Confusion 2013 - Or my day playing games with Steve…
I never intended it to play out that way, but you could have called this past Saturday - my day gaming with Steve. Let me explain…
I wasn’t even going to attend the con, what with work and the family obligations, but when my calendar cleared I was pretty keen on getting in some roleplaying. I also had an inkling that Ellen, the con organiser, mightn’t have the GM numbers so I volunteered to run one of my ‘no prep’ games - The Fang and the Fountain. As it turned out, GMs weren’t the problem, player numbers were…
Session One - Leverage
I've known of the Leverage TV show, and the fact Margaret Weiss Games had an RPG based on it for a while, but it'd never really grabbed by attention. However, after listening to an Actual Play podcast, I was quite keen to see how or even if you could run a structure heist-like game as a roleplaying game. Let's just say, I wasn’t disappointed. All the players were great, including Leoni (I think that was her name) who was pretty new to tabletop gaming. Steve was the GM for this session and I have to note the easy, relaxed way that he was able to manage the ‘building the story’ elements while maintaining the flow of the game (I know I couldn’t do it that well, as I’d be breaking the story to focus on the mechanics or simply skipping mechanics if I'd been running the game). From what I gleaned the story was pretty typical Leverage, and while my pre-gen ‘Eliot’ wasn’t a character of greatest depth, there was plenty of plot twisting fun and inter-player humour to be had.
On the critical side, the system (Cortex I believe it's called) was pretty clunky in my opinion, although, let's be honest to cover such a wide range of elements as seen in a Heist, it needs to be be robust. I also felt that we didn’t give Andy (as Parker, the thief) enough to do, that seemed to be partly the pre-gen scenario’s fault and a bit ours as a team. As a TV show it would have been perfectly acceptable to not have one character contribute until the second half of the show, but as a group around a table? Over all I enjoyed the session, and its encouraged me to look further into Leverage as a game and a TV series.
Interlude - The Seether
Between rounds I had the chance to playtest Simon Carryer’s interesting new game, ‘The Seether’. Basically it’s a mini-RPG designed for three players, one ‘the GM’, the second ‘Allison a teenage girl’, and the last ‘The Seether’ a demon or alien riding in Allison’s mind. The core premise of the game was for the Seether to try and take over Allison, which as one could expect, with no mechanical limits, quickly became dark and bordered on the uncomfortable (which I say in a ‘good’ challenging way). Obviously there are still a few kinks to be worked out, and once Simon gets the balance between the Seether and Allison worked out (we all agreed their relationship needs to be more symbiotic) I think he’s on to something darkly entertaining.
Session Two - Left Coast
The most challenging game of the day, Steve’s Left Coast ‘left’ me wanting more, while being a bit confused. The main elements are great, the core idea being that one player acts as the author (much like a character from a Phillip K Dick story - or even the author himself), while the others take roles as supporting characters. There is a distinct structure to the game that creates a good narrative flow to the story, although it doesn’t (from my brief into) actually drive it to a conclusion (other than stating the ‘chapter is over’). I have lots of questions about the game and why certain elements provoke certain results, but these I plan on raising with Steve at some point.
To the actual session, our story was one of climate change and alien conspiracy, with my supporting character being a stooge for the FBI (the world being one of a fascist state). Simon, as the Weird, built an interesting setting and it definitely reflected a PKD story in my limited experience. I have to say that it definitely helped me an an 'actor' to have cool roleplayers at the table, as I don’t think I could have guided my character from self-centred, dominating academic - who was stealing the author’s work BTW - to crumbling paranoid - under pressure to reveal ‘state enemies’ - if they weren’t.
Interlude - Race to Adventure
With a dinner of Burger Wisconsin (which I hadn’t had in years!) in my belly, we had time for a quick game of the ‘Race to Adventure’ boardgame (which is based on Evil Hat’s Spirit of the Century). Mike’s intro had us up and running in minutes, and while I clearly lost (coming in third), it was one of those games that I enjoy (i.e. one where you can work in a strategy and not have to worry about other players ‘screwing you over’). I might have track down a copy, as I know the Auckland crew would like it!
Session Three - Tenra Bansho Zero
With the lack of numbers at the con, the final session only had two games running - the LARP and Luke’s game. Unfortunately this meant that not only was there some shuffling of players (sorry Sam, Frank!), but I was without a game. Being a bit stuck (having travelled down with Sam & Luke) I was just going to chill out with my Ipod, until I was told that Luke’s game had a free slot. Mike and I bantered politely offering each other the space, and then it was discovered that there was two free spaces (after Sam had moved over the LARP). However, we now had three players without a game, with Frank being the third, and only two free slots. Frank offered it to me, and having just done the 5 minute ballet dance of politeness with Mike, I took it. In hindsight what should have happened is the LARP should have given up a player or two and Mike or myself could have run a game. Sure not everyone would have got their ‘first choice’ but at least everyone would have played.
