CanGames 2024 Day 3 Report
Here's the post of my report on the third and final day of CanGames 2024. You can read the post on CanGames 2024 Day 2 by following the link. This convention day report is somewhat long, but there are no photos. Enjoy! :)
I woke up on Sunday morning feeling pretty exhausted, as I had a long, somewhat sleepless night, falling asleep around 3:00 am. Around 4 or so hours of sleep, definitely not enough. Blood sugars were very low, not as bad as they've been at times, but still down, so I managed to eat a glucose tablet and felt a bit better after 20 minutes or so. I got out of bed, took care of the morning ablutions and showered, and then went upstairs and had a decent breakfast of an omelette with mushrooms, onions, and cheese. Afterwards, I felt more like myself, but was still somewhat shaky. I went downstairs and finished off the packing of the gaming stuff for the afternoon’s session of the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game, and then started getting the personal tote bag ready with my medications for the day, since I needed to start a new cartridge of insulin that night, and then went upstairs and got some of the food snacks for the afternoon prepped and ready. I was pleased to discover that I hadn’t lost my voice at all from the previous day's exertions with Dalek voices, though I was a bit phlegm-filled for the most part. When I checked the weather forecast, I saw that the air quality wasn't good (which explained my somewhat irritated throat), and the pollen count was very high (which explained the phlegm and the severe allergies). It promised to be an interesting day, to say the least.
spross arrived around 11:30 am, and we sorted out the food in the cooler, adding some fresh snack items for the afternoon, and then he helped me take the gaming stuff for the afternoon out to the van. With the van packed, SteveR and I headed downtown to the convention venue. We didn't stop at Subway for lunch, as my stomach and bowels felt good enough that I told SteveR that I'd have a hot dog or two from the Curling Club kitchen, and he was so inclined as well. We arrived at the Rideau Curling Club around 12:15 pm or so, as there was a lot of (Sunday) traffic on the roads, and SteveR dropped me off outside the venue with a few of the bags and then headed off to find a parking spot. Once more, the Goddess favoured him and he found a spot on the street at the far end of the Curling Club parking lot.
Once inside the Rideau Curling Club, SteveR and I wanted to take stuff down to the lockers, but discovered (and confirmed by the convention committee members) that the lockers were off-limits to the convention for the Sunday. While I was annoyed at this and wondered why the heck the CanGames folks didn't get the lockers for use on the last day of the convention, SteveR and I settled at one of the large tables on the main floor in front of the Registration Desk area, and decided to relax a bit. I chatted with a few people at the table and the adjacent tables for a few minutes, and then went over to the bar area and ordered myself a hot dog with a bottle of water and a plastic glass of ginger ale. I was told to stay in the area and wait for the hot dog to be brought down from the kitchen. SteveR ordered the same thing I did, and we sat and waited a few minutes for the food to come down. When the food was brought down, I had the hot dog with a bit of ketchup and relish, and took some of the fresh celery and orange and red peppers to supplement the hot dog for the meal. I wasn't all that hungry, to be honest, though I didn't feel "right" (if you understand what I mean). The bottle of water and the ginger ale helped somewhat. I spent a bit of time talking with Daniel Poulin about gaming stuff of one sort and the other, and chatted with Shannon and Ray Dickson. I asked them if they wanted to come to dinner with SteveR and me after the afternoon gaming session, and they were delighted and agreed to do so. Chatted with a few other folks and extended the same invitation, but most of them were in games or running games that night. Went to check the sign-up sheet for the afternoon game of Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game, and saw that the game was full. Caroline had signed up as the fifth player on the sheet, and there were actually two players over the limit signed up for the game.
