Continuum 2026

 The last weekend of July saw Megan and me at Continuum for a weekend of gaming. Mostly freeforms, with some ttrpgs and a few board games. Plus seeing lots of old friends and talking nonsense all weekend. What’s not to love?

Playing Mycelia in the atrium

TL;DR: We had a great time!

Here’s what we did:

Friday

We arrived mid-afternoon and didn’t do much other than check in, chat to a few friends, and have a bite to eat.

Four Gods and a Funeral

Four Gods and a Funeral is an 18-player fantasy game written and run by Megan Jones. It is set in the world of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Five Gods books, which I’ve not read. Luckily, I didn’t need to know anything about the world as it was all contained in the game materials.

I played Sarlos, the 18-year-old heir to the Vardo empire – and my mother’s puppet. And not just my mother’s puppet – I had been kidnapped twice and used in other players’ machinations. So I was a fairly useless kid and pawn to the real powers.

I was also in love with a queen, and was trying to work out how to marry another character. (Unfortunately, that other character was played by Megan, which made that side of my game somewhat awkward and we just didn’t go there. That was a casting goof by Megan J, but wasn’t a huge problem.)

Anyway, the game was good – political and angsty. There was a whole side of the game (magic) that I didn’t know about and, amazingly, I think I was still the heir to Vardo at the end of the game. That’s probably because I was no real threat to anyone…

Game material reading order

One thing that I noticed when reading my character information was that my character made much more sense after I had read the game background material. It did make me wonder if we ought to spend a little more time thinking about the order in which players read their characters.

For me, most of my games have a “setting and cast list” document which I send to players with the casting questionnaire. That way the overall setting is the first thing they read, and that puts everything else in context.

(Hopefully they haven’t forgotten that when they receive their character – but I do always give them another copy of that initial document.)

Similarly for Freeform Games, the front cover of the character booklet has the same short boilerplate text roughly setting the scene and explaining the setting. Hopefully players read that first.

When a freeform character pack contains several documents, it's not always clear in which order to read them, and I find that can cause some confusion. Anyway, something for me to ruminate on. 

Saturday

After a hearty breakfast, we had nothing scheduled, so Megan went back to bed, and I played a few light board games. After a meal deal from the Co-Op, it was time for our first proper game.

Hades Plan

In Hades Plan (for 12 players and written/run by Ray Hodson and Simon Clark), we were Greek gods who were putting together the third series of a reality TV show that involved lots of puzzles. So while being bickering gods, we had to come up with ideas for a show. (Ray and Simon provided lots of props.)

I was Demeter, the ancient Greek goddess of agriculture, the harvest, and grain. (I’ve just looked that up; I know next to nothing about Greek gods.) We chose the gods pretty much at random, and ironically I ended up being one of Megan’s parents. (Megan was playing Persephone.)

The game was silly and energetic, but not really my cup of tea. It’s the kind of larp where the players bring the game (characters were two paragraphs long). That’s okay, but I have two issues with games like this:

First, they rely on the players having a common understanding of the game world. As already noted, I know next to nothing about Greek gods (or Norse gods or Roman gods for that matter). That’s less of an issue when nobody knows anything about Greek gods, but in this case we had a lot of players who knew a lot about them. So less fun for me.

Second, the games often work on the basis that whoever is loudest gets their way. And I’m not a shouty type.

So it wasn’t really my kind of game, but those for whom it was their kind of fun seemed to have a good time.

With that done, it was time for tea.

The Highgate Club

After tea, I ran The Highgate Club, a game I co-wrote at Peaky back in 2010. I ran it with Alan Paull, one of the authors, who brings the Continuum board games library.

The Highgate Club is a private member’s club filled with weird people – aliens, elves, immortals, zombies, Atlanteans, cyborgs – even an angel. It has lots of crazy plots, and while I expected it to take about two and a half hours, the players were still going strong at three hours in. 

It definitely needs two GMs, though. So I’ll update the guidance. (Along with a load of other tweaks – as always, I found lots of little things needed improving.)

Megan told me she enjoyed it, which was a relief as she influences which games I run at Continuum.

The Highgate Club before the players got their hands on it...

Sunday

We had another free morning on Sunday, so Megan and I played Mycelia and Sanctuary, a couple of weightier board games. We preferred the sprouting, fruiting and decaying mushroom fun of Mycelia over the zoo-building fun of Sanctuary.

Good Society

After lunch, I ran a tabletop session of Good Society while Megan played in a horde larp.

For Good Society, I had four players and used the pregenerated playset I talked about here, updated to use the second edition reputation consequences.

My four players were all blokes but had no problem playing female characters. One had run a swashbuckling game of Good Society the day before, and agreed that trying to create a coherent backstory at a convention takes a long time.

As is often the case with Good Society (and Hillfolk), the game took a few scenes to get running, but it didn’t take long before the players were busy creating drama and interfering with each other. Most of the time I just listened, occasionally suggesting scenes between characters or jumping in when I felt that a scene was over. (That last skill is important – players are often so caught up in their characters that they don’t spot the obvious end to a scene.)