Nevertheless, once we settled down to play, you wouldn't guess it, but Steve was once more at the same table :P
With the characters laid out I leapt at playing the Samurai (a traditional one, not one of the setting’s ‘powered’ knights), and I wasn't disappointed. Luke did a great job at getting my character embroiled in a story about love, honour and family. This climacticly lead to the final realisation that his very presence was the cause of all the emotion and physical damage going on in the story, as as the game ending saw him (some could say dishonourably) attacking and killing his Lord to save the woman he loved (and no, not his wife). The stuff of epics...
Afterwards, Luke mentioned the the scenario was based on a traditional Japanese play, and I could definitely see some of those ‘conflict’ type elements coming out in play. Everyone, once more, was great in and out of character, and I felt comfortable playing a mundane figure in a setting that usually isn’t my cup of tea (although again, the aspects that I dislike in Japanese style RPGS wasn’t really present in this scenario). What’s more, what better to do at con but challenge your expectations and try new things.
Game wise, the system was pretty straight forward and you could see the mechanics ‘ramping’ up as the story played out. I liked the way you changed your Fates (drives and goals) after each scene and how they allowed you more power (which in turn would lead to your corruption and downfall if you didn’t control it). The damage/wounds system was also great, with the fact you could decide to ‘die’ when it was appropriate, a really neat one.
All-in-all I really enjoyed the game, and would be interested in another ‘full’ (the game is designed around 6 hour arcs) session at some point.
In Summary…
I have to say that despite not getting to run my own adventure, I reflect happily on the day as a whole. I got to stretch my gaming legs in different directions, had a good chat with Simon Carryer (which I've been meaning to do for a while) and, quite unintentionally, got to game with Steve all day. On top of this, Luke's game was a pleasure, and seeing various gamer faces is always cool!
Perhaps the only disappointment was the turn out. Only 23 gamers in all. I believe Ellen made enough to cover the costs of running the con and she did an admirable job of ensuring as many people could game as possible each session, but with that small a number of paying attendees you have to question the viability of CONfusion?
I wasn’t even going to attend the con, what with work and the family obligations, but when my calendar cleared I was pretty keen on getting in some roleplaying. I also had an inkling that Ellen, the con organiser, mightn’t have the GM numbers so I volunteered to run one of my ‘no prep’ games - The Fang and the Fountain. As it turned out, GMs weren’t the problem, player numbers were…
Session One - Leverage
I've known of the Leverage TV show, and the fact Margaret Weiss Games had an RPG based on it for a while, but it'd never really grabbed by attention. However, after listening to an Actual Play podcast, I was quite keen to see how or even if you could run a structure heist-like game as a roleplaying game. Let's just say, I wasn’t disappointed. All the players were great, including Leoni (I think that was her name) who was pretty new to tabletop gaming. Steve was the GM for this session and I have to note the easy, relaxed way that he was able to manage the ‘building the story’ elements while maintaining the flow of the game (I know I couldn’t do it that well, as I’d be breaking the story to focus on the mechanics or simply skipping mechanics if I'd been running the game). From what I gleaned the story was pretty typical Leverage, and while my pre-gen ‘Eliot’ wasn’t a character of greatest depth, there was plenty of plot twisting fun and inter-player humour to be had.
On the critical side, the system (Cortex I believe it's called) was pretty clunky in my opinion, although, let's be honest to cover such a wide range of elements as seen in a Heist, it needs to be be robust. I also felt that we didn’t give Andy (as Parker, the thief) enough to do, that seemed to be partly the pre-gen scenario’s fault and a bit ours as a team. As a TV show it would have been perfectly acceptable to not have one character contribute until the second half of the show, but as a group around a table? Over all I enjoyed the session, and its encouraged me to look further into Leverage as a game and a TV series.
Interlude - The Seether
Between rounds I had the chance to playtest Simon Carryer’s interesting new game, ‘The Seether’. Basically it’s a mini-RPG designed for three players, one ‘the GM’, the second ‘Allison a teenage girl’, and the last ‘The Seether’ a demon or alien riding in Allison’s mind. The core premise of the game was for the Seether to try and take over Allison, which as one could expect, with no mechanical limits, quickly became dark and bordered on the uncomfortable (which I say in a ‘good’ challenging way). Obviously there are still a few kinks to be worked out, and once Simon gets the balance between the Seether and Allison worked out (we all agreed their relationship needs to be more symbiotic) I think he’s on to something darkly entertaining.
