Alien War

I stumbled across this video on YouTube recently, which brought back memories of a trip to London and a visit to Alien War in the Trocadero Centre in Leicester Square.

My memories of Alien War are a little hazy, which isn’t surprising given it was thirty years ago.

The conceit is straightforward enough – you take the role of VIPs being guided around a Weyland-Yutani facility by a colonial marine. It starts quietly enough, as you see eggs and things. But things go wrong when the alien critters escape.

I remember…

I was working on site, and was wearing a bright yellow high-viz coat. (I think it must have been winter, hence needing the coat.) High-viz was a novelty back then; there’s no way I’d wear something like that today.

I can clearly remember an alien appearing in a dark corridor beside us. It felt like it was pitch black, but I suspect we had all been blinded, and the alien appeared while our eyes were adjusting. It was very impressive – and surprisingly scary.

I don’t remember much about the lift sequence. The video talks about one of the VIPs being taken by an alien, but I don’t remember that – I think I was squashed in the far corner, away from where the victim was taken.

At one point, we all sat in a drop ship, all lined up in seats facing a central aisle. My brother and I were first in, and were against the wall, furthest from the door. Then an alien attacks through the roof (the queen, if I remember right), right above us! My brother was first through the door…

And other than it being really good, that’s about all I remember. It’s a shame it was damaged in a flood and closed. 

Anyway, here’s the AVP page on Alien War.

North Star 2025

North Star is a science fiction ttrpg convention held yearly in The Garrison Hotel in Sheffield. It is one of several ttrpg conventions held in The Garrison, but this was my first visit to North Star.

I don’t normally attend this one, because it’s a little close to Peaky. But as Mrs H was away, I decided to attend the Sunday of North Star. (So that was, for me, an unprecedented three weekends being away playing games!)

Anyway, I had a lovely time catching up with old friends and making new ones, and I played two games: Triangle Agency and Space: 1999.

Triangle Agency

Guy ran Triangle Agency, an investigative game. According to the blurb, “Player characters work at the Triangle Agency, an international corporation with influence in every industry. As Field Agents, players investigate and capture supernatural Anomalies that threaten the lives and comfort of normal citizens.”

So it’s pretty much like all the other investigative games out there, from Delta Green, the Laundry Files, Esoterrorists and even my own Other London. Triangle Agency does all this with a good dose of Dilbertesque office bureaucracy nonsense.

I played Jim, the intern, and Guy ran us through an investigation involving a noise-hating anomaly. It was very enjoyable and we wrapped it all up in good time.

Things I liked

Easy to roleplay: Triangle Agency characters are easy to roleplay. The character types are obvious tropes that were easy to work with.

NPC connections: To my delight, each character has three connections – people who are important to you. Even better, each connection is played by another player (rather than the GM). So one of the Intern’s connections is a “long-term situationship,” which I asked John to play, which was delightful. (I am a big fan of characters having connections, and I’m always surprised that so few games do this.)

Fail by default! In Triangle Agency, it is always assumed that you will fail at a task unless you can come up with a bizarre series of coincidences that mean that you succeed. (So to stop part of the anomaly getting away, we invented it getting tangled up in a dustpan and brush.) The agency will then warp reality to make those coincidences happen. And then you roll the dice.

While the result is much the same as just rolling the dice to succeed, narratively it’s very different – and contributes to the craziness and Dilbertesque vibe.

Things that made me scratch my head

Two huge hardback books! While the production quality is undoubtedly fabulous, it also seems rather over-produced. Guy’s boxed set included a sturdy box (with sections for the dice) and two hardback books. Given that I can’t imagine playing Triangle Agency more than a few sessions, it felt a little overdone to me. Yes, it’s gorgeous, and the game is good, but I doubt I would ever get my money’s worth.

Chaos: As we rolled the dice, Guy built up a stock of something called “chaos” that let him do things. The more chaos Guy had, the worse things were for us. It would have been nice to have seen a more visual representation of that, but my main issue with this (and I’ve now seen it in a couple of games) is I’m not quite sure what purpose it serves, as a mechanic. Isn’t it the GM’s job to put obstacles in our way? Do we need a mechanic to manage that? It feels a bit board-gamey, and although I like board games, I’m not that keen on them in my ttrpgs.

Anyway, I haven’t worked out how I feel about that kind of mechanic yet. (Slugblaster has bite, and that’s on my to-run list, so maybe I’ll figure it out then.)