I had been slightly hesitant to bring Good Society to Continuum, as it’s very different to many other ttrpgs (and Hillfolk was a bit of a struggle last year). But unlike last year, where I got the impression it was the last choice for at least one player, all my players were keen to play Good Society – and wanted to play it because it was so different from the other games on offer. And as a result, we had a great game.

(Good Society is like Fiasco and Hillfolk in that it is very dependent on the players. With the right group, these games are brilliant. But with more reserved players (or players who expect more direction from a GM), they can struggle.)

A few thoughts

So much going on: With four main characters and eight minor characters, I found it hard to keep on top of everything that was going on in the table. There were main arcs, yes, but there were also a lot of minor things happening that didn’t always get picked up later.

(I couldn’t now, for example, tell you much about what the story – and it’s only 48 hours later as I write this.)

I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but worth bearing in mind. I think I’d need to take a lot of notes were I playing a game over several sessions. (My recent online game of Good Society only had three players, which probably made it easier to hold in my head.)

Perhaps I need to figure out a way to take notes.

System doesn’t matter: Once again, I found that we didn’t use many resolve tokens. One or two, perhaps? The game flows brilliantly without needing the tokens, and for most of the game they sat on the table, ignored. (At least with Hillfolk, a drama token is at stake in each scene – even if they don’t really have much use either. Perhaps I should try mashing the two systems together?)

So that was Good Society. While I was doing that, Megan thoroughly enjoyed her larp. We had tea, another game of Mycelia (where Megan thrashed me), and then it was our final game.

Plan 8 from Outer Space

Plan 8 is an eight-player game written by Mike Young and run by Ezzy Pearson and Vikki Sterling. It’s an extremely silly game of aliens completing a post-mortem of their previous plans for dealing with Planet Earth, and preparing their 9th plan.

Broadly, the game consists of being in a ghastly business meeting (it even has a PowerPoint deck), trying NOT to take the blame for the previous plans, and then coming up with daft ideas for the next one.

It’s lots of chaotic fun, with a lot of laughter. It’s not a good game for wallflowers, though – be prepared to be loud and argue your corner.

I played the Head of Marketing, while Megan played the Head of Accounts. Her costume was so much better than mine, but that was true of most games. It was about two hours of frantic fun.

Head of Accounts

(The game takes its name from the legendarily bad movie, Plan 9 from Outer Space. I’ve not seen the movie, so I can’t say if it is in any way relatable.)

Locked in

We had one final bit of excitement on Sunday as the bathroom door handle broke and trapped Megan in the bathroom. Luckily, I was able to get help from reception, and it was sorted, but it could have been serious had I not been around. I don’t know how easy it would be to raise the alarm from inside the bathroom.

Monday

And after breakfast on Monday, we headed home.

Continuum 2025

At the end of July, Megan and I went to Continuum 2025. It was Megan’s second time at Continuum – and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been. (I’ve not been to every Continuum – there was a long gap when it didn’t fit with holidays and life.)

Megan and I at Cranfield Management Development Centre

It’s a great con in a great venue with a good mix of board games, ttrpgs and freeform larps.

Anyway, we both went to Continuum and we both loved it. Here’s how it went.

Friday

We arrived at around 4 pm on Friday. We checked in, unpacked our bags and went to the atrium where we picked up our convention bags and lanyards. We then found some friends and played board games and a couple of Martin Jones’ BTL larps. These are intense and short (15-20 minutes) science fiction larps that are really good and pack a lot into those few minutes.

I played a Bene Gesserit in one, and Simon from Firefly, in another. Martin had six different BTL larps and was running them for much of the weekend. I don’t know how many times he ran them all. I think I’ve played most of them now.

I hope he makes them freely available one day.

The meal at the hotel was a BBQ, which was fine if you like that sort of thing. Megan is a vegetarian, and I was happy to go to the bar and buy a sandwich.

Instead of a freeform track on Friday night, there was a costume party in the bar. I don’t like costuming, and I don’t really like parties, so we gave that a miss. (It didn’t appeal to Megan either; it might have appealed more to her had she known more people.)

I would rather be gaming, so we went back to the atrium and played more board games and socialised.

Saturday

Saturday started with a full English breakfast – with fried bread. I don’t get a full English too often (and fried bread is even rarer), so this was a treat.

I played three games on Saturday: Lumberjills, Campfire and Queen, and I ran Hillfolk.

Lumberjills

In the highlands of Scotland in WW2, British women come together in brutal physical labour: felling trees and processing timber in service of the war effort. In the woods, they find newfound confidence and physical capacity – and in dance socials with neighbouring lumberjack and training camps discover romance, and new options for their lives.

Megan and I were both a little nervous going into Lumberjills. It’s a four-player larp and rather more intense than the usual kind of thing I like. (The game we’d originally signed up to play didn’t have enough players, and was replaced with Lumberjills.)

Each of the four players takes the role of a lumberjill – felling trees as part of the WW2 Women’s Timber Corps (part of the Women’s Land Army). Each character is presented on a card, with brief details suggesting why they decided to leave their previous life and join the WTC.

Through the game, each of the players is courted by three men (each played by other players) who are here as professional lumberjacks.

