Retcon 1

Over a late-November weekend in 2022, I went to Retcon 1. I think I can call it that – its official title was the Retford Moot A, but it gained the nickname Retcon at some point.

West Retford Hotel - home of Retcon 1

Retcon is a convention full of freeforms, boardgames, and a few other bits and pieces (such as a sewing room and tea party). It replaced Consequences, which usually takes place in Naish Holiday Park on the Hampshire coast. I’ve never been to Consequences – the five-hour drive puts me off. I’m not sure why Retcon replaced Consequences this year. Whatever the reason, I was happy as Retford is an hour away. So off I went.

The best bit about Retcon was seeing lots of my freeforming friends, most of whom I hadn’t seen since the start of the pandemic.

I played (or ran) five freeforms and many boardgames.

Warning – spoilers ahead for the freeforms. Look away now!

Sword Day (mildly spoilery)

My first freeform of the weekend. I had brought a (minimal) costume for Sword Day, but because I couldn’t get into my room (and didn’t want to change in the loos), I didn’t costume. I wasn’t the only person without a costume, so I didn’t feel too out of place.

Sword Day is a Game of Thrones-ish political freeform for 11 players. The king has died, and a new sovereign must be chosen to wield the sword Bargash. It was written by Mike Cule, Nick Curd, Adrienne Gammons, John Kammer and Charlie Paull.

I played Lord Rory Canton, and this was the second time I’d played the game (I played it years ago at Peaky and couldn’t remember much of it).

It was lots of fun, with political scheming and worrying about dragons and goblins. It suffered a little from some of the smaller plots being trampled on by the big goblin plot – I suspect a bit of timetabling would help with that (forcing those plots to be resolved before the big plot arrives).

Overall, a great start to the convention.

Critical Path (very spoilery)

On Friday evening, I played Critical Path, a much-hyped nine-player game that mostly lived up to its hype.

Critical Path involves the maiden flight of the Victoria 2, a spaceship powered by the “Kent Micronite Drive,” which drastically reduces travel time by making hyperwave jumps. It was written by Amanda Brown, Jill Krynicki Dutcher, James Silverstein, Brandon Brylawski, and Doug Freedman. I played engineer Ian Clark – I built the ship. As you might expect, things don’t go exactly to plan.

Critical Path reminded me of Sliding Doors, the Gwyneth Paltrow movie of different timelines. Critical Path takes this up to 11, with lots of roads not taken playing out. Each time the Victoria 2 entered hyperwave, something about the past changed – often in awful ways. Then hyperwave would be over, and we would return to reality while keeping the memory of that alternate timeline.

And we did this over and over again. Soon, we all dreaded the hyperwave jumps, not knowing what was coming…

For some players, the game was very angsty (I was playing one of the less angsty characters). I can see why it’s raved about, but I suspect that depends on which character you play, as Ian had little to do during parts of the game. I did like the lovely sense of dread each time the warp drive fired up.

The set dressing worked well – coloured lights indicated what phase the engines were operating at, and we had the same (if shapeless) ship uniforms. Numerous computer announcements were delivered using a soundtrack – although “critical path” sounded like “crinkle path” to me. As that happened on every jump, it made me snigger.

K300: Nyet SOS! (mildly spoilery)

K300 is a crazy Russian submarine game for up to 12 players (we had ten). It was written by Mike Young and Laura Parnham. Things keep going wrong with the K300 – floods, fires, system failures, and even a Kraken attack. So, the crew desperately fixes the ship, and if anyone fails, everyone dies.

We all died – the reactor overloaded. (Surviving for 60 minutes is a win – we died with less than ten minutes to go.)

Fixing floods and fires involves physically dealing with the problem. Fixing a system crash (in the torpedoes, reactor, or other systems) involves solving a small computer puzzle – these get harder as the game progresses.

Plus, there are some plots, and we all had characters.

