I spent the first weekend of July in Sheffield at the Garrison Hotel, at the second of the relaunched LongCon conventions. Last year I had a fabulous weekend running a group through the whole of the Stormbringer Stealer of Souls & Black Sword campaigns using Tripod as the engine, which I wrote about here and here.
I was pondering what to run this year when my friend and fellow organiser Graham pitched The One Ring. And like that, I decided that I wanted to play. What could be better than a weekend exploring Middle Earth?
This year's event preparation went more easily than the previous years (we failed to take off in 2023, and 2024 was all about getting the systems in place), and we saw more players and interest. At the heart of the organisation are three Google Forms. One manages registration for the convention, the second manages game pitches from GMs and the final form manages game preferences from players. Unlike the other conventions we run (which are all based around three to four hour slots), LongCon focuses on the same group of players playing through an extended campaign over the weekend. Because of this, we allow GMs to preallocate some spaces to players they know, but we also have a semi-random preference based game allocation.
Once I'd built the sheets, Graham managed most of the rest of the admin, especially the preferences. That was pretty impressive, as he was also preparing a campaign for the weekend too! I did do some more traditional pin badges as souvenirs for people, and also helped source some light-breaking curtains and portable rods that we could use to fit them. We needed the latter because the Garrison has refurbished the space we use and has removed the heavy curtains that were a nightmare to clean for them. As a result, we'd been taping baking paper to the windows to diffuse the sunlight, so a more practical solution was needed, which we've now tested ready for Furnace.
There was a bit of a comedy moment when I asked Graham 'the question' and he wasn't sure. Nothing about getting married, but rather whether we'd remembered to book rooms for the night at the hotel. It was a good thing I did, as this was the first time that he really wasn't sure! Referring to it as 'the question' comes from years of either Elaine or I asking for various Garricons!
Graham hosted a session zero for the campaign which I nearly missed because I'd managed to mute the channel we were using for Discord, but he nudged me and I arrived a little flustered. He'd set this up using Role, a VTT that I still pay for but haven't used recently. However, it reminded me just how great it is on the AV side. I will use it again if I run something lighter.
We introduced ourselves, and my character, a Ranger of the North Captain called Hallas, was created. Graham had decided to run the Lone Lands campaign for the weekend, which was a great call, especially as I haven't read the book for that yet. There were initially six of us, but two had to drop out nearer the event. I especially missed Dr Mitch, who ran the extended The Darkening of Mirkwood campaign for us using the first edition of The One Ring, still one of the standout campaigns that I have played. It would have been lovely to play alongside him again.
Aside from myself, my fellow players were Simon (who played in my Achtung! Cthulhu campaign) and Kari and Alex (a couple who I'd never met who were delightful company). Simon created an Elven Scholar called Ithildir, Kari had a Hobbit Messenger from the Shire called Bell Bunce, and Alex had a Dwarf Champion from the Blue Mountains, call Ginar. So we could definitely do a joke around 'A Man, an Elf, a Dwarf and a Hobbit walked into a bar...' which we actually achieved twice in Bree.
I was surprised and very grateful when Alex offered to 3D print us each a One Ring dice tray, which I used all the way through the weekend! It looked fantastic.
We'd agreed to kick off at 0930 on Saturday; it took 20 minutes for us to set up, and then we were away.
The next section contains spoilers for the Lone Lands campaign.
As ever, the first thing I'm going to say here is that I'm one of the organisers of this convention, so my opinions are going to be biased. However, once I get there, I'm playing or running games in every slot like the rest of the people attending. I just get to do other things around the day!
North Star is our annual roleplaying game convention focused on science-fiction games. This was the ninth convention, and the seventh face-to-face, as two of the conventions ended up being online during the COVID-19 lockdowns. It has a special place in my heart, as it is something that Graham and I conceived of after attending one of the TravCons. Initially, we were looking at a northern Traveller based convention, but there wasn't an appetite from BITS, so we decided to do a more general science fiction based convention, which has proved popular. This ranges from science fantasy like John Carter of Mars, through to horror (form example Delta Green) through classics like Traveller and Cyberpunk, and on to post-Singularity based games.
PREPARATION
We started planning for North Star straight after the last convention in 2024. As a convention, sits in the middle of attendance levels between Furnace and Revelation. We had 52 sign ups this year, up six on the previous year. However, we continued to see the challenge that we've had with very late decisions to attend and respond to things like game pre-booking. That can be pretty challenging; we have four different channels we use for communications; the email address people provide when signing up, and then the Discord Server, the Facebook Group, and the Gaming Tavern. All key updates get sent out across all channels. However, some folks we only realised weren't coming because they didn't reply to anything. That makes things very difficult when doing game allocations.
Of course, we always assume that we'll get some drop outs, usually around 10%. That's real life. People get sick, family events happen and life intervenes. If we know this, it's manageable. Throughout the process, we're trying to balance number of seats at gaming tables offered (ie the GM + players) against the number of attendees in that slot during the convention. I say in that slot, because one of the changes we've seen increasingly is that some slots (for example, Saturday night) get less player demand. We now ask a question during sign-up to try and manage this. I try not to have GMs preparing for games that won't run.
If a player drops out, it's usually simple to address, provided it doesn't take us below three players in a game. When that happens, we initially check if the GM is happy to run with two people. If they are, we then check if the players are happy to play with two players. If anyone says 'no', then we're trying to find all three of the people involved spaces in another game.
If a GM drops out, it's more challenging. We do have some people who will act as reserve GMs or offer to run twice, but the numbers involved and complexity jumps in getting people into another game. We used not to care so much about this; I'd bring a big bag of board games, and the sign up was a free-for-all at boards (well, this was Furnace's original method). If you didn't get into a game, there was space to play and enjoy yourself. However, this also meant people didn't get into games they wanted to, hence we moved to pre-booking, which Elaine championed (despite the extra work), something that North Star adopted from the start.
During the preparation, we all have different tasks. Hattie (who joined the team a couple of years ago) is preparing marketing material to pitch the convention, I'm doing the forms for registration and managing games, and Graham is handling most of the comms and the liaison with the hotel. It generally works smoothly.
Hattie did a fantastic job with the new marketing material and finding alternative spaces. It was nice to have some variety, and to try new channels for people to find the convention. We haven't asked people how they found us in the registration process, so we don't know how effective it was, but the numbers were up, which helped. It was a real shame that she couldn't attend as she had to be in the USA with work the week of the convention.
The numbers meant we opened up a second space in the bowels of the hotel (the main space handles around 38 easily, and can go to 45 at a push), which meant we ended up with a feeling of space on the Upper Jailhouse and the alternative area. That's great, because it means that noise from other games doesn't tend to impact the adjacent tables.
