The Weekend (Mostly RPG Stuff)
Figured I should bring everyone up to date on my weekend, even though it will mostly deal with the roleplaying that occurred this weekend, as I did a lot of it. So, if you don't want to hear about that, just skip the rest of the post. :)
Friday night started out with the gaming group getting back into their Continuum game. Continuum: Roleplaying in the Yet is the roleplaying game of time travel that is rather neat, even if it has a real "step out of the box" mentality, since after all, that's what's required to do a decent time travel game, right?
The player characters are operating out of a Corner in Ottawa, Ontario called A Stitch in Stone, circa 1996-2010, which operates out of a bookstore called Basilisk Dreams Books (and the corner's home base of a nice residence on 5th Avenue).
The players and their characters are somewhat interesting. Kathy is playing Delia Hewitt, a computer programmer and an aficionado of the SCA. SteveB is playing David Taylor, a bookstore clerk from 1950's Chicago who had some problems Down there and moved up to Ottawa and became part of the corner here. Nick is playing Edward Mantolo, a Spanish Canadian policeman, with a record as a bit of a hardcase. Tom is playing Gerard Colombe, an electrician by trade and something of an engineer. Finally, Joanne, the relative newcomer to the Continuum game, is playing Jean Anderson, a waitress at the local Starbucks who aspires to be more. Pretty mundane characters, right? Now give them the power of time travelling Gods, and asaaaay we go!!!
Friday night's session involved a stranger showing up at the Corner home base, someone with whom the characters' Mentor is familiar, and who has assigned the characters the task of retrieving a priceless book on government finance that seems to have been "lost" from the Parliamentary library. The characters were attacked by some thug-like fellows with an hourglass symbol on their clothing while doing some research in three different temporal locations (!), but made short work of the bad guys, only to have them disappear on them as if they never existed. While the characters are puzzling this one out, they find themselves facing several Leveller problems as well...so things are just starting to get interesting in this one.
It took the players a bit of time to get the hang of the Spanning and Yet Cards again, and as Joanne was new to the system, she came in as a brand new Spanner to the Corner, adding another complication for the player characters to deal with. So, so far, so good. Due to the lack of sleep that I suffered during the earlier part of the week because of the foot problem, we broke up a little after 11:45 or so. The strange thing is I did a lot of walking on Friday, and at some point during the gaming session, the nerve pinch pain in my foot went away...and it hasn't come back.
Saturday, I got up quite early as it was Free RPG Day, and I went to the The Comic Book Shoppe to run the demos for the day of Hollow Earth Expedition. As soon as I finish fleshing out the notes I took on the games I ran there, I'll post them up to the journal in a separate entry.
Sunday, it was back to Continuum, and character creation. spross and Tammy Powers already had their characters done, but oni_neko had to create her character. spross and Tammy went over their characters and made a few cosmetic changes while oni_neko created her character.
Their Corner is called Tulips in Bloom, again here in Ottawa, circa 1985-2007, but they are playing in 1989. The Corner is a four-storey old style brick house that has a few interesting rooms in it. I'd give you the player character names but I don't have them as yet. Tammy is playing an interior designer with knowlege of what will become feng shui. spross is playing a graphics designer, and oni_neko is playing a med student at Ottawa University.
Once character generation was done and we went over some of the basics of the game terminology and things the player characters need to know before the game starts, we broke up for the day. oni_neko was suffering somewhat from a cold (I really hope I don't catch it!), and I'm hoping that she wasn't overly intimidated by the game mechanics and the system for Continuum. It's the kind of sf time travel rpg that can baffle and intimidate players, especially if they aren't able to think in terms of a time travel rpg and some of the "outside of the box" solutions to problems that their characters will face. And, of course, in Continuum, there is the element of game math at times that will have to be dealt with.
Overall, it was a long, quite productive weekend, and I feel quite satisfied with what I managed to accomplish gaming-wise this weekend. Free RPG Day was quite cool, and I had a lot of fun with Hollow Earth Expedition, and the two sessions of Continuum were excellent (at least I thought they were). Can't wait to run the game again next weekend. And am also looking forward to running HEX (and some Desolation, of course) down at Gen Con Indy this year. Those two are definitely in my Yet! :)
*yawn* Shouldn't have started to write this so late, as it's taken me longer than I thought. Must get some sleep, so off to bed.
