KapCon 2018 - Day 1
Round 1: Nightmare Town
Nightmare Town was one of the first games to fill up, and I had several friends who said the blurb looked great. When the draft time-table was issued however, I knew none of the people in the game. This is often the break-point for games, because there's a kind of multi-part alchemy that's needed for them to function successfully, and that's always a bit easier if you've got at least some kind of starting point to work from. Luckily, a late drop-out dropped one of my oldest and best friends into the game, giving me that little perk of confidence and energy that you really need at 9am on Day 1 of KapCon.
I was very pleased with the way the game ran. I like a little impiricism in this matter and for me the basic metrics are pretty simple - all the major plot points were hit, each of the characters got to exercise their special skill, and the game ran to time. I think everyone had a good time, partially because I got good second-hand feedback (X said your game was good). Huzzah - I've learned something about GMing at long last and bounced back after the debacle of Unsanctioned at KapCon 2017.
Round 2: Nightmare Town
My prediction to Fraser in the aftermath of Round 1 was that Round 2 would be a lot more aggressive, because I knew half the group and in the past they've not been afraid to bite first and then figure out if chewing is an option. And as with all predictions, I was completely wrong. The basic structure of the game is a brief into section, about 20 minutes, about an hour of investigation, then a counter-punch from the villains of the piece which changes the pace of the game. Well, the counter-punch only came at the two-hour mark, quite a lot later than the first two runs, and the violence which naturally spills out was a bit more considered and less extreme. I keep track of how many NPCs they talked to, and roughly how many different investigative bites are taken at the story cherry, and both were a little down on both the first round and the play-test. But, you know - I think it was still basically successful.
Round 3: The Endless Darkness
I signed up for this game on the basis that I think most people pick games: I liked the GM. This was an Apocalypse-World derivative of some kind, where play exists at two levels, of a faction in a post-apocalyptic setting and that faction's avatar in little stories. The game begins with a collaborative effort on creating a the bones of the world for the story. Luke worked hard, and the game was pleasant-enough, but I just did not have the brain-power to decode the game and make good decisions.
This was another data-point in my experience of collaborative world-building games, which is that they're a tough thing to really make work, not necessarily because the actual world is not good, but because it's hard to internalise the story potential of any given story piece to actually deploy it. Of the 6 or so objects created, and the 3 or 4 story conditions overlaid on them, only 2 really saw any use and that use was at a very basic level. Why has the fuel dump gone dark? Don't know - never even discussed going there to find out. Those details are somewhat evocative, and they provide background on some decisions, but their mere presence always leaves things looking under-utilised. Which is why Ken Hite always says start your game with the real world if you can.
Round 4: 44 - a Game of Automatic Fear
The Games on Demand Room, and Indie-games generally are a very old source of contentestation for me. At the pre-con drinks Steve Hickey and I found ourselves re-litigating whether Morgue cheated at Sorcerer, and I allowed myself to become irritating in arguing that the popularity contest which masquerades as demanding games is something I hate. Yet, and yet... when Round 4 rolled around, I decided to bring along some games to offer, because I knew from the Timetable and chatter that Jan-yves was alone in offering something and that seemed a bit tough. So I turned up and ptiched Dirty Secrets and 44, stole Jan-yves' players, shut out one of the First-time KapCon GMs from running their homebrew Dread scenario, and ran a game I haven't looked at in years. I kinda want to feel bad, but at the same time, I'm a monster. I had in mind that 44 might make a good chassis for running a game based on Westworld, but in the end I wasn't sharp enough to do that hacking on the fly.
The game itself went fine, but I saw once again how difficult it can be for some people to devise compelling stories out of thin air. In a game like that, I've come to realise that the character is a metonymy for a whole world-bubble, and that world-bubble has to be rich in story possibilities. I also encountered one of the most brazen rejections of conflict-narratives I've seen in many a year. If robots come to drug you and take you away for replacement, that's only a conflict if you don't want them to ... ?!?! Luckily the other players objected and the system was allowed to operate. Almost equally perplexing was the doubt at least one player had about whether the character they'd nominated as a replacement really had been replaced - as if the game engine might be an elaborate double-bluff where you're stuffing your "robot" wife into a blender when you realise she was human after all. Now that is an appropriate level of paranoid fear for a horror game.
I didn't quite manage to stick the landing; at about 10:45 my brain just shut down, and I called it. I just literally couldn't think of anything - a complete blank. In 44 the players frame all the scenes, and they hadn't really been building toward anything, or working any kind of arc, so things just kind of stopped. Usually as a GM I can contribute a bit more guidance than that, but hey, 4th round.
The Sleep of the Just
Was terrible, as you'd expect. At least since I live across the road there was a long enough interval for it, without having to travel all over the show.
For anyone still hanging in there, Part 3 to follow.