked out a sighting of Maali-alish. They found him, chased him and caught him, but he bargained for his life using Jack's daughter as a pawn, then escaped to the crypt of a church. The group pursued him under the church to a pocket dimension in which a giant demonic engine was readying Jack's daughter for possession. A climactic battle ensued in which Mr Stirling collected evidence and de-powered the engine while Al-Shadim killed Maali-alish and Jack rescued his daughter, receiving a disfiguring and no-doubt thoroughly evil scar in the process.
I adjourned with Sam and Chris (and met up with the rest of our room contingents) for dinner at California Pizza Kitchen where a the chatty manager kept us entertained. Most of the guys went to an Irish bar for the evening, while I headed back to the Embassy Suites and was lucky enough to catch the Las Crucas clique about to play Undying, Paul's Apocalypse World hack of Vampire the Masquerade.
Paul discusses Undying on his blog. Essentially, it highlights two main aspects of Vampire that were central to the flavour text of the original, but largely absent from the mechanics: the internal struggle between human and beast (represented by the zero-sum stats Will and Humanity), and the struggle for dominance in vampire society )represented by Status as a stat and Debt as a currency). It works really well; certainly the rules for Vampire that I've played. I was Raphael, a Succubus (the playbook that more or less covers Toreador) with a high humanity, low will, and a burning ambition for status. Our game took place in a small Caribbean city in the age of piracy; there was a Liege of the city, his rival for power, a pirate captain, and the four PCs: Armando, the Nightmare; Elliot, the Wolf; and Shelly, the Puppet Master. After various expositions, confrontations and interactions we blew up the pirate king, and Raphael threw Elliot under the metaphorical bus for the Liege's favour. It would have set up nicely for a continuing game, and I look forward to playing this again in the future. It's as yet unreleased in any form, but look out for it.
By this point, was well into the swing of things and feeling pretty good about the amount of gaming I was getting in.