The game is played through scenes. There’s an opening scene where we explore the reasons the lumberjills sign up, then scenes where they saw trees and share their hopes and fears, and then dance scenes where they meet the menfolk. Do they find love? Do they realise their dreams? That’s what we play to find out. The game ends with each player narrating their lumberjill’s future. (When Megan and I were telling Mrs H about the game, she noted that I was the only person who chose a traditionally patriarchal “settling-down-with-a-man-and-having-kids” ending for my lumberjill. Busted!)

Lumberjills was fine and I’m glad I played it, but it’s not really my thing. Megan felt a little like me, and I’m sure it was awkward when either of us was playing our characters’ suitors.

According to the side of the box, Lumberjills was supposed to take four hours. Even with a few technical glitches, we had it finished in less than three – and that felt right for me. I guess players who embrace the emotional journey more than I did might want the extra time.

Lumberjills was run by Sue Lee – Charlie and Alison were the other players. Lumberjills was written by Moyra Turkingtonan and published by Unruly Designs. You can buy it from here.

After Lumberjills, Megan and I walked to the nearby Co Op for lunch. I discovered ginger and turmeric shots, which are just awesome.

Campfire and Queen

All of you have a reason for running away from court and the Queen. Some of you are on the run from an arranged marriage, some of you hate your old life and wanted to start a fresh, some of you just have a wanderlust. You are gathered around a campfire to tell stories to help pass the evening away but what will those stories reveal about you and the question that everyone will eventually face… would you protect the Queen?

Around the campfire at the start of the game (photo by Tsijon)

Campfire and Queen is a storytelling freeform inspired by the card game For the Queen.

Ray Hodson wrote and ran Campfire and Queen, and it was my favourite game of the weekend. I played a member of the Queen’s court, travelling in disguise – as was everyone else! 

We started the game sitting around the campfire, telling stories which revealed as much as they hid. (We created the stories ourselves – they weren’t provided for us. Mine wasn’t very good, and I wish I had thought about it more before the game. Ah well, I’ve never been good at homework.)

Once the stories were over, we started talking to each other in small groups, and slowly revealed our secrets… 

I’m not going to say too much to avoid spoiling it, but I enjoyed Campfire and Queen. My character ended in a very ambiguous position, and unlike almost everyone else, I couldn’t decide what I should do.

After that, Megan and I ate in the hotel, which was good and plenty of it. I had lasagne and parmigiana with veg, chips, and cheesy garlic bread.

Me: (photo by Tsijon)

Hillfolk

Finally, on Saturday, I ran a game of Hillfolk, or more accurately, DramaSystem. I had three playsets with me and let the players choose, and they chose Success2Soon, the playset about a band at the end of their first successful album.

I had four players, and we created a game of ageing rockers with musical differences. (Megan didn’t play – she went to bed instead.)

As usual, nobody else had played before (and as is often the case, one player had backed the Kickstarter and failed to get the game to the table).

After about 45 minutes creating our characters, we started playing and, apart from one or two misfires, we were off and running. We ended with the band just about staying together and finally signing a contract with their record company. (The contract had been torn up and had been taped back together.)

I never start Hillfolk knowing where the game is going, but I’m always impressed at how a satisfying narrative emerges over a couple of hours. I’ve only played DramaSystem as one-shots at conventions – I have no idea how it would play as an ongoing game. I guess we would explore what happens as they start to prepare for the second album.

I’ve now run Hillfolk seven or eight times at conventions over the past couple of years, and with the right players, it really sings. It really does – it’s fabulous. So far, that’s been only twice for me – once at Continuum (two years ago), and last November at Consequences. 

Unfortunately, this time, it didn’t quite sing. It certainly wasn’t bad, and I'd probably say it was good, but it didn’t sing.

I often come away thinking that there must be something I can change to make it work better. Perhaps I should change the playsets – do I need to define the characters more before we start? Should I just ignore the dramatic poles – they do so little during play?

But ultimately, I think it simply suits some players and not others. Hillfolk is so different to how we normally play ttrpgs that it’s a huge culture shock. I suspect that it’s no coincidence that my most successful games have been when freeformers have been playing.

Anyway, I’m going to give Hillfolk a rest and run other things at conventions. I’m sure it will be back. I also spotted a couple of typos, so I’ve amended the files and uploaded them to the game page on itch.io.

For an alternative view, here’s Simon Burley’s write-up of Continuum, including his perspective as a player of the game.

Sunday

After another hearty breakfast, it was time for me to run Venice.

Venice

Venice is ruled by five powerful families, alike in dignity: the Capones, the Capulets, the Corleones, the Montagues and the Sopranos. Lady Theresa Capulet, the Doge, the ultimate authority in Venice, has been murdered and the five ruling families of Venice are meeting to decide who is to replace her…

The Corleones (photo by Tsijon)

I co-wrote Venice with Kate Dicey, Debbie Hollingworth and Tym Norris at Peaky 2013. After Peaky I did a bit of tidying up (not a lot) and put it on itch.io. I have no idea if others have run it, but this was its second outing for me.