The fortnight before North Star was pretty crazy for me; working had moved some reporting periods forward, so it was pretty full on. At the same time I was juggling preparing two Traveller scenarios to run and trying to finalise the game allocation. I think I had to redo it three times in the last week. I took Friday off and dedicated to preparation. Fortunately, I'd bought extra paper 'just in case' as I ran out (it's either that or toner usually) while printing the badges for attendees. The main annoyance was that I couldn't find my 'stationary bag', the Furnace con bag with my dice and lots of different goodies from All Rolled Up and others.
I finally finished all the prep after midnight; not what I planned, but the various changes and work had put my on a back foot. However, I felt ready to run and I knew that the material for the convention was ready, and that Graham had checked the venue the night before so that we had minimal effort to do in the morning.
SLOT 1 - THE ELECTRIC STATE - INTO THE BLACKWELT
I arrived early enough that it wasn't a problem, and immediately found out that another player had dropped out due to illness. That pushed three games below two players, so there was some shenanigans that went on past the opening speech while I made sure everyone had something to play in.
The strangest part of the preparation on the day is standing on a chair taping baking paper to the window. When the hotel refurbished, the hotel got rid of the curtains upstairs, and sometimes the sun will come in quite strongly. We have improved with baking paper to let light through but take the brightness and heat down. By Furnace this year we should have some proper coverings sorted.
Badges, X-Cards, signs and everything was out, and we were off, with Graham opening the event with his well-trained patter.
My first game was Robin's The Electric State, which I was really looking forward to. I've read the Simon Stålenhag artbook that it's based upon, and have the roleplaying game. However, I'd not had a chance to read or run it, so this was an opportunity to explore the game and the setting. I played a Nevadan Veteran of the War that tore the United States apart. We were a group of misfits with past history who didn't really know each other, but were on a road trip to try to get out of Pacifica to Tonopah, Nevada. Each of us had troubles that were pursuing us, and the journey became an exploration of our back histories. Robin kept on throwing in things that hooked to our stories. We managed to reach Tonopah, and also to resolve a few character's goals, but for me the journey was the thing. I loved the way we got to find out about each other and the interactions as we crossed this very broken USA. This version of the Year Zero Engine just faded into the background. A fun game with great players.
After the game, I nipped to Morrisons for lunch, and spent a bit of time reading my scenario for the evening.
SLOT 2 - FADING SUNS 4e - A ROAD SO DARK
The next slot brought Fading Suns, run by Graham. We've both got history with this game, and ended up inadvertently going for the same bundle of books for the current edition on eBay. I won that, but Graham beat me to the table. The fourth edition rules read as quite complicated, but in play they're really smooth and easy to use. At the heart of the engine, you're rolling a D20 to get under a target number, but you want to score as high as possible because that gains you action points that allow you to overcome resistances to your action and get better results.
The setting is very Dune-like*; in the future, humanity expanded using alien jump gates but the representative democracy of the Second Republic collapsed a long time ago. The stars are fading, and darkness threatens. The Prophet brought worship of the Pancreator, the source of light. Worlds are dominated by major and minor houses, counterbalanced by the Guilds. Society is balanced on a tripod of Guild, Nobility and Church, and the Emperor tries to keep it all in balance. The Emperor Wars only ended recently. Into this, our party was a group of House Decados nobles and their retinue. Decados are the sneaky but decadent house. They aren't quite as bad as the Harkonnens but there is an edge to the game that they play.
*Also shades of the set up in Dan Simmon's Hyperion books.
It started with a party (don't all the best adventures?) where the Decados had been invited to the 'coming out' party for the daughter of a minor noble house. Tom played a metro-sexual Decados noble to the hilt, with intrigue, flirtation and little sharp daggers. John played his much more 'honourable' cousin, a questing knight, but still underneath a Decados. Tim had the noble's personal cleric, a Sanctuary Aeon healer, and Guy and myself playing the Guild representatives. I was the Charioteer (responsible for starships and piloting, and some mercantile aspects) and Guy was the Muster mercenary. I had to pick that character as it had the same name as I do!
We ended up with a great dynamic, and chewed the scenery between us for the first hour or so. I could see Graham starting to think that the scenario may not actually happen, but to be honest, that wouldn't have mattered from the player's perspective as we were loving it. However, somehow we managed to get back on track and broadly achieve success. I really enjoyed it, and if Graham had offered to carry on a mini-campaign then I would have been up for it.
After the game, Keary, John and myself set off for our usual Garricon bookclub meet up at the local KFC. Increasingly, we've other folk joining us for this, which makes it a great opportunity to share what we've read that we've enjoyed. Of course, part of this was ambushed by discussions about Andor, partly spoiler free as some people hadn't seen the new series.
SLOT 3 - TRAVELLER - THE HUNT FOR SABRE IV
This was the first of two Traveller scenarios that I was running at the convention; it was the first that I'd settled on and comes from the recent Mongoose Traveller revamp of the Classic Traveller scenario. Murder on Arcturus Station. The updated version has two scenarios; the first one was a prequel that sets the scene, in which a team run by the players gets brought in to investigate a missing mining ore carrier.
I'd turned the entire scenario into a mind map for easy reference using Scapple, and also extracted a timeline (the mindmap is above and obviously includes spoilers). The other key preparation was getting all the handouts and pictures of people available for the players to have in hand, and generating characters.
I used the alternative package based character generation from the Traveller Companion 2024 Update. That was really useful and allowed me to half the time I usually spend building characters. It does this by having you create the ability scores for the character's UPP, after which you choose a background (eg Belter) that may modify the abilities and give you some initial skills. You then choose a career package (for example Agent) which give you more skills and some benefits. Finally, there are some options to tweak your skills at the end, either to give a high score or to boost across a number of skills. It works really smoothly. The characters were set up a franchise Hortalez et Cie audit team who were delayed in systems while a part was delivered for their starship.
I created the character sheet as half an A4-page, then went on 'thispersondoesnotexist.com' to generate a set of random images for character portraits. I turned them black and white. While doing it, I realised that there seemed to be an unconscious bias in the way that the model had been built. If I remember correctly, it had been done by analysing images of people on the net for patterns, enabling it to produce random portraits. The model's training clearly didn't have a large number of black subjects as the output was predominantly White, Asian and Hispanic. This may well reflect the source data used but it took about thirty refreshes before a black person's face appeared. However, after lots of refreshes, I had a decent selection of images.
