Congenial was fun! (Convention Report)
Got back from Congenial (RPG convention) last night. The only travel hassle was not because of the anticipated "Doom! Doom! London Transport will grind to a halt because of the Olympics!". Instead it was the Cambridge to King's Cross train being 12 minutes late, then there being no taxis and a huuuuuuge queue for the non-existent taxis at Bristol, so I did the bus + walking which I could have done without at that time of night.
The con itself was as fun as the others I have been to. Plenty of games and plenty of panels to attend if you didn't have a game. I ran mt two Ancient Horrors games again, and played in another playtest of Marcus Rowland's "Fanfic" game. This time Starsky & Hutch, Sherlock Holmes, Judge Dredd, the 10th Doctor and a cop from an 80s American TV show (Hunter?) were being park rangers in Jellystone National Park whilst trying to find the poachers who had killed Yogi, Boo Boo and murdered the previous Park Rangers. Needless to say, it was extremely silly and tremendous fun. I'll be after a set of Marcus's Fanfic rules when he publishes them.
I was on two panels: Never Survives Contact With The Players, which was about things that go off course in games and had a lot of amusing war stories from GMs and players both on the panel and in the audience. The other was Gaming Reboots, for which I was moderator. My favourie panels I attended were the Old Masters one (early history of RPGs) which was fascinating and informative, and Where Has All Our Optimism Gone? The latter turned into a discussion that was as much sociology and politics as it was science fiction, but that made it no less interesting.
Made several new friends and had long chats about gaming, movies, books, anime, putting the world to rights, and the strange pricing policy in the canteen. Hope it runs again next year.
The con itself was as fun as the others I have been to. Plenty of games and plenty of panels to attend if you didn't have a game. I ran mt two Ancient Horrors games again, and played in another playtest of Marcus Rowland's "Fanfic" game. This time Starsky & Hutch, Sherlock Holmes, Judge Dredd, the 10th Doctor and a cop from an 80s American TV show (Hunter?) were being park rangers in Jellystone National Park whilst trying to find the poachers who had killed Yogi, Boo Boo and murdered the previous Park Rangers. Needless to say, it was extremely silly and tremendous fun. I'll be after a set of Marcus's Fanfic rules when he publishes them.
I was on two panels: Never Survives Contact With The Players, which was about things that go off course in games and had a lot of amusing war stories from GMs and players both on the panel and in the audience. The other was Gaming Reboots, for which I was moderator. My favourie panels I attended were the Old Masters one (early history of RPGs) which was fascinating and informative, and Where Has All Our Optimism Gone? The latter turned into a discussion that was as much sociology and politics as it was science fiction, but that made it no less interesting.
Made several new friends and had long chats about gaming, movies, books, anime, putting the world to rights, and the strange pricing policy in the canteen. Hope it runs again next year.