Venice is what I call a factions game. It has lots of groups (families and societies) all vying for power. There is a multi-stage election and a sprinkling of Romeo & Juliet-style star-crossed romances (in places).

The characters are thin, but I was hoping that with the weddings, the pirates, the election, family rivalry and the secret societies, there would be enough to keep people entertained. Certainly, from what I could see, there was plenty of energy in the room as the players negotiated and schemed.

I also saw a few quieter players on the sidelines, so I don’t think it was all perfect.

I’m delighted to say that Venice was Megan’s favourite game of the weekend. I did worry slightly because her character was a little thin (well, they all were), but she made a couple of good connections early in the game and ended up married to the Doge and also made the Religious Adviser. So her first freeform marriage!

(I am pleased she got married for another reason. Often, freeform weddings are all about love, and I wanted a game where weddings were also about family alliances. Megan’s wedding was entirely political – she married for power. And that’s how I wanted it!)

The game went well enough that I’d be happy to run it again, but I spotted a few (well, many) typos, so I've fixed those. I’ve made other changes to improve the game for everyone, but it’s never going to have extremely detailed characters, though. It’s not that kind of game.

Click here to download Venice for free from Itch.io.

After Venice, it was lunch. Neither of us fancied the hotel option of a burger, and the hotel’s range of vegetarian sandwiches wasn’t great, so we returned to the Co Op for a meal deal (and another ginger and turmeric shot for me).

The GM doing GM things (photo by Tsijon)

Fight for Survival

Zombies have taken over the world, and you feel like the last survivors. You all come from different walks of life and one of those people that you collected has started sneezing. Is that a symptom? And then there’s the radio, is it giving you information or is the broadcast more sinister? Who can help you and will they even try? Are you trapped or safe?

Written and run by Ray Hodson, helped by Jo Gould.

Sometimes, through no fault of your own or the game’s writers, you have a quiet game. This was my quiet game.

In Fight for Survival, players create their own characters. They get a secret from Ray, and then answer a few simple questions (what is your name, what do you do, what are you hording, who have you lost, and so on). I decided I was a maths teacher.

The game starts with news reports getting gloomier and gloomier. As a group, we decided to head for Twycross Zoo (don’t ask why), and so as civilisation fell, we held up there.

Now, my secret was that I had been bitten… Which meant I was falling ill and turning into a zombie. There were other people displaying symptoms (who weren’t infected with the zombie virus) – they were distractions. I was the real problem.

But very quickly, the group decided to isolate me (in the giraffe enclosure) along with another infected character. My character was feeling pretty rubbish (flu-like symptoms, easy to roleplay!), so for a large chunk of the game, I was on my own (or with just this one player).  I mean, I could have escaped, but I figured my character was ill and just wanted to be left alone.

(What was interesting was how wide a berth the other characters gave us. We often had about half the room to ourselves!)

Anyway, unlike other runs (which presumably end in disaster), the other characters got their act together and identified a potential cure and the game ended with us driving down to Bodium Castle, which is where the government boffins were hiding out.

The game was fine. It’s perhaps a little too light for my liking, but it’s a pleasant change of pace. I didn’t mind being isolated – it was actually quite relaxing. Sometimes you need a quiet game.

After Fight for Survival, Megan and I decided we weren’t interested in the hotel’s roast dinner, so we headed to the Co Op for a meal deal and a pile of chips from the kebab van. Then Megan turned in for an early night while I went to watch Death Wears White.

Death Wears White

You are among the staff and visitors at the Brighton Hospital, Detroit in 1999. A brilliant doctor has been murdered and there’s a hostage situation in progress. Is the killer still among you? This is a classic vintage murder mystery from 2001, which allegedly inspired the Chinese Jubensha industry.

I didn’t sign up to Death Wears White because I knew I’d be tired and I knew Megan would be having an early night. She’s not good at staying up late, and I didn’t want to disturb her by stumbling in at silly o’clock in the morning. (The same is true for Saturday night as well, but I really wanted to run Hillfolk and I knew we’d be done by 10:30 pm.)

So instead, I asked Jenny Dunn, who was running it, if I could watch. And she kindly said yes.

I stayed for about 90 minutes, but my impression of Death Wears White is that it was showing its age. It felt very overwritten (lots of words in a teeny font), and solving the murder is much more involved than our murder mystery games, with an action point system for investigating clues (presumably to stop them from coming out too quickly) that resulted in a queue for the GM. 

I didn’t see all the characters, but the ones I was aware of seemed somewhat contrived, including a gunman (who takes everyone hostage), twins, and a heavily pregnant woman (who I believe gives birth during the game – I’d left before that happened). 

I was tempted to stay until the end, but it wasn’t a fast-paced game, and I was very tired. I have no idea if the players solved the murder or not, as I didn’t see them before we left.

Monday

And after another hearty breakfast (how much weight have I put on?), it was time to say goodbye and head back to Yorkshire.

Megan and I are already looking forward to next year.

Continuum 2024

Unlike much of the weather in 2024, the last weekend in July was delightfully warm and sunny. So obviously I spent it inside, playing games. I was at Continuum 2024.

