Sunday, 5 January 2025

A treasure hunt in four mistakes

We had a few friends over for New Year’s Eve this/last year. We ate, drank and played a few games.

I also created a short treasure hunt, which was well received but suffered from four mistakes. Oops.

The first mistake

First, I planned for five players. That was my Mrs and Miss H, along with three friends who were joining us for NYE.  So I built a treasure hunt that had five parts.

The idea was that each part would lead to a letter, which could then be formed into a word that would lead to the hiding place for the treasure.

That final word was Volvo (the treasure was in the boot of my car).

To make it a little harder, I gave the letters as shapes, like this:

And then Mrs H reminded me that one friend wouldn’t be joining us until about 11 pm, after she had finished her shift at The Crown. Oops.

The second mistake

To make the final puzzle a little easier, I put the letters in age order. So the oldest player would get a V, the next oldest would get a O, and so on.

That meant that the clues for each letter were player-dependent.

Rather than write the name of the player on each clue, I created a code for them to crack. So, taking A=1, B=2 (and so on), I took the letters of each name and added them up.

So Steve would be 19+20+5+22+5 = 71.

(You can probably see where this is going.)

Unfortunately, it was only after I handed the players the clues that they told me that two of the numbers were the same! I genuinely hadn’t spotted my error before that.

(Luckily, it was easily fixed – once they solved the clues and worked out which set of clues was whose, I made sure they went to the right place.)

The third and fourth mistakes

For the next part of the hunt (the main part), the players had to answer questions that would lead them all over the house. The answer to each question was a letter – either an actual letter (“Eighth letter of Dunstanburgh Castle artist (in the kitchen)”) or a number that would give them a letter (“How many coat hooks are there by the front door?” – there are five, which gives E using the code as above).

Answering those clues led the players to where they would find the final clue (the shapes described above).

Only, as ever, there were two mistakes in this part of the treasure hunt… Again, they were easy to fix – but they were a little annoying.

No playtesting

It’s not the first time I’ve let (very avoidable )errors slip into my treasure hunts. In fact, I can’t think of a hunt that hasn’t had an error in it.

But that’s because I don’t test them. Inevitably I leave them to the last minute, so I don’t check them thoroughly.

And as my treasure hunts are one-and-done events for my family, anyone who could test them is inevitably playing them.

So I suspect the errors are here to stay.

Monday, 30 December 2024

2024 in games

And suddenly, it’s the end of 2024. Last time, I thought about 2024 in terms of song, this time I’m looking at it in terms of games.

Freeform Games

Freeform Games had a good year. In some ways it was not quite as good as 2023, but in other ways, better. I’ll write more about it on the Freeform Games blog, when the final numbers are in (so sometime in January).

Conventions and games weekends

I love going to conventions – I think my gaming high points have all been conventions. I enjoy them as much for meeting old friends as playing the games – and doing both is best.

In 2024 I attended:

West End Lullaby (February, Retford): The annual weekend-long freeform is back in its usual home, Retford. I played Aaron Burr and had a whale of a time in this crazy freeform based on West End musicals.

Airecon (March, Harrogate): A lovely local convention in Harrogate. I ran three tabletop RPGs and played lots of board games. As far as board games go, it’s my favourite convention.

LarpCon (March, Coalville): A convention all about larp. Mostly full of people selling stuff. It was okay, but reminded me that the freeform community is terrible at selling ourselves. I am not sure I want to go again.

Peaky (April, not far from Tamworth): I’ve been to every Peaky since it started in the early 2000s. It’s my favourite gaming weekend of the year: intense, creative and fabulous. I wrote one game and played two.

UK Games Expo (June, NEC Birmingham): UKGE is at the back end of the summer half term holiday, and because we’re normally away that week, I rarely go. This time I knew I was free, so I drove down for a day. UKGE is tiring, busy and crowded. It was okay, but I don’t feel the need to go back anytime soon.

Continuum (July, Leicester): Continuum was exciting for me for two reasons. First, Continuum moved to the Cranfield Management Centre – perhaps the best space for a convention that I’ve been to. Second, I took Megan with me. Luckily, she had a great time and wants to go to Continuum next year.

Furnace (October, Sheffield): Always a delight, Furnace is tabletop roleplaying only, and local enough that I don’t need to stay overnight. I ran one game and played in three.

Consequences (November, Chichester): Longest time away (four nights), I ran two freeforms and played in five and ran a game of Hillfolk. Too much gaming? Maybe.