Space 1999

Andy ran Space: 1999, the new Modipheus game using their 2d20 system, using the draft rulebook from the Kickstarter. He ran Project Arrow, an adventure from the rulebook, and this was his first time running Space: 1999.

Project Arrow is set three days after the event that rips the moon from Earth’s orbit. In that time it has accelerated 200 gees (!) and has now left the solar system (!!). It took us a while to figure this out, but I found it in the wonderful Moonbase Alpha Technical Operations Manual that Andy had brought.

Anyway, I played Team Commander Carlos Rodriguez, one of the pregens. The game was okay – the group was great, but the adventure was a little railroady, and we struggled with the mechanics at times. 

Things I liked

A friendly table: I think most of the players were new to me, and as ever, everyone was welcoming and we had a good time.

Space: 1999: I didn’t watch Space: 1999 back in the day. I guess I must have seen an episode or two, and I know the basic premise, but I enjoyed playing in the ludicrous setting. Part of me wishes the game leant more into the trauma of leaving Earth behind, but that would be a very different game.

Things that made me scratch my head

2d20: Andy wasn’t that familiar with 2d20, and some of the players were very familiar with other 2d20 variants, so we weren’t always sure we were following the rules correctly. As I haven’t played a 2d20 system in seven or eight years, I couldn’t really comment.

A railroad: As I said, the scenario was very railroady, and some dice rolls didn’t seem to matter. We failed many of the early rolls, but that seemed not to affect the actual adventure. It also seemed to consist of more dice rolling than roleplaying.

Character stats: The choice of character stats and skills seemed a bit strange. From what I could see, characters don’t have a skill to roll when trying to do something physical (like get into cover from a meteorite shower). Maybe I’m missing something, but the skills are Command, Flight, Medical, Science, Security and Technical. It’s not immediately clear what we should use. (We didn’t consult the rules. Perhaps we should have.)

North Star themes

So while North Star has an SF theme, it had a couple of other themes for me as well.

Not my dice: In neither game did I get my dice out – because I didn’t have the right dice! Triangle Agency just uses d4s (madness, I know). I don’t own any d4s, so I used Guy and Declan’s official Triangle Agency dice instead. (The system is fine – you roll six d4s and look for threes. The official dice have red points to indicate success, so you’re really just counting the red points.)

And I only own one d20, so I didn’t bother getting that out but just rolled Andy’s d20s.

Running for the first time: For both games, Andy and Guy were running the system for the first time using a prewritten scenario. That’s something I’ve never done – I always feel like I’m on show when I’m running a con game, and so I usually run something that I’m familiar with.

But as far as I know, nobody cared that this was Guy and Andy’s first run at the game, so perhaps I should be more relaxed about running games I don’t know so well.

And next time?

I hope so. I enjoyed my brief visit to North Star, and hope to return again next year.

Fae’s Anatomy: a megagame

I’ve played a megagame! They’re great fun!

The first Saturday of May saw me at Leeds Armouries with 31 others, playing Fae’s Anatomy, a megagame written by Patrick Rose, John Keyworth and Holly Wall.

The game was organised by Pennine Megagames, who run megagames in Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield. It ran from 9:30 to 4 pm, and cost about £30.

Fae’s Anatomy

Here’s the pitch

"There's an epidemic of Green Fingers, the hospital porters are demanding more mana, and the head nurse keeps turning into a cat. Just another day in the world's premier magical hospital."

Research ancient magical secrets, embark on quests for rare herbs, or balance the departmental budget - then head home to your magical commune to plan the next community celebration. Fae's Anatomy is a relatively co-operative megagame with strong elements of resource management, creativity, and communication.

I joined the mailing list a couple of years ago, but this is the first megagame I’ve been able to play. (About a third of the players were new to megagames.)

I wasn’t that bothered about the setting. I just knew I wanted to play a megagame, and having one on the doorstep was too good an opportunity to pass up.

And what is a megagame?

According to Pennine Megagames, a megagame is “an activity for upwards of around 20 people, usually in teams and featuring both cooperation and competition amidst a historical or fictitious scenario.”

It’s similar to a freeform larp, but there’s more focus on rules and mechanics (resembling interlinked board games) than the pure character and roleplaying of a larp. (There is a lot of overlap. Chatting to some of the people I met, many had larped and some even wrote all-day murder mystery larps for their friends. One of the GMs [known as “Control” in megagames] recognised me from the Retford freeform weekends.)

One difference between a larp and a megagame is that in the latter, you are given a role rather than a character. So I was part of the Swanshire Maker commune (crazy steampunk engineers) and I worked in the Outer Souls Facility (basically a university doing research).