Megan and I in our Home of the Bold costumes. Photo by TsiJon.

Continuum had two big differences this year. First, it relocated to the Cranfield Management Development Centre. Second, I had my 17-year-old daughter, Megan, with me.

Being a parent/guardian at a residential con was a new experience for me. Megan comes to Airecon, but this was the first time she’d been away overnight with me, so I was a little nervous. Fortunately, she loved it.

The venue

The new venue is excellent. I found it slightly tricky to find, and we got lost in the hotel at one point, but once we found our bearings, it was great. The atrium was a lovely social space to meet and play games, and there were lots of rooms of various sizes to suit tabletop rpgs and freeforms alike. And it was all in the one place – no trekking from place to place like in Leicester.

The atrium

Oh – and the best convention breakfasts I’ve ever had. (The bar meals were a bit meh, and I didn’t try the buffet.)

So, my fingers are crossed that we are going back.

Friday

We arrived early Friday afternoon after a longer-than-expected journey. I think it was the first Friday of the school holidays, which I wasn’t expecting because Megan had broken up over a week earlier.

We checked in, dumped our stuff in our room, and headed to the main space to see what was going on. There, we found idle gamers, so we tried a game of Flamecraft, followed by a couple of games of Transamerica. (I didn’t win any of them.)

We had an okay bar meal, and then it was time for our first game proper.

Backstage Business

Backstage Business. Photo by TsiJon.

Backstage Business is Freeform Games' new murder-mystery freeform. It’s written by Dutch author Jasper Haenen, and I’ve been working on it with him since the start of the year. We’ve given it to several of our customers to playtest, and it was time for me to run it. 

Backstage Business is set after the final concert of 1980s hair-metal band Eruption’s first tour. However, tensions in the band are causing friction.

Overall, it went well. I was fairly busy as a GM, and the players gave me plenty of feedback to improve the game.

And Megan? She played Paula Gibb, the guitar technician. This was her first “proper” freeform (she played in on I ran for the family during lockdown). After a shaky start when she wasn’t sure what to do, she seemed to have a great time once the game got going.

An early-ish night

One advantage of sharing a room with Megan is that I wasn’t tempted to stay up too late. I stayed for a short while in the bar to chat, but I was back in the room by 11:30 pm. However, the room was too hot and wasn’t a great first night.

Saturday

While I was a bit bleary in the morning, it didn’t stop me from enjoying a lovely cooked breakfast. (Did I say it was the best convention breakfast ever? I might have mentioned that.) Anyway, Megan and I chatted over breakfast with Jon from TsiJon Photography, who was here to take photos. (He took the lovely one of Megan and me at the top of this post.)

After breakfast, Megan and I went to the atrium to do our Home of the Bold homework – as we both needed to remind ourselves of our character sheets. Megan then returned to the room for a nap while I fortified myself with yet more tea and played Tony at Terraforming Mars Dice Game. (Which I prefer to full Terraforming Mars, largely because it’s shorter and easier to grok.)

I also spent some money on the Pelgrane Press stand – I picked up Paula Dempsey’s The Book of the Smoke and The Book of The New Jerusalem. Not because I’m planning to play (or run) Fearful Symmetries or Bookhounds of London, but because I do like a good occult guide – and I think they’ll be useful for Liminal and Other London.

Con swag

Then, lunch. For lunch, we walked to the Co-op (five minutes away) and bought a sandwich and some chocolate. We ate these on some nearby benches in the sun before returning to the convention centre for the highlight of the con: Home of the Bold.

Home of the Bold

Home of the Bold is a 51-player Gloranthan freeform written by David Hall and Kevin Jacklin that lasts for about six hours (with a break in the middle). It’s very densely plotted, with lots of backstory. And while you don’t need any Gloranthan knowledge (I have very rudimentary knowledge, and I know many players had none), it helps – particularly with all the letter-salad names.

Deep in discussion, but I can't remember about what. Another photo by TsiJon.

This was my third time through Home of the Bold. It was my first ever freeform (Convulsion 92), where I played Captain Morak Moran. Then, I played Count Stolwitz (in 1996?), and this time I was intrepid reporter Tatius Bracegirdle. Megan was my older sister, Nerissa.

For me, Home of the Bold was fine but not brilliant. While I enjoyed reporting on the court cases and events, I found it hard to investigate anything. That’s mainly because, as a reporter, I wanted to discover secrets, and other players (understandably) didn’t want to share them. We've developed some mechanical tricks over the years to help investigative characters (reporters, detectives, police), but Home of the Bold didn’t use them.

Megan had a fabulous time. She was a cleaner and was very proud of her “ignore me, I’m just cleaning” ability, which allowed her to eavesdrop on almost any conversation. It was definitely the best game of the con for her – she much preferred it to Backstage Business. 

With Home of the Bold over, we were shattered and headed back to the room for a good night’s sleep.

Sunday

Sunday started with another glorious breakfast, over which we chatted about Home of the Bold with fellow players. Strangely (for me), Megan knew them better than I did, because she interacted with them more than I had.

Then we did some boardgaming: Coral, Terraforming Mars Dice Game, Dixit and Ohanami.

