Lathany

I have a random backdrop selector on my PC at the moment. The pictures it chooses are a mixture of photos taken over the years and also a few screenshots from computer games. I keep adding to the collection, but rarely remove anything. However, now we're in December, my favourite one is probably this one.



It's not a masterpiece, but I really love it. I took it back in April when I was on holiday in the Peak District. This was the Saturday when we had the best weather.

I miss the sun right now.

Monday at the Con was outing day. Various options were mooted, but in the end seven of us headed for Poole's Cavern. We paid (technically, Alistair paid and we will pay him back) and then headed in.

This first shot is one of my better ones giving a view of the open spaces inside.



And this gives a closer view of a rock... and a cuddly bunny. It being the Easter holiday, there was a bunny spotting game for the kids - and for us. ao_lai correctly counted 15 in total.



We then had some lunch (mine was a Derbyshire oatcake) before returning to the site to wander through the Grinlow Woods (yes, really called that) to Solomon's Temple.



Afterwards we visited Arbor Low Stone Circle and Gib Hill Barrow on the way home.



We went out to dinner that evening in Cromford. We picked a pub and it turned out to be rather good. I had mushroom risotto and vanilla parfait.

Tuesday I ran Otters Court. This was not a game about a court of otters, but instead the name of a house as my working title, Floating Minds, would have given away some of the plot. It started with a very English family row in a large estate and ended in spook central with a human mind in the internet. The party (shadowjon, chrisvenus and Alistair) were excellent at tackling the difficult family moments, sorting out the body-swapped servants and then coordinating with the spooks. I enjoyed it a lot, although it turned out to be more sequel-hooky than expected.

Tuesday evening was bateleur's tortillas and cake. I think it was also one of the nights when I got to try out the Widow's Walk expansion to Betrayal at the House on the Hill. We played it twice - the first time, Traitor Ox Bellows wanted to be Pope, but we stopped him. The second time my little girl aged the party to death. She was not loved.

Twelve people roleplaying in a house in Cheltenham. On the downside, the week included many ill people (including me); on the upside, it had excellent roleplaying, gin, tapas, roasts, steak and much, much fizz. There was also a train graveyard (Final Fantasy fans take note) and bateleur and I went for walks most days.

Note: Anyone planning to play in a re-run of any of the week's games should not read the spoilers. (However, I don't know how many will re-run.)

Friday
Friday afternoon we all arrived and took rooms. Most were ensuite and all were lovely. I don't have a particularly clear picture of my room, but it did have a balcony with some good views.



quisalan cooked risottos and we ate in the long dining room.



Afterwards people headed for various sitting rooms and leathellin lit a fire in the biggest room. We sat around with drinks (and some people played boardgames).

Saturday
The first game was bateleur's Alt-Thulhu game Grand Exhibition: "The great painter Pauline deMoor has died. Now you are in the process of helping to put together a grand exhibition of her life's work." This turned out to be portals, alternate timelines and the possibility of ending the Universe. Particularly memorable was the tunnel to Hampton Court where a painting used to be. After ladders, giant beetle-like things and confusion we saved the day. And all the other days. Dinner on Saturday was the first roast, courtesy of zandev.

Sunday
Sunday's game was smiorgan's Powered by the Apocalypse game Transuranic World: "Based on the TV and audio Sapphire and Steel series. PCs are agents from a "higher power" who fix breaches in Time. Closed environment, mystery, supernatural agents and enemies, modern era (more or less)". I got to play Steel (a female version) and was very happy. This captured the TV series atmosphere beautifully. The Agents were mystic (and also somewhat out of their depth), the situation was very confusing and the human got shafted. I'm less convinced by the system, but I suspect that's down to personal taste. This was the first game we played in the largest sitting room.



Dinner was burritos from bateleur. I think this was the night that we played Betrayal at the House on the Hill. smiorgan became the traitor and beat the rest of us.

