ARCON VI Report
Well, its been a day since i got back from ARCON VI. My sanity has begun to return and i am no longer seeing double. I have some sleep under my belt and i think i am ready to spill the beans.
ARCON in General...
I was surprised how big it was. There had to be a 100 or more people milling about the union hall this weekend. There was several LARPs going throughout the weekend. There were as many boardgames, wargames, card tournaments, and video game slots as there was rpg slots. More actually. The one thing i think that they could stand to have is some form of pre-registration. The CON was a bit hectic and there was many cancellations, so i see why they keep it loose. But i think some sort of structure for registration could help. But the people were nice and friendly and even though it was bigger than i thought, they keep feeling like a local game group type of feel. They will definitely be seeing me around more often up there.
My ARCON Gaming....
When the STG finally released the new Arcon event schedule, i was stoked to see that they had a Capes game, Shab-al-Hiri Roach, and a Dogs in the Vineyard game slot. I was both stunned that they had so many Indie games and stoked that i would get to play them for my first time. When i got to the Union Hall to begin my Indie Game Pilgrimage, i saw on the board that the Cape games that i was excited to play had been cancelled due to illness. That sucked. That also represented half of the games that i had tapped for playing. So while i scrambled to replace those slots with other gaming goodness, i still had the two main events (in my eyes) left of games involving a Roach and a pack of Dogs.
Shab-al-Hiri Roach
This game was a blast. In it each player is a professor of varying influence at a university where a corrupting influence of an ancient sumarian god (in the form of a roach) has begin to insinuate itself among the faculty. The players are caught between showing up the other players, scrambling for prestige and tenure, and resisting (or entreating) the dark energies of the evil roach god. Who will swallow the roach and gain power in return? The game is fairly GMless and flows in rounds. Each round takes place in particular place or function (faculty meeting, recital, etc) in which each player draws a card and narrates a story based on what is on the card. But a NPC must be chosen to be part of the conflict and other players can be invited into the story to help them (not that they always help) and other players can spend reputation points to force their way in and try to gain prestige at the detriment of the others. Almost like a game of War or Slapjack. so much wackiness can and does ensue. Who ever wins the conflict gets to narrate the outcome. And so it goes round and round until the last round/event is played out. At this point you count up reputation and whether you avoided or got rid of the roach's influence and the winner of that count gets to narrate the end game of what happens to the story. We had a blast! We had some disconnect with the rules, but at a CON that happens. I think that it was mostly because we were overbooked with 8 players so it was a little topsy turvy. But no one was going to give up a seat! The guy running the event was fun and enthusiastic and that makes all the difference. (Thanks Jeremy!) So to sum it up, Shab-al-Hiri Roach is a hilarious game that will have you laughing your ass off and shaking your head at some wild scenes. There was more than one point in the game where i thought the Roach should have been running from us!
Dogs in the Vineyard
Hoo boy. I've been looking forward to playing this game for a long time. It was run by the same guy who ran the Roach game and like that game it was over booked. But half the group were the same players from the Roach game, so it promised to be fun. The premise of DITV is that you are characters in the early 1800's alternate west where the Mormon religion holds sway. You play characters that serves as wandering judges who go from town to town of hte faithful and pass judgement on local matters and seek out sinners and bring them to justice. The character's word is law and their judgement is final. Where the teeth of the game really bites is the almost regular conflicts between the different Dogs as to how to interpret the word of the religion and what punishments need to be met out. The game went well, but not as well as the Roach game. Different players saw the game a bit differently and it colored our characters and interactions accordingly. I think the extra number of players impacted this game much more so than it did the Roach game. In a smaller game, i think debates and interactions would be more tighter and important to the story. I still had fun, though, but it was a lot more disjointed than you might hope for. Some of this was also because DITV is a very dicey game. You get a ot of dice to roll and then have bid and raise against the npc's or other players in sets of 1-3 dice and take possible fallout traits on your way to solving the conflict in the end. I thought it took too long and was too involved. It disrupted the story too much for my taste. Still nothing like D&D and looking thorugh 17 books for rules, of course!
Pick Up Sticks....
With the three Capes slots cancelled i found out what makes a good rock'in CON. How easy is it to find pick up games? If a Con is really hopping and has a lot of enthusiastic gamers, then problems like cancellations (which afflicts every CON i've ever been to) are irratating, but easy to fix. I had to seek out other things to make up for the Capes games. I think this is the strength of CONs. At every gaming convention i have ever attended, i have ended up playing games that i have either not thought about playing or games i have never even heard about. That is what cons and game days are really about. Exploring the gaming world and those people in it. I got into a pick up game of Axis and Allies ( a new version) boardgame that was fun. I played a D20 variation of a Smash TV game or something (i didn't know anything about it) that wasn't really my cup of tea, but i did get to overplay my stupid warrior characters, Fitah. I played some Resident Evil 4 (i think it was 4), and we almost talked Jeremy into running a Mountain Witch game, but he was burning out. Damn it!
All in all, i had a hell of a time and look forward to next year and can't wait to run a couple slots of my own.