Brest or Bust

Our last game of the con was Brest of Bust, a light-hearted freeform of aerial racing set before the Great War and run by Graham and Suey. Inspiration for the game was Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines and Wacky Races/Stop the Pigeon.

I played Edward Edwards, the co-pilot of Ric Reprehensible (a thinly-disguised Dick Dastardly). We had a lot of fun modifying our plane for the race – we added a tea set (to provide refreshments if the race dragged on), go faster stripes, a boxing glove on a spring for biffing our enemies, a tail-gunner position (with dog basket) for Ric’s dog, Tyke, and a third engine (taken from a car). We weren’t taking it very seriously – but then, we were cartoon characters…

The GMs had a nice mechanic for item cards. Basically, Suey had a stack of blank item cards, and you asked her for whatever you wanted. Within reason, she gave you the card. I think the best one I saw was the oompah bad ordered by the Prussians.

I also had a small bit of plot, which I resolved when I heard some other players discussing a topic I had an interest in.

We didn’t win the race, but it was light and silly and mostly about the ludicrous modifications to our plane (and occasional sabotage of others). 

(Megan also enjoyed the game, although not as much as Home of the Bold. Mind you, she’s not seen Wacky Races or Stop the Pigeon, so the cultural references passed her by.)

Another con over

And then we were done. We said our goodbyes and headed back to Yorkshire.

Character summaries for freeform larps

Looking back at Continuum, none of the character sheets for the freeforms I played in (Veterans Day, Party Like It’s 1993 and Ghosts… it’s not Ibsen) had what I consider to be a good introduction. 

A good introduction “settles the reader” by quickly explaining who the character is, why they are present, and what they want. This sets the context for everything that follows, and I find eases my comprehension.

I now try to do this in my freeforms (although I’m not always successful).

So I thought I’d try it for each of my Continuum characters. (Don’t worry, I’ve excluded any potential spoilers.)

Veterans Day

You are Rev Giovanni Holt, a Christian minister. During the war against the aliens, you were a UNVED superhero (codename ‘Jammer’). After the war, you joined a vigilante group and fought crime. After the group broke up, you became a minister and served God. You are here because you (and other superheroes) are being presented with a medal by Vice President Elaine House. You are looking forward to catching up with your old colleagues, some of whom you haven’t seen in over two decades and maybe even solving some of the mysteries that have puzzled you in the past.

Party Like It’s 1993

You are Erich Hannawald, a West Berlin lad who rebelled against your middle-class parents and now lives a life of crime, alcohol and drugs. The Bunker is one of your favourite nightclubs, and you are here to have a beer and game of darts – and maybe score some drugs and conduct some business.

(To be fair, Erich’s character sheet had a one-line summary, although it was too short for my liking.)

Ghosts… it’s not Ibsen

You are Phillip Granger, and you are on the run from the police after having kidnapped your mother, Hillary, from her negligent care home. You’re here at Oatley Hall to see your sister, Petra, and discuss how you can best care for your mother.

These introductions then set the scene for everything else and mean that the reader has a sense of their character from the moment they start reading.

Writing Freeform Larps

A character summary doesn’t even need to be something extra that needs to be written. In my book, Writing Freeform Larps, I write them in Step #4 (Outline characters). The summary helps me define each character’s core concept early in the writing process.

Learn more about Writing Freeform Larps here.

Hillfolk at Continuum

Following on from my previous posts (here and here), I ran Hillfolk at Continuum. How did it play? In short – brilliantly. It was the best session of my convention.

It signed up fast. I mentioned that I was running it to a friend, and he immediately put his name down. There was interest among those (like me) who had backed the 2012 Kickstarter but had yet to play it. It wasn’t just me – three other players also had backed the Kickstarter.

I ran Hillfolk with five players, which seemed to be a good number. I don’t think I would have wanted to do it with six, but I guess I’ll find out one day.

As mentioned before, I used Jon Cole’s Hillfolk one-shot playbooks.

Character creation

For the first 45 minutes of the game, we created characters. It turns out creating characters is a lot of fun – part way through this session, the players were grinning as the conflicts they were setting up became apparent.

After introductions, here’s what we did.

1. First, I gave a brief overview of Hillfolk. While most of us were aware of it, nobody was familiar with Hillfolk, and we had one complete newcomer.
2. Then, I spread the playbooks out and let the players choose. I told the players that if one of them didn’t pick the chief, the chief would be an NPC (and weak). One player chose to play the chief.
3. I asked the players to pick names and desires. I’d printed the list of names from Hillfolk (page 75) and the advice on page 13 on choosing desires.
4. The players chose dramatic poles – examples were printed on each playbook, or they could create their own.
5. The players then answered the playbook-specific questions.
6. I then asked everyone to go around the table and describe their characters to everyone. (As they did, I wrote each name and role on an index card.)
7. Then we moved to relationships – where the fun really starts. I asked each player to describe their character’s relationship with another character – and what they want from that relationship. The receiving player then declares why their character can’t meet that emotional need. (The only restriction I put here was to make sure that each character was only petitioned once.)
8. We then repeated step 7 in random order. Again, I ensured nobody was petitioned more than twice to keep the characters balanced.

