GenCon 2005: Dogs inthe Vinyard, 7th Sea LARP
Friday morning is a blur. I don’t remember doing anything specific, probably just walked the floor, but by noon Dan, Joe and I were ready for:
Games - Dogs in the Vinyard
So, wow. One of the two best events at the Con for me. We were lucky enough to have Judd "Paka" from the Forge as our GM, and he did a fantastic job. In addition, we went through an entire game and never fired a single shot, with the end result being satisfactory to everyone in town except the Territorial Authority.
I got my first real shock of what Dogs could do when my bookish Brother Adonijah was being initiated. I was told that the family in the church left converted, or they didn't leave. I forgot to use a number of my skills, but the upshot was that my unwillingness to use a gun myself meant that the whole family was gunned down as they left, rather than my taking responsibility for shooting the father and converting the mother and child. As Judd put it, "You just cost the Faith three converts and three bullets rather than one of each." Nice. I got the skill, "I've learned when words ain't enough."
Joe also failed his initation, as we had both forgotten (more or less) how escalation worked. He wound up welcoming the con artist who had hoodwinked his family into the Faith as a true convert, despite the fact that he was clearly disrespectful and looking for free food. As Joe put it, “If I’d remembered escalation, I could have blown his brains out like I wanted to.” I think he was a little flummoxed at trying to keep narration in little chunks after the Otherkind game the night before, where he could narrate a whole scene - here he had to do it in Raises and such, and I think that may have been what was messing him up.
doogs19 was a champ. His converted Mountain Person (read: Native American) had to set the spirits of his slaughtered ancestors to rest. As the ghostly chief whipped up a demonic wind to assault him with the buried bones of the dead, Dan narrated how Brother Nathaniel was suddenly protected by the ribcage of his father wrapping itself around his boy.
The fourth guy whose name I forget (Jeff? Maybe.) was playing a numbers-filed-off version of Seth Bullock from Deadwood, but it worked out well. He took the skill “Good with books and ledgers,” and when Judd warned he wasn’t sure how that would come into the game, he was fine with it. “It’s in character,” and that was that. In his initiation he had to go find and bring back the con artist that Joe’s Brother Jackson had welcomed into the Faith, after the man stole a horse and rode out of the Faithful Territory.
After being told to ride out on circuit, we were faced with a fellow who asked us to go back and help his friend. This fellow had been courting a girl, got a little riled, and was currently in the stocks. The friend just wanted us to talk to him, show him that the Faith didn’t have to be so harsh. I was pretty sure it was a trap: we’d been told to move on, not turn back. But that didn’t make much sense from a narration standpoint, so I turned it into a conflict with the Fourth Guy (henceforth known as Jeff just to be simple): “I don’t want to go back to the place I failed, and I don’t want him to know that’s why I want to push on.” I won the conflict HANDILY with my talky-talky skills, and Jeff picked up a 1d4 Doubtful trait for the next scene.
Judd explained that no, that HAD been the adventure, but he had others he was happy to run, so we went into Jericho Flats. I thought Judd had that town on the Forge somewhere, but no, it’s mentioned as a town name but in a thread that has little to do with it. Essentially:
The town was built on the graves exorcised by Dan’s character.
The Steward’s a drunkard and a mess.
The wealthy man in town is buying up land cheap and turning folks into sharecroppers.
He’s selling their crops to the Territorial Authority fort nearby.
The Territorial Authority goons act as taxmen and landlords.
His son, Jericho, is in love with the Steward’s daughter.
I go with Dan’s Brother Nathaniel to question one of the folks whose land has been bought up and ask them if the price was fair, how much they pay, etc etc. They’re being bled dry, as I expected; and as we talk a fat man in Territorial uniform (but with segreant’s stripes removed) comes knocking to demand his rent. I have the frail Brother Adonijah stand in the door and order him to come back later. The guy tries pushing his way through (escalating) so I describe poking him not once, but twice, just below the eyesocket - enough to make him flinch away from the little bookworm. “The third time I don’t plan to miss, and I’m pretty good at this range.” The fat man goes away, but the settler’s wife immediately sets in on me: I’ve caused trouble, and they’re going to be the ones to pay for it. I tell them to get out of the house and stay with someone else until dawn.
“Ain’t nobody here will hide us.”
“Not even for a night? Is there nobody here worthy of my Faith?”
“… I reckon there might be one or two.”