And then things went awry time-wise for me. After taking a few more minutes to relax, I thought it was time to game so SteveR took the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game gaming bags, my personal bag, and the medication bag up to the table where I'd be running the afternoon game. I set up the table for running, putting everything out and ready to game, and then took a couple of photos (that came out too blurry to use). Had a minor incident when it turned out the table had been accidentally double-booked, but that matter was resolved quickly enough, though I had a bit of a panic attack. I thought that it was 1:55 pm, when it was actually fifty minutes earlier than that, and couldn't figure out why none of the gamers had shown up for the game. Suffered another mild panic attack. (In retrospect, the confusion about the time was due to my lack of sleep the night before and the fact that I hadn't had enough hydration so far that day, and a couple of other things that I won't go into here.) When I calmed down and finally figured things out, it was close to 1:45 pm, and the players started to arrive for the game. I went back downstairs to wish SteveR good luck with his running of The Troubleshooters RPG session, and to grab the sign-up sheet. While there had been seven people signed up for the game when I'd last checked, including Ray Dickson, two people had deleted their names and one other had signed up and then taken their name off the list. I was a bit confused, and wondered how many folks would actually come to the table for the game... On the way upstairs, I grabbed another bottle of water and more ginger ale, and then returned to the table.
While I finished setting stuff out for the game, I chatted with the five people who were present. (Ray was supposed to play in the game, as noted earlier, but due to confusion in reading his schedule, he missed the fact that he'd gotten into the game as one of his alternate choices, and so I had five players for the game, rather than six.) It turned out that two of the players (see below) had both read the Rivers of London series of books, so had familiarity with the game world though they had not played the game until now.
The adventure I ran on Sunday afternoon for the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game is called "The Bookshop". The adventure is set against the urban fantasy mystery roleplaying game based on the Rivers of London series of books by Ben Aaronovitch, and concerns a group of investigators from the London MET Special Assessment Unit (SAU), also known as "The Folly," investigating an incident in which an employee at Stonewaters Bookshop has been assaulted by assailants unknown while working late. The Charing Cross police have sent the case over to the Folly, as they believe it will be of interest to them. While it may or may not be a Falcon case, DCI Nightingale wants the investigators to question the bookshop employee and see if there’s anything unusual about the case. This adventure is the introductory case file (adventure) found in the main rulebook, and is based on the short story "The Cockpit". The player characters for the case file are: Nafeesa Jones, a London MET police constable and apprentice magic practitioner; Morgan Omans, a hedge wizard turned police officer, and also an apprentice magic practitioner; Mina Patel, an entertainer who does data entry work for the London MET and works with the Folly on odd cases; Jordan Schneider, a medical doctor who works with the Folly and rather enjoys the "weird bollocks" cases; Jules Garland, a chancer (opportunist) who works at times with the Folly; and Eli Venturini, a lecturer/historian on the 17th Century and particularly the life and times of Sir Isaac Newton who consults for the Folly. Thus, all of the player characters work for the Folly or act as consultants with them from time to time.
I'm not going into detail about the plot here (because others might run the adventure down the line, and I'd like to run the scenario again sometime!), but suffice to say that the adventure went very well, though I did have to alter a few of the plot aspects to make it fit within the time limits somewhat. There were five players (as Ray didn't get into the game for reasons noted above), only one of whom I've played with before. In two interesting twists, four of the five players were female, and two of them were quite familiar with the novels from the series. One of the players knew the game, but not the books, from the "Fairycakes" session of the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game game on Friday night. Naomi (one of the players who had read the first few novels and some of the comics based on the books) took on the role of Dr. Jordan Schneider. A player named Elizabeth (the player who had read the first nine books in the series, and the graphic novels and novellas) took on the role of Nafeesa Jones. The lone male player in the game, JohnZ (who had no real knowledge of the books or the game, but wanted to play in "what sounds like an interesting game world") took on the role of Eli Venturini. Jillian (a player with again no knowledge of the books or game) decided to play Jules Garland. Finally, Caroline (who had played in the Friday night "Fairycakes" game as Jules) took on the role of Morgan Omans, as she wanted to play a magic practitioner for this one. This meant that Mina Patel, the entertainer, was not played in this case file.