The reason I did this was to slip the two items into an A5-menu stand - one site with the character sheet, the other with the image. I also created a random table of names for inspiration. I gave each character a short paragraph bio, but I wanted to have the players own what their character looked like, and what they were called. Implicitly, they also got to choose their own age, which works quite well with the package character generation as it doesn't define the number of terms served. I let the players choose anything between late twenties to early fifties, pretty much in line with the character images I'd generated.
I'd gone with an already published scenario as it minimised the amount of work that I needed to do before the convention. The main plot was there and it was all about becoming familiar with it. I had a really engaged group of players, and they successfully navigated their way through the plot, pretty much uncovering the whole conspiracy. It was great to see how they approached it. As I had five players, the party did end up split, but it worked along the niches that the characters had on their character sheets, with the generalists backing up the specialists. We had a forensics team, an interview team and an undercover agent (Steven leaned hard into using his character's backstory of 'Profession (Belter) 2' to fit in with the asteroid mining workforce. I really enjoyed watching them crack the case and avoid some of the potential problems that would have meant that they didn't get paid. Thanks to Steve H, Steven P, Paul, Dr Mitch and Eugene for an enjoyable evening!
I only regret that I forgot to take a picture with all the bling on the table during the game, which is why you got the mind map above.
Initially, I was going to head straight to bed, but then I decided to nip up to the bar to be sociable and have a good natter with Dr Mitch, amongst others. We play regularly but rarely get to meet face-to-face. I did get to sleep at a reasonable time.
SLOT 4 - JOHN CARTER OF MARS - YOU ARE THE HEROES. YOU?
Morning came around quickly enough and I enjoyed the usual fantastic Garrison cooked breakfast. Perhaps my only disappointment was the lack of tinned grapefruit! That may sound weird, but they've always had it before and it reminds me of visiting my grandparents back in the 1970s. I think it has gone with the modernisation. I nipped back to my room and read the whole of the Traveller scenario that I was running in Slot 5 to make sure it was fresh in my head, as I knew that the lunch break would be pressed for time.
I owned John Carter of Mars for a while, but never got it to the table. I sold it at the bring and buy stand at another Garricon to Keary. Keary brought it back to run at North Star and a thought it would be rude not to. It was a simple pulp tale of derring do. Our characters were co-opted into trying to rescue a young princess who had disappeared, potentially abducted by Green Martians. As a Green Martian myself, my character was very concerned about this. We investigated and quickly found a trail, and then we had an exciting air ship chase followed by a rescue that the young lady wasn't that impressed with and then we managed to survive being shot down. We drove off or killed our attackers, realising that this was in fact an evil Zodangan false flag operation to drive division between the races of Mars!
Overall, it was a fun game, with 2d20 doing its thing. I was suffering from bleed between the various different versions of 2d20 that I've played, but enjoyed it all the same. My conclusion was that I was glad to play, and would happily do so again, but I was also content in my decision to sell.
Lunch was from Morrisons again, and then we had the raffle (for Patriot Games vouchers) and a birthday cake. We'd had an attendee contact us to let us know that it was Tim's 60th birthday the next day, and asking if we could do a cake. We arranged that with the hotel, much to his surprise. Tim is an absolute stalwart of the Traveller community and has some great scenarios and other supplements that he's published. It was nice to be able to do this; it's the second time we've been approached like this for members of our community, and it's lovely to see the care.
SLOT 5 - TRAVELLER - DEEPNIGHT LEGACY
My final scenario was Deepnight Legacy, one of the two published scenarios that lead into the epic Deepnight Revelation campaign that I've reviewed previously.
Deepnight Legacy is a sandbox with the potential to kill the whole party. The set up is that they are a crew that's been flung together to travel into the Great Rift to an Imperial outpost as a ship is overdue. The outpost needs resupply and they're also tasked with checking for any news of their sister vessel. There are potential elements of body horror and links to the Ancients.
I actually used the same initial builds for all the characters (attributes and background package) and then selected different career packages. It was amazing how much difference that it made. Graham had the resupply ship's captain, Keary had one of the engineers, as did Tom. They were backed up by Tim's Scout who was working passage, and an academic who had a twelve month sabbatical at the Outpost was played by M.
I loved the way that the players leaned into their roles, and despite knowing the type of scenario that they faced, they acted with a realistic level of ignorance until they had evidence that something was not right. After that, they took the right decisions and managed to rescue the remaining survivors of Candling Station, before turning tail and heading back to report the disaster to their home naval base. There was some nice interplay with the characters, but this was very much a game of cautious exploration and information gathering followed by some dramatic rescues.
I'd prepared maps (strangely missing from the scenario as published), using the Travellermap.com site, plus the linked T5 world generator. Characters were presented in a similar way to the previous scenario, and again it seemed to work quite well. Overall, a good scenario which would definitely be an opener to a campaign if you wanted it to be.
With that, the convention was over, and after some tidying up, I headed home to the family.
Airecon in my local gaming convention, but I've never been properly*, mainly as it is very boardgame focused. However, over the last few years, that has been changing. One of my fellow Garricon organisers, Graham, has been helping to organise a roleplaying section to the event. This has been growing steadily, and had 18 tables available in each organised slot, with 16 games offered consistently throughout the weekend.
*I did pop in a couple of years ago for an hour (which cost me a full day's ticket) to catch up with Graham and Tom and was really impressed at the scale and shear organisation.
Graham asked me to run some games, so I pitched two City of Mist and one Traveller scenario for the Saturday and Sunday. I deliberately picked the four hour slots as I know I most comfortably run games around 3.5 to 4.5 hours. However, the turn around between slots was small so there wasn't really scope to overrun. Saturday was the City of Mist day, with my forever game Traveller on Sunday. I'd run all the scenarios pitched at conventions before, so I knew they worked fine.
I had this mad idea that I'd take the bus from home to the convention, but that fell by the wayside when I realised that there wasn't a bus late enough for the Saturday evening slot (finishes at 23:00, last bus around 22:40) and that I'd finish gaming on Sunday and not be home for another hour and a half (on a twenty minute journey). So it was parking at the local multi-storey carpark for the day. However, aside from food that was my only real expense for attending, as you get a free ticket if you are running.
Preparation for the convention was quite gentle, as I'd run the games before. I spent a bit of time pulling together an updated City of Mist cribsheet (the one from the starter set evolved to have all the critical moves and some guidance), and then just checking I was happy.
I arrived in Harrogate just after 10:00, and was in the venue queue shortly after. As entry requires a bag search (every day) it was slow but steady with two doors open. I had a clear slot, so I wandered towards the trade hall to have a look and coincidentally bumped into Graham, who had already had a full day of being the Roleplaying Tsar.