Meanwhile, Joe and Jeff head up to talk with the fatcat himself. They reach the hand-powered elevator to get one to the mesatop and find two TA soldiers teaching a young Faithful boy to toss dice and drink whiskey. Joe stands in their dicing circle and begins lecturing: “You two can go to any Hell you want. But the boy you leave pure.” They quickly escalate to shoving, then using their rifle butts as clubs while Jeff’s character takes the boy aside and sends him home, chastened. Once Joe’s beaten one soldier down, he takes the rifle butt and makes damn sure he’ll be out for a while, sending the other one up above to get their boss.
Cut back to me and Dan, who find Jericho looking to take Kayleigh for a walk. We decide, hey, let’s see if the kid is any good underneath all that spoiling. If he is, making him Steward might be the trick. So we walk a bit, and with enough talky-talky we find that there’s a good kid - but a lot of ugly over it. However, he’s pretty scared by the thought of becoming Steward at such a young age, and that seems to beat some of the ugly out of him. We don’t promise him anything, but he knows we’re looking.
Atop the mesa, Joe and Jeff talk with the fatcat for only a few moments, finding him to be an absolute tick of a man. That’s when Jeff asks to see his books: “After all, they ought to be in order, what with tithing and all.”
Judd just stops cold. “I’ve run this eight times, and nobody’s ever thought of that before.”
Jeff looks through the books and finds that while everything is in order, there’s a lot of money coming into his house for a town that’s got no roof on their church. Joe and Jeff seize this fact and begin preaching like a pair of angels, I can’t remember any of the quotes but man, it was good. Good dice, too; and Judd narrates the scales falling away from this man’s eyes and falling to his knees weeping over his sins.
That’s when we see the fire where the settlers I “helped” used to live. We race out, and Jeff calls a conflict - he wants the Steward and the Fatcat to be bailing buckets side by side. Judd calls no conflict, it’s too cinematic to pass up; and the whole town turns out. Since he takes some Demonic dice for the fire, I ask to work at exorcising the fire. It’s a great scene in my head, with Borther Adonijah straddling the flames and commanding them to exit the Faithful lands and go into the desert and the waste. The others all assist in putting out the fire …
When we find Jericho and Kayleigh gone. The smoke blows away to reveal the fat sergeant on horseback, explaining that they’re guests of the Authority for a while. Until some Dogs come in and explain why legal representatives of authority are being assaulted in Jericho Flats. We come to breakfast at the Fort and learn that the penalty for assaulting an officer is thirty lashes.
The martyr in me reacts, and I step forward. Joe puts one hand up (his character’s much beefier than I, and it was him who beat the guy up) and says he’ll take them, provided we can all watch and pray. It’s fantastic. We get to describe my taking his coat and shirt (thankful that I’ve escaped once I see the wagon wheel looking out over the town), the sound the whip makes as it uncoils into the dust, and (again) Joes’ hardcore taking of the Book of Life between his teeth to keep from screaming. After a few knuckle-biting rounds, the whip breaks in front of all the soldiers, and the Faithful get their children back.
There’s still the question of judgement, though. Can’t have a drunken Steward. Then Dan steps forth - the town was placed on his people’s sacred ground, remember - and volunteers himself as Steward. It’ll remind the Colonel of what happened, and not to infringe again. We’ll send the old Steward back to Bridal Falls with Kayleigh AND Jericho - make the boy responsible for their welfare until the old man gets the shakes out of his system, and tell them not to return until he does.
Not a shot fired, and as happy an ending as I’ve ever heard from Dogs.
That afternoon, we went out at my insistence to Houlihan’s to get a real solid dinner. I got steak and shrimp followed by two beers before heading back to the hotel to prepare for Berek’s Wedding, the highlight of my Con. See, I figured if I was playin' a pirate rockstar being handed over to the matrimoial grave, then by God I was eating like one. The guys seemed to find this funnier than I did, but they were perfectly happy to play along as Bachelor Night Pirate Crewmen.
Games - 7th Sea LARP
dawaterrat's last turn at GenCon for at least three years was my favorite four hours of gaming, on account of … well …
Reprising my role as Admiral Berek, betrothed to Fiona McNair, Nancy hit me with the fact that not only did I not really love her (though I respected her), I had possibly fallen in love with someone else. Meanwhile, unknown to me, the same held true for Fiona. I know what she was hoping for - that Fiona and I would dance around each other kind of miserably until near the end, when one or the other would break down and we'd get out of the mess.