When it came down to it, the players seemed to really enjoy themselves, and it was a fun game session of Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game. I talked to the players about the basics of the Rivers of London series of books (with both Naomi and Elizabeth adding to what I had said, though they tended to tangents which I had to get past, and they tried to not give too many spoilers for the novels), the game world, how (Newtonian) magic works, and the basics of British police investigations, and then went over the game mechanics and rules. JohnZ commented that the system seemed like a lite variant of the Call of Cthulhu system (which it is) and I mentioned to him some of the essential differences between the games. After answering any questions the players had, I took Caroline and Elizabeth (who were playing the magic practitioners, Nafeesa and Morgan) aside and talked with them briefly a bit more about magic and their spells. The players grasped the rules and mechanics quite quickly, though they weren't sure about the Luck stuff (which is something that players can really only figure out in play), and after a couple of sample rolls to illustrate stuff, we then got into the adventure proper. The player investigators started with a briefing with their mentor and boss, DCI Nightingale, about an incident at Stonewaters Books involving a seeming assault on one of the bookstore's employees late the night before. Nightingale gave the player characters their mission, to determine if the incident was a Falcon case, and the players got down to it. They split their forces in three, though they made the mistake of putting the wrong character out to investigate the history of the bookshop and a few other concerns they had, but otherwise, it was a good session. The players quickly got into the setting and the world, proceeding with their investigation and learning what they needed to in order to move to the next bit, though they had a few problems finding several of the more important clues. I helped them out with British law and police procedure when they needed it, and the case moved a bit slowly at a couple of points, but picked up momentum after the first forty-five minutes or so.
Elizabeth did a good job playing Nafeesa Jones, being the de facto leader of the characters during the investigation, and she handled the use of her magic abilities quite well, the player's knowledge of magic use from the books serving her in good stead. Caroline played Morgan Omans as the cop first, the practitioner second, but she wasn't afraid to use her magic when needed, and was very pleased at how the concept of vestigia worked in the game. Naomi did a good job playing the character of Dr. Jordan Schneider, and took her chances to practice medicine and psychology when the opportunities presented themselves, but also got involved a bit too heavily with the research elements that were part of the investigation. She did bring Eli into it during the second half of the session, but by then it was too late for the fellow playing Eli. Jillian played Jules Garland quite well, having the character take actions and do stuff during the scenario in an opportunistic fashion, playing to the character's strengths, and coming up with some revelations about aspects of the case that were quite good. Finally, JohnZ struggled somewhat to play Eli Venturini. I think he enjoyed the game and did what he could when he saw a chance to do so, but he seemed somewhat shy, and somewhat overwhelmed by the female players who were quite dominant, and never really got a chance to shine even when I presented him with some opportunities. It became clear as the game session went on that both Elizabeth and Naomi, who had read the novels by Ben Aaronovitch, were familiar with "The Cockpit" (the novella on which the scenario is based) and were remembering parts of the story, but all things considered did a good job of keeping their player knowledge separate from what the characters knew. Perhaps because of that, the ending of the case file seemed a little bit anti-climactic to me, but the case file came to a satisfying conclusion.
When the game session ended about 5:45 pm or so (15 minutes before the end of the time allotted), the players all told me that they had really enjoyed the game, liked the game system a lot, and found the case to have been an interesting one with some nice plot twists. As I started cleaning stuff away and getting ready to pack up the gaming materials, several of the players remained at the table and we talked about what makes the Rivers of London novels so great and about some of the game elements from the session just completed. They all told me that once they got the hang of the Luck mechanics, it was easy to work with - but tough when it came to deciding when and how much Luck to spend at any given time!