The trade hall was heaving. Fortunately, I wasn't there for any boardgames. The roleplaying vendors were limited in number, but did have a good selection. However, there was nothing I was especially after and I managed to talk myself out of any new Mothership material or the Ronin Mork Börg hack. I did grab a new hard dice tray, as my existing neoprene ones have all developed creases. I said hello to Fil and Paul at All Rolled Up who seemed to be very busy (which is exactly what they'd want).
After my initial reconnaissance, I headed off to find the Queen's Suite, where the roleplaying games were being held. I resisted the Bring and Buy as there was a huge queue of people looking for bargains and dropping off games, and passed the Chaosium stand. Lunch was a sandwich from one of the many food stands. Airecon has a great selection, and even if the food hall is a bit of a trek, the food on offer is worth a look.
And then it was time for games. I set the table up, and as ever, City of Mist looks really impressive on the table.
My first game was 'The Uninvited Guest' (the 'Unwanted Guest' in the Local of Legends book) which I'd run recently at Revelation. I'd originally got three sign ups that Graham was aware of, but people were signing up until right before the sessions so you had no idea whether you'd have a full table or not. As it happened, I needed up with two people as one had dropped out. That pushed us towards a more initimate investigation, probably a bit more like the genre (which I describe as Netflix Marvel) that the game emulates so well. I gave the players a few experience bumps (three each) to compensate, and we explored the scenario. It never fails to amaze me how differently different groups of people approach the same problem. It's one of the fun things of running the same scenario again as a GM.
Characters in play: Declan L'Estrange and Bassie.
Ultimately, they prevailed, and seemed very happy with the outcome. One of the players went away happy, as they'd wanted to understand how to play the game as they had it, but didn't quite grok it.
I dived out from the gaming area and grabbed a pizza in the food hall. The guy making it was worried I'd be disappointed, as it was on the gluten-free base, but it was just what the doctor ordered. It was nice to catch up with an old friend over the meal.
My second game was 'The Maestro of Chalk', which was also from the Local Legends book. I'd previously run this at Revelation in 2024, and it'd presented some challenges with character selection that I'd taken onboard. I'd addressed this for both games by pulling out the pre-generated characters that were a bit too focused for the scenarios. This worked well, and I don't think that anyone felt that they were limited in choice.
I had a full house for this game, five players, several of whom I knew from other conventions. They seemed to click as a group, with lots of interplay and zing at the table. I had a lot of fun as part of the opposition they faced could beguile people, and face danger rolls kept on getting failed and people kept on giving the opposition lots of updates on their investigation. They faced down a very dangerous threat which could cause a lot of damage, and worked out its weakness. It was amusing to see a monster taken down by spraying it with a one litre bottle of mineral water! Overall a fun game!
I didn't rush in on Sunday morning, as I wasn't running again. Arrived, cleared through the bag checks and had a wander around the trade hall and then a look through the bring and buy. Picked up a boardgames on spies (City of Spies - Estoril 1942) which looked intriguing and cost a whole £10. The bring and buy seems magnificently organised.
Quick chat with David Scott on the Chaosium stand. We've not talked for years and it was nice to see him. Sadly, most of what Chaosium produces isn't my cup of tea these days.
I had a good natter with Graham as he was diligently signing thank you cards for GMs, then we went and hit the street food. I had a lovely lamb, couscous and salad dish.
My final game was the misleadingly titled 'A nice and easy in and out' for Traveller. Nominally, I was using Cepheus Universal, which is functionally Mongoose Traveller 1e (and not that far from 2e), but it all faded into the background.
Some more drop outs and I had two players arrive. I started setting up and explaining how the game and characters worked, then another player walked up and asked if they could join as the game they were in wasn't running. I welcomed them to the table and passed them the remaining characters to check out, and started my introductory spiel again. And then another person came up and asked me if they could join in. They were a volunteer but weren't needed right now. I welcomed them too, and started to do the introduction again.
It was that point where I realised that I had a table of players who had never played Traveller before and wanted to find out about the game. It always makes me nervous, as I'm showing them my forever game and I want them to love it! I was also conscious that I was running a scenario that didn't really showcase the Charted Space setting. However, I knew that it had worked well at TravCon 2024 and I've been running Traveller for over forty years so the system isn't a challenge for me.
The scenario is a simple heist and double cross, which seemed to go down well. There was a bizarre moment when one of the players started laughing, then explained that the warehouse map I'd just opened had been used in another scenario that they'd played the previous year on the Sunday. I guess it's a small world and the Loke Cyberpunk battlemaps are really good. I used some of the tricks from TravCon, stealing the Legwork and Alertness clocks concept from The Sprawl again.
The player who had arrived last dropped in and out of the game; I wasn't sure how much they'd enjoyed it but at the end they had a really enthusiastic and animated chat with me which suggested that they had. Another of the players had a skim of the Mongoose 2e rules on my iPad and liked what they saw. I'm hoping I've won another few people over to the game, if not the setting.
Then it was time to go, and I headed out from a convention hall that was being packed up without a care in the world and no need to check everything was okay. I should do more cons when I'm not in charge! I intend to return to Airecon next year.
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.
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.
One of my fellow convention organisers - our Tsarina of Games, Elaine - has compiled a master file of all the games that have run at the convention since 2008. This means that there are only two years missing (2006 and 2007). Hopefully someone will have details, but these are mostly pre-smartphones as we currently know them being a thing.
I'm going to take a nostalgia trip now, and look at what I ran. It's interesting that until recent years, I've mainly offered games with six player spots. These days I'd more commonly offer four or five.
I've linked after-action reports when I have them, but many are lost to the ether as they were posted on earlier versions of the Gaming Tavern or UK Gamers boards and not to my blog. I've also linked off reviews other to more details about a game if I think it's worthwhile.
The sad part of this is looking at the list of names of people who don't or can't attend any more. Some of them are no longer with us. RIP.
So, now on to the forty-three games I've run over this set of records. There's probably enough to make the half-century if we could find the records of the missing two years. There's even more games played to add to that. Lots of fun with great people.
2008 - III
They Came From Beyond Space, Savage Worlds
A Patent Inspector Calls, Sufficiently Advanced
The Fall of House Atreides, Conspiracy of Shadows
This was around the time that I first encountered Savage Worlds; I ended up running a SF B-Movie game as a filler in Slot 1. I think the first time I'd played the system was in the 2004 Continuum when EvilGaz and the Smart Party ran a complicated and fun game that involved table swapping.
