I can't believe we've been doing this for a decade. But I'm glad we have.
Revelation is the smallest of our conventions, typically attracting 35-40 players. It's been blessed with playlists and visits from game creators over the years, something that happened again this year. As ever, it's held at the Garrison Hotel in Sheffield, UK.
This year I felt a bit semi-detached in my preparation, as various pressures at work meant that my January was somewhat distracted. I suspect that I was annoying Elaine (the games Tsarina) with my tardiness, but I just managed to scrape in my game submissions before the deadlines were reached. I went for my hardy perennial City of Mist and a return to last year's Comrades!, a game about revolutions. I did bottle running the New York 2025 option in the game's as I felt it was a bit close to the bone, and instead decided to run a sequel to my previous session.
However, things calmed down somewhat the week of the convention, and - aided by the smaller size - I soon had my games prepared and the badges and signs prepared.
I set off around 8am, stopping for a cheeky bacon butty at a local shop and managed to arrive just before Graham (the Con Chair). As I got there, I faced blue skies and bright sunshine, which was surreal after several weeks of rain. We quickly had to ask the hotel to put up the sun screens to make sure people weren't dazzled by the low winter sun. These days, the room is mostly set up for us; no more humping of furniture for us. They know how we set up the room.
The opening speech...
https://youtu.be/M_hX_g9TShg?si=hLdcNrPeaClzkuXn
As usual, Graham leapt into the opening speech without letting me get the video going, but he gracefully started again. You can see and hear it above.
I'd planned to play for three sessions, and run for two, but things changed along the way.
Slot 1 - Nefas - Lord of Offspring
My first game was a playtest of Nefas, a PbtA game set in the Roman Empire with a Lovecraftian horror theme. The delightful thing about it was although it was billed a Lovecraftian horror, it didn't feel like Call of Cthulhu, it just felt like we were engaged in dealing with some nasty cultists of a (possibly) minor god who where trying to cause problems for the Empire in Antioch. The playbooks and settings were very flavourful and this was the highlight of the games that I played over the weekend. We had a party of four and found a credible way to be working across the social divides in Rome. We had mostly failed dice rolls throughout the game (despite me changing my dice), but somehow managed to succeed in thwarting the cult's plans.
Thanks to Hamish for running, and Amelia, Jamie and Simon for a fun game. I will be looking to get this when it is released.
I had an embarrassing fanboy moment immediately after the game. Hamish was wearing T-shirt from the excellent PbtA game, The Sprawl, and we'd got talking before the game (I was in a Blade Runner related Tee). I'd mentioned how much fun that I'd had running The Sprawl several times at Revelation. Halfway through the game, a thought struck me, and after a surreptitious check on DriveThruRPG, I realised that Hamish was the author of The Sprawl. It's a game whose design has made me think and change how I run games (especially the way that the Legwork/Action clocks that intertwine). At the end of the session, I had to thank him for work he'd done with this. I managed to keep the gushing to a minimum, but it was nice to meet one of the designers who I really respect.
If you've not got The Sprawl, I recommend it highly. I found Cyberpunk RED a lost opportunity, because there are aspects of the design in the Sprawl which support the genre and play much better. It's my go-to Cyberpunk game (although I'm also very fond of Sprawl Goons).
Lunch was the usual trip to Morrisons.
Slot 2 - Brindlewood Bay - Dad Overboard
I've heard a lot about Brindlewood Bay, which is a mystery game that channels Murder She Wrote but has the twist that there is no set solution to the mystery. The players collect clues and then have to thread them into a credible chain of evidence and succeed at a roll at the end in the "J'accuse" moment.
Phil ran a great game - we had lots of characters to interact with and a growing stack of clues, and a lot of fun digging at the dubious and dangerous rich yachting family whose patriarch had fallen off the boat, and drowned. I played Rosemary, a retiree who collected butterflies and flowers. We had fun investigating the family's background and built our case.
We came up with a credible story at the end, and had a lot of fun getting there, but I didn't get the joy I normally get from solving an investigative scenario. This was nothing to do with Phil's running of the game, as he's a superb GM/MC. I think that my issue with the game was explained by someone on the Gaming Tavern Discord. The meta game in this is that you're actually playing the writer's room for an ongoing show, and building the story. I'm not sure that this approach works for me, but I'm glad I tried it with a fun bunch of players (thanks to Jamie, Keary, Dave and Udo).
