[Games] Necronomicon 2015
This year, I went crazy. I signed up for 20 hours of gaming at Necronomicon 2015. I could've run Star Wars (Edge of Empire / Age of Rebellion / et al.) or Iron Kingdoms RPG, but I decided that I'd fall back on the relatively easy task of GMing for Savage Worlds again. I mean, it's one of the few systems where I can hold most of the stats in my HEAD. (Most, not all, but for the rest, the handouts are pretty easy to handle, and there aren't any extra-special expensive dice to worry about.)
I split up my attention between running two scenarios based on the "Fearsome Critters" setting, and two scenarios using a kludged "Savage Fallout" setting (based upon the "Fallout" series of video games). In the latter case, I drew upon some house rules already provided online, though I modified the character sheets, and played around with character generation when coming up with pre-generated characters.
And of course, I didn't decided upon the Fallout angle until I was nearly upon time for the convention. And then, after doing so, my work schedule suddenly filled up with a bunch of projects that involved me flying out here and there (Minnesota, New Jersey, California), cutting into my weekends. I had to call a hiatus on Iron Kingdoms for over a month; there's just no way I could manage it all at once. And even so, projects ended up squeezing up against my scheduled vacation time: I ended up getting home early in the morning of the start of my vacation, then driving out that same morning to the convention, and then, upon getting home, having to start up a fresh project the very next (very early) morning -- and of COURSE there were technical problems galore waiting for me.
Ahem. But I digress. I had my share of anxiety about cutting things very close, and it was not in the least bit a restful vacation (and I irrationally got very bristly and borderline defensive when people would keep saying stuff like, "Well, you get plenty of rest during your vacation" or "Oh, you're so lucky to get a vacation" or whatnot). However, "fun was had," and I wouldn't be doing this otherwise.
We got to the convention site a day early. It's expensive, but I've just determined that if I do the "arrive and game on Friday" route, it becomes stress-and-a-half to get there, get everything into the hotel room, get checked in, confirm my registration, set up, run a game, make sure Gwendel gets some food, et al., plus who-knows-what might complicate things as a bonus surprise.
As a nice perk, the hotel was on the bay-side, and we got a bay-side room with a nice view. We got a better view when we took the nature walk. I actually had to spend a good part of the day doing work (I just got back from a project, and I needed to put together a report and presentation, sort all the photos, etc.), which ended up being pretty much a full work-day, but it was still worth it to be on-site rather than to be plugging away at work with packing-and-driving looming in front of me after I'd finished.
Rather than going to the expensive hotel restaurant, we ordered out. The front desk had a convenient list of local places that would deliver. We tried out Tampa Tokyo (bento box for Gwendel ... and, hey, they do standard Chinese dishes, too, so sweet 'n' sour for me), watched a Netflix movie that I'd brought along (Paddington -- cute and harmless movie), and all was well. (Pretty good food, by the way -- and I probably enjoyed it more than the hoity-toity pricey stuff at the "Oystercatchers" restaurant anyway.)
Milling About Before the "Action":
On Friday, gaming doesn't start until 4 pm, but registration starts at 10 am, and the convention itself officially starts at noon. Various features of the convention start up at odd times, but at least the "con suite" (convenient source of sodas and junk food, and a readily-available microwave) was up and running. This was our chance to check out the dealer room (lots of cute and expensive crafts -- but surprisingly NOTHING Fallout-related, and I would've been in the mood to buy). By chance, we met George Lowe, voice of "Space Ghost: Coast to Coast." And "by chance," I mean that he was in the tiny alley of lonely book-touting authors and guests offering signatures, and things were REALLY DEAD, and we were wandering about looking at things. That was pretty novel and all, but I was a bit unsettled by the photos-to-be-signed on the desk from "Robot Chicken" -- specifically, the ... unicorn ("magical unicorn mayonnaise"). It would seem that he did the voice of the unicorn. Like ... yay? I declined the offer to get a photo with him or a signed photo of the Magical Mayonnaise Unicorn, but noted that I knew a few friends who were much more into Robot Chicken than I was, and if I ran into them, I'd send them his way.