I had a lovely time being the political officer and doing little except criticising everyone else. As I did nothing to help the K300, I am sure I was partially responsible for our failure, but we had a lovely time. At one point, it felt like the fires were following me, but I think that was just a coincidence.

K300 is one of those games where the main plot (the cranky sub) overwhelms any character stuff that might go on. There’s some character stuff, but it’s almost irrelevant. My character sheet could have been clearer - if you’re not familiar with Russian names, then it’s easier to remember someone’s job title. It would have helped if all the names were followed by their job titles.

Murder on the Istanbul Express (not at all spoilery)

I ran Murder on the Istanbul Express, an 11-player game (although I had 12 – I snuck in an extra) from Freeform Games. The game is set aboard a luxury train travelling to Paris from Istanbul – and a maid has been murdered.

Although the game went well and the feedback was good, there were a few highly embarrassing clangers in the plot, so I’ve since been editing the game to sort that out.

Playing Murder on the Istanbul Express

Castleford Ladies Magic Circle Meets Tonight (no spoilers)

This is a horde game with six main characters and many bit parts, who all play ghosts. The game is based on the ribald songs of Jake Thackery and was written by Suey, Phil Dall, Kevin Jacklin, Christie S – and me. As Suey, Kevin and Christie were also helping to run the game, I didn’t have to do much.

From what I could tell, the game went well.

Blood on the Clocktower (impossible to spoil)

Although not a larp, my favourite game of the weekend was Blood on the Clocktower, which I played four times. Blood on the Clocktower is a social deduction game, like Werewolf, Mafia, and The Resistance. It differs from those games as it has a storyteller who doesn’t take a role but instead manages it for everyone else.

I’m not sure how much fun being the storyteller is, but I really enjoyed playing Blood on the Clocktower.

Retcon 2

And apart from some board games, that was my weekend. I’m already looking forward to Retcon 2 in February 2023.

Liminal: the Department for Irregular Services

I had an idea for a Liminal crew while I was on holiday – the Department for Irregular Services.

Silbury Hill, not far from the DfIS office. Please do 
NOT to climb the monument as it disturbs the spirits there.

Ancient monuments can be a draw for liminal beings. So, to both protect those beings and the general public (not to mention employees), the Office of Works set up the Department for Irregular Services (DfIS) in 1703. The department is now part of Historic England.

The DfIS deal with boggarts, ghost realms, fae, trolls and more. A Footpath Closed sign might indicate a footpath in need of repair, or it might be to avoid disturbing a sleeping troll.

Currently led by Bernard McTavish, the group is a team of six, based out of a haunted office in Marlborough, Wiltshire.

The team are now all getting on a bit – the youngest is 53. Most of the team have Lore and The Sight – both are essential in their kind of work.

Crew goal: Deal with liminal hazards (creatures, realms, etc) affecting Britain’s historical monuments. Protect monuments, employees and the public from liminal hazards – and vice versa.

Assets

Base of operations: An old office in Marlborough. Haunted.

Occult library:  Managed by Hester Babbage, the wheelchair-bound archivist.

Support: The crew are English Heritage employees.

Transport: Two pickup trucks with Highway Maintenance markings.

Hangers-on: Associates and contacts in English Heritage, National Trust, Cadw, Historic Scotland and elsewhere.

Cases

I’m not sure what I’m doing with the Department for Irregular Services yet, but I’m thinking about it. Maybe something for Furnace. 

(And while I’m waiting, they can sort out the Hardknott Roman Fort ghost realm and make the site safe for visitors.)

Fountains Abbey at dusk. The carving of the green man has
been known to sing, but sadly not while the DfIS has been on site.

Perfect Organism: the premiere

As mentioned in this post, I ran Perfect Organism, my ALIEN cinematic scenario, for the first time at Furnace in October. (And here are my design notes for Perfect Organism. And the game files.)

I had three players (one dropped out just before we started, but that was fine, as three is a good number for me). We took about three hours to play through the scenario, which was just the right length for the slot. With more players, I suspect it would have taken a little longer.

