Revelation 9 - Convention After Action Report

A weekend of Powered by the Apocalypse games

The ninth Revelation was revealed this past weekend at the Garrison Hotel. Here's my reflections. 

We nearly didn't have this convention this year, as numbers were short for a long period of time. Part of the fault for this lies with the committee (hangs head in shame) as we didn't get this out there as previous years and probably didn't promote as well as we could have due to a variety of real life issues. There's a big thanks owed to several people in the community who really wanted this to happen (Neil, Guy especially) and promoted the convention. I also tried a variety of online groups to promote this who I hadn't talked to before (eg Magpie's Discord) to try and get some interest. We had around 20% new blood so it seemed to work.

For a while, it looked like were were going to struggle for games and I ended up offering three; City of Mist (my perennial game at this convention), :Otherscape (City of Mist's new Cyberpunk sibling) and Comrades.

The run up was more gentle than I thought; for once I managed to read and re-read all the scenarios by the weekend before and I took Friday off to prepare everything including the con badges, signs and QR codes for the timetables. Naturally my printer decided the cyan toner was running out, but a good shake made it last out.

I drove up on the morning of the convention met Graham and Elaine (my fellow organisers) in the main function room. We were a little startled as the room was nearly perfectly set up for us by the Garrison staff based on Graham's earlier guidance. Usually, we need to fix things up a little. The only thing we ended up doing like that was taping greaseproof baking paper to some of the windows to diffuse the sun which was shining straight in. For some reason, the curtains in the rooms were removed in the last refurbishment.

Original: https://youtu.be/lSTIUWbHqvY

Graham kicked us off with his usual speech, which has been honed to near-perfection over the last 35 conventions. With so many new attendees, we try to make sure that we don't make assumptions at the start!

Metro: Otherscape

The first slot saw me running Metro:Otherscape, the base setting from the Son of Oak team's new Cyberpunk game where myth and technology are mixed. The game saw me playing with a group of folks who I've gamed with many time before. I really enjoyed this, as Otherscape is a honed version of the City of Mist engine. The big change is that it replaces moves with effects. You look for the outcome that most closely matches what the characters are trying to achieve. The scenario was the introductory one from the book, which I worried may have been a bit short, but as it was the shortest slot of the con (at 3 hours) it worked out pretty well. We overran a little bit the players successfully extracted their target, without the need to apply duress. 

Lunch was Morrison's finest. My bring-and-buy materials were selling nicely.

Mind that tentacle, Mr Gumshoe!

Slot 2 saw me playing Penda's Monster of the Week game. This was a system and game I'd bounced off and I wanted to have another look at it. It was a fun game of weird body horror where we somehow managed to prevail. I suspect that things were made easier by Elaine picking a ghost as her character, which made her near invulnerable to the big bad.  Enjoyable fun.

Dinner was KFC and the latest instalment of the Garricon Book Club. Keary & myself (long standing members) were joined by Jenny and Tony and we had fried chicken and talked media (books, films, TV) and games.

Revolutionary Comrades.

Comrades was written as a reaction to the first Trump presidency and the general feeble nature of the left vs the right of politics. In some ways, I was pleased I didn't choose the modern day New York setting; instead, the characters were a revolutionary cell / party in Krescht, a fictional state near Poland and Russia in 1915. This was as close as to what I'd see as pure Powered by the Apocalypse as I went this convention, with full on co-creation of the party and the locations. I had a few beats but never needed to use them as the players embraced the setting. That said, it was very weird to spend a hour doing preparation, only for Elaine's 'Professional' to blow themselves up while making a bomb and she needed to get a new playbook!

Elaine checks the rules after Sasha's demise!

She had a move to prepare a bomb, and the failure aspect meant it could blow up, and that would mean certain death. Naturally, she failed. As GM, I told her that Sasha, her character, could run away or try to stop the fuse. Running away would succeed but the consequence would be huge explosion wrecking the safe house and their fellow travellers. Stopping the fuse would save the day, but any failure meant sudden death and similar consequences for their allies. There was a moment of confusion and Keary said 'roll the dice'. Elaine did, rolling a miss, and Sasha was spread across the city. Fortunately, Elaine took it with good grace. 

The party plotted and schemed with plan to blow up a prison and free the political prisoners. However, they also found out that the local fascist party were holding a demonstration outside the prison to have the leftists hung. Two of the group decided that the leader of the fascists needed to be disposed of, so they planted the bomb in a different place to planned. The bomb went off, the fascists went on a rampage through the city, their leader escaping death, and the prisoners escaped. Udo's priest, the party leader, welcomed the people he rescued hoping to recruit them, but on returning to the city found out that his love had been killed when the soup kitchen she ran was stormed by the rioters.

Overall, a great game, but probably best as a campaign.

I ended up with an unintentionally late night as I foolishly finished the novel I was reading.

Sunday brought the fantastic Garrison breakfast and some good chat, then I went back to the room and had a little bit of preparation time.