Monday
This was bateleur's systemless game The Perfect Shopping Experience: "A game about helping customers and taking pride in your work and respecting your colleagues. You can't remember what you did yesterday after you got home from work. In fact, you can't even remember where you live. You know your name, though. It's on your badge. (Spoiler: This game is not at all about what it seems to be about.)" A surreal experience of being sales people in a department store whilst our memories were - supposed to be - reset every night. We eventually figured out that we were centuries in the future and were part of a twentieth century experience experiment trying to cure the population of depression caused by a lifestyle where they had little they needed to do. Fortunately, the rebel faction rescued us and explained that our strange legal status meant we could run the new world and make decisions about the future of the human race and also AIs.

I think Monday was the first lovely day of weather after which people were outside more.



Dinner was roast number two from davefish.

Tuesday
This was my GMing day and I ran Keeper's House (percentage dice and cards): "Five people stay at Keeper's House over the weekend. This is a standalone tabletop game set in the present day. It involves pre-written characters and should be fairly system-lite." I may re-run and if anyone is interested, don't read the spoiler text. Supernatural creatures, an unfinished historical treaty between the races and snow. And a beeb. I enjoyed running this one a lot. Dinner was tapas from leathellin with triskellian's garlic and cheese pie. I think this was the night I played Flashpoint for the first time.

Wednesday
quisalan ran Relics of the Past: "Modern day game where "magic" has begun to emerge into the world in the last two generations. You are a looking for an old religious relic in Paris for a private collector, willing to pay a decent amount for it. You just need to find it..." I played the historian hunting the relic, I had been assigned two security people, a logistics man and a local guide. Plus we all had magical powers that had been appearing around the world since the 1970s (there was always something about the seventies). We tracked down a ancient church artifact and then battled it away from the person who had been using it and killing children. The powers were very nice and chrestomancy's character was very pretty.

This was my Evening of Stress as I was cooking (shepherd's pie). However, I was helped by davefish and bateleur before I dissolved into a small puddle of panic. I've not cooked for twelve before. Wednesday was also zandev's birthday and there was much champagne.

Thursday
First thing in the morning (OK, after everyone was up), chrestomancy and I went shopping for dinner. On the way back we took a somewhat unplanned detour. Although this gave me the opportunity to photograph some sheep.



Finally - the Warhammer 40K game from ao_lai: "Rogue Trader themed. Board the derelict, seize anything valuable, secure the ship if possible. What could go wrong?". It was something of a sequel to the 2012 Con game and the universe had indeed been Johned. We found a Tech Priest ship floating and its crew were chaos-tainted. We managed to destroy it... but still have a copy of the AI blueprint that's causing all the corruption (although we're not fully aware that it is the problem).

Thursday dinner was steak and salmon from chrestomancy.

Friday
The usual tidy-up and stuff.



We got home around midday to a surprised and rather vocal puss. He's been climbing on and off my lap all afternoon.

Friday was bateleur and my sixteenth wedding anniversary. We celebrated in the usual way - with food and alcohol. Food was little savoury tarts, then prawns, fish, stuffed courgettes and three grain rice followed by bananas and sultanas fried in rum and served with cream. The alcohol was Pimms, a rather nice bottle of white and Grand Marnier. Sixteen is the first anniversary in my Book of Lists that doesn't have an associated material and it suddenly feels like a big number.

From having had a relatively quiet year last year, 2011 has been full of roleplaying games. Last week we had two on.

• Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor - This is a supplement to Monsters and Other Childish Things being run by smiorgan for chrestomancy, TheHattedOne, triskellian, bateleur and me. We play eight and nine year old mutant orphans who no-one loves. We've had two sessions to date, the first of which involved everyone picking on us (although we were eventually saved from The Bad Guys by a psychotic car) and the second of which involved us finally making a friend and watched other people have bad things happen to them.
• Meteor - This was with the party who have just completed their fourth pilgrimage (of four). They spent the session critical-failing magic tests and fighting minions of the Diseased Ones. I'm now heading for a session involving both parties. And a few gods. I'm hoping that they'll get to reach some agreement about the Diseased Ones. Or at least agree that they are A Bad Thing.