After the gamers left, spross helped me finish packing up the gaming stuff, and then he and I had a light snack of cheese, Melba toast, and a few veggies; I'd had another hot dog during the 10-minute break during the game, and wasn't really hungry. SteveR had already taken his own gaming stuff to the van, and he then grabbed up my gaming stuff to take while I went and handed in the sign-up sheet with my player rankings for the game at the Tournament Desk and collected my $5.00 token. I went back upstairs, cleaned up the garbage from the gaming table and then took my personal bag and jacket and headed back downstairs. Shannon and Ray Dickson were sitting at one of the large, round tables and I joined them (SteveR was already there), and we agreed that we'd head out to dinner after the Closing Ceremony ended. I went and bought another ginger ale at the bar (using that $5.00 token), and went back and sat down to relax after the game. It was then that I learned from Ray about what had happened with the schedule and his missing the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game game, and he was very annoyed and sad that he'd not gotten to play in it. As the time closed on 7:00 pm, there was no sign of a ceremony, closing or otherwise, so while SteveR called the restaurant to find out when they closed, I went and spoke to someone at the Registration Desk. And learned there was no Closing Ceremony this year, the CanGames folks having decided to scrap that. Shame, but still... When I went back to the table, SteveR told me that the restaurant closed the kitchen at 9:45 pm, and after talking to Shannon and Ray, we decided to head out from CanGames and go to supper. I went and spoke to a few of the convention folks and thanked them for a good convention, said goodbye to several people I know (most of the names have slipped me, but I remember Daniel and Caroline, for sure!), and after making sure that Ray and Shannon knew where we were going, headed out to the van with SteveR.
By this time, I was feeling somewhat hungry, as was SteveR, and it was close to 7:20 pm. We headed out from the convention and made our way to Ng's Cuisine, an authentic Chinese restaurant out on Merivale. I hadn't eaten a full meal there, though SteveR and I had had a light lunch there while out comic shopping one weekend, but the place had a great reputation. I didn't expect it to be as busy as it was, given that it was the Victoria Day weekend Sunday, but the place was...pretty full. SteveR had to park the van in the nearby area where the old Dairy Queen used to be, as did Ray and Shannon, and we were seated in the restaurant by around 7:40 pm. The meal at Ng's Cuisine was superb, the four of us had various dishes including BBQ Pork Won Ton Soup, Spicy Hot & Sour Soup, Pot Stickers (2 plates of 6 each), Moo She Chicken with Pancakes, Chicken with Pineapple and Ginger, Satay Chicken and Beef, and some Buddha's Delight. All with a generous serving of steamed rice. A truly nice meal, washed down throughout with Chinese tea. Lots and lots of Chinese tea. The four of us talked a lot over the food on a variety of subjects, some of them gaming related :), and had a good evening of it, decompressing from the convention quite nicely.
The day was only marred by what happened after we left the restaurant. There is an incline to walk down to where the old Dairy Queen used to be, and it was very dark and I was distracted by my state of mind about something that happened in the restaurant that I won't go into here. Suffice it to say, I got to the incline area and started to slide down it. I tried to use my left leg to halt the slide and managed to do so, but twisted my right knee and to a lesser extent the ankle, and felt a massive surge of pain go up the right leg into my groin. I stopped the slide, but felt like I'd torn something and it took me a few minutes to recover both my wits and the use of my lower body. SteveR knew I was hurting, but I was very tight-lipped when he got me back to the van.
He drove me back to my place, and then helped me unload the gaming gear and other stuff, and we emptied out the rest of the snacks from the cooler. It was around 9:35 pm or so by this time, and he was tired and wanted to go home, and so I thanked him for his help with everything on the weekend, and then SteveR headed out. I was hurting quite a bit by this point, so I made myself a hot cup of tea, had some yogurt, an apple and a small hunk of cheese, and lay back on the couch after taking some Tylenol. I was still hurting a lot, feeling pretty tired, achy all over, but didn't feel all that bad other than that considering what had happened. I stayed up for a bit longer, partially unpacking the gaming stuff and putting left-over snacks in the fridge, then had another cup of tea and a slice of toast before crawling into bed and reading for a quarter of an hour. Then, blessed sleep.
And there you have it - my three-post report on CanGames 2024, and the rpgs I ran at the convention. Overall, I was smart this year and didn't overdo it, had a really good convention, and had a blast running the games I did at the convention. I was only hampered by my left shoulder and arm, my bowels, and my feet (to a lesser degree) all weekend (until the incident in the restaurant parking lot). More exhausting for me than usual, though. (I may write an impressions of the con post as well, but we'll see, since I didn't really see all that much of the convention.)