Hutt Cartel

My first game (slot 4) was Hutt Cartel, which Will kindly ran. I'd first met Will last year when I ran the Berlin Hack for Cartel, and he'd offered a return favour. It was great fun. I chose the Crime Boss as my character and it ended predictably badly for me as the Imperials, Pikes and Black Sun tried to take over my territory on Coruscant. Fantastic game of backstabbing nastiness.

Lunch was Morrisons; I'd toyed with the Garrison for a roast dinner, but the service the day before had been slower than usual and I was planning to run. The raffle went well, but Cillian may be stopped from drawing the tickets as he managed to select pretty much anyone except his parents!

City of Mist - all the Bling

The last slot brought City of Mist and a scenario from Local Legends (The Unwanted Guest, but I renamed this The Uninvited Guest as I'm a Marillion fan). City of Mist was like comfortable shoes and Overscape had served as a good warm-up. The crew investigated and the scenario ended in a confrontation at a funeral in a church; fortunately the player's prevailed. I did have some sub-plots which never really got into action, but overall people seemed to have a great time and I was asked to give some of my friends who I see far too little of a heads up if I ever run this online.

City of Mist has some fantastic supporting material and the feel is very much Netflix Marvel in power, Noir powered people. I enjoyed running and the players seemed to enjoy playing. Several had done previous sessions with me and this is one of my most run systems.

And then I tidied up (Elaine and Graham had to go earlier) and it was all over, another great convention. I was surprised I didn't play any Forged in the Dark, but I guess that sometimes that's how it happens.

Revelation will return.

25 February 2025

And finally... BITS Website refresh completed (Traveller RPG)

That took a lot longer than I intended, but finally the BITS website has been properly refreshed.

Due to the amount of time that we had access issues (exacerbated by BITS going into near hibernation post pandemic) the updates were pretty significant.

• Migration of the site to a different server at the host.
• Upgrade of PHP by 3 major versions.
• Recover of the old RapidWeaver site (from my old MacBook).
• Finding an interim way to convert an old Rapidweaver format file to a later release that's happy running under Apple Silicon.
• Getting frustrated as I couldn't find a way to download a version of Rapidweaver I'd bought on the App Store that had been withdrawn by Real Mac Software, paying to upgrade to the current version (albeit under offer at Christmas) and then finding the download files and generic licence for the older version a month later in the Rapidweaver support system.
• Updating the theme to one that worked with the new version.
• Changing all the copyright and trademark and licence references to reflect Mongoose Publishing's ownership.
• Removing commenting due the UK OSA.
• Updating all the product references, adding in the products that have come out in the interim, chasing purchase links to DriveThruRPG from RPGNow.
• Explaining why BITS doesn't do membership anymore.
• Removing the legacy software pages (these may return, but I haven't had much call for MacOS Classic files for a long time).
• Feeling very sad at the number of people and websites we've lost as I cleaned up the links.
• Striping out the webring (as it seems to be defunct).

Things I didn't do.

• Migrate to Wordpress. Possibly still on the cards, but that would have been a block of work beyond this and I wanted to get this done. I'm not entirely sure I want to do this myself.
• Update the PowerProjection.net site (that's coming).
• Fix the redirect from bits.org.uk - that needs Andy Lilly to change something with the host for that domain. Should happen this week.

Anyway, nice to get this particular weight off my back!

9 February 2025

Traveller - when the X-Boat comes in

A parcel arrived from Mongoose Publishing this week with the remainder of the Traveller books I'd identified that I wanted to pick up as I engage back with the game. 

The Christmas purchases had seen my picking up a number of the core books in the current version (Central Supply Catalogue, High Guard and the Referee's Screen), along with some of the background books on sectors and the Third Imperium. This delivery finished off the updated core books with the Traveller Companion which means I have all the updated core books, which helps especially if I want to do some writing under the TAS programme. 

Part of my focus here was looking at a different aspect of Traveller, specifically exploration. I'd skimmed the PDF of Rim Expeditions and liked what I saw. The Solomani Confederation expeditions into deep space in the opposite direction to the Third Imperium give a completely different flavour to the more constrained spaces of the Spinward Marches where empires and smaller polities are butting up against each other. This is a true frontier and a wide open space. To complement this, I picked up the World Builder's Handbook, to allow easy expansion of planets and systems. For an exploration based game, the ability to dive more deeply into generating the detail of star systems is key.

I also picked up the Starship Operator's Manual, for flavour. The original Digest Group Publications Starship Operator's Manual was one of my favourite books for MegaTraveller as it gave me lots of details that allowed me to give flavour to the experience that the players got. I'm hoping this one will live up to its predecessor. 

The final book was Mysteries on Arcturus Station, which is an adventure anthology. I was a big fan of the Classic Traveller Murder on Arcturus Station and I picked this up because it contains a rewrite of that adventure and some others. I may well roll one of them out at a convention.

There was also a little bonus in the package, The Sea Dragon, a leaflet with an underwater vessel which Mongoose added as a freebie. 

Overall, I'm quite excited by this delivery; lots to dig into and a chance to dive into exploration in the setting. I've never run a game in that vein; I'm not certain if I will but it's nice to explore something different and new for the setting.

4 February 2025

Delta Green - another dead drop lands...

The latest dead drop.