Plans for 2025: Mostly the same, although I won’t go to UKGE, and I’m unlikely to go to LarpCon.

I also feel there ought to be something in Leeds. I wonder who I have to talk to about starting something up?

Freeforms

I played in or ran sixteen freeforms in 2024, which feels like a good year but is nowhere near the record of 20 in 2023. This year I ran six freeforms and played ten.

Best photo of me this year - taken for Home of the Bold at Continuum

In terms of writing, I finished and ran The Stars our Destination twice, once online and once at Consequences. I also got Backstage Business published for Freeform Games (and ran it at Continuum). I have also put together a short freeform, The Show Must Go On!, for Freeform Games that I have just sent out for playtesting. And I published All Flesh is Grass and Children of the Stars.

Favourite to run: The Stars our Destination at Consequences, which went really smoothly. I also ran Murder on the Istanbul Express for Megan’s 18th birthday in our garden, which went really well.

Favourite to play: Do You Hear The People Sing by Alex Helm was just so much fun that it was my favourte freeform of 2024 by a mile.

Plans for 2024: 

  • Write and run the game that follows The Stars our Destination – set on Callisto. (It doesn’t have a title, yet.)
  • Then start work on getting Messages from Callisto ready for publication.
  • Publish The Show Must Go On! via Freeform Games.

Tabletop RPGs

2023 was a little hit and miss in terms of TTRPGs. My regular group had to cancel rather often due to health issues – something I suspect will only increase as we all get older. 

In terms of numbers, I played more Fate Accelerated than anything else in 2024. Good Society came second, with Most Trusted Advisors and DramaSystem (Hillfolk and others) tied for third place. 

I playtested and published The Dead Undead, an investigation for Other London: Desk 17.

Favourite to run: I loved running The Dead Undead – it was very satisfying, although it took a lot longer than I expected.

Favourite to play: Good Society, which we started in 2023, was so much fun, and I had some of my single favourite sessions this year.

Plans for 2024:

  • Playtest the two scenarios I have written for the Department of Irregular Services (for Liminal) and then publish them.
  • Write an investigation for The Dee Sanction.
  • Continue working on The Orphan Room for https://fourlettersatrandom.blogspot.com/2022/11/liminal-department-for-irregular.html. It would be nice to get it to a point where I’ve tested it. But I’m aware I’ve got a lot of other projects going on.

Boardgames

In 2023, I played more games of My City than any other game. (That’s the same as 2024!) This year I played a legacy campaign on Boardgamearena, which I enjoyed. (The full campaign is 24 episodes, and it took the four of us about six months to play it.)

An honourable mention goes to Ticket to Ride: Legacy of the West, a legacy game. We’ve got two more games to play, but I’m really enjoying it. (Yes, the criticisms are valid – the early games are very short and the later games are very long. But I’m still enjoying it.)

New games to my collection:

Kavango: Collect animals for your reserve in this drafting game with similarities to 7 Wonders. I backed this on Kickstarter, and have enjoyed the handful of games I’ve played with the family. It’s got a nice theme and design – but takes up quite a bit of space on the table.

The Crew: The Quest for Planet 9. A Father’s Day gift, and one I took on holiday over the summer. It’s a cooperative trick-taking game which we enjoyed, but curiously haven’t played since we came back. (Kavango took over.)

The Mind: A deceptively simple game about emptying your hand without communicating. Really good filler with the right group.

6 Nimmt: Excellent game that plays with up to 10 players (!) – simultaneously. I’ve played this with friends but not with the family yet.

D-Day Dice expansions: D-Day Dice was the first game I ever Kickstarted, and I backed the second edition as well. D-Day Dice is a dice-rolling push-your-luck game of storming the beaches on D-Day.  It plays really well solo, and I enjoy it a lot. This year, several expansions turned up for it – I now have enough D-Day Dice goodness to last me for years. (But there’s more planned…)

Plans for 2024: Play more games! Always! No doubt my games collection will swell – at least until I get rid of some of it. Already on order is Innovation Deluxe (card-based craziness from Carl Chudyk), due early next year. And D-Day Dice: Pacific Kickstarts in January. I expect I’ll back that.

Video games

And I played more World of Tanks Blitz than is probably healthy. It’s probably time I uninstalled it again.

And overall?

2024 was great for games. I feel very lucky I’m able to play so many games.

Tuesday, 24 December 2024

2024: The year of song

For me, 2024 was the year of song.