Space Ghost? Awesome. Creepy unicorns who ask little boys to -- no, not going to finish that sentence. You've either seen the skit, or you haven't. I blame Digital_Rampage, because he was big on showing me that "hilarious" show, and, yes, it's clever and there was some fun stuff, but then there's the Snuggle skit, and I can't even describe it. Anyway, no. Not my thing.
Not a thing that I can even imagine would be something people can giggle about and still be sane, decent people.
(Oddly ... no luck there, regards the "finding my friends who are more into Robot Chicken than I am," until I got to the game room and got things set up, and by then, I'm pretty sure things had picked up in Guest Alley. Like, do I know ANYBODY around here anymore? I ran into none of the "Tampa crowd" that I used to think of as a staple of Necronomicon. Maybe there's just too much competition from other conventions that I don't go to?)
Fearsome Critters: Exotic Pet Arena Fight (AKA Gotchamon!)
My first scenario on Friday was rather off-canon for the Fearsome Critters universe. It's a fun enough setting, but it's the sort of thing that doesn't pack much punch when I try to write a teaser/synopsis for the schedule. I mean, c'mon, you don't get proton packs, you don't get machine guns, you don't get books of arcane rituals, there's no treasure, there's no glory -- you're a bunch of public employees in uniform, trying to capture animals with capture-poles.
So I ran with the idea that in this universe, back in the '90s or so, there was a big fad in certain circles with capturing paranormal critters and forcing them to BATTLE each other in pit fights. This spilled over into the popular culture in the form of video games, toys, and cartoons -- and owing to the nature of the general public's lack of understanding about the truth behind the existence behind paranormal creatures, most folks thought it was all just harmless fiction.
But no! Government crackdowns forced the "exotic pet arena fight" aficionados into hiding, but they still carry out their gruesome bloodsports in remote locations. North Sandalwood, general magnet for weirdness such as it is, of course is the site of one such engagement. This time, however, the police have been tipped off, and they mount a raid.
Chaos ensues. Police chase after fleeing suspects. Of course, everyone is under-prepared for what's really going on, and a few capture-poles aren't nearly adequate for taking down creatures who can lob lightning bolts or breathe fire or spew water with fire-hose force. So, this was an exercise in the PCs trying to use other skills to outmaneuver their opponents, and use the environment to help.
We had cameo appearances by "Team Racket" (Essie and Ames) and their talking pet Maneki-Neko, "Yeowch." And at the end, the final showdown was with a crazy guy with outrageously-styled hair, who talked in a voice and claimed to be possessed by the spirit of an ancient pharaoh -- and, all the while, he kept pulling out cards and declaring their use ... despite the fact that this wasn't really a competitive card game. (One of the players: "Wow. I think I actually understood all of that!") But ultimately it boiled down to him summoning his "White Eyes Blue Dragon" to the field, whereupon mayhem erupted.
This would have been the "boss fight," where the PCs could attempt to use the creatures they'd captured so far as weapons against the dragon, or else to Taunt it and lead it into traps/bottlenecks, or other means. However, I was headed off at the pass by someone pulling out the "Love Interest" card.
Grrrrk. I thought I had pulled that card out of the Adventure Deck! But no. There it was. So ... seriously? Okay, so I decided to borrow a bit from Shrek. Fine -- your smooth-talking hero starts flattering the dragon, and then it turns its head around and bats its long eyelashes. "Ohhhh. You're a GIRL dragon!" And then the dragon sweeps up the hero in its shiny claws and flaps off into the night. And the rest of the crew is left wondering what in the world just happened, and how they're going to write this up in the report....
Fearsome Critters: The Magician's Assistant
Saturday morning, I ran another "Fearsome Critters" scenario. For the benefit of anyone who'd been in the previous game, I joked that the hero who'd been carried off by the dragon ... well, he showed up a couple of weeks later, and whatever happened, he DOES NOT WISH TO TALK ABOUT IT, and he has blotted it from his memory. (And of course the player of said character was a completely different player, and was left baffled as to what in the world went on.)
This scenario was expanded from an adventure hook included in the "Cake Walk" module: The PCs get a mysterious call that directs them to the magic shop of a local stage magician (who also has an actual interest in the occult). They poke around, find some creepy stuff, and eventually there's a showdown or (most likely) a crazy car chase. We ended up getting a bit of both.
