Airecon 2025

Ow. Ow. Ow ow ow.

So let’s get the bad out of the way first. Two days before Airecon 2025, I put my back out. Ouch! And to nobody’s surprise, spending three days at Airecon didn’t do it any favours. (I’m resting it now…)

But despite that, I had a great time. This is what I did.

Friday

Friday was my day for running tabletop roleplaying games.

Last year I left it a bit late and arrived at my table only a few minutes before we were due to start playing. I don’t like running late, so this year I set off from home in plenty of time (and this time remembering that driving into Harrogate during rush hour can be grim).

Anyway, I arrived at the convention centre at about 9:15 am. There was (unsurprisingly) a queue to get in, but that was okay. The doors opened at 9:30, and as most people ahead of me in the queue had checked in last night, it was only a couple of minutes before I was picking up my tickets and heading into the first of several cavernous halls.

I had plenty of time, so I got myself settled in and found the food hall, where I got a cup of tea.

10:15 to 13:15 The Aurors (Fate Accelerated)

At about 10:15, my players turned up, and we started playing The Aurors, my Wizarding World-themed Fate Accelerated investigation. (You can download it here for free.)

The players threw me an interesting curveball – during the minimal character generation, one of my Aurors developed a backstory involving Lidl and dark wizards. At our first location (the lovely town of Warkworth in Northumberland), he spent a fate token to add a story detail – Warkworth now has a Lidl in its centre. And so the players decided to check it out.

While one created a firework-based distraction in the front of the shop, the others went in around the back. So I mentally threw away the prepared start of the adventure and moved the first location to the Lidl storeroom, which the PCs investigated (while fire out front rapidly caught hold, drawing the fire brigade).

Anyway, the rest of the adventure played out (more-or-less) as expected, and our heroes defeated the villain.

I had a good time running The Aurors. The players were engaged and seemed to enjoy themselves. I don’t think any had played Fate before, but they certainly got into the swing of it.

I kept the pace up, as at only three hours, the first RPG session at Airecon is the shortest. Something to be aware of when deciding which game to run.

Lunchbreak

One thing to note if you’re running (and I guess playing) all day is that you only have a 45-minute break between session 1 and session 2. Given the food queues at previous Airecons, that might have been a problem, but luckily, it was fine this year.

Anyway, in my 45 minutes, I dropped some games into the bring-and-buy (which was extremely easy – it’s a very easy system to use – and by leaving it this late, I didn’t have to queue), and then picked up some sandwiches, which I ate back at the table.

14:00 to 18:00 Hillfolk

My second game was Hillfolk, and sadly, only two people had signed up. I really need at least three for Hillfolk (ideally four or five), so one of the other GMs (whose game wasn’t running) joined my table.

We had the Chief, the Curate, and the Captain, and this time, the game went in a very different direction. The tribe quickly became very weak (a raid on a neighbouring tribe went badly) and ended up merging with one of their rivals.

With only three PCs, I ended up running several NPCs. My favourite was Delight, the chief’s ex-girlfriend who deliberately undermined him whenever she was in a scene.

Two of my players had never played Hillfolk before – but the third had played in my game last year and come back for more!

Tea

We finished slightly early (which was always likely to happen with only three players), and so I had a leisurely hour for tea (a nice steak and ale pie with mushy peas) and chatted with old friends.

(And new friends. Someone smiled at me when I was walking gingerly through the halls, and although I smiled back, but didn’t recognise them. Our paths crossed again shortly after and they explained that they enjoyed my Cthulhu Dark adventure last year.)

19:00 to 23:00 Perfect Organism (ALIEN)

My final game was Perfect Organism, my ALIEN cinematic one-shot set a few months after Aliens and concerning the USCMC’s investigation into the loss of the Sulaco. (Download it here for free.)  

This went brilliantly. I created the characters to be deliberately antagonistic towards each other (lots of conflicting agendas), and for the first 45 minutes or so,, I did almost nothing but watch them roleplay. The players really leaned into their characters and it quickly got very intense. At one point I asked if everyone was okay, but they said they knew each other and were having a great time (but appreciated my concern for their wellbeing).

As ever with an ALIEN game, there were character deaths. We ended up with two dead and the other two in cryosleep tubes on LV-426 with no obvious means of rescue…

And with that over, I packed up and drove home.

Saturday

After a not-great night (bad back), this time I took the bus to Harrogate, getting there at about 9:45. I went straight up to the RPG area where I had signed up for a game of Slugblaster.