Unfortunately, the girl playing Fiona was fourteen. Yeah. And not real subtle. Within about a half hour, she'd spilled the beans that she didn't want to be left alone for a pirate. Now, the scene was great - I'm not dissing the girl for that. She was all weepy, and when I asked if there was someone else, she got very nervous.
"You won't kill him?"
"There is someone else! Is he here?"
"I can't tell you! You'll kill him in a duel to defend your honor!"
At which I started laughing, and promised to stay away from his face. We had Dana deVries (an excellent gentleman, fine writer, and newfound friend) nearby, so I activated a Creative wile to see what the best way out of this would be. He suggested that since Fiona had a reputation to uphold, and I was known as a scoundrel and a rake with no good reputation, perhaps if I was caught in the garden with another woman Fiona could call off the wedding and we'd both be free.
So … I took the woman I was meant to be in love with into the garden, instructing Fiona to give me fifteen minutes and then send in the posse. I spent a good ten minutes wooing someone as strong and as suave as I can, and honestly, I think I was doing pretty good.
And the posse never arrived.
So I went in to see what had happened. No sign of Fiona or her friends, but the Castillan Ambassador pulls me aside to ask if I can keep this mysterious artifact safe for him. The artifact that Cossette (my beloved) has come to the wedding to seek. I assure him that I am just the man to keep it safe until the end of the wedding - "I'm Berek. What could possibly go wrong?"
Five minutes later, I assume enough time has passed, and with my beloved busy I decide that, well, it's more important to get out of this wedding than to make sure the one I love understands, and so escort another fascinating young lady into the garden, this time passing by Fiona rather obviously.
Five minutes of heavy flirting, and nothing. I spent two and a half hours busking everything in a dress out into a private hallway and swaggering back in with a grin that got bigger every time, and STILL the girl's champions wouldn't stand up for her honor.
In the end, her beloved finally stood up for himself, and I stepped aside in the name of the McNair honor and reputation, allowing her to wed her beloved. I corner Cossette St.Clair and give her the Castillan's artifact to smooth over my scandalous behavior, and escape with her to the open seas, leaving a trail of broken hearts once more behind me.
It was, in a word, wonderful. If I could choose a life to live, this would be it.
Bah. I want to finish this up, but apparently there's some kind of big-ass refund check on the table waiting for me to attention. The sheer trials of my life never cease, I tell you what.
Games - Dogs in the Vinyard
So, wow. One of the two best events at the Con for me. We were lucky enough to have Judd "Paka" from the Forge as our GM, and he did a fantastic job. In addition, we went through an entire game and never fired a single shot, with the end result being satisfactory to everyone in town except the Territorial Authority.
I got my first real shock of what Dogs could do when my bookish Brother Adonijah was being initiated. I was told that the family in the church left converted, or they didn't leave. I forgot to use a number of my skills, but the upshot was that my unwillingness to use a gun myself meant that the whole family was gunned down as they left, rather than my taking responsibility for shooting the father and converting the mother and child. As Judd put it, "You just cost the Faith three converts and three bullets rather than one of each." Nice. I got the skill, "I've learned when words ain't enough."
Joe also failed his initation, as we had both forgotten (more or less) how escalation worked. He wound up welcoming the con artist who had hoodwinked his family into the Faith as a true convert, despite the fact that he was clearly disrespectful and looking for free food. As Joe put it, “If I’d remembered escalation, I could have blown his brains out like I wanted to.” I think he was a little flummoxed at trying to keep narration in little chunks after the Otherkind game the night before, where he could narrate a whole scene - here he had to do it in Raises and such, and I think that may have been what was messing him up.
doogs19 was a champ. His converted Mountain Person (read: Native American) had to set the spirits of his slaughtered ancestors to rest. As the ghostly chief whipped up a demonic wind to assault him with the buried bones of the dead, Dan narrated how Brother Nathaniel was suddenly protected by the ribcage of his father wrapping itself around his boy.
The fourth guy whose name I forget (Jeff? Maybe.) was playing a numbers-filed-off version of Seth Bullock from Deadwood, but it worked out well. He took the skill “Good with books and ledgers,” and when Judd warned he wasn’t sure how that would come into the game, he was fine with it. “It’s in character,” and that was that. In his initiation he had to go find and bring back the con artist that Joe’s Brother Jackson had welcomed into the Faith, after the man stole a horse and rode out of the Faithful Territory.