The way the adventure unfolded was, all considered, pretty dumb. We had stuff like shooting the driver of a fleeing vehicle with a tranq gun dart, pulling alongside and side-swiping the car and pepper-spraying him through the window, etc. But then, it wasn't like I really gave the players much to work with to do it the "right" way. I should've been more active, having reports come in on the radio, giving the PCs the opportunity to request help from the police. Of COURSE it ended in a big wreck. But ... eh well. Players had fun, so that's really all that matters. I am inclined to take my experiences (and misadventures) with the expanded "adventure hook" in order to write it up as a more detailed adventure (albeit a very short one).
One thing that I learned from the first game: Instead of randomly dishing out Adventure Cards, I hand-picked them for everyone. I intentionally tried to angle it so that, as much as possible, I could distribute the "avoid taking a hit" cards, the "useful skill-related benefit" cards, and "miscellaneous weird event" cards evenly, and even to match up cards with the "personality" of a character. (So, the party's Charisma guy got a couple of cards that fit in neatly with the idea of a charismatic type, etc.) Players were still allowed to trade cards (and they certainly did), but this way I could be sure that nobody would start off saddled with a "dud" card, and that there wouldn't be any instant game-breakers.
Savage Fallout: Nuka Break
And then, that evening, at the same table, I set up for my first Fallout game.
As a matter of necessity, I recycled a lot of the same scenery. The "haunted supermarket" facade (an optional location that might or might not have shown up in the Fearsome Critters scenario, depending on how the chase went as the PCs pursued the villain straight through the "Downtown Autumn Harvest Festival") was originally made for the Fallout scenario to represent a "Super-Duper Mart."
The table setup for this day was different than the first one, so I only had two Games & Gear terrain boards (versus the more expansive four I had for Friday), with a lot more scenery density. On the plus side, it made it easier for me to reach everything. On the down side, in retrospect, I think I had too high a density for "things what go BOOM," especially considering the large blast areas for several of them.
One thing I toyed with here was that everyone had a personal goal to achieve. On the flip side, the PC started with some sort of minor penalty -- e.g., only gets to roll a d4 for a Wild Die on Smarts-based rolls, because he's so distracted with worry -- but I tried to tailor it so that it wouldn't really be likely to play much of a role. It's just an incentive to get rid of this annoying drawback. And then, to provide a carrot to offset the stick, actually achieving one's personal goal would result in getting an extra Benny immediately.
I don't know if the "penalty" part was worth the trouble, but giving PCs personal and immediate goals was definitely a plus. I think I need to make a habit of doing that sort of thing more often.
There was another learning "opportunity" here. As is slightly visible at the bottom of the table, I've taken up the practice of dealing out initiative cards on the GM side of the table. Standard Savage Worlds practice is for every player to get his own card; for the longest time, the players would have their own deck and the GM would have a separate deck. However, I've found that at conventions (well, not JUST at conventions) I'd run into problems where I'm calling out card faces -- e.g., "Ace! King! Queen! Jack! ... Ten! Nine!..." And then someone goes on Eight, say, and then we're all the way to the bottom of the round and someone goes, "Hey, you skipped me!" "What'd you have?" "I had a Jack!" Or, variation on this: The player DID go on Jack, say, as the VERY FIRST PERSON in the round, but we get to the bottom of the round and the player has forgotten this and says, "Hey, you skipped me...."
This doesn't completely solve that at all, but if I deal the cards myself, and call out players when their turns come up, I can keep things flowing. I've found it to be much faster. (And when certain players are around, there's a marked time savings when a player doesn't waste a ton of time shuffling the deck like a poker dealer after a Joker comes up.)
However, I ran into a problem in that when I put down cards from left to right, I'm mentally lining them up with the seating of the players. "Okay -- first card is first person on my left. Fourth card is 1-2-3-4 -- you!" That's all fine and dandy, unless people are getting up out of their chairs and moving about and such. I ended up skipping CT for two, maybe three rounds, it seems, because I had *7* players at the table and I'd only pulled 6 cards and ... ARGH! How'd I MISS that?