The Sufficiently Advanced game was very epic, as it ended with the players triggering the detonation of multiple stars in novas to avoid a hegemonic alien swarm consuming the galaxy. I can also remember feeling very advanced in this game because I had my notes on my iPad 1 with an external keyboard which felt very Star Trek. Sufficiently Advanced gave me a lot of insight on how to a handle a high technology game but not get bogged down by the system; this started a move away from harder simulationist games for me, and the earlier Wordplay playlists also influenced this.
The Fall of House Atreides is a game that uses the Conspiracy of Shadows engine in Blood Opera mode to set the players against each other as parts of House Atreides as they are crushed by the Harkonnens. The traitor's identity is random (everyone gets an envelope with details if they are or aren't), so Paul or Jessica can be the traitor. I've always had fun with this kind of character-vs-character(*) game and this has come back periodically.
(*) I prefer 'character-vs-character' because it should never be 'player-vs-player'.
2009 - IV
Singularities: Sandbox, Wordplay
Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors
Broken Dreams, Savage Worlds:Runepunk
This was the first outing for my British New Wave SF inspired game, Singularities. I'd written it as a theme for Wordplay, but it's never actually got to print despite a good reception and lots of runs out with generally a good reception.
Wilderness of Mirrors is a spy based game written by John Wick (not the Baba-Yaga guy with the pencil and dog) which I ran as a Sunday morning game. It's very much a storygame, with a lot of co-creation. I can remember it feeling quite challenging to run and I had to work hard to draw it all together.
Broken Dreams, for Runepunk was a fantastically fun game. I seem to recall that we played through the whole investigation without a single combat roll; the players were mostly Call of Cthulhu hands who didn't want to get into a fight (quite sensibly). The key thing I learnt was that Savage Worlds works really well without a fight, and that the steampunk science-fantasy style of Runepunk is a fantastic space to play in.
The other thing of note that I remember from 2009 was the fantastic Beat to Quarters game that Neil Gow ran on Saturday night. I have never laughed so hard in a game, but I think we traumatised Neil and nearly broke him as we went completely off the rails of the serious Napoleonics vibe that he was aiming at. Fantastic game, a happy memory for me and the folks it but probably less so for Neil.
2010 - V
Down to Earth, Traveller
Singularities: Turing Test, Wordplay
A Taste for Murder
Reunion, River of Heaven (OpenQuest)
A four game year.
'Down to Earth' was a Traveller game which I'd previously re-run at TravCon earlier in the year. The concept is that the players wake up on a beach (a bit like Lost) with very little memory of what has happened before. They know they were on a ship and that they had to abandon it. The scenario was very much a sandbox with beats, and along the way people's memories would recover. This was using Mongoose Traveller. I've always advocated for reusing scenarios you write for conventions as many times as you can. This is especially true if you plan to publish them.
'Turing Test' was the second scenario developed for Singularities; this was very much another playtest of the game. Again, it worked well but I cannot remember the outcome.
'A Taste for Murder' is an Agatha Christie British Country House style mystery storygame. I've run this several times, and each time the players have veered it towards the raunchy end of the genre (so I think they'd fit in well with Bridgerton). What's fun is that you develop the reason and motives as you go along.
'Reunion' was a scenario for John Ossoway's excellent River of Heaven hard-SF game. I think that this was using one of his early scenarios and I gave some feedback afterwards. I'm no longer a huge fan of d100% based games, but this one just works nicely and fades to the background.
2011 - VI
Singularities: Turing Test, Wordplay
Utopia: In a Strange Land, Wordplay
Smoke and Lies, Wilderness of Mirrors
Singularities: Houllier's Heroes, Wordplay
Four games again, with two new scenarios.
I added a new Singularities scenario (Houllier's Heroes) this year, which very much explored the experience of mercenaries who had their brain cored and made transferable to an armoured chassis. While they were on a mission, their own bodies were on ice, hibernating.
I also added a scenario for Utopia, an expanded world setting in Singularities where a colony had become a dystopia. Again, another project I've not got to print.
Wilderness of Mirrors was pretty much the same as the run two years earlier; obviously it didn't put me off enough.
Four games and what looks like a very lazy amount of preparation, probably informed by the fact that I had a one-year old and a five-year old to handle! I reused three scenarios but did add a fourth scenario for Singularities. The Singularities scenario was the one I'd pitched (I'd only planned to do one game) but I ended up running four because people dropped out from running and playing. The Utopia scenario was a challenge as one of the players went a bit off-piste and I had to intervene as a referee and organiser as the behaviour wasn't acceptable.
2013 - VIII
Singularities: Landgrabbers of Gliese 581, Kingdom
Durance
Singularities: Sandbox, Wordplay
Only three games, and only one re-tread. Sandbox got a run out again!
Durance is a game set on a prison colony in space and always really interesting. It's based on the Australian colonies that Britain established to some degree. I do recommend the supporting card sets. I've run it a couple of times and it's always been satisfying.
'Landgrabbers of Gliese 581' puts the players in charge of a slower than light ship that decelerates into system after many years of travel through space to find that the world that they aimed at has already been settled by colonists from Earth (because technology has advanced and they got there faster). They're on a nuclear pulse engined Daedalus drive ship, and the players get to be the command crew. There is a sub-optimal world they could use in system, or they could move on, or they could try and find a resolution. Somehow, the end game was the takeover of the existing colony and the establishment of a religious dictatorship. I used Kingdom, as this is the kind of thing it excels at. I could have used Wordplay, but I wanted to experiment.
2014 - IX
The Last Garrison, Dead of Night (Cancelled)
The Song of Loeul, Stormbringer hacked into Wordplay.
I committed to two games this year but ended up running one as I developed a migraine on Saturday and was still feeling the after effects on Sunday morning.
I never ran the Last Garrison and never returned to it. A shame in some ways, as it was a self-referential game of what happened when the apocalypse comes at a gaming convention in Sheffield in October of a year. I've subsequently lost the notes. I felt so bad cancelling it, but I wouldn't have been in a good state to deal with it.
'The Song of Loeul' was a cracking adventure set in Michael Moorcock's Young Kingdoms that I'd run several times using the Stormbringer rules, but I ported it to Wordplay (what else?). It ran brilliantly well, although I did almost feel a let down as the players came up with schemes that thoroughly trounced their operation. But they seemed to love it, which was the most important thing! This led to a very ambitious three-parter the year after.