After being told to ride out on circuit, we were faced with a fellow who asked us to go back and help his friend. This fellow had been courting a girl, got a little riled, and was currently in the stocks. The friend just wanted us to talk to him, show him that the Faith didn’t have to be so harsh. I was pretty sure it was a trap: we’d been told to move on, not turn back. But that didn’t make much sense from a narration standpoint, so I turned it into a conflict with the Fourth Guy (henceforth known as Jeff just to be simple): “I don’t want to go back to the place I failed, and I don’t want him to know that’s why I want to push on.” I won the conflict HANDILY with my talky-talky skills, and Jeff picked up a 1d4 Doubtful trait for the next scene.
Judd explained that no, that HAD been the adventure, but he had others he was happy to run, so we went into Jericho Flats. I thought Judd had that town on the Forge somewhere, but no, it’s mentioned as a town name but in a thread that has little to do with it. Essentially:
The town was built on the graves exorcised by Dan’s character.
The Steward’s a drunkard and a mess.
The wealthy man in town is buying up land cheap and turning folks into sharecroppers.
He’s selling their crops to the Territorial Authority fort nearby.
The Territorial Authority goons act as taxmen and landlords.
His son, Jericho, is in love with the Steward’s daughter.
I go with Dan’s Brother Nathaniel to question one of the folks whose land has been bought up and ask them if the price was fair, how much they pay, etc etc. They’re being bled dry, as I expected; and as we talk a fat man in Territorial uniform (but with segreant’s stripes removed) comes knocking to demand his rent. I have the frail Brother Adonijah stand in the door and order him to come back later. The guy tries pushing his way through (escalating) so I describe poking him not once, but twice, just below the eyesocket - enough to make him flinch away from the little bookworm. “The third time I don’t plan to miss, and I’m pretty good at this range.” The fat man goes away, but the settler’s wife immediately sets in on me: I’ve caused trouble, and they’re going to be the ones to pay for it. I tell them to get out of the house and stay with someone else until dawn.
“Ain’t nobody here will hide us.”
“Not even for a night? Is there nobody here worthy of my Faith?”
“… I reckon there might be one or two.”
Meanwhile, Joe and Jeff head up to talk with the fatcat himself. They reach the hand-powered elevator to get one to the mesatop and find two TA soldiers teaching a young Faithful boy to toss dice and drink whiskey. Joe stands in their dicing circle and begins lecturing: “You two can go to any Hell you want. But the boy you leave pure.” They quickly escalate to shoving, then using their rifle butts as clubs while Jeff’s character takes the boy aside and sends him home, chastened. Once Joe’s beaten one soldier down, he takes the rifle butt and makes damn sure he’ll be out for a while, sending the other one up above to get their boss.
Cut back to me and Dan, who find Jericho looking to take Kayleigh for a walk. We decide, hey, let’s see if the kid is any good underneath all that spoiling. If he is, making him Steward might be the trick. So we walk a bit, and with enough talky-talky we find that there’s a good kid - but a lot of ugly over it. However, he’s pretty scared by the thought of becoming Steward at such a young age, and that seems to beat some of the ugly out of him. We don’t promise him anything, but he knows we’re looking.
Atop the mesa, Joe and Jeff talk with the fatcat for only a few moments, finding him to be an absolute tick of a man. That’s when Jeff asks to see his books: “After all, they ought to be in order, what with tithing and all.”
Judd just stops cold. “I’ve run this eight times, and nobody’s ever thought of that before.”
Jeff looks through the books and finds that while everything is in order, there’s a lot of money coming into his house for a town that’s got no roof on their church. Joe and Jeff seize this fact and begin preaching like a pair of angels, I can’t remember any of the quotes but man, it was good. Good dice, too; and Judd narrates the scales falling away from this man’s eyes and falling to his knees weeping over his sins.
That’s when we see the fire where the settlers I “helped” used to live. We race out, and Jeff calls a conflict - he wants the Steward and the Fatcat to be bailing buckets side by side. Judd calls no conflict, it’s too cinematic to pass up; and the whole town turns out. Since he takes some Demonic dice for the fire, I ask to work at exorcising the fire. It’s a great scene in my head, with Borther Adonijah straddling the flames and commanding them to exit the Faithful lands and go into the desert and the waste. The others all assist in putting out the fire …
When we find Jericho and Kayleigh gone. The smoke blows away to reveal the fat sergeant on horseback, explaining that they’re guests of the Authority for a while. Until some Dogs come in and explain why legal representatives of authority are being assaulted in Jericho Flats. We come to breakfast at the Fort and learn that the penalty for assaulting an officer is thirty lashes.