Yorkshire Voices

First, it was my first full twelve months of being in a choir. I’d been in a couple of short-lived choirs before, but I started 2024 in Yorkshire Voices, and I ended 2024 in Yorkshire Voices.

It’s been really good – we’ve learned loads of songs, we put on free concerts quite a few times a year, and there’s a nice social scene. It’s lovely.

West End Lullaby

In February, I played in West End Lullaby, a weekend freeform based on various UK and US musicals. (I was Aaron Burr from Hamilton, with a dash of Pierce Brosnan’s character from Mama Mia!) More singing and much laughter.

Backstage Business

After West End Lullaby, I developed and published Backstage Business for Freeform Games. Backstage Business is all about a band after their first tour – and whether they continue or not.

No actual singing is required by anyone.

I ran it successfully at Continuum, and we published it shortly after that.

Success2Soon

Success2Soon is another band-related game, this time a Hillfolk playtest. I created this because as I was working on Backstage Business, I realised how well it would suit Hillfolk.

So I ran this at Furnace and then put it on Itch.io.

All You Need Is Love

Then, at Consequences 2024, I played in All You Need Is Love, another game about being in a band. This time, I was a player, and as part of the game, we sang Beatles songs.

Do You Hear The People Sing

And finally, also at Consequences, I played Do You Hear The People Sing, which is about an amateur dramatics society putting on Les Miserables. Lots of songs from Les Miserables, and I played Thenardier, so I got to sing lots of good ones.

A year in song

So there we go. A year in song.

I wonder what 2025 will bring.

Monday, 16 December 2024

Children of the Stars

I’ve just put Children of the Stars on Itch.io.

Set in 1983, Children of the Stars is a science fiction first-contact freeform set in an alternate timeline where aliens are secretly on Earth. Decisions made during the game will affect future games – and maybe even the future of humanity itself!

Children of the Stars is the third in the series, following All Flesh is Grass (also on Itch) and The Roswell Incident (published through Freeform Games.

Writing history

I wrote Children of the Stars in 2022, and because I was preparing Writing Freeform Larps, I found it useful to work through the process again.

And I wrote about writing Children of the Stars here, on the blog, in four posts.

I have so far run it twice, once online and once at Consequences 2022. Assuming that I stick with my current plan, I expect I will next run it at Consequences 2026. (I want to run All Flesh is Grass in 2025.)

A long gap between publishing

There are many reasons for the long gap between finishing Children of the Stars and getting it ready for publication. These are some of them:

  • I’m easily distracted. I’m usually working on three or four projects at any one time. It would have come out quicker if I’d been focused only on Children of the Stars. But I like the variety.
  • Before I could publish Children of the Stars, I wanted to first publish the two games earlier in the series. The Roswell Incident was published in 2023, and All Flesh is Grass earlier this year, in 2024.

I also worked on the next episodes, Messages from Callisto (first run in 2023) and The Stars our Destination (first run in 2024).

But how to publish it?

It’s taken me a while to figure out how to publish Children of the Stars. As I’ve mentioned before, decisions made in earlier games affect what happens in later games. So, in All Flesh is Grass, the players can set up situations that affect later games. (Indeed, the decisions affect whether certain characters actually appear.) 

I’ve run Children of the Stars twice so far, and in both cases, a particular solution was chosen. So as part of getting it ready for publication, I’ve had to write additional material for those alternative timestreams. That’s been fun, but has meant that getting Children of the Stars ready for publication hasn’t been as simple as just top-and-tailing it.

My first idea was to create lots of alternative files for the alternate timelines – but that got confusing really quickly. So, instead, I’m using coloured text in MS Word files to denote different timestreams. The GM will then have to choose which of the coloured text suits their campaign so far.

Luckily, my friend James G ran All Flesh is Grass recently, and I’ve shared Children of the Stars with him. He gave me some good feedback and confirmed that the coloured text approach works well.

What’s next?

Now that Children of the Stars is done, I will start working on episode 6, which involves a mission to Callisto. It doesn’t have a title yet.

Once I’ve run that, I’ll get it ready for Consequences 2025. And then, I will start to work on getting episode 4 (Messages from Callisto) into a publishable stage.

So that should keep me out of mischief for a good while.

Monday, 9 December 2024

Other London: The rats

I had an idea for an Other London faction led by a rat king. I’m not sure it will fit into the current investigation I’m working on, so I’m parking it here so I don’t lose it.

