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.