Playing this game, I realised we need to do something about the noise levels on the Upper Jailhouse - the removal of the curtains has made the area noises (Jamie gave a great acoustic explanation) and the screens didn't do enough.
Dinner was KFC, with the regular meeting of the Garrison bookclub with only myself and Keary present this time. We had a good catch up, and then I was heading back to run my first game.
Slot 3 - Comrades!
I ran Comrades! last year and really enjoyed it. Written in response to the rise of Trump and other authoritarian right wing figures, it seeks to explore why the left has backed away from struggle against oppression. I decided to move the game on a month or so from the session that I ran last year, and it was great that two of the players returned to play again.
The first hour of the game is all about building your party and setting up the tensions between members, along with the reasons that they want to create a change. As I'd lost the party sheet from last time, they created a new party (Krescht Future, with the catchy slogan of 'Forward to a New Dawn'), and then they embarked on a path of direct action and force against the ruling regime. Despite different members of the organising committee having different takes on what the party was seeking to achieve (especially the patron and the brute) they carried out their acts of violence and resistance against an oppressive regime. Whether it was enough to tip the balance, we didn't play for long enough to find out, but they were as brave as they were violent, and carried out a false flag assassination at the Grand Opera House to try and drive a split between elements of the government who were aligned with the strongest fascist party.
Running a game like this means that you're going to be dealing with uncomfortable themes, but it was flagged from the start and it was fascinating to explore what people were willing to do to resist oppression. I've just skimmed my notes from the game again as I write this, and I'm still astounded about both how much happened and the audacity of their plans. Thanks to Keary, Hamish, Jag, Udo and Phil for a great game.
Then it was bed time - I didn't bother with a pint, as I was pretty tired, but actually it hard to get to sleep because I was still buzzing after the game.
Slot 4 & 5 - City of Mist - The Black Butterfly Murders (run twice back-to-back)
I was meant to be playing Keary's Candela Obscura ('If you prick us...') but events conspired against that. I woke to a WhatsApp from Elaine saying she'd been unwell all night and wasn't up to running, and another GM had also called in with sickness. Unfortunately, they were both running at the same slot. Cue hurried discussions between Graham and I over breakfast, and a plan was hatched. I'd run my City of Mist scenario twice in a row. We gathered the players together at the start and explained the options, and I had three people who wanted to play. Others ended up in some of the few spaces and sadly one or two folk decided to go home as they had long drives.
I've already written a post on the challenges from the structure of The Black Butterfly Murders here, so I won't duplicate that except to say that the issues were all GM-sided.
I had three players join me for the first run through; Hamish (Detective Enkiddu), Peanut (Lance Sullivan) and Phil (Mitosis). The team did a great job of investigating and leaning into their various character strengths. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture during that session.
When I got to the second run through at Slot 5, I realised that I was down from 5 players to 2 because of the illness and go homes. I had a good chat with the players and we decided to go on with the game with the options to bring in a couple of extra characters if they decided to 'phone a friend for help). Amelia played Flicker (always a challenging character to handle because of their abilities) and Udo played Salamander. We switched to one of the cells rather than the upper jailhouse as the noise levels were too high, but then faced a lack of light at the table lamps in the cell had run out of juice. That was fixed with Udo's power pack, and we noted that we needed to get some lamps to ensure that we didn't have an issue like this next con.
Family reasons (a birthday) had led to Graham being away from the con for several hours, but he returned at exactly the right time to play Declan L'Estrange, and boost the team's numbers. He arrived in a break and the other two players found him there when they retired, which was fun!
In some ways, the second team were more successful as they actually prevented the fourth murder through some real cleverness where they disrupted the anchoring ritual and prevented the portal opening that would make the antagonist stronger.
In between the sessions, I ran the raffle with the aid of Cillian, who has got better each year at pulling out the tickets for me. He was scrupulously fair, which left his mum missing out of the Golden Ticket she was after.
And then it was all over; Graham and I (with the help of some others) tidied up, and we headed off on our various ways home.
Another year playing a selection of games that I love to explore. My only reflection is that we had more multi-slot games than usual, which meant that if you were GMing you ended up with slightly less choice dependent upon when you ran. However, as a GM, you get the first bite at the cherry to book the games you're playing so that wasn't such an issue.
I didn't play any Forged in the Dark games this time, which has made me decide to run a|state at Longcon this year. I've a couple of GM player reservations left, so if you fancy playing an a|state mini-campaign over a weekend, reach out and let me know.
28 February 2026
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