The Rats

Concept: Rat swarm commended by an intelligent rat king

Trouble: Hunted by those who made Us

Goal: Seek allies and find a safe harbour

In a laboratory somewhere, researchers conducted unethical experiments and created a rat king. Unknown to the researchers, their new creation was intelligent and was learning as much about them as they were about it.

When the rat-king had learned enough, it escaped the laboratory and fled through the sewers. It now hides from those who hunt it in London’s underground places: sewers, drains, cellars, tunnels.

The rat king, who calls itself Seven-as-One is no longer alone. It leads an army of rats, plus it now has a few human allies. However, it still searches for a safe space – and it still seeks human allies.

Information, rumours, lies

  • Rats have recently behaving strangely in London.
  • Rats are everywhere, watching, listening.
  • Someone or something is controlling rats.
  • A rat king has come to Other London.
  • Rat kings have a gestalt intelligence formed from several stupid rat brains.
  • Rat kings can direct and control other rats.

Questions

  • Who made Seven-as-One?
  • How was Seven-as-One made, and is it repeatable?
  • What happens if one of the seven dies - can it be replaced?
  • What does Seven-as-One really want?
  • Can Seven-as-One find a home?

Enemies: Fae (for whom rats are unclean vermin), their creator

Allies: None – yet

Location: Anywhere out of sight, underground.

Seven-as-One: Nervous rat king made of up seven laboratory rats linked by their tails, gestalt intelligence, quick learner, I learned more from my creators than they realised

Awesome (+4) at: Commanding rats

Good (+2) at: Computers, electronics, languages, subterranean London

Bad (-2) at: Moving fast

Stress: O O

Seven-as-One is always thinking ahead, fearing the worst and expecting danger around every corner. Their caution isn’t just paranoia, the scientists who created Seven-as-One would dearly like their creation back. Seven-as-One learned computers and electronics from the lab they were kept in, and communicates with their human allies through and old laptop. (They find touchscreens hard to use; their claws get in the way.)

Loyal rat army: Swarm of wriggling rats

Awesome (+4) at: Escaping, wriggling, scavenging, scaring folk

Good (+2) at: Biting, gnawing, climbing, following Seven-as-One’s orders

Bad (+2) at: Taking independent action

Stress:  O O O

Consequences:

Mild (2)

Marky P: Young agent of Seven-as-One, quiet and watchful, a runaway

Good (+2) at: Scavenging, taking care of rats

Bad (+2) at: Talking to people

Stress:  O

Marky P is a runaway kid who stumbled across Seven-as-One and is now their human hands. Marky ran away from his abusive father and had been living on the streets for a few days before meeting the rat king. Seven-as-One recognised a fellow runaway, and the two now help each other.

Monday, 2 December 2024

Could AI art be good for some TTRPGs?

I had lots of lovely conversations at Consequences, but one that stayed with me was one that I had with Kris that covered all sorts of topics and inevitably stumbled on to the subject of AI.

And, as is often the way, I realised later what I should have said at the time. So here I am.

While we mostly agreed, I found the conversation slightly awkward because I’ve used AI art for character portraits in my Other London RPG books. I don’t hide the fact, or try to pass them off as anything other than AI art. But they’re there and it was clear that Kris disapproved.

Evil AI character portrait
from The Dead Undead

As I understand it, the two main arguments against using AI art are copyright and employment.

(There’s also an argument against AI about their huge energy costs, but I don’t know enough about it to argue either way.)

Stealing copyright

So, one of the complaints about AI is that it steals the copyright of real artists.

I have no idea how true this is.

I have a vague sense of how ChatGPT and text-based AI tools work (they’re a bit like suped-up predictive text on a smartphone), and as a result, to me, they don’t feel like a breach of copyright. (I am sure my words have been used to train the models at some point, and I’m relaxed about it.)

But AI art? That seems like magic to me. Maybe it’s exactly the same, maybe it isn’t. I don’t know.

So I genuinely don’t know if AI art is stealing copyright. (And when you dig into what copyright actually is, things aren’t much clearer.)

But I’m not a lawyer, and it’s been ages since I played one in a game. Right now, as far as I am aware, all that the courts have ruled is that AI art cannot be copyrighted. (So if you want to steal the character portraits in my books, I can’t stop you.)

They’ve yet to decide whether using art to train an AI model is theft – but that’s a matter of time before that decision is made.