Friday night started out with the gaming group getting back into their Continuum game. Continuum: Roleplaying in the Yet is the roleplaying game of time travel that is rather neat, even if it has a real "step out of the box" mentality, since after all, that's what's required to do a decent time travel game, right?
The player characters are operating out of a Corner in Ottawa, Ontario called A Stitch in Stone, circa 1996-2010, which operates out of a bookstore called Basilisk Dreams Books (and the corner's home base of a nice residence on 5th Avenue).
The players and their characters are somewhat interesting. Kathy is playing Delia Hewitt, a computer programmer and an aficionado of the SCA. SteveB is playing David Taylor, a bookstore clerk from 1950's Chicago who had some problems Down there and moved up to Ottawa and became part of the corner here. Nick is playing Edward Mantolo, a Spanish Canadian policeman, with a record as a bit of a hardcase. Tom is playing Gerard Colombe, an electrician by trade and something of an engineer. Finally, Joanne, the relative newcomer to the Continuum game, is playing Jean Anderson, a waitress at the local Starbucks who aspires to be more. Pretty mundane characters, right? Now give them the power of time travelling Gods, and asaaaay we go!!!
Friday night's session involved a stranger showing up at the Corner home base, someone with whom the characters' Mentor is familiar, and who has assigned the characters the task of retrieving a priceless book on government finance that seems to have been "lost" from the Parliamentary library. The characters were attacked by some thug-like fellows with an hourglass symbol on their clothing while doing some research in three different temporal locations (!), but made short work of the bad guys, only to have them disappear on them as if they never existed. While the characters are puzzling this one out, they find themselves facing several Leveller problems as well...so things are just starting to get interesting in this one.
It took the players a bit of time to get the hang of the Spanning and Yet Cards again, and as Joanne was new to the system, she came in as a brand new Spanner to the Corner, adding another complication for the player characters to deal with. So, so far, so good. Due to the lack of sleep that I suffered during the earlier part of the week because of the foot problem, we broke up a little after 11:45 or so. The strange thing is I did a lot of walking on Friday, and at some point during the gaming session, the nerve pinch pain in my foot went away...and it hasn't come back.
Saturday, I got up quite early as it was Free RPG Day, and I went to the The Comic Book Shoppe to run the demos for the day of Hollow Earth Expedition. As soon as I finish fleshing out the notes I took on the games I ran there, I'll post them up to the journal in a separate entry.
Sunday, it was back to Continuum, and character creation. spross and Tammy Powers already had their characters done, but oni_neko had to create her character. spross and Tammy went over their characters and made a few cosmetic changes while oni_neko created her character.
Their Corner is called Tulips in Bloom, again here in Ottawa, circa 1985-2007, but they are playing in 1989. The Corner is a four-storey old style brick house that has a few interesting rooms in it. I'd give you the player character names but I don't have them as yet. Tammy is playing an interior designer with knowlege of what will become feng shui. spross is playing a graphics designer, and oni_neko is playing a med student at Ottawa University.
Once character generation was done and we went over some of the basics of the game terminology and things the player characters need to know before the game starts, we broke up for the day. oni_neko was suffering somewhat from a cold (I really hope I don't catch it!), and I'm hoping that she wasn't overly intimidated by the game mechanics and the system for Continuum. It's the kind of sf time travel rpg that can baffle and intimidate players, especially if they aren't able to think in terms of a time travel rpg and some of the "outside of the box" solutions to problems that their characters will face. And, of course, in Continuum, there is the element of game math at times that will have to be dealt with.
Overall, it was a long, quite productive weekend, and I feel quite satisfied with what I managed to accomplish gaming-wise this weekend. Free RPG Day was quite cool, and I had a lot of fun with Hollow Earth Expedition, and the two sessions of Continuum were excellent (at least I thought they were). Can't wait to run the game again next weekend. And am also looking forward to running HEX (and some Desolation, of course) down at Gen Con Indy this year. Those two are definitely in my Yet! :)
*yawn* Shouldn't have started to write this so late, as it's taken me longer than I thought. Must get some sleep, so off to bed.