Slugblaster

I’ve reviewed Slugblaster before but this would be my first chance to see it in action. I signed up when Guy noted over on the Gaming Tavern forum that he was running Slugblaster at Airecon…

Unfortunately, Guy wasn’t well, and the session would have been cancelled – except the Airecon gods smiled on us. As luck would have it, we had a replacement GM, Iain, who not only knew Slugblaster but also had a one-shot session with him and wasn’t doing anything else at that moment. (As it turns out, Iain runs a game very much like Guy does.)

I took The Heart playbook. My character was Solstice, and I rode a Hardlight BMX (whatever that is).

One of the things I really like about Slugblaster is the character beats – mini dramatic arcs. Iain had already started a couple of beats on each pregen, and on mine, the Heart Arc had started: Solstice had started a relationship (with a girl I named Luna) with a member of another gang.

Iain structured the game so that we started play at the the end of a run, then we got to play some downtime, then we played through a full run, and finished with a bit of downtime.

It was all great, and I worked through two more beats in the Heart arc – the rest of the gang learned about my feelings for Luna, and it almost tore us apart.

It was brilliant, and now I want to play Slugblaster even more… (At the very least, I need to re-read the rules!)

Saturday afternoon

I chatted with Dom over lunch (I think we should start some face-to-face gaming in Wetherby), and then parted – him to run his game and me to socialise.

I bumped into Paul of Cthulhu (who runs the Yog-Sothoth.com Cthulhu website), who I haven’t seen in years. He runs a podcast and took the opportunity to interview me about the origins of Tales of Terror, the little ideas booklet I produced in 1990. I have no idea if it was any good or not or if it will actually appear. (And as I was unprepared, I forgot to mention my co-editor, Garrie Hall, who was so influential. Oops.)

I also took my proceeds from the Bring & Buy – through some aggressive pricing, I had sold all of my games.

I had arranged to meet another friend, Philippa, but she was playing Blood on the Clocktower, so I enjoyed a quiet beer while I waited. When I caught up with Philippa, she needed something to eat, and after that, we tried a demo of Rallyman GT (which was fine but not special).

Phillippa had a game of Root booked at 6 pm, and my back was giving me gyp, so I headed home.

Sunday

If I hadn’t promised to take my daughter to Airecon, I probably would have stayed at home and looked after my back. As it was, I came into Harrogate for my third painful day.

Sunday was a day of board games and demos. We played several: Finspan, Spokes, Word Colony, Living Forest Duel, Flow, Wizards Cup, and War of the Worlds: One More Day.

My favourite was probably Finspan or Living Forest Duel. Megan liked Spokes (and really didn’t like Word Colony, as trivia isn’t her strong point).

It was a nice break from revising for A-Levels, and we headed home shortly after 3 pm.

Airecon mementos

Next year

So what about next year?

As usual, I will aim to run three TTRPG sessions. It’s much too early to decide which games, but I like running Hillfolk, but it struggles to attract players. I wonder if I should create a more geek-friendly playset – maybe something set in the ALIEN universe. (I dunno, the leaders of the colony on LV426? That might be fun. I’ll have a think.)

And this year, Airecon had a couple of rooms set aside for “social games” – things like Werewolf and Blood on the Clock Tower. They’d be ideal for a small freeform larp, so I may investigate that. (I will try and persuade Graham to find out more – I’m happy to be involved!)

This year, I also learned how the game finder worked (thanks, Philippa!) – if you want to run a game of something, you can add it to the system and say when and where you’ll be. And then people can sign up. (Or you can just trust the lightsabres – which indicate a game looking for players.) As I so rarely play Cosmic Encounter these days (it’s best with 4-5 and doesn’t appeal to Mrs H, so it rarely sees the light of day), next year’s Airecon may be an opportunity.

But that suggests I’m going to be extremely busy…

And hopefully, my back will behave itself!

Slugblaster: A first impressions review

Thanks to Quinn’s Quest review on YouTube, I bought the Slugblaster pdf. 

It isn’t something I’d normally be interested in, but I’ll get to that.

According to the rules, Slugblaster is “a tabletop roleplaying game about teenagehood, giant bugs, circuit-bent rayguns, hoverboard tricks, and trying to be cool.”

Forged in the Dark

Slugblaster is a Forged in the Dark (Fitd) game set sort of in the modern day, but with a wacky cartoon veneer as their home town has a crazy science lab in it that is warping reality. The PCs are bored teenage skateboarders, taking their boards into alternate universes for a “run”. That’s a “slugblast” (and the game’s core activity) - doing unnecessary things that are unnecessarily risky.

(I guess you could think of it as a four-colour, gonzo