How Fae’s Anatomy works

Fae’s Anatomy was played over nine 35-minute rounds. Each round consisted of:

Commune phase (10 minutes). During this phase, we ran our commune board, which meant extracting mana and building things. This was also the time to swap information and resources with the rest of the commune. We also had to manage our morale and food, which we happily balanced.

Our commune board

Medicine phase (10 minutes). In this phase, we separated and played a different set of minigames. In my case, I went to the Outer Souls Facility and used researched artefacts and spells that my team could use in their games.

I could “upgrade” some of our workers by putting them through college.

This was fun – it meant meeting people from other teams and cooperating to complete research projects. (This was a very cooperative game.)

The Outer Souls Facility

Negotiation phase (10 minutes) – this was an opportunity to wander around the room and try to deal with some of the other problems, or enter into a commune festival.

Our problems included dealing with a goblin that was stealing names, an outbreak of sneezing that appeared to cause earthquakes (we implemented strict masking protocols), and dealing with a dragon that we ended up swearing fealty to.

Each commune had a festival and invited others to participate in silly games and activities. We had a paper plane competition, and asked others for blueprints for household appliances. Other communes’ festivals involved modelling fish out of clay, singing songs and dancing. (The festivals were optional, but lots of people joined in.)

Press phase (5 minutes). During the press phase, we returned to our communes, and the two reporters told us what was happening.

Compared to a freeform larp, this made the reporters really useful – they got their moments in the spotlight and were useful in sharing the news. And the fact that we had to sit at our communes and listen really helped – nobody was allowed to continue negotiating during this phase. (I’m sure there’s something here that freeforms can learn from.)

And there were no breaks. You could nip to the loo, but the game continued without you. We were encouraged to bring a packed lunch, and I ate mine during the commune and press phases.

But what was it like?

Busy. Hectic. Confusing. Loud. Friendly.

Other players said they found it stressful. Perhaps because it was my first megagame, I didn’t find it too stressful. (Maybe being cooperative made it less stressful as well – I don’t know.)

I came away quite tired, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Things I liked

Lovely people. Lots of lovely people, all playing a completely daft game. Many in costume, some (like me), having only made a token effort. Everyone was friendly, and I didn’t see or hear any arguments despite the stress.

Production design. The production design was good – the game rules and background information issued ahead of the game looked professional, and the many decks of cards had been properly designed and printed (they felt like cards from a regular board game). Some of the boards (such as the commune board and the faculty boards) were less polished, but none of it felt cheap.

The location. I liked the Royal Armouries as a location. We had a medium-sized room – we pretty much filled it, but even with 40 or so gamers in it, it never got too hot or stuffy.  And the Armouries has good public transport links and a large car park (which I used) nearby. Had there been a nearby tea and coffee vendor, it would have been perfect, but bringing a packed lunch wasn’t the end of the world.

Things that felt like they needed a bit more attention

There were, however, a couple of things that could have been clearer.

Did we win? In a purely competitive sense, I have no idea whether we won or lost. The overall winning or losing conditions weren’t particularly clear – I never really knew if we were winning or losing. I know the Outer Souls Faculty got nearly 200 prestige, but I don’t know if that was enough to be the best.  (I think it was, but anyway.)

It didn’t seem to matter very much, as everyone was having fun, but it was possibly an oversight. Or maybe I just missed an important announcement during the confusion.

Upgrading boards. It seemed really hard to upgrade both our commune board and my faculty board.  Commune upgrades were both expensive and underwhelming, so we didn’t upgrade anything. And I struggled to upgrade anything on my faculty board, either. (I did play some of that wrong – it was easy to miss stuff, not that it mattered much.)

The lack of upgrades was a surprise. From reading the rules, I could see that the boards could be upgraded, and because in regular board games, upgrading your board is normally key to winning, I had expected Fae’s Anatomy to be similar. But it seemed not. I know I got some rules wrong, but from what I could see, nobody had much success at upgrading.

After the game. The pub we convened in for a post-game natter was a little small, and we were mostly outside, which was a little chilly. I hung around briefly, but I got cold and didn’t stay long.

And overall?

I thoroughly enjoyed Fae’s Anatomy and would happily play another megagame. I’m not sure how far I’d travel for one, but I’d definitely play another in Leeds or York.

Peaky 2025

The last weekend of April saw me at the annual Peaky Games writing weekend, where 30 or so crazy fools gather to write and play freeforms. It’s my favourite gaming weekend of the year – friends, food, creativity, stress – and not enough sleep.