Ahem. Anyway, things went well enough with people accomplishing their goals, and a modicum of teamwork going on, and PCs very gingerly trying to work their way around a big truck in the middle of the table with an unstable fusion reactor and broken-down shielding -- in Fallout, abandoned nuclear vehicles are basically like stationary mini-nukes just waiting to go KABLOOOOOIE if they get shot too many times. Well, one of the PCs was so eager to kill something that when a super-mutant dog was driven out of the Super-Duper Mart, he ran across the top of the wrecked truck, leaped down, and attacked the dog right in front of the truck's grill. Then the super-mutant mutt's owner stepped out the front door (leaving an encounter with another PC after a highly successful bluff), saw his dog being attacked, failed a Smarts test (not hard for a super mutant) and stupidly opened fire with a heavy machine gun. What didn't hit the PC managed to hit the truck immediately behind him, and the damage rolls Aced something crazy.
Fortunately, our Vault Dweller scientist/doctor was able to warn everyone of the inevitable, and everyone scrambled to safety ... in theory. The PC who'd inadvertently instigated all this ran from the FRONT of the truck ... around to the BACK. (When all was said and done, he was immortalized as a silhouette against the side wall of the Poseidon service station.) We also had two PCs fighting each other over who would have the honor of emptying out a Nuka-Cola vending machine (lead-lined!) and stuffing him- or herself inside. The Elvis impersonator won; the Vault Dweller ended up just trying to hide behind the thing ... which technically shielded her from the initial wave of radiation, but unfortunately it meant she was dead in line to get bit by the refrigerated vending machine when the blast wave hit and we did our "nuke the fridge!" moment. Not that the Elvis impersonator crammed inside fared much better: he got blasted down the road and out of the action, and was basically rescued and pried out of the thing with several broken bones in the epilogue for the scenario.
So: A pretty harsh run! But the players loved it (even the guy who got vaporized, apparently), so that's what really mattered.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen -- 1970s!
Meanwhile, KK was running Savage Worlds games alongside mine. He stuck to two settings/scenarios as well -- two sessions of "Redneckromancer" (a scenario for the "ETU" tongue-in-cheek supernatural horror line), and two sessions of "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen -- 1970s" (his own homebrew concoction).
Gwendel managed to get into one of the games -- and this was no small feat. At least a couple of my players were people who WANTED to get into KK's game, but there was a line of people waiting to sign up for the game as soon as the sign-up sheet was scheduled to go out an hour before the game slot ... and depending upon the veracity of the reports, it seems there was some elbowing to get in there first. This makes it all the more surprising to me that Gwendel managed to be one of those lucky few, but so be it! ;)
She ended up with the role of Evel Knievel. The premise involved a gathering of personages from the 1970s (some fictitious, some not-quite-so-fictitious), all in a convoy to escort a powerful, gifted girl (Carrie) and to protect her from the clutches of some evil cultists with such infamous foes in their ranks as the nasty Boss Hogg. The PCs tended toward characters associated with a vehicle in some way during the 1970s (or else had someone to ride with), so we had Evel Knievel on his bike, Elvis Presley in his pink Cadillac, the Dukes of Hazzard in the General Lee, "Bandit" in his Trans-Am, Philo (from "Every Which Way But Loose") in his semi rig, Carl Kolchak (the Night Stalker) in his convertible Ford Mustang, and Foxy Brown in ... well, I'm not sure what she drove, actually.
I loved the setup. KK is a master of handouts and "packaging" of the scenarios. I mean ... he used a bunch of 8-track tape shells (and custom boxes) for his character sheets and character bios. He used a collection of beer bottle caps for Bennies. The item cards look like something out of those old circa-1970s collectible card-and-sticker packs with the tiny inedible pieces of chewing gum (included just so it would count as "candy" and thus get positioned next to the register with the impulse candy purchases). The game poster, player tents -- EVERYTHING has a gloriously cheesy '70s feel. He put similar love into his "Extraordinary Gentlemen 1980s" scenario last year. And he ran the SAME scenario over and over again, and it was packed every single time.
His games are always, ALWAYS packed. He runs these things at GenCon, too -- maybe a few other conventions. They're polished, they're perfectly paced, they're planned, and he's got the PRESENCE to keep the players entertained -- but not just that, other people standing about WATCHING the game being played.
This is something for me to aspire to. And, yeah, I'm a bit jealous that I'm not there, but ... eh, I have to just acknowledge that he's got a gift for it. Gwendel had a blast, and is now interested in checking out some of the movies he managed to work in references to.