And with that, character generation was done. Our characters:

• Firstson, the chief
• Raven, clan elder and the chief’s uncle
• Copperhair, the curate (and the chief’s son)
• Dog, the warrior
• Hewer, the captain

As an example of the dramatic poles and needs and wants, Hewer desired respect and was torn between honour and savagery. From the other characters, Hewer wanted affirmation from Raven that war is good and to train Copperhair as a warrior. Meanwhile, Dog wanted Hewer to recognise that he loved him.

Actual play

I started the game with a conference scene, with the news that raiders from the Shining Scales had stolen the last of the tribe’s food. (This is as suggested by the guide in the playbooks.) The chief made a speech, setting the scene. Copperhair started to respond, but I cut him off and suggested we turned that into the first dramatic scene – which we did.

Then I used a small deck of five index cards to randomise the caller for the next scene. (I didn’t let anyone skip their scene – something suggested by the Fear of a Black Dragon podcast which seemed to work.)

Dramatic scenes work with the caller deciding where it will be, when it takes place, and who will be in it. They then petition one of the other characters for something. If the petitioner forces a concession and gets what they want, the conceder gets a drama token. If the petitioner doesn’t get what they want, they get the drama token. Drama tokens come from the other player (or the pot if that player has none).

Most of the game consisted of dramatic scenes, with the players trying to persuade other players to give them things they want (or do things they want them to). At one point, Dog ended up with four drama tokens, giving him great power over his next scenes.

I didn’t have to do much other than watch the awesomeness unfold. I kept an eye on the scenes to make sure they weren’t too long, and I had to check who got the drama token (sometimes it wasn’t obvious – and sometimes both players agreed neither was due one). But it was probably the easiest GM-ing I’ve done for a long time. (And certainly the biggest impact compared to the effort put in.)

Oh, and I managed the occasional procedural scene.

Procedural scenes

Procedural scenes are action scenes – they’re the scenes that most RPGs focus on. In Hillfolk, they’re important, but they take second place. A procedural scene might be an entire battle or a single spear thrust. But there’s only one chance to resolve it.

Everyone (including me) had three tokens for procedural scenes: red, yellow, and green. The tokens represent the strength of their commitment (green = high, red = low). Here’s how it works:

1. Players state what they are doing and what their intent is.
2. GM decides on the strength of the opposition (high/medium/low using one of their procedural tokens). They keep this hidden.
3. GM draws a playing card and places it face up. This is the target card, and depending on the strength of the opposition, the players are trying to match its value, suit, or colour.
4. Participating players spend tokens depending on the strength of their commitment: Green token – draw two cards, Yellow token – draw one card, Red token – draw one card and the GM eliminates one card
5. GM reveals the strength of the opposition and determines if the action succeeds.

That’s broadly it. There are a few special cases for player against player and some rules for drawing face cards, but that’s mostly it. When I first read Hillfolk, I thought the procedural rules would be fiddly and unintuitive, but they made sense in play.

The twist with procedural tokens is that they don’t refresh until you run out (even between sessions). So before you can play a second green token, you must play your red token. Would that be an issue in a one-shot session? We had three procedural scenes:

The first was Raven the Elder’s peaceful approach to the Shining Scales tribe, trying to get them to give us food. I decided that the tribe’s negotiating position was weak and played my green token (high strength opposition, meaning the players had to match the value of my card). Raven’s negotiation attempt failed.

The second was when Copperhair tried to stab Raven with a spear. Luckily, Raven dodged out of the way. (In these player-v-player scenes, each player draws one [red], two [yellow] or three [green] cards, and the highest card wins.)

The final scene was the tribe raiding the Silver Scales and taking the food by force. This involved everyone. My best token was yellow at this point (matching the suit), and the players drew enough cards between them to match it at least twice. A success!

And there we drew the game to an end.

Overall

I found it so easy to run Hillfolk. The players leaned into the dramatic conflict, and everyone had a great time. (As GM, you get all the credit – even though you do so little!)

So, thoroughly recommended by me. And I’m going to do it again.

Appendix: Stuff for a Hillfolk one-shot

And here’s the stuff I took to Continuum for Hillfolk.

• The rulebook
• A deck of cards
• Counters and tokens – distinctive drama tokens (I used my fate points) and sets of red/amber/green tokens for each player (including the GM). I used counters from Pandemic Legacy
• Index cards (for table-tent name tags and a deck for me to randomise the next scene caller)
• The playbooks (downloaded from Pelgrane’s site)
• A printout of the map on page 68 of Hillfolk
• A rules cheat sheet (downloaded from Pelgrane’s site)
• A sheet of common names (copied from page 75 and pasted into a Word document)
• A sheet with advice on choosing desires (copied from page 13)
• Blank paper to scribble notes on

Continuum 2023

I’ve just returned from a wonderful weekend playing games and seeing old friends at Continuum 2023. Continuum is held in Leicester at one of the university halls of residence.

Continuum originally started back in 1992 under a different name: Convulsion. I don’t go to it as often as I might like (it often clashes with family holidays), but this year everything worked out, so I packed up my bags on Friday morning and headed down.