While I had a few preflight nerves, they vanished as soon as we started playing, and the players leaned into their agendas and the conflicts.

Extra prep needed

While preparing Perfect Organism, I realised I had forgotten to include agendas for Acts 2 and 3, so I created those.

I also realised that I might need some backup PCs. In the original scenario, the NPCs are mere shells—I hadn’t created full stats for them (having played a fair bit of ALIEN, I don’t believe full NPC stats are needed). However, that would be different for replacement PCs, so I picked five NPCs and fleshed them out.

I also created a key rules summary (basic tasks, stress, panic, combat) as I know I don’t find the ALIEN ruleset easy to remember.

I’ve added the backup PCs and amended files to the website.

Open secrets

Perfect Organism requires the players to separate what they know from what their characters know. This works two ways:

• The scenario takes place shortly after Alien and Aliens, but not everything that happens in those movies is known by the characters.
• The way I’ve set up the characters’ secret backgrounds means that the game could lead to note-passing and private conferences. I didn’t want that, so we agreed to play everything up front.

The players were happy to play this way—I think playing with all the secrets hidden wouldn’t have been as much fun.

Acts 1, 2 and 3

So how did it play? Within the first five minutes, the ICC lawyer started accusing the Weyland-Yutani executive of negligence and conspiracy while the USCMC major in charge of everything tried to calm everyone down.

I played all the NPCs passively – they mostly reacted to what was happening. As I had anticipated that I might run this with fewer than five players, I had prepared events in each Act for what their characters would do.

So it played really well. I’m not going into details (to avoid spoilers), but some key moments were:

• The PCs took their ship, the Coyote, down to the surface of LV-426. I hadn’t expected that, but in hindsight, it seems obvious.
• At one point, a facehugger attacked one player. It was an instant-smothering, with no chance to avoid—except the player used the Personal Safety talent to put an NPC in the line of fire instead. Nasty.
• I had one full-grown xenomorph attack the group. They killed it as it played with one of the NPCs—but then that NPC died from acid burns.
• The PCs blew up Kathar Station, which was cinematic, but I hadn’t expected it.
• We had a nice, downbeat ending. The PCs all survived, but most of the NPCs had died by xenomorph or explosion or had been abandoned by the PCs.

Overall I was happy with how the game ran. The players seemed to enjoy it and suggested they might run the scenario themselves.

Post-game amendments

I made a few amendments to the game after Furnace, but they were typos and clarifications rather than radical changes.

One of the other GMs at Furnace used standees for characters and NPCs, and I thought that was a good idea, so I’ve created table tents for all the characters. I took faces from Stefan Isburg’s wonderful ALIEN Character Compendium (no link, but you can find it on the ALIEN RPG Discord server) and created male and female table tents for each PC and single-gender tents for the NPCs (and some for the xenomorphs).

I’m now looking forward to the next time to run it – maybe at GoPlayLeeds or Airecon. Or both.

Heart of Darkness timeline

As I mentioned in my review of ALIEN Heart of Darkness, I believe it needs a clear timeline of past events for the GM. It’s fine for players to have to puzzle out what happened, but the GM should have that at their fingertips.

So I’ve created one.

Italics are my comments, as occasionally things don’t make sense. Page numbers refer to where I found the information. I may have missed something – if so, let me know.

Spoilers ahoy!

2111

USCSS Cronus visits 26 Draconis and discovers an Engineer facility. They trigger a device that collapses a red star into a black hole which then starts devouring the other two stars in the system. As a result, Colonial Administration put a travel and exploration ban on the system. [p. 5 – What did Colonial Administration know about what happened with the Cronus? And why didn’t W-Y follow up, as I would expect them to be all over 26 Draconis given what the Cronus found (Engineer star forge, bioweapons, translated hieroglyphs? And why didn’t anyone else want to investigate the mysterious new black hole – even if only in the name of science? UPDATE - this lack of follow-up may be explained by the 20 Parsec Limit, imposed in 2112 and detailed on p21 of the CMOM. Bad luck if you only have the Starter Set (and I can't see it in the Core Rulebook either).]