Savage Fallout: Nuka Quantum
Sunday, I ran another Savage Fallout scenario with many of the same props, the same pre-gen PCs, the same basic scenario, but this time I had a bigger play area (for better AND for worse), and I applied a bit of my learning from last time. I took a manila folder and laid down cards on it in a line, penciling around the edges to make a template for a place to put the cards down -- then I wrote in names of the characters. Now, it wouldn't matter where anyone was seated: I could just call out the name of the CHARACTER, and by force of repetition (if nothing else), eventually we'd figure out who was playing whom. At the very least, it'd be clear if I was skipping someone. I used my roller bin as a "side table" to put the folder down on; although that had the unintended effect of hiding the cards from players' eyes, I suppose it really didn't matter by this point anyway. I'd just inform the players if there were anything of tactical interest -- e.g., "Okay, you ALL get to act before the bad guy does this round," or, "You, you, and you will get to go first, THEN the bad guys ... then the rest go," or whatever is relevant to the situation. It worked pretty well, actually.
A bigger board meant that if the truck did get nuked, it wouldn't affect as large of an area. We did still have our share of stuff blowing sky-high (as to be expected), but nothing quite as game-ending as with the first scenario.
The games as I ran them would be horrible for a campaign -- but then I generally run things in a different mode for one-shot convention games than I do for home campaigns anyway. (For one thing, I'm not afraid of leaving on a cliffhanger note, or letting little things go unresolved until next time -- because there usually is a next time at a home game, we hope.)
My bar was a bit lower, but the important thing is that I HAD PLAYERS this time around (yay!) rather than having a nearly-no-show like last year on Sunday. (I'd been waffling about whether I should run a Sunday game AT ALL, given past years' poor performances, but this year I figured -- hey, why not? It's basically the same scenario as my Saturday night game, only I'm scrambling things around so some of the encounters that inevitably get skipped over the first time get put up front-and-center the second time. My scenarios almost always involve side-branch stuff that won't get used -- and if somehow Saturday night had exhausted ALL my material, I could have cobbled together a new adventure overnight, and possibly re-purposed a few minis from my Fearsome Critters game for an added twist.)
Oh yeah, and Gwendel caught a game of "Redneckromancer." I hear that it involved "redneck zombies" in a trailer park (so I guess those trailer park models got some double use, in some good planning).
Relevant shot of one of those trailers (from the League game):
The trailers are converted from some old Bachmann Plasticville O-scale "trailer park" kits, with things such as stripped cardboard used for corrugated metal, some wet-down paper towel used for roof tarps, and so forth. He does a great job of adding a lot of character to some otherwise fairly basic plastic railroad building kits. :)
We hung around for the "ice cream social," and half-heartedly for the "survivors' raffle" at the end (I got a junky deck of cards for some forgettable game, and Gwendel got a flimsy plastic, already-cracked "Bleach" cosplay mask). Digital_Rampage, Dr_Rhubarb and the rest had already cleared out, though CT was there for the raffle at least. Gwendel had been staying up ridiculously late for events going into the night (whereas my main focus was "set up, run my games, say 'hi' to folks, get dinner, go to sleep"), so she pretty much crashed. Most everyone else was clearing out, but I was aching from moving so much stuff around (and standing on my feet for so long -- GMing a convention game is not something I get to do just sitting down the whole time) and generally getting more of what passes for "exercise" than I get for most of the rest of the year -- so it's just as well that I paid for the extra night at the hotel, so I could pack up and get out the next morning.
Poor Gwendel got some kind of "con crud." I got a bit of the sniffles myself on the way back, but for whatever reason it was over pretty quickly for me, while even now Gwendel is still getting over the after-effects. (I blame all those cough drops, but I'll try not to get into the technical reasons.) Fortunately, she was feeling well enough that we were able to manage a stop by Celebration's Market Street Cafe on the way back for lunch, and then a stroll around Downtown Disney -- or, rather, as it's being re-branded, "Disney Springs." I saw the amphibious cars, we picked up a couple of novelty glassware cups to complete Gwendel's collection, and I noted a place that's going onto my "list of semi-extravagant places I would consider going to for on my birthday": an airport hangar-themed bar/restaurant that's right on the water's edge, roughly in the area where the old Adventurers' Club used to be.