The martyr in me reacts, and I step forward. Joe puts one hand up (his character’s much beefier than I, and it was him who beat the guy up) and says he’ll take them, provided we can all watch and pray. It’s fantastic. We get to describe my taking his coat and shirt (thankful that I’ve escaped once I see the wagon wheel looking out over the town), the sound the whip makes as it uncoils into the dust, and (again) Joes’ hardcore taking of the Book of Life between his teeth to keep from screaming. After a few knuckle-biting rounds, the whip breaks in front of all the soldiers, and the Faithful get their children back.
There’s still the question of judgement, though. Can’t have a drunken Steward. Then Dan steps forth - the town was placed on his people’s sacred ground, remember - and volunteers himself as Steward. It’ll remind the Colonel of what happened, and not to infringe again. We’ll send the old Steward back to Bridal Falls with Kayleigh AND Jericho - make the boy responsible for their welfare until the old man gets the shakes out of his system, and tell them not to return until he does.
Not a shot fired, and as happy an ending as I’ve ever heard from Dogs.
That afternoon, we went out at my insistence to Houlihan’s to get a real solid dinner. I got steak and shrimp followed by two beers before heading back to the hotel to prepare for Berek’s Wedding, the highlight of my Con. See, I figured if I was playin' a pirate rockstar being handed over to the matrimoial grave, then by God I was eating like one. The guys seemed to find this funnier than I did, but they were perfectly happy to play along as Bachelor Night Pirate Crewmen.
Games - 7th Sea LARP
dawaterrat's last turn at GenCon for at least three years was my favorite four hours of gaming, on account of … well …
Reprising my role as Admiral Berek, betrothed to Fiona McNair, Nancy hit me with the fact that not only did I not really love her (though I respected her), I had possibly fallen in love with someone else. Meanwhile, unknown to me, the same held true for Fiona. I know what she was hoping for - that Fiona and I would dance around each other kind of miserably until near the end, when one or the other would break down and we'd get out of the mess.
Unfortunately, the girl playing Fiona was fourteen. Yeah. And not real subtle. Within about a half hour, she'd spilled the beans that she didn't want to be left alone for a pirate. Now, the scene was great - I'm not dissing the girl for that. She was all weepy, and when I asked if there was someone else, she got very nervous.
"You won't kill him?"
"There is someone else! Is he here?"
"I can't tell you! You'll kill him in a duel to defend your honor!"
At which I started laughing, and promised to stay away from his face. We had Dana deVries (an excellent gentleman, fine writer, and newfound friend) nearby, so I activated a Creative wile to see what the best way out of this would be. He suggested that since Fiona had a reputation to uphold, and I was known as a scoundrel and a rake with no good reputation, perhaps if I was caught in the garden with another woman Fiona could call off the wedding and we'd both be free.
So … I took the woman I was meant to be in love with into the garden, instructing Fiona to give me fifteen minutes and then send in the posse. I spent a good ten minutes wooing someone as strong and as suave as I can, and honestly, I think I was doing pretty good.
And the posse never arrived.
So I went in to see what had happened. No sign of Fiona or her friends, but the Castillan Ambassador pulls me aside to ask if I can keep this mysterious artifact safe for him. The artifact that Cossette (my beloved) has come to the wedding to seek. I assure him that I am just the man to keep it safe until the end of the wedding - "I'm Berek. What could possibly go wrong?"
Five minutes later, I assume enough time has passed, and with my beloved busy I decide that, well, it's more important to get out of this wedding than to make sure the one I love understands, and so escort another fascinating young lady into the garden, this time passing by Fiona rather obviously.
Five minutes of heavy flirting, and nothing. I spent two and a half hours busking everything in a dress out into a private hallway and swaggering back in with a grin that got bigger every time, and STILL the girl's champions wouldn't stand up for her honor.
In the end, her beloved finally stood up for himself, and I stepped aside in the name of the McNair honor and reputation, allowing her to wed her beloved. I corner Cossette St.Clair and give her the Castillan's artifact to smooth over my scandalous behavior, and escape with her to the open seas, leaving a trail of broken hearts once more behind me.
It was, in a word, wonderful. If I could choose a life to live, this would be it.
Bah. I want to finish this up, but apparently there's some kind of big-ass refund check on the table waiting for me to attention. The sheer trials of my life never cease, I tell you what.