Furnace 2022

Last weekend found me in Sheffield for Furnace 2022. 

Furnace runs over a weekend – three games on Saturday and two on Sunday. It takes me about an hour to get there, so I don’t play the Saturday evening game (slot 5).

One of the nice things about Furnace is putting faces to names that I see on The Tavern. Anyway, on with my games.

Slot 1 Saturday morning: The Raven Stone (AD&D, GM: Simon)

A proper, old-school game of AD&D. We had six of us trying to figure out what was causing the dead to rise (the eponymous Raven Stone) and then putting it back where it belonged.

We nearly had a player-induced TPK when our mage decided to kill a room of kobolds by drop-kicking bottles of ‘nitroglycerine’ at them. We cleared the kobolds, yes, but sadly (or, deservedly) our mage perished in the inferno.

Although I’ve been roleplaying since 1981, this was my first proper game of AD&D. I never played it back in the day (it was Traveller and Call of Cthulhu for me), and I rarely play D&D now. I found the system confusing – it lacks a modern consistency (sometimes you need to roll high, sometimes low). Luckily Simon had all the modifiers in his head, and I just needed to roll the dice.

Slot 2 Saturday afternoon: The Haunting of Abbeyham Priory (They Came From Beyond the Grave! GM: Tom)

This was delightful fun with lots of hammy fun with five of us investigating a mystery in the style of a 70s Hammer Horror movie. 

The system was simple (although we had the usual business of finding that the skills don’t quite work for the situation you want) and I really liked the quips – each character has several catchphrases that give them extra dice when they say them. So we did that often, and the system rewarded us with more dice.

A great, light-hearted con game – although I can’t imagine playing this as a campaign.

Slot 4 Sunday morning: Perfect Organism (ALIEN, GM: me)

My turn to run something. I had a few preflight nerves, but I always get that with a scenario I’ve not run before. I had one player drop, which was fine - the other three were awesome and really leaned into the conflict and agendas I’d created.

The scenario worked well (phew!), and I didn’t even kill any of the characters (although there weren’t many NPCs left alive by the end.) 

Some lovely moments: All the character banter, particularly the ICC lawyer and the W-Y executive. The players gamely ignoring what they knew and playing their characters. One player throwing an NPC into the path of an attacking facehugger. Kathar Station blowing up.

Slot 5 Sunday afternoon: Mischief Night (Liminal, GM: Sue)

Four P-Division agents tracking down some missing cream for a Halloween-themed adventure. Very irreverent, with some great banter around the table and trips into Northampton’s medieval tunnels and a creepy fairy realm.

I really like four-player games – it gives me space to develop a relationship with the other players and their characters, which I don’t find so easy with higher player counts. However, I appreciate the difficulty at conventions as it means you need more GMs.

Furnace 2023

I’m already looking forward to Furnace 2023 – but next for me is Retford freeforming in November and then Airecon in March.