2173

“Twelve years ago, a company probe flyby catalogued the young singularity, reporting the system’s breakdown and its high-energy output. Weyland-Yutani won the exploitation contract from Colonial Administration and set up Erebos station to harness the plasma flow in energy trawlers.” [p.6]

2175

Erebus established, with Wicks as station manager [p.22] and Stykes as Colonial Marshall.

2177?

After her shuttle was stuck in a decaying orbit around the black hole for eight hours, Wicks returned changed… somehow different. She blew up a plasma tank and set fire to the station. Stykes claims she led a company revolt that resulted in 67 roughnecks dying trying to extinguish the fire. (However, Skykes killed them when he vented the airlocks.) Erebos is converted to a maximum-security prison, with Stykes its warden and Wicks one of its prisoners. [p.11]

Wicks continues to claim that the black hole made her blow up the plasma tank and wants revenge on Stykes and to destroy Erebos. [p.22]

6 to 12-month staff rotation implemented. (Crew rotation ship visits on a six-monthly basis.)

2178?

Project Ironfish implemented, known only by Stykes and Clerke. [p.11]

2185

April to July 2185: Hellassian lights identified swarming around a meteoric mass. Clerke requests permission to anchor Erebus to study the new lifeform. An uptick in NDD symptoms recorded. (p.6 – presumably, the increase in NDD symptoms is related – but how? And why?]

Early August 2185: Green light is given to anchoring the Erebos to the “meteoric mass” (the Cheiron) to the Erebos. Team of scientists rapidly assembled. [p.9 – The “green light” indicates FTL communication between Erabos and Gateway Station, although nobody seems to use this to communicate anything of importance after this, such as what’s going on.]

7 August 2185: USCSS Cetorhina leaves Gateway Station for 26 Draconis, carrying the PCs. Bishop records his message. [p.9] 

12 September 2185: The Cheiron lifeboat is brought aboard the Erebos (although it is not recognised as such until two days later). [p.29] This disturbs the accompanying meteor swarm, and Proto-Hive Nodules start slamming into the station and begin to grow. [p.10]

15 September 2185: Clerke tries to find out about Cronus on the Network but is locked out by MU/TH/UR. [p.29]

16 September 2185: Clerke reads files from Cheiron – learns about Engineer stellar farming facility, 26 Draconis Strain, Lavigne and the hieroglyph notebook. [p.29 - note, I've updated this. Originally I thought Clerke got the info about Lavigne from the Chronos Network files, which didn't make sense.]

18 September 2185: Clerke learns about Perfected and their plan to infect other star systems. [p.29 – it’s unclear if this is from the Cronus files or if Clerke has now encountered the Perfected. If the latter, they’ve probably made him the same offer they make the PCs.]

Late September 2185: Clerke warns Skyes and Webb about the Living Proto-Hive. Webb was sceptical (at first). [p.19]

October 2185: The first protomorphs appear. Wicks leads a prison revolt. [p.21]

October 2185: Webb starts designing a virus to kill the monsters. [p.19] Webb and Clerke begin reconstructing the 26 Draconis Strain so they can create a virus that will kill the Living Proto-Hive. [p.28]

October 2185: The last thing Webb and Clerke need is a living sample. But before they can get one, Webb loses his mind (to the NDDs) and Clerke starts turning into an Abomination. [p.11]

October 2185: Stykes kills Clerke in the Deck C MU/TH/UR station while he (Clerke) was becoming an abomination. [p.32]

Early November 2085: Now 

PCs arrive in-system aboard USCSS Cetorhina.

DA/UT/UR decrypts the Cronus black files [ p.44 – although what this contains is a mystery as Clerke had already learned everything about the Cronus.]

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