Friday

I arrived at about three, checked in and picked up my keys before dumping everything in my room and heading to the bar to find friends. 

University accommodation - bringing back memories

My room was clean and felt reasonably spacious. It was en-suite and was a significant improvement on the accommodation I remember from my university days, but it wasn’t as plush as a hotel room. (But it was much cheaper, so there’s that.) 

I found the single bed a little uncomfortable. I’m sure my twenty-year-old self wouldn’t have noticed, but I’m pickier about mattresses now that I’m older.

Hillfolk

My first game of the con was Hillfolk (which I discussed here and here). I’ll go into the game in more detail in a later post, but this was the best session of the convention for me by far. The players leaned into the drama, and I had little to do apart from watching them play.

None of the players had played Hillfolk before, but three had backed the Kickstarter. Like me, their copies had sat on the shelf unplayed. I suspect that may change, and I will certainly run it again.

Hillfolk

After Hillfolk, I caught up with more friends at the bar and retired to bed after midnight. 

Saturday

After not enough sleep (it doesn’t matter what time I go to bed, I always wake around 6 am, if not before), I had the traditional Continuum breakfast in the hall canteen. The canteen was great – three cooked meals a day if you wanted it. The food was fine – it wasn’t great (it was university food, after all), but it was filling, there was plenty of it, and it wasn’t too expensive.

I had nothing scheduled for Saturday morning, and none of the games (with free slots) appealed, so I played board games and chatted with friends.

After lunch, I headed over to Shirley House, a large, detached house that I guess the university uses for accommodation and Continuum uses for freeforms. It’s a great venue with several medium-sized rooms so that you can spread out.

Veterans Day

After lunch, I played a low-power superhero in Veterans Day (written by Clare Gardner, Mike Grace, Alex Helm, Martin Jones, Adrian Smith, and Mike Snowden). My power was that I could jam radio signals (and a secret one). My game was okay – I struggled with engaging with the bigger plots. I think that was a combination of poor playing by me and a character that felt a little too much on the periphery. 

Highlights included the crazy alien big plot, planning to bring Christianity to the aliens, and figuring out some of the mysteries in my background.

A few simple things would have improved my game – another character I could trust, a slightly more coherent character sheet, and a couple of characters who suspected me of having a secret superpower.

Party like it’s 1993

Saturday evening saw Mark Galeoti’s Party Like It’s 1993, where I played a low-level crook in 1993 Berlin. The game was set in an East German underground nightclub. Coincidentally, the lights in the venue were faulty and kept going off while the electrician came to fix them. That only added to the nightclubby atmosphere.

I went into the game with some concerns – I knew only four other people (one of whom I didn’t really know and another I didn’t trust). But it seemed that was the same for everyone – nobody seemed to know many others, and everyone was playing their cards close to their chests. But that didn’t matter – everyone was in the same boat and trying to find out as much as they could without giving too much away.

Highlights included organising the darts tournament (it’s interesting how such a simple thing brought me great pleasure), being saved (or stitched up – it was difficult to tell) by Kris, the shonky (but larp-safe) dartboard (for which I blame East Germany), and the surprise reveal at the end (well, it surprised me).

Sunday

Fiasco

I facilitated a five-player game of Fiasco on Sunday, using the Folly and Fortune Regency playset. We had an arranged marriage, a secret engagement and plenty of scandal. It was a lot of fun – but it wasn’t quite as good as Hillfolk on Friday.

Fiasco

Ghosts… It’s not Ibsen

My last game of Continuum was the one I was approaching with trepidation. Ghosts… It’s not Ibsen is written by Fiona Lloyd and based on the Ghosts BBC TV series. In the TV series, the ghosts can normally only speak to other ghosts, and the living can only normally talk to the living. The only exception is the character of Alison, who can see (and hear) the ghosts after a bump on the head.

So how would a freeform work when half of the players can’t interact with the other half? When I picked up my character sheet, it was marked with, “You can’t see or hear anyone wearing a green badge.” Uh oh.

On top of that, there wasn’t much to my character sheet. I had broken my mother out from her rubbish care home (which had barred me from visiting), and I was on the run – and heading to my sister’s, where she and her husband had come into possession of an enormous old house. But that was it – I didn’t have any traditional freeform goals. I was just “there”.

But it was great.

The GMs staged our entrances, giving me time to meet Petra, explain why I was there, and bring our mother in. I ignored the ghosts (which was fun but not easy, especially when they accused me of being a leper).

About thirty minutes in, one of the other players found a device that let anyone interact with the ghosts – and once we did that, it wasn’t long before we just interacted with them anyway (as that restriction eventually became irritating). The one change I’d make would be to introduce a plot element (maybe a ritual) using the device that makes the ghosts visible until the end of the game.

Highlights included uncovering the history and backstory (there was so much backstory!) and helping the ghosts learn more about themselves and those who left them behind.

So sometimes it’s worth going into a game with low expectations. That way, they can only delight you!

Back to normality

And after Ghosts, it was time for a final cafeteria meal before I headed back north and to home.