2015 - X
Heart of Dust, A Hand of Death (Madcap Laughs 1), Wordplay (Young Kingdoms)
Ruins in Madness (Madcap Laughs 2), Wordplay (Young Kingdoms)
Empress on the Emerald Shore (Madcap Laughs 3), Wordplay (Young Kingdoms)
This was the tenth Furnace, and saw lots of celebration and a very ambitious side project. Graham (the convention chair) and I are both big fans of Michael Moorcock's Young Kingdoms setting. Graham also wrote Wordplay (which you may have noticed that I have been running a lot over the conventions listed so far). I came up with a crazy plan to run the 'The Madcap Laughs' scenario trilogy from White Dwarf between us using Wordplay, based upon the learnings from the year before when I ran 'The Song of Loeul'. We agreed to co-GM for all three sessions; one of us would be lead GM, while the other would focus on playing NPCs and supporting the other. I took the lead for the first and last sessions.
Unlike later years, when multi-slot games became common, we ran each part as a distinct and independent session. This made things a little easier because we had a reset point for each scenario. It also makes it easier for the Games Tsar, as it doesn't lock down spaces and options quite as hard as dedicated single group of player multi-slots do. Of course, we ended up with a core of players who played the entire mini-campaign, so we did have some continuity between episodes.
Overall, this was fantastic fun and convinced me that a lighter, more narrative engine was the best way forward for this kind of game. I also loved the co-GMing approach as it lightened the load for both of us. A fittingly epic approach to the tenth anniversary of the convention.
This year I stuck at the two game limit, and both were Traveller related, being set in the game universe. Both had been developed for TravCon and BITS previously, so this was the second run through.
The first game had the players as a mix of children and grandparents on a small agritech colony outside the Third Imperium, a place that is growing bio-engineered crops for drugs. A large Vargr warship arrives in time for the harvest festival and the party have to understand and address their intent. It's one of my favourite recent Traveller scenarios.
The Uncharted Worlds game used a modular SF PbtA engine to have a game set when the Terrans first encountered the Vilani First Imperium. The party were free traders cross over into hostile space. It is very much a sandbox with beats again, as there is a timeline for a growing threat, but how it manifests will depend upon how the players attack the scenario. I do want to go back to explore this era, most likely with the Traveller or Cepheus rules.
I'd really discovered the OSR over the last few years and loved what the Black Hack had done, so I was delighted to do some play testing and feedback with Graham's Heroic Fantasy game (in its first edition form). I melded it with an idea that was born from watching Frozen to many times with my youngster. At its heart, like many fairy tales, Frozen is pretty nasty. I decided to do an 'alt-history' take on it, imaging that Ana had accidentally been killed in the final stages of the story, and Elsa brought Fimbulwinter down upon the world in her anger and despair. The players are a party sent by their monarch to try to find out what has happened and if anything can be done about it. This was a fun game.
'They Came Back Haunted' was written when the Coriolis campaign books hadn't been released, and deals with a foreshadowing that the lost colony ship, the Nadir, may be closer than people thought and pose a threat. There were echoes of a Blakes 7 episode in this, and I enjoyed running it. I wanted to run the Coriolis Mercy of the Icons campaign after this, but one of my fellow regular players pitched it first and unfortunately it fizzled out.
2018 - XIII
The End of Laughter and Soft Lies, SCUP (PbtA)
A Cthulhu City Story: Weeping for the Memory of Lives Gone, The Cthulhu Hack
Two games again this year. The first was a full on blood bath of character-vs-character factionalism. I ran The Sword, the Crown and the Unspeakable Power, which is an epic fantasy game designed for players who are happy to push hard. The pitch was pretty simple - the players are part of the court and they've just found out that their armies have been shattered by the advanced hordes across the plains. Will they stay and fight, embrace the jihad or flee? I wrote this up in detail here.
'Weeping for the Memories of Lives Gone' was a swerve ball as I took a Trail of Cthulhu campaign which intrigued me and then went and ran it with Paul Baldowski's 'The Cthulhu Hack'. I've already posted about this during #RPGaDay this year, so will point you at the more detailed write up here. For the record, I've subsequently picked up the book again, so may explore it some more.
The first game I ran was the Scandi-Noir story game, A Town Called Malice, where the players were movers and shakers in a town threatened by a rising river and a hundred year storm. It escalated nicely.
The second game drew on the unsolved Isdalen Woman murder in Norway during the height of the Cold War. The characters were sent from Oslo to Bergen to investigate what had happened and uncovered a story of espionage. I remember that I enjoyed the game but found the system didn't quite work. I had loads of plots and handouts which made it fun.
There's more details on the games linked above on the year entry.
This was our second online Garricon (North Star went first) and I found preparation hard as my head wasn't in a good place because my mother had just died the month before. I ended up not running the Utopia game, because I needed to take my father back home (he'd moved in with us after the funeral) and Graham kindly ran Scheherazade instead. The Vaesen game used the scenario that had kept out at me from the adventures book, and it worked well. It did run on past midnight though!
This was the smallest Furnace ever, with only 40 or so people attending, partly limited by social distancing reducing the numbers of table but partly limited by the nervousness people had at returning to a social space.
I ran the playbook led Through Sunken Lands on Saturday night and it was very much a fun game where everyone just embraced the swords and sorcery genre. We laughed a lot, and I still chuckle at the gods Nin'tendo, Ga Me'Boy and the dread rites of Wii when I look back at this. I really need to run this again at a con.
Operation Horatio was a bit ambitious; it took the timeline of the first Stranger Things series and turned it into a Delta Green operation. I enjoyed this, and learned a lot about the game system and how it differs from Call of Cthulhu. I much prefer it.
The Slow Knife is a character-vs-character story-game where the players reconstruct the revenge of a young person on the conspirators who had ruined their life. It was a bit arts and crafts at times as we built the board of relationships and connections, but it was great fun. I definitely will run this again!
I then spent Sunday running two Blue Planet games back to back. The first was the Quickstart, and then I ran a sequel to it. I had a continuity of players for the game, which was nice. The new version of the game ran nicely, and the scenarios seemed to work out fine. I've never had a player playing a dolphin before in a game, and it was a blast.
The first game I ran was a return to the Nordic Noir I'd last run in 2019. Overall, it worked well but was marred by the noise levels from the adjacent table.
The Zone was brilliant Annihilation / Roadside Stalker fun, which everyone getting into our tale of disaster.
I had my first experience of running a Gumshoe game, a scenario that Pelgrane Press kindly sent me for Swords of the Serpentine. I had a lot of fun as we explored this fantasy take on Venice, which characters up to no good!
Welcome to the Hotel Grand Perdusz, The Dying Earth Revivification Folio
I ran the Zone as an extra game, as we struggled to fill the game timetable. This time I had the proper game, not just the print and play, and it went down just as well as the year before. One of the players came back too!