Stealing work

The other argument is that AI art puts real artists out of a job.

That may be true. But in playing with AI art, I’ve learned that it’s very hard to get exactly what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for a consistent vision, or if you have a particular idea of what you want illustrated, you’re better off with a human. (At least, for now.)

If you just want generic fantasy art and you’re not too fussy, then AI will suit you fine. 

Otherwise, you’ll need a real artist.

(For the rest of the art in Other London, I took photos and played around with them in an art package. I couldn’t get what I wanted from AI.)

Mediocre artists at risk

Much in the same way that artisan bakers exist alongside mass-produced sliced bread, I don’t think talented artists have much to fear from AI art – as their art will always be in demand. However, I think mediocre artists have more to worry about. 

Mediocre artists like me.

I create the art for most of the games at Freeform Games. I create a pen-and-ink sketch for each item, scan it in, tidy it up, then print it out and colour by hand, before scanning it in. I’d be so happy if I could replace that with AI art.

Here’s a teabag I did for one game.

So for the purposes of this post, I tried to get an AI programme to give me a picture of a teabag. Here are the results:

These are what Artflow's AI thinks a teabag is...

I admit that my prompting skills need work, but I don’t think I’m out of a job just yet.

But what about Other London’s AI art?

I tried to argue with Kris that no artists were hurt by my use of AI art in Other London because I was never going to use human art anyway. If AI art hadn’t been an option, there would be no character portraits, and the book would be a little less attractive.

However, I think there may be a deeper point that I only thought of afterwards.

Without AI art, Other London might not exist at all.

Now, I can’t remember my thinking at the time, but I’m pretty sure that without being able to use AI for the portraits, Other London would still just be a pile of notes on my hard drive. 

So maybe AI art isn’t the destructive force it’s often taken for?

Maybe, like word processors and DTP software, it creators like me bring their work to a wider audience.

Yes, some of that work may be mediocre (I hope Other London isn’t, but your opinion may vary). And yes, AI art has a certain “look” that isn’t always appealing.

But if AI art means that people like me can bring their words to life, then surely that’s a good thing? 

At least, I think it is. But maybe I would say that.

Other London’s future

Should Other London become a success (and it’s not even sold 50 copies yet), then I’m happy to find an artist to work with to replace the AI portraits.

But right now, it’s either AI character portraits or no portraits, and I like to see what my NPCs look like.

Friday, 29 November 2024

Consequences 2024

Last time, I was looking forward; now it’s time to look back. So how was Consequences 2024?

(And I should say that, strictly, this was “Quintessential Consequences,” but I prefer to remember them by the year, and as this is my blog, that’s what I’ll do.)

TL;DR: Consequences 2024 was awesome and I’m looking forward to next year. 

Logistics and accommodation

Consequences had a new venue for 2024, Lakeside Holiday Park near Chichester. It’s a five-hour drive from Yorkshire, so I set off early. (I’m not organised enough to take the train, and taking a car meant I could overpack.)

Our 6-berth static caravan. Not recommended for 6 adults.

The accommodation is either in a lodge or a static caravan. I shared a 6-berth static caravan with James, Kath and Matt. That was extremely cheap (it worked out at about £25 per room per night) but there were compromises – the bedrooms were tiny. I wasn’t sharing my twin room, and I wouldn’t have wanted to as the gap between the narrow beds was about six inches. Kath and Matt shared the double room but had no space for their luggage, which they left in the general social area. We did have two bathrooms, although one was so small if you’re any bigger than I am you would struggle.

The static caravans feel like they’re designed for a family (the twin rooms would be fine for kids).

The lodges, on the other hand, are much more luxurious and have much more space. However, there were only a limited number of them available, and we didn’t really need the extra space.

Consequences doesn’t provide meals, but the lodges/caravans have cooking facilities, and meals are available at the bar. I brought things for breakfast and lunch, and had bar meals in the evening.

For owls, not larks

It’s worth noting that Consequences caters more for the owls than it does for us larks. (And for Americans who haven’t adjusted their body clocks yet.) 

As an example, breakfast butties were only available from 9:30 – that’s practically mid-morning for me! And parties start late and carry on into the early hours.

That’s not a gripe, just an observation. If you are a lark, you just need to be wary of who you lodge with. And bring your own breakfast.

Spellbound

Written by Maria & Jeppe Bergmann Hamming and run by Mo Holkar, Mike Snowden and Quinn D.