Hope folks enjoyed these reports on the convention. :) Comments, thoughts, and questions are welcome. :)
I woke up on Sunday morning feeling pretty exhausted, as I had a long, somewhat sleepless night, falling asleep around 3:00 am. Around 4 or so hours of sleep, definitely not enough. Blood sugars were very low, not as bad as they've been at times, but still down, so I managed to eat a glucose tablet and felt a bit better after 20 minutes or so. I got out of bed, took care of the morning ablutions and showered, and then went upstairs and had a decent breakfast of an omelette with mushrooms, onions, and cheese. Afterwards, I felt more like myself, but was still somewhat shaky. I went downstairs and finished off the packing of the gaming stuff for the afternoon’s session of the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game, and then started getting the personal tote bag ready with my medications for the day, since I needed to start a new cartridge of insulin that night, and then went upstairs and got some of the food snacks for the afternoon prepped and ready. I was pleased to discover that I hadn’t lost my voice at all from the previous day's exertions with Dalek voices, though I was a bit phlegm-filled for the most part. When I checked the weather forecast, I saw that the air quality wasn't good (which explained my somewhat irritated throat), and the pollen count was very high (which explained the phlegm and the severe allergies). It promised to be an interesting day, to say the least.
spross arrived around 11:30 am, and we sorted out the food in the cooler, adding some fresh snack items for the afternoon, and then he helped me take the gaming stuff for the afternoon out to the van. With the van packed, SteveR and I headed downtown to the convention venue. We didn't stop at Subway for lunch, as my stomach and bowels felt good enough that I told SteveR that I'd have a hot dog or two from the Curling Club kitchen, and he was so inclined as well. We arrived at the Rideau Curling Club around 12:15 pm or so, as there was a lot of (Sunday) traffic on the roads, and SteveR dropped me off outside the venue with a few of the bags and then headed off to find a parking spot. Once more, the Goddess favoured him and he found a spot on the street at the far end of the Curling Club parking lot.
Once inside the Rideau Curling Club, SteveR and I wanted to take stuff down to the lockers, but discovered (and confirmed by the convention committee members) that the lockers were off-limits to the convention for the Sunday. While I was annoyed at this and wondered why the heck the CanGames folks didn't get the lockers for use on the last day of the convention, SteveR and I settled at one of the large tables on the main floor in front of the Registration Desk area, and decided to relax a bit. I chatted with a few people at the table and the adjacent tables for a few minutes, and then went over to the bar area and ordered myself a hot dog with a bottle of water and a plastic glass of ginger ale. I was told to stay in the area and wait for the hot dog to be brought down from the kitchen. SteveR ordered the same thing I did, and we sat and waited a few minutes for the food to come down. When the food was brought down, I had the hot dog with a bit of ketchup and relish, and took some of the fresh celery and orange and red peppers to supplement the hot dog for the meal. I wasn't all that hungry, to be honest, though I didn't feel "right" (if you understand what I mean). The bottle of water and the ginger ale helped somewhat. I spent a bit of time talking with Daniel Poulin about gaming stuff of one sort and the other, and chatted with Shannon and Ray Dickson. I asked them if they wanted to come to dinner with SteveR and me after the afternoon gaming session, and they were delighted and agreed to do so. Chatted with a few other folks and extended the same invitation, but most of them were in games or running games that night. Went to check the sign-up sheet for the afternoon game of Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game, and saw that the game was full. Caroline had signed up as the fifth player on the sheet, and there were actually two players over the limit signed up for the game.