Revolt was an interesting story game about a rebellion. Lots of world building fun.
The Dying Earth was a game that I'd long wanted to play or run, so I decided to grab the opportunity with both hands and run it at the convention. It was nerve-wracking but it definitely caught a really Vancian vibe. I may well try this again, especially as there's a sequel scenario to the one I used!
Badges with the refreshed logo and QR code to the timetable
As with previous after action reports for Furnace, this is written through the lens of an organiser who is also a games master and player.
The weekend just passed saw the nineteenth Furnace, something that I find quite scary. Where has all that time gone? Furnace is the first and oldest of the Garricons, and came from a desire to have a weekend focused on play rather than seminars and other events. The tag line is "It's all about the Games", which is really as much as you need to know about the approach. Five sessions of tabletop roleplaying games in a former barracks gaolhouse, with around seventy people attending. This year, I ran three games and played in two more. In truth, two of those games were much more narrative story games, so I facilitated rather than acted as a traditional GM.
As usual, I was doing the badges for the convention, and this year I needed to modify them to add a QR code for the timetable (an innovation we'd added in March for Revelation which had gone down well). This meant I needed to regenerate the logo; we couldn't find the original file (it's been the same since at least 2015) so I found a similar but more modern font. The original Furnace logo was finally retired; it has lasted 19 years, but it was too long and thin to work with a QR code effectively. The substitution worked first time, which was a relief.
I'd taken the Friday before the convention off to allow myself enough time to do all the logistics things, but I still managed to end up rushed. That meant that I didn't bring anything for the Bring 'n' Buy for the first time so there was no way to assuage the slight guilt I had buying some new books from Patriot Games and All Rolled Up.
Every year, Elaine and I ask Graham if he's booked us a room at the hotel, and every year the answer has been 'yes', once he's checked. This started getting referred to as "the question", so this time I was determined not to ask it. That meant I was pretty shocked when, fifteen minutes from the Garrison, a WhatsApp message gets read out from Graham querying why I'm driving to the hotel as "you're not staying over on Friday". Fortunately, this got resolved; Graham uncanceled my room having canceled it a few hours before. That does leave me with the conundrum of whether to ask the question next convention...
When I arrived at the bar, there were two groups of gamers. I said hello to one group and sat down with a pint to watch a fascinating worker placement game (Pan Am) which the other group were playing. Andrew and Richard were happy to have a good chat while they played, and it was a chilled and fun evening. I headed for a relatively early bed.
Morning brought the 8am meet up for the traditional Garrison cooked breakfast, and we were soon in full set up mode. Graham gave the traditional opener, and we were off! Patriot Games and All Rolled Up were present, and swarms of gamers descended to see their offerings.
My character for Old Gods of Pangea, a Union Boss.
My Slot 1 game was run by Paul Baldowski and was called "Old Gods of Pangea". The scenario had come about thanks to a throwaway comment I'd made about the Welsh and Scottish mountains being part of the original Appalachian range (thanks to my A-Level Geology studying son) so why couldn't they set 'Old Gods of Appalachia' in the UK. Paul ran with it and we had a really scary adventure on the Isle of Skye. I wish we'd had some more time, as I think that we only scratched the surface of the plot and it was really evocative. I had a great group of fellow players. This was the first time I'd actually played a game that used the Cypher Engine, and I enjoyed it. That's good, because my copy of the Invisible Sun should arrive in the next month or two.
Taking glee at playing a 'Not So Easy' Card
A quick lunch from Morrisons before the first game I was running. This was 'The Zone', which I'd run previously. I'd really enjoyed it, as it evokes the Southern Reach Trilogy and other weird fiction, and one of the players from the last run through rejoined. I had a full house of six players so I facilitated rather than played, and Expedition XV headed to their doom in the heart of the Zone. The final denouement was when the cat revealed it could talk and calmly explained to the last surviving human that now it was time for them to meet their fate. I was nervous that Fil's selection of the cat could risk farce, but she played it brilliantly, and the ending was full of tension. It was also really surreal, as the cat escaped their fate several times in the session, with another character finding their doom instead each time. I must call out Dan for playing out that final scene fantastically, and also for pushing hard during the scenario. Really enjoyable, and I would play again.
Dinner was at KFC, and Keary, myself and John held our usual Furnace Bookclub, along with another con-goer. We each chicken and compare notes on good books and TV-series we've seen.
The game of Revolt, held in a darkened cell.
Slot 3 had me facilitating 'Revolt'. This was an impulse purchase of mine; the game has a woodland full of insect factions oppressed by Mortimus the Toad King, a cruel ruler who had murdered Queen Renata, the Bee Queen, to steal the throne. Totally card driven, the game has a lovely map, and the players weave a story of how a revolt brews and is then resolved. I really enjoyed listening to the story the players wove. If I did it again, I'd get some labels and standees so we could add some notes on the map to remember the tale we'd told at each location they'd visited. I think everyone had a good time.
It wasn't that late when I finished, but the bar was (surprisingly) empty, so I headed to my room for an early night and the chance to review my Dying Earth scenario. Morning brought another Garrison breakfast, and then we plunged back into the games.
Liminal fun
I played in Elaine's Liminal game in the morning, and had great fun. Liminal is such a great game and can be played with many different tones. The scenario was set in London and we tried to prevent an evil cabal of sorcerers opening a chaos gate in a long lost underground station near the Barbican. The tone was very different to the Fae, vampire and werewolf focused campaign that I'd played during COVID as a playtest for the Liminal Casebook. We had great fun, and once again, everyone got really stuck into their characters.
Lunch by Morrisons, and then the raffle. My highlight from that was Lynn and John's toddler pulling the tickets and building a huge amount of tension as he struggled to open the folded tickets and then gave out a squeal of delight. I did technically win, but put the prize back as I'd spent enough already!
The ten character cards that define a Dying Earth Revivification Folio Character
The afternoon brought 'The Dying Earth Revivification Folio', something that had filled me with both dread and excitement. I've long been a fan of the Jack Vance setting and Pelgrane's game, but the engine had left me feeling I wasn't eloquent or clever enough to run it. The Revivification Folio is a more simplified approach, but still was fun to play and absolutely captured the feel of the setting. The characters found themselves press-ganged as servants due to hidden terms and conditions in their registration at a Hotel run by a sorcerer. They were very much in denial of this (or rather the player's were) and only eventually did they begin to accept their situation. One of the players picked exactly the wrong moment to be distracted and managed to miss when their peers had their characters take on roles at the Hotel Grand Perduz, leaving only the job of the mucker for them, a very smelly and icky role.