This year five games were written, Enemies of the Federation, On a Hot Summer’s Night, Miss Maypole: A Study in Saffron, Nodding Donkeys, and Ldrbrd.

Spoilers ahoy! (Perhaps just think of this as something to whet your appetite.)

Enemies of the Federation

Enemies of the Federation is for nine players. Criminals’ personalities have been extracted from their cryosleeping bodies to operate repair mechs to save their stricken prison ship. But things aren’t exactly what they seem.

I co-wrote Enemies of the Federation with Kath Banks, Megan Jones and Peter Jones. The core idea was Peter’s – the game is partly a balloon debate as the players discover that although there are nine personalities, they only have three bodies to return to. (Each personality has been extracted three times.)

Although the personalities weren’t identical (we made slight personality differences to each - althought this didn't really come out in play), it meant that there were three core characters. As the others were happy to write the characters (and to be honest, I suspect my terse writing style would not have been to everyone’s taste), I stepped back from that job and wrote the background document.

I was rather pleased with my background document. Instead of writing a normal background, I wrote it in the form of three year 5 lesson plans: the history, the geography, and one covering unhappy people. This let me write the background in bullet points, while hinting at the dystopian future the players would find themselves in. (The Federation is more Blake’s 7 than Star Trek, and each lesson plan finishes with an instruction to sing the Federation anthem.)

So that didn’t take me much time, so I had enough time to reformat an old game, An Ecumenical Matter, into a more polished format. That’s something I’ve been meaning to do for years, so it was nice to get that finally done.

The game seemed to go well, and the players said they enjoyed it. It ran for about 90 minutes, which seemed about right. I’m not sure what I would do to make it a longer game – we’d need more events and stringing a few discoveries out.

Then it was time for Nodding Donkeys.

Nodding Donkeys

Nodding Donkeys was written by Dave Collis, Adam Hayes, Kevin Jacklin, Michael Jones, Ezzy Pearson and Julie Winnard. Inspired by Slow Horses, it featured washed-up spies on a training course. For 8 players.

I played agent Possum, one of the Nodding Donkeys, spies who have been put out to Croydon House, where they can do no harm. Possum was an old-school spook, a little like Slow Horses’ Jackson Lamb, but without being as scarily competent (or gross) as Lamb is. So I embraced my inner Gary Oldman and enjoyed being old-fashioned and pretty obnoxious.

One thing I really liked was that each character had “superpowers” (abilities) and flaws, but to use a superpower, you had to display (somehow) one of your flaws. That seemed to work really well.

It was a lovely game, with a few rough patches here and there (but that’s always true of Peaky), and was my favourite game of Peaky 2025.

With the spies put to bed, it was time to go all Agatha Christie.

Miss Maypole: A Study in Saffron

Miss Maypole: A Study in Saffron was written by Graham Arnold, Nickey Barnard, Clare Gardner, Heidi Kaye, Sue Lee, Christi S and Mike Snowden. It is the third (and apparently the last) of a series of murder mystery freeforms written at Peaky, and is for 14 players. 

Anyway, I played the village verger, campanologist and budding archaeologist. While I had a few goals, none of them (I think) related to the murder, but that was okay – this was a game with a lot of convoluted plots, which I always enjoy.

Unfortunately, the verger felt a little underwritten. The stuff I was interested in was fine, but it felt tangential to the main plot (the murder and the film crew). I had a lovely time, but noticed that during the last third of the game, I was waiting for something to happen. I imagine that’s just a reflection of Peaky – a balanced 14-player game is hard to write in so little time at Peaky. Once polished and tightened up, I’m sure the verger will have enough to carry them through the game. (I don’t know if abilities are planned for the game, but a few might help.)

Interestingly, I wrote about the previous game back in 2016, and noted that I ran out of plot during that one as well. 

And with that, Peaky was over for another year.

On a Hot Summer’s Night and Ldrbrd

I didn’t play either of these games, but I heard good things about both.

On a Hot Summer's Night was written by Natalie Curd, Nick Curd, Phil Dall and Tym Norris. It’s a 1920s Buffy the Vampire Slayer game with vampires and a hellmouth, for 10 players, but I know little more about it than that.

Ldrbrd written by Jenny Donne, Kirstine Heald, Tony Mitton, Ewan Munro and Malk Williams. Ldrbrd features arcade game characters who are competing to avoid deletion, and is for 12 players.