Intercon J

[bronzite]

Executive SummaryThis year I played in three games: Blackout, Collision Imminent, and Veteran's Day. Two of these were first-run games. The other was decidedly not. In summary analysis, I would recommend Blackout to everybody, Collision Imminent to those who have not already played it, and Veteran's Day to those with an interest in Military

Comments

[londo]

Severably, but without reservation for either:

• Dear bronzite,
  
  If you continue to persist in the opinion that we don't like you, in spite of the fact that we do and have told you so multiple times, I am going to kick your ass.
  
  XOXO,
  londo
• You and EB dance beautifully together.

[bronzite]

Dear londo,

Its not that I think you don't like me, its more that we seem to have less and less to talk about.

XOXO,
bronzite

P.S. Bring it, scrawny.

[londo]

Funny you should mention that, because at Dead Dog we were just discussing what a pussy you are the idea of running a Kobolds Ate My Baby! larp, no seriously we want to try it, and many people present declared that it could under no conditions be any good unless you were involved in making it happen.

[bronzite]

Hmm. KAMB: The LARP would be strange and Sunday-Morningish. K-COM: The LARP, though...

[londo]

I briefly considered K-COM-as-larp, but between not wanting to step on your shtick, and my general belief that it's really a PvE/tabletop game, and not a larp... I dunno.

Huh. Actually. Could K-COM work as boffer PvE/horde?

[bronzite]

Unfortunately, no. Because of the intrinsic real-time approach of LARP, K-COM: The LARP would by necessity be K-COM: Apocalypse, which would, as history has shown, just be bad.

KAMB as LARP would run afoul of its own difficulties, either having too much weight as a "real game", or being regulated to a Sunday-morning game. Its possible it could be written as a component of Intercon Z-K.

Although now that I'm thinking about it, you could run an interesting game using lights-down space and wall partitions to write a LARP centered around a X-COM base attack mission -- using cast as the Squaddies and horde for the aliens. You'd need a big room and careful soundtrack selection to get the proper effect for long enough, but you could right a really effective (like, serious red-letter warning on the game blurb) horror game using that paradigm.

[londo]

Huh. A horror game like that needs *exceptionally* clear mechanics, so that people spend more time being afraid and less time wondering if they should use power A or power B.

I think KAMB would work well on Saturday afternoon, though I haven't yet figured out how much funny it would be and how much crack.

[bronzite]

Yeah, I was thinking mechanics like "You have a nerf gun. Make the bad aliens fall down. Don't let them touch you." It would probably be a better game with real NPCs rather than Horde, but then it would come in under most convention's player/square foot line.

[londo]

For this, we need to talk to Josh Marcus and maybe some of the other FI guys.

But, while it maybe shouldn't be done at Intercon, it could definitely be done.

[bronzite]

I'm sorry, FI?

Nevermind, as soon as I posted, I got it.

[taranhero]

It would probably be a better game with real NPCs rather than Horde

For the uninitiated (like me!), what is the difference between "real NPCs" and "Horde"?

[bronzite]

"Real NPCs" are effective AGM's assigned to play a specific role that, generally speaking, isn't terribly interesting and involves creating an obstacle or foil for PC's to react to. This would be your average shopkeepers, palace guards, and Bug-Eyed Monsters.

"Horde" is a specific group of players who have knowingly signed up to rapidly rotate through a given series of characters, that they generally know the class of ahead of time, but not the specifics. This is closer to what you would think of as NPC's for a boffer LARP. For example, in the Horde LARP I played this weekend, the situation was evacuating a starliner. The "Cast" characters represented the major crewmembers of the ship (Captain, First Mate, Engineer, and so forth), while the other players represented a series of a few hundred passengers disembarking. The "Horde" players received a character from the GMs, generally a few sentences long, and portrayed that character until they were either evacuated or dispatched in some other way by the crew.

BUG

[acousticshadow2]

There was a LARP at Intercon I that was similar. They used 2 suites and a room with various lightings including all dark at one point. It was nerf guns for crew vs Bug aliens with acid vomit and poison bite.

[cykotek]

Stick, Mk 2 and Bumpy Cow!

[jalawingedone]

I've seen and wielded a stick Mk2, but what in King Torg's name (all hail King Torg) is a Bumpy Cow?