We had the same character letting out a human eating deodand from its prison because they were convinced that they'd persuaded it not to eat them. The character ended up locked in the the deodand's cage in case they needed a snack later on. Another character cruelly abandoned their concubine to the same deodand, running out of the room and locking the door behind them. The scenario was brought to a fun conclusion, with the characters escaping by the skin of their teeth. I enjoyed it, but was forced to handwave at one point when I realised that the method of escaping from the Hotel was impossible as it needed a magic skill test and none of the six regenerated characters had that as an option. However, no harm done. Except to the young vat-grown concubine. And perhaps to the viability of the Hotel as a going concern.
And then it was the end, and I headed off home. A great weekend of gaming, and next year will mark two decades of the convention.
Five years is a long time. That's how long it has been since the last TravCon, and perhaps the most uncomfortable thing about this pilot relaunch was just seeing how all the familiar faces have aged. However, it was a fun-filled weekend of Traveller focused gaming with friends old and new, which very much captured the feel of past events.
There were some differences; although the accommodation was still at Redwings Lodge in Sawtry, the gaming moved three miles down the road to Alconbury Memorial Hall. This was a forced change because Redwings have got rid of their meeting room suite, so we had nowhere to game onsite. The format saw three normal (~4 hour) length slots on Saturday and one longer slot on Sunday. Mongoose were present over Saturday lunch and Matt Sprange gave a keynote on the state of Traveller, which was especially interesting given that most of the rights have transferred over from Marc Miller.
Although I've been active with BITS in the past, I've never really got involved in organising TravCon. Instead, I just turn up and run and play. Richard Talbot was key in the background, finding the new location and helping pull things together. He deservedly won a Starburst for Extreme Heroism for this by general acclaim of all present, and was given a limited edition book donated by Mongoose as a prize! The "P*ng, F*ck it!" prize was won by Graham Spearing for his brave but futile and fatal attempt to take a sample from a xenomorph with a spoon.
He's won a book!
I offered to run two games for the convention, figuring that I could draw upon the Scoundrels of Brixton setting zines that I've picked up recently. This is a crime focused setting, with a very cyberpunk edge to it. Officially, it isn't part of the Traveller universe, but you can easily hack the Brixton star system to being a Terran deep range colony set up a long distance rimward of the Solomani Confederation. The setting material uses the Traveller SRD in Cepheus form, and I decided to use Cepheus Universal as the engine. At the table, it just felt like Traveller.
Scenario development (screenshot of reMarkable file contents)
Two scenarios were possibly a bit ambitious, especially as Furnace falls the week immediately after TravCon, and I'd already committed to running three games and also have the con-organiser duties to deal with. I read through the three zines I've got (two physical, one PDF at the moment) and identified a number of adventure seeds that looked worth working up. Cepheus Universal outlines a recommended 5-stage approach for adventure session design, so I built everything around that, sketching out notes on my reMarkable and building the two adventures in parallel.
Loke Battlemap in action
I decided to avoid needing to prepare any maps by picking up two of the Loke Battlemap sets that I'd been eyeing up for quite a while. I grabbed the Cyberpunk and SF Giant sets, and they proved great to use in play. I think the Cyberpunk set is more useable, but both are excellent.
My first game 'A Nice and Easy In and Out"
The two scenarios were each a little different - the first one involved at heist where the party needs to extract some valuable equipment from a remote warehouse on the edge of a corporate mining town and get it back to orbit. The second was escort duty for a courier; take them to a meet, make sure that nothing bad happens to them, then get back to Sky City with the merchandise. On reflection, the first scenario provided more freedom for the party to find their own way and have some great character-led interactions. The second was much narrower; yes, it had lots of scope for the party to find its own way, but overall there was quite a clear path to follow. It wasn't a railroad, but the options were limited. It was fascinating that the players in the first group managed to mostly avoid violence, whereas it was more prevalent for the second mission. Perhaps I got the 15 and 18 ratings I gave the scenarios right.
My second adventure - "Drugs for Life". A right dodgy crew!
I generated up six characters using the UPP strings and points build method, and then rolled life path options. I did mostly flesh out the skills not taken on the career life paths as Level 0 (ie competent but no bonus). I left some of this deliberately vague so the players had the scope to tweak what was there and how they could use it in play; the first group made good use of family connections, the second leaned on their friends.
The final thing I did was steal from The Sprawl, using the Legwork and Action clocks, and using variants on the 'You get the Job' move. These worked really well, and built tension, encouraging the players to push forward and not get lost in analysis paralysis.
I was pretty much ready by Wednesday before the convention, which was when the complication struck; the kids brought 'back-to-school-itis' home and I came down quite hard with it on Thursday. I ended up deciding not to come down on the Friday night and to miss the first session (which was a shame as I was looking forward to Jeff's game of 2300AD using the Bayern mission). It was the right decision; even though I loaded up with paracetamol, Lucozade and plenty of throat lozenges, I was definitely in a better place that I would have been when I was running. The disappointment to this was missing the first 15 minutes or so of Matt Sprange's address.
The Keynote
I had a lot of fun playing Graham's game on Sunday morning; very much a frontier exploration of an Ancient's site. What was strange was that it gave me echoes of the Coriolis: The Great Dark Quickstart adventure that I played at North Star earlier this year, and then I realised that Traveller has been doing this for so much longer with Twilight's Peak and Shadows leading the way. I played a cocky pilot and we stumbled our way through the adventure to find potential riches for our very crippled merchant venture.
"A Ticket to see Oasis" - Graham's Traveller game
It was great to see so many old friends, but a bit scary to see them suddenly five years older.
Redwings was much as it ever was, pretty much on par with a Travelodge that has a small bar and games room. The Alconbury Memorial Hall was a good venue; lots of space and enough for us to easily have five games underway. I suspect that this could have been pushed to seven if we'd had enough attendees.
Andy Lilly (BITS lead) answers a question in the keynote.
It's likely that TravCon will return around March/April 2025; it's been noted that the comms needs to be better, and we'll get an opportunity to feedback some more over the next few weeks. It would also be nice to broaden the group attending, although space may limit that opportunity. Most likely it will be in the same area. There was a brief discussion on TravCon North, but there wasn't much enthusiasm for that from Andy.
The nearest thing we'll have to that is North Star, which happens in May next year in Sheffield. It's larger than TravCon already, and covers all SF RPGs, so that may well be worth pursuing if you fancy a North of England based SF con where Traveller is welcome.
In conclusion; a fun weekend playing my long term favourite roleplaying game.