Spellbound
was the game I was most concerned about before Consequences. It seemed to be the most Nordic of the larps, and that’s not something I’ve done before. I don’t really know how Nordic it was, but there were lots of workshops and the game was conducted silently while moving to music. (Eerie non-English folk/rock/indie music. No idea of the genre. Some vocals sounded like Bjork might have sung them, but I honestly don’t know. I didn’t recognise any of it – and it was suitably weird.)

As there were no words, the workshops covered (with varying degrees of success) how to move and how to interact. Broadly we were split into two camps – humans and the immortal undergrounders (in their glorious masks). The broad arc of the story was about how the undergrounders bound humans to their will, toyed with them, and then whether the humans returned to the human world or stayed.

And did I enjoy it? I think I did, eventually. I was way outside of my comfort zone to begin with, but after 20 minutes or so, I was getting the hang of it. It could have been 30 minutes shorter – we could have had fewer scenes, and each scene could easily have been at least one song shorter. 

Talking to one of the human players afterwards (I was an undergrounder), apparently, in one of the early breaks, they quickly agreed on a story and connection between themselves, which helped their game immensely. I might have enjoyed it more if the undergrounder also had more to them.

I’m glad I did it but I doubt I’d rush back to do a game like it again.

Incidentally, the original larp materials are here. And these are the Spotify playlists: Conflict, Party, Seduction, and Sentimental.

Friday

I had a terrible night’s sleep – which is usual for my first night at a games convention. At Consequences, this was compounded by the bitterly cold weather, and the caravan got very cold.

The Stars our Destination

This was my game, and the fifth in my series of first contact games. I don’t have much to say about it other than the players seemed to enjoy it. It went well from my perspective – I have a few tweaks to make here and there, but nothing major seemed to be broken.

Players conferring in groups: how a typical freeform looks

Next year I plan to bring episode 6. Assuming I can figure out how to make it work.

All You Need Is Love

Written and run by Laura Wood and Ruth Trenery-Leach.

2024 has been my hear of song/band larping (and it arguably started in 2023 with That Difficult Second Album at Peaky 2023). So there’s been West End Lullaby, Backstage Business, Success2Soon, All You Need Is Love, and (later on), Do You Hear The People Sing.

Anyway, in All you Need Is Love we were a newly-formed band that went through a defined arc that included singing Beatles songs to each other.

As the arcs were predefined, it felt more like theatrical improv rather than a “game”. So one scene included something like, “F is angry that their more experimental work is not being released by the band.” So we improvised and acted that out. So, on one hand, we weren’t given any agency in choosing the direction, but we did have agency in how we played that out.

Critically, though, this also avoided the dreaded freeform compromise. F argued that he only wanted one song on the next album, just one. And it would have been so easy to compromise and say yes, we’ll give you one song. But the directions didn’t let us do that, and so we couldn’t compromise – which was a very pleasant change.

Another oddity about the game was that we had 12 players, split into two groups of six. Each group had exactly the same instructions, with the same character packs, arcs and songs. But we fleshed out the details. It sounds like it shouldn’t work – but it did. There was no crossover between the groups, and while it’s tempting to suggest that might be something to try, I think it’s fine that there was no crossover.

As for me, I played “C”, who I named Charlie, who struggled with fame and unrequited love. I had a great time playing them with my fellow band members (played by Mo, Nickey, Karim, Dave and Ben).

And of course, it’s a lot of fun singing Beatles songs together.

The Koenig Dead

Written by Tony Mitton and run by Tony and AJ Smith.

I played Captain Alix Orban and wish I’d spent longer absorbing my 20-page character pack. As I mentioned last time, I found the character sheet a bit confusing, and during play, I struggled to look anything up in the heat of the moment. But unfortunately, I got distracted and didn’t do as much homework as maybe I should have.

Anyway, the game was fine. As the captain, I was always being called upon, but of course, I didn’t know that much – even if I’d memorised my character sheet, much of the detail was known by others. I had a lovely time interacting with my crew and Steve Bassett’s sinister Armari Thrace who gave me a hard time about the last time our character’s paths had crossed.

Other than the flow of the character sheet, my minor criticisms are:

  • The game space was slightly too small for our 14 players. That was a surprise as The Stars our Destination also had 14 players, but didn’t feel cramped in the same way. (Maybe the extra GM made all the difference.)
  • The game has content warnings, but there are a couple of occasions where even I thought, “ew” and wondered if they were necessary. (If the game were actually about those issues, then that would be different, but I didn’t expect it in a game based loosely on Firefly.)
  • For new players to the crew of the Kestrel, I think twenty minutes at the start of the game for the crew and passengers to get to know each other and understand what happened last episode would be time well spent. I’m sure the game is much smoother when those playing the continuing characters have played them previously.