There was a surprise parcel for me this Saturday, the latest Delta Green release. This one is an anthology of scenarios which have been released separately as PDFs and PODs but are now gathered nicely together in an offset press hardcover. This was an extra over the original Kickstarter, but Arc Dream do a great job of offering extra material at a decent rate through the channels that they've established for fulfilment.

I backed the first Kickstarter that Arc Dream did back in 2015, and it reached a number of books when it was worth going in deep in the backing. That Kickstarter is still not quite fulfilled, but a couple of times a year a new, wonderfully illustrated, fantastically edited and well written tome lands through my letterbox.

I trusted the team behind this, because Kickstarter wasn't their first rodeo. The Delta Green team were into crowd-funding early on, on a platform called Fundable (long since gone), initially to produce a combined volume of the various chapbooks that they had produced for the initial release that subsequently went for silly amounts on eBay. The result was a hardback book called Delta Green: Eyes Only and more followed. 

They've subsequently run two more Kickstarters - one for Delta Green - The Labyrinth and more recently for The Conspiracy, the original 1990s material redone in the new style and format. I backed both fully and I'm not disappointed in what I have received.

Delta Green is a game of cosmic horror and although it deals with the Lovecraftian mythos, the feel is vastly different to Call of Cthulhu. It's set in the modern day, with formal government agencies and/or an illegal conspiracy within the government to oppose the occult horrors.

The game is a laser-focused d100 percentile engine, streamlined and focused. The experience is different to Call of Cthulhu, perhaps colder and more dangerous. The sanity system and bonds to family and friends feel more robust and real. The end times are coming and the stars are nearly right, but perhaps the agents can hold back the darkness for a little. It will cost them everything and more. If you're curious, the Quickstart is free and gives a good flavour for the game. 

It will taste of ashes.

I absolutely recommend this game and setting; I've run several one off games, in one case turning the whole opening series of Stranger Things into a sandbox scenario. I'm also on a promise to my fellow Eternal Lies player and the GM to run Impossible Landscapes when we finish that game, a campaign that explores the King in Yellow mythos.

2 February 2025

Books in January 2025

 

My reading in 2025 has got off to a good start, with nine books finished and a total of 2,460 pages read. Of those books, one was both non-fiction and an audiobook, two were roleplaying games and the balance novels.

The non-fiction book was Gina Martin's "No Offence but..." which would probably get me frowned at by the current US administration. It explores common phrases and how they can impact on people who aren't from the UK's dominant white (and male) culture. I learned a lot and loved the way that this was presented; Gina Martin alternatives with other writers as they go through the audiobook, so it reflects a diverse set of voices. Definitely worth the time.

The roleplaying books were "The Lost Caravan" which is a road trip set after an alien invasion. I liked this, but it's very much a one-shot campaign, albeit one that would probably play out differently every time you run it. Starting from a variety of locations, your caravan crosses from one side of the USA to another and becomes increasingly involved with the events of the invasion. Not sure that I will run this but definitely don't regret the impulse purchase.  I must read Fria Ligan's "Electric State" and compare the feel of that to this. 

I also read "Tokyo: Otherscape". Gorgeously illustrated, well written and evocative, it didn't quite land for me. I'd hoped it would make me super-excited about this setting from the publishers of City of Mist, but although there were a couple of moments where I though 'Oh that's interesting" it didn't give me the GM tingles. It's a shame in some ways as the way the City of Mist Engine has been built, this looks like really well built system for any cyberpunk type game. Perhaps running this at Revelation in February will change my mind a little.

Non-fiction was varied. My favourite two books for the month were Charles Stross' "A Conventional Boy" and Derek B. Miller's "Radio Life".

The Stross delightful mixes the early 1980s Satanic Panic over roleplaying games with a geek's first game convention and twisted cults in the Laundry universe. Miller's book is a post-apocalyptic tale in a future were humanity has collapsed back from a technological high. It reminded me a little of the Legacy: Life Amongst the Ruins roleplaying game in flavour and was extremely well written. Loved the thread of hope for the future in this story. I do like Miller's turn of phrase and all his books so far have drawn me in. 

"Norwegian by Night" is another novel by the same author which I also read. In this one, a former US Marine is living with his grand-daughter in Norway, when he witnesses a killing and ends up trying to protect a small child. The protagonist perhaps has the early signs of dementia, or perhaps it's the weight of the years that he has lived. I enjoyed this and it was quite different.

"Galveston" is by the show-writer for the first season of True Detective and it shows. There's that intimate feel of the south of the USA. The main character is a flawed career criminal who faces a set up that puts his life in danger. Overall, a good book even if I never liked the protagonist.

"Good Girls Don't Die" was a return to Christina Henry. It's a twisty tale of three women who find their lives threatened when they end up somewhere they don't expect to be. Their stories intersect and come to a fast but effective conclusion. 

Finally, I read Sarah Penner's "The Conjurer's Wife" which was a short novella about the wife of a Conjurer (no surprise there). They are performing in 1820s Venice, in a show that seems to have real magic. Olivia is his assistant and wife, but a secret from their past is about to be revealed. Enjoyable, even if I did half-guess what the reveal would be.