KapCon XXX - Game 3
Uncharted Worlds
I think this may have been the only Space Opera on offer at the con - pretty typically SF is under-represented at KapCon. I've often pondered why it's easier to imagine nameless horrors from beyond space and time organising cultists to summon them than flying through space and meeting intelligent aliens, but there you are. I literally had to pause for a couple of minutes in writing that sentence as my brain refused to think of a counter-example to good ol' Cthulhu.
Uncharted Worlds uses the Apocalypse World dice mechanic, "play-book" style character, and probably there were clocks and fronts buried in the background somewhere that I didn't particularly spot. This style of game puts an enormous amount of power in the hands of the players, relying on them to improvise numerous details that then weave together into the narrative. I often think this is a harder thing to do than simply inhabit a character because you've constantly got to be thinking two moves ahead - I'll create X interesting thing now so that at Y juncture I can leverage it for a cool moment, whereas in a traditional game ideally the GM has already populated the game with as much X as you want and it's just the Y you have to do as a player.
I don't know what the game is supposed to be about, but another player and I basically set about turning the game into space grifting, playing twins whose lifeblood was shady dealings. The game ended rather inertly as what had seemed like a bunch of cool "yes, and" improvisations led to ... nothing. It was very strange, but I really enjoyed the game as an experience even if the narrative didn't quite spontaneously come together in the way that the game designers obviously oped.
I think this may have been the only Space Opera on offer at the con - pretty typically SF is under-represented at KapCon. I've often pondered why it's easier to imagine nameless horrors from beyond space and time organising cultists to summon them than flying through space and meeting intelligent aliens, but there you are. I literally had to pause for a couple of minutes in writing that sentence as my brain refused to think of a counter-example to good ol' Cthulhu.
Uncharted Worlds uses the Apocalypse World dice mechanic, "play-book" style character, and probably there were clocks and fronts buried in the background somewhere that I didn't particularly spot. This style of game puts an enormous amount of power in the hands of the players, relying on them to improvise numerous details that then weave together into the narrative. I often think this is a harder thing to do than simply inhabit a character because you've constantly got to be thinking two moves ahead - I'll create X interesting thing now so that at Y juncture I can leverage it for a cool moment, whereas in a traditional game ideally the GM has already populated the game with as much X as you want and it's just the Y you have to do as a player.
I don't know what the game is supposed to be about, but another player and I basically set about turning the game into space grifting, playing twins whose lifeblood was shady dealings. The game ended rather inertly as what had seemed like a bunch of cool "yes, and" improvisations led to ... nothing. It was very strange, but I really enjoyed the game as an experience even if the narrative didn't quite spontaneously come together in the way that the game designers obviously oped.