It's been a while since I ran a one-off, but there's a Con next year and I'll be planning something for it. I recently read an entry (over here) about one-offs and I agree with the points raised:

• Signpost the plot clearly.
• Character attributes should fit on an index card.
• Maximum of 2 fights, preferably 1.
• Individual character information should fit on a sheet of A4.
• Stick to 1 scene per hour (on average).
• Give the PCs a reason to work together.
• World - keep 1 location per scene maximum, plus outside the sandbox as one location.
• Assume your PCs will never sleep until the game is finished.

I would add three points to the general list and one for Con one-offs. Firstly, the better one-offs I've seen tend to work on a strong concept which can play out in a few hours (this is in the same way that constructing a short story is different from constructing novels). Secondly, one-offs almost always want pre-defined characters. I have seen player-generated characters for one-offs that worked, but they tended to work because it was impossible not to rather than because they were well-chosen. Thirdly, make sure that the characters all have a role; this is equally true for other types of game but arises particularly in one-offs because the characters have less time over which to establish niches for themselves; such things have to be pre-established. Also, for Con one-offs, it's important to be aware of the number limitations (ie. don't write for a party of four if the Con needs six). So:

• Strong, one-off suited concept.
• Pre-gen characters (or a very strong steer for players).
• Ensure that there's a role for everyone and it couldn't equally be done by some subset of the party.
• Check limitations - such as number of players - for the Con.

My past solo one-offs have been rather hit-and-miss - Working With Children went well whereas the BadgerCon Athory one-off wasn't particularly memorable. My main failings are usually that I don't run with a good one-off concept (it tends to be too big) and that the party has come unstuck. It is perhaps no co-incidence that I've generally had more success with mini-campaigns (such as Kaleidoscope and From The Cellars of Xanadu).

Much of my spare time has been spent on Twin Peaks episodes (which I'll review at the end of the season). But not all.

• The Lies of Locke Lamora - This was recommended by al_fruitbat and _alanna and I really loved it. It's a very clever plot set in a fantasy background about thieves who become confidence tricksters. Technically, it's the start of a series but the book is fairly stand-alone (although there's at least one character you expect to meet and then don't and another whose exit isn't detailed). About my only whinge is that the book is very light on female characters.
• Brighton Rock - We watched the remake, which is worth it for Helen Mirren alone (and a bit of Gollum). However, the film itself isn't a masterpiece and is generally a bit too dark for my tastes.

I don't have much work news to report. However, the next time I want to take a long lunch break at work, I think I might spend it poking round the British Museum. I've finally figured out that it's just round the corner from where I work. And it's free.

Dorset, good weather, eighteen roleplayers and the little matter of the (ex) Regent.

( In other words, the White Knot turn tourists )

So, an excellent week - I'm sorry it's over.

¹ Please correct the spelling of any and all character names.
² Icon is another from the deck.
³ Be warned the site I've linked to has music.
⁴ Do these dates tie in with what everyone else thought?
⁵ See lanfykins journal.

Having finally finished my second Tutor-Marked Assignment (TMA) I thought I would get on with a belated Con write-up.

( Click if you want to read the details )

In short - I had a great holiday.

The Con itself has had a detailed write-up already from a fair number of people (including quisalan, bateleur and chrisvenus Secret Diary style). Therefore I'm going to concentrate on the games I played in, all of which I enjoyed.

( Convocation of Bones )

( Welcome to Angel, MN )

( Brace of Royalty )

( Stain and Sable )

BadgerCon was over half way through and those people frantically writing games in their spare time were finished or nearly finished.

( The final games and a couple of free evenings )

I think that BadgerCon was the most successful Con by some margin. Consequently it is unlikely to be the last. However chrestomancy had definitely earned himself early retirement from the "making it happen" post and can sit back smugly with his gold medal (or possibly gold banana).

Sunday marked the start of the games kicking off with The Founding of Star Castle (Swordmaster), Gold Team IV, Sons of David (Cthulhu) and Glory (Ralph).

( Games, games and more games )

Afternoon feeding time looms, so I'll return to this later.