And then things went awry time-wise for me. After taking a few more minutes to relax, I thought it was time to game so SteveR took the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game gaming bags, my personal bag, and the medication bag up to the table where I'd be running the afternoon game. I set up the table for running, putting everything out and ready to game, and then took a couple of photos (that came out too blurry to use). Had a minor incident when it turned out the table had been accidentally double-booked, but that matter was resolved quickly enough, though I had a bit of a panic attack. I thought that it was 1:55 pm, when it was actually fifty minutes earlier than that, and couldn't figure out why none of the gamers had shown up for the game. Suffered another mild panic attack. (In retrospect, the confusion about the time was due to my lack of sleep the night before and the fact that I hadn't had enough hydration so far that day, and a couple of other things that I won't go into here.) When I calmed down and finally figured things out, it was close to 1:45 pm, and the players started to arrive for the game. I went back downstairs to wish SteveR good luck with his running of The Troubleshooters RPG session, and to grab the sign-up sheet. While there had been seven people signed up for the game when I'd last checked, including Ray Dickson, two people had deleted their names and one other had signed up and then taken their name off the list. I was a bit confused, and wondered how many folks would actually come to the table for the game... On the way upstairs, I grabbed another bottle of water and more ginger ale, and then returned to the table.
While I finished setting stuff out for the game, I chatted with the five people who were present. (Ray was supposed to play in the game, as noted earlier, but due to confusion in reading his schedule, he missed the fact that he'd gotten into the game as one of his alternate choices, and so I had five players for the game, rather than six.) It turned out that two of the players (see below) had both read the Rivers of London series of books, so had familiarity with the game world though they had not played the game until now.
The adventure I ran on Sunday afternoon for the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game is called "The Bookshop". The adventure is set against the urban fantasy mystery roleplaying game based on the Rivers of London series of books by Ben Aaronovitch, and concerns a group of investigators from the London MET Special Assessment Unit (SAU), also known as "The Folly," investigating an incident in which an employee at Stonewaters Bookshop has been assaulted by assailants unknown while working late. The Charing Cross police have sent the case over to the Folly, as they believe it will be of interest to them. While it may or may not be a Falcon case, DCI Nightingale wants the investigators to question the bookshop employee and see if there’s anything unusual about the case. This adventure is the introductory case file (adventure) found in the main rulebook, and is based on the short story "The Cockpit". The player characters for the case file are: Nafeesa Jones, a London MET police constable and apprentice magic practitioner; Morgan Omans, a hedge wizard turned police officer, and also an apprentice magic practitioner; Mina Patel, an entertainer who does data entry work for the London MET and works with the Folly on odd cases; Jordan Schneider, a medical doctor who works with the Folly and rather enjoys the "weird bollocks" cases; Jules Garland, a chancer (opportunist) who works at times with the Folly; and Eli Venturini, a lecturer/historian on the 17th Century and particularly the life and times of Sir Isaac Newton who consults for the Folly. Thus, all of the player characters work for the Folly or act as consultants with them from time to time.
I'm not going into detail about the plot here (because others might run the adventure down the line, and I'd like to run the scenario again sometime!), but suffice to say that the adventure went very well, though I did have to alter a few of the plot aspects to make it fit within the time limits somewhat. There were five players (as Ray didn't get into the game for reasons noted above), only one of whom I've played with before. In two interesting twists, four of the five players were female, and two of them were quite familiar with the novels from the series. One of the players knew the game, but not the books, from the "Fairycakes" session of the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game game on Friday night. Naomi (one of the players who had read the first few novels and some of the comics based on the books) took on the role of Dr. Jordan Schneider. A player named Elizabeth (the player who had read the first nine books in the series, and the graphic novels and novellas) took on the role of Nafeesa Jones. The lone male player in the game, JohnZ (who had no real knowledge of the books or the game, but wanted to play in "what sounds like an interesting game world") took on the role of Eli Venturini. Jillian (a player with again no knowledge of the books or game) decided to play Jules Garland. Finally, Caroline (who had played in the Friday night "Fairycakes" game as Jules) took on the role of Morgan Omans, as she wanted to play a magic practitioner for this one. This meant that Mina Patel, the entertainer, was not played in this case file.