(The original choice would have been "Rock and Brews" in Oviedo, but Gwendel has revised her initially seemingly positive response to the place into a very negative opinion, based on a reconsideration of the staff as being "rude," after the fact. Since my intent is to find a place that both of us will enjoy -- and not "begrudgingly put up with, in self-sacrificial acquiescence to the other's birthday wishes" -- that option is dead unless there's a miraculous revision of opinion.)
And then it was straight into another project. Things are a bit busy now. I've found myself thinking, "What WILL I run next year?" and even loosely and thoughtlessly floated a few ideas ... but honestly, my inclination will likely bounce about throughout the year. "Fearsome Critters," I felt obliged to run because, hey, it's a game I worked on, and it got nominated for an ENnie. Not that anyone I speak to really knows what an ENnie is, or cares. (When I speak aloud, it sounds like I am saying "We got nominated for an any award," to which someone can naturally reply, "Huh?") Fallout? Well, I like the Fallout setting, and it was something that I could get fired up about. I could see myself running a campaign, but it's not going to happen anytime soon. I could potentially recycle it for next year, but I could just as easily do something more with Ghostbusters or pirates. Or maybe Savage Worlds Flash Gordon will come out and I'll fix up the rocket-ships and go with something in that theme. Whatever it is, I'd like to try something that doesn't require me to kitbash and paint a bunch of new minis. (If I'm going to kitbash and paint -- and surely I will -- I'd rather not do it under stress of a deadline.)
Some general sci-fi/cyberpunk might be nice. I might try to "brand" it, but I don't think I'll try to shoehorn it into the Interface Zero setting this time around. I'd prefer something where hackers are a little more modest in their abilities. (I'm afraid that if you took everything hackers were capable of doing in your typical cyberpunk circa the 1980s and 1990s, and then make ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING HACKABLE WIRELESSLY -- even things that have no business being networked -- stuff gets real stupid, real fast. But that's a rant for another time, and anyone who actually reads this has likely heard enough of that from me.)
What Next?
I'm working on some doodles for a cousin of mine. I might post some sketches later. It depends on how it turns out. I've gotten rusty again -- I simply HAVE NOT been drawing all that much this year.
I keep toying with the idea of writing something, but I'm waffling about on, like, maybe 4 story ideas right now. I'd like to write all of them, and write them all as short stories. The "short" part is difficult, but some of the ideas I really think would work better that way. I need to rein in my tendency to ramble.
This upcoming weekend, I'm running what might be the finale for the Iron Kingdoms campaign. I am ... not really properly prepared. And it seems there's never a proper moment for me to take care of that. When I'm home, there are things to deal with, or else I'm tired and I go to bed early. When I'm at work, there's generally WORK. This update here only gets written in bits and pieces in between signing off on things, running around dealing with technical stuff, and so on. But this is just stream-of-consciousness stuff, with little real order to it. I'm going to be going on the stuff I prepped much earlier in the campaign, and trying to modify it based on the things that happened (or, mostly, in light of the things that DID NOT happen, but should have) over the course of actually playing things out. IMHO, a story stands or falls depending upon the ending. I don't think this is going to stand well as a story in that regard. I'll give it my best shot. I have no idea how the players will react to things. But this is not unusual.
After that, I'm turning over the reins to Digital_Rampage to run his Unleashed campaign. We might need a bit of a hiatus. Based on comments he's made, I don't think he's really fleshed out the scope of the campaign. I think he's planning on running us through an introductory scenario and seeing how things go, and THEN plotting things out further from that. We'll see. I'll be playing, but my character is pretty much support. It is my HOPE that he will not go to any trouble to work my character into the spotlight. I regret that I do not particularly like myself as a player, and I generally do not get through a game without wishing I'd approached the character in a totally different way before it's all over with. My main hope is that I can focus on just providing a good place for the game, and supporting with the crafty angle of things by painting up the minis and such.
In other projects, I'm going to try to write and arrange something for "Fearsome Critters," and maybe scribble up a few more figure flats and maps and such. It would be nice to get that ball rolling again, since there seems to have been some interest. I have a few ideas, at least, and running the convention games actually helped, I think, by giving me more to think about. (That would be in the form of, "I wish I had run this differently....")