Saturday

I had a slightly better night’s sleep (helped by the warmer weather), but it was still not brilliant, and I woke as usual at around 6 am.

Do You Hear The People Sing?

Written and run by Alex Helm, and subtitled “How the GM got their friends to perform Les Miserables for them”.

Photo by Tsijon

I played Franky Jackson who plays Thenardier (and a few other minor roles) in Les Mis. And it was a hoot. It was chaos, with singing and wild accusations, songs tanked, and I even brought the plate of sardines on stage for Master of the House. The actors playing Cosette and Eponine switched roles halfway through, but luckily the audience didn’t notice.

Definitely the highlight of Consequences for me. If you get the chance, play it.

I’d happily play it again, and I’m also hoping it creates a new genre of farce-musical crossovers that I can play. Mamma Mia, anyone?

Batukh Hungers!

Written and run by Alex Helm.

As I suspected before the game, Batukh Hungers! is a balloon debate: someone has to sacrifice themselves to the dark god, but nobody wants it to be them.

And to my surprise, it ended up being me!

I had a lovely game, particularly the angst and philosophical discussions on the nature of love with my wife (played by Elina), but it wasn’t until the last thirty minutes that I suddenly realised that I didn’t want my wife to be destroyed by the dark god. That led to a great finale – I could see other cult members persuading Elina to sacrifice herself, so I stepped forward and offered myself, and she tried to stop me. But failed.

A lovely ending to the game – nice and dramatic.

Sunday

I had a much better night’s sleep. I got back to the caravan at about 11:30 pm and had a decent wind down before going to bed. That seemed to work.

Hillfolk

On Sunday morning, I ran Hillfolk. I gave the players (JD, Martin, Clare, Heidi and Graham) a choice of the setting, and they chose Hazelwood Abbey (Downstairs) – which is the servants' playset I created for Hazelwood Abbey. This suited me as it’s the playset I hadn't run.

Nobody had played Hillfolk before, but they soon got the hang of it, and we had a dramatic story that featured a broken mirror and the blandest of bland pies. Nobody had chosen the butler or housekeeper roles, so I told everyone the old butler had left, but that the family were looking to replace him. I later told the housemaid that they would be happy to consider her for the position of housekeeper instead of a butler, creating a bit of competition.

We ended up with three procedural scenes – trying to fix a new mirror into the old frame (fail!), making a sauce (success!), and the housemaid and valet competing for the position of housekeeper or butler.

We talked about dramatic poles at the end, but everyone found the actual mechanic for determining who gets the bennies to be far too cumbersome. So we ignored that. I think in future, I will end by asking each player what we see their character doing in five years’ time. 

Interestingly, the more I run Hillfolk one-shots, the harder it is to imagine it as a longer-form game. Maybe that should be a goal for 2025.

The Roswell Incident

And finally, I ran The Roswell Incident. This is the first game in my multi-game first-contact series of freeforms, and the start of what I am calling Timeline 3. (The Stars our Destination was episode five of Timeline 2. Timeline 1 is online.)

For me, this was probably my least favourite game of Consequences. I made a couple of poor GM calls, and while I think most of the players had a good time, not all of them did. I’ve got a pile of notes to reflect on.

I think one of the problems is that I’ve published The Roswell Incident through Freeform Games, and more of the secrets come out during that (as it’s a one-shot) than is probably ideal for the start of a series of games. But maybe that doesn’t matter – I guess I find out next year when I run part 2, All Flesh is Grass.

Getting back

I think I may have figured out my problem with sleep.

At gaming cons, I think I get over-stimulated with the games and people and conversations and ideas, and I need peace and quiet before I try and sleep. I probably need more than I think – so maybe at least 30 minutes on my own. And I think I need to read a book, something unrelated to the event; reading calms my mind and tells my brain that it’s time to go to sleep. Which is what I did on Sunday night, by making sure I was back in the caravan shortly after 10 pm and having time to wind down. I will try and remember this for Shogun in 2025.

And so on Monday, after the best night’s sleep so far, I drove back, listening to the splendid Aldritch Kemp and the Rose of Pamir on BBC Sounds.