Session Two - Left Coast
The most challenging game of the day, Steve’s Left Coast ‘left’ me wanting more, while being a bit confused. The main elements are great, the core idea being that one player acts as the author (much like a character from a Phillip K Dick story - or even the author himself), while the others take roles as supporting characters. There is a distinct structure to the game that creates a good narrative flow to the story, although it doesn’t (from my brief into) actually drive it to a conclusion (other than stating the ‘chapter is over’). I have lots of questions about the game and why certain elements provoke certain results, but these I plan on raising with Steve at some point.
To the actual session, our story was one of climate change and alien conspiracy, with my supporting character being a stooge for the FBI (the world being one of a fascist state). Simon, as the Weird, built an interesting setting and it definitely reflected a PKD story in my limited experience. I have to say that it definitely helped me an an 'actor' to have cool roleplayers at the table, as I don’t think I could have guided my character from self-centred, dominating academic - who was stealing the author’s work BTW - to crumbling paranoid - under pressure to reveal ‘state enemies’ - if they weren’t.
Interlude - Race to Adventure
With a dinner of Burger Wisconsin (which I hadn’t had in years!) in my belly, we had time for a quick game of the ‘Race to Adventure’ boardgame (which is based on Evil Hat’s Spirit of the Century). Mike’s intro had us up and running in minutes, and while I clearly lost (coming in third), it was one of those games that I enjoy (i.e. one where you can work in a strategy and not have to worry about other players ‘screwing you over’). I might have track down a copy, as I know the Auckland crew would like it!
Session Three - Tenra Bansho Zero
With the lack of numbers at the con, the final session only had two games running - the LARP and Luke’s game. Unfortunately this meant that not only was there some shuffling of players (sorry Sam, Frank!), but I was without a game. Being a bit stuck (having travelled down with Sam & Luke) I was just going to chill out with my Ipod, until I was told that Luke’s game had a free slot. Mike and I bantered politely offering each other the space, and then it was discovered that there was two free spaces (after Sam had moved over the LARP). However, we now had three players without a game, with Frank being the third, and only two free slots. Frank offered it to me, and having just done the 5 minute ballet dance of politeness with Mike, I took it. In hindsight what should have happened is the LARP should have given up a player or two and Mike or myself could have run a game. Sure not everyone would have got their ‘first choice’ but at least everyone would have played.
Nevertheless, once we settled down to play, you wouldn't guess it, but Steve was once more at the same table :P
With the characters laid out I leapt at playing the Samurai (a traditional one, not one of the setting’s ‘powered’ knights), and I wasn't disappointed. Luke did a great job at getting my character embroiled in a story about love, honour and family. This climacticly lead to the final realisation that his very presence was the cause of all the emotion and physical damage going on in the story, as as the game ending saw him (some could say dishonourably) attacking and killing his Lord to save the woman he loved (and no, not his wife). The stuff of epics...
Afterwards, Luke mentioned the the scenario was based on a traditional Japanese play, and I could definitely see some of those ‘conflict’ type elements coming out in play. Everyone, once more, was great in and out of character, and I felt comfortable playing a mundane figure in a setting that usually isn’t my cup of tea (although again, the aspects that I dislike in Japanese style RPGS wasn’t really present in this scenario). What’s more, what better to do at con but challenge your expectations and try new things.
Game wise, the system was pretty straight forward and you could see the mechanics ‘ramping’ up as the story played out. I liked the way you changed your Fates (drives and goals) after each scene and how they allowed you more power (which in turn would lead to your corruption and downfall if you didn’t control it). The damage/wounds system was also great, with the fact you could decide to ‘die’ when it was appropriate, a really neat one.
All-in-all I really enjoyed the game, and would be interested in another ‘full’ (the game is designed around 6 hour arcs) session at some point.
In Summary…
I have to say that despite not getting to run my own adventure, I reflect happily on the day as a whole. I got to stretch my gaming legs in different directions, had a good chat with Simon Carryer (which I've been meaning to do for a while) and, quite unintentionally, got to game with Steve all day. On top of this, Luke's game was a pleasure, and seeing various gamer faces is always cool!
Perhaps the only disappointment was the turn out. Only 23 gamers in all. I believe Ellen made enough to cover the costs of running the con and she did an admirable job of ensuring as many people could game as possible each session, but with that small a number of paying attendees you have to question the viability of CONfusion?