When it came down to it, the players seemed to really enjoy themselves, and it was a fun game session of Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game. I talked to the players about the basics of the Rivers of London series of books (with both Naomi and Elizabeth adding to what I had said, though they tended to tangents which I had to get past, and they tried to not give too many spoilers for the novels), the game world, how (Newtonian) magic works, and the basics of British police investigations, and then went over the game mechanics and rules. JohnZ commented that the system seemed like a lite variant of the Call of Cthulhu system (which it is) and I mentioned to him some of the essential differences between the games. After answering any questions the players had, I took Caroline and Elizabeth (who were playing the magic practitioners, Nafeesa and Morgan) aside and talked with them briefly a bit more about magic and their spells. The players grasped the rules and mechanics quite quickly, though they weren't sure about the Luck stuff (which is something that players can really only figure out in play), and after a couple of sample rolls to illustrate stuff, we then got into the adventure proper. The player investigators started with a briefing with their mentor and boss, DCI Nightingale, about an incident at Stonewaters Books involving a seeming assault on one of the bookstore's employees late the night before. Nightingale gave the player characters their mission, to determine if the incident was a Falcon case, and the players got down to it. They split their forces in three, though they made the mistake of putting the wrong character out to investigate the history of the bookshop and a few other concerns they had, but otherwise, it was a good session. The players quickly got into the setting and the world, proceeding with their investigation and learning what they needed to in order to move to the next bit, though they had a few problems finding several of the more important clues. I helped them out with British law and police procedure when they needed it, and the case moved a bit slowly at a couple of points, but picked up momentum after the first forty-five minutes or so.
Elizabeth did a good job playing Nafeesa Jones, being the de facto leader of the characters during the investigation, and she handled the use of her magic abilities quite well, the player's knowledge of magic use from the books serving her in good stead. Caroline played Morgan Omans as the cop first, the practitioner second, but she wasn't afraid to use her magic when needed, and was very pleased at how the concept of vestigia worked in the game. Naomi did a good job playing the character of Dr. Jordan Schneider, and took her chances to practice medicine and psychology when the opportunities presented themselves, but also got involved a bit too heavily with the research elements that were part of the investigation. She did bring Eli into it during the second half of the session, but by then it was too late for the fellow playing Eli. Jillian played Jules Garland quite well, having the character take actions and do stuff during the scenario in an opportunistic fashion, playing to the character's strengths, and coming up with some revelations about aspects of the case that were quite good. Finally, JohnZ struggled somewhat to play Eli Venturini. I think he enjoyed the game and did what he could when he saw a chance to do so, but he seemed somewhat shy, and somewhat overwhelmed by the female players who were quite dominant, and never really got a chance to shine even when I presented him with some opportunities. It became clear as the game session went on that both Elizabeth and Naomi, who had read the novels by Ben Aaronovitch, were familiar with "The Cockpit" (the novella on which the scenario is based) and were remembering parts of the story, but all things considered did a good job of keeping their player knowledge separate from what the characters knew. Perhaps because of that, the ending of the case file seemed a little bit anti-climactic to me, but the case file came to a satisfying conclusion.
When the game session ended about 5:45 pm or so (15 minutes before the end of the time allotted), the players all told me that they had really enjoyed the game, liked the game system a lot, and found the case to have been an interesting one with some nice plot twists. As I started cleaning stuff away and getting ready to pack up the gaming materials, several of the players remained at the table and we talked about what makes the Rivers of London novels so great and about some of the game elements from the session just completed. They all told me that once they got the hang of the Luck mechanics, it was easy to work with - but tough when it came to deciding when and how much Luck to spend at any given time!
After the gamers left, spross helped me finish packing up the gaming stuff, and then he and I had a light snack of cheese, Melba toast, and a few veggies; I'd had another hot dog during the 10-minute break during the game, and wasn't really hungry. SteveR had already taken his own gaming stuff to the van, and he then grabbed up my gaming stuff to take while I went and handed in the sign-up sheet with my player rankings for the game at the Tournament Desk and collected my $5.00 token. I went back upstairs, cleaned up the garbage from the gaming table and then took my personal bag and jacket and headed back downstairs. Shannon and Ray Dickson were sitting at one of the large, round tables and I joined them (SteveR was already there), and we agreed that we'd head out to dinner after the Closing Ceremony ended. I went and bought another ginger ale at the bar (using that $5.00 token), and went back and sat down to relax after the game. It was then that I learned from Ray about what had happened with the schedule and his missing the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game game, and he was very annoyed and sad that he'd not gotten to play in it. As the time closed on 7:00 pm, there was no sign of a ceremony, closing or otherwise, so while SteveR called the restaurant to find out when they closed, I went and spoke to someone at the Registration Desk. And learned there was no Closing Ceremony this year, the CanGames folks having decided to scrap that. Shame, but still... When I went back to the table, SteveR told me that the restaurant closed the kitchen at 9:45 pm, and after talking to Shannon and Ray, we decided to head out from CanGames and go to supper. I went and spoke to a few of the convention folks and thanked them for a good convention, said goodbye to several people I know (most of the names have slipped me, but I remember Daniel and Caroline, for sure!), and after making sure that Ray and Shannon knew where we were going, headed out to the van with SteveR.
By this time, I was feeling somewhat hungry, as was SteveR, and it was close to 7:20 pm. We headed out from the convention and made our way to Ng's Cuisine, an authentic Chinese restaurant out on Merivale. I hadn't eaten a full meal there, though SteveR and I had had a light lunch there while out comic shopping one weekend, but the place had a great reputation. I didn't expect it to be as busy as it was, given that it was the Victoria Day weekend Sunday, but the place was...pretty full. SteveR had to park the van in the nearby area where the old Dairy Queen used to be, as did Ray and Shannon, and we were seated in the restaurant by around 7:40 pm. The meal at Ng's Cuisine was superb, the four of us had various dishes including BBQ Pork Won Ton Soup, Spicy Hot & Sour Soup, Pot Stickers (2 plates of 6 each), Moo She Chicken with Pancakes, Chicken with Pineapple and Ginger, Satay Chicken and Beef, and some Buddha's Delight. All with a generous serving of steamed rice. A truly nice meal, washed down throughout with Chinese tea. Lots and lots of Chinese tea. The four of us talked a lot over the food on a variety of subjects, some of them gaming related :), and had a good evening of it, decompressing from the convention quite nicely.
The day was only marred by what happened after we left the restaurant. There is an incline to walk down to where the old Dairy Queen used to be, and it was very dark and I was distracted by my state of mind about something that happened in the restaurant that I won't go into here. Suffice it to say, I got to the incline area and started to slide down it. I tried to use my left leg to halt the slide and managed to do so, but twisted my right knee and to a lesser extent the ankle, and felt a massive surge of pain go up the right leg into my groin. I stopped the slide, but felt like I'd torn something and it took me a few minutes to recover both my wits and the use of my lower body. SteveR knew I was hurting, but I was very tight-lipped when he got me back to the van.
He drove me back to my place, and then helped me unload the gaming gear and other stuff, and we emptied out the rest of the snacks from the cooler. It was around 9:35 pm or so by this time, and he was tired and wanted to go home, and so I thanked him for his help with everything on the weekend, and then SteveR headed out. I was hurting quite a bit by this point, so I made myself a hot cup of tea, had some yogurt, an apple and a small hunk of cheese, and lay back on the couch after taking some Tylenol. I was still hurting a lot, feeling pretty tired, achy all over, but didn't feel all that bad other than that considering what had happened. I stayed up for a bit longer, partially unpacking the gaming stuff and putting left-over snacks in the fridge, then had another cup of tea and a slice of toast before crawling into bed and reading for a quarter of an hour. Then, blessed sleep.
And there you have it - my three-post report on CanGames 2024, and the rpgs I ran at the convention. Overall, I was smart this year and didn't overdo it, had a really good convention, and had a blast running the games I did at the convention. I was only hampered by my left shoulder and arm, my bowels, and my feet (to a lesser degree) all weekend (until the incident in the restaurant parking lot). More exhausting for me than usual, though. (I may write an impressions of the con post as well, but we'll see, since I didn't really see all that much of the convention.)
Hope folks enjoyed these reports on the convention. :) Comments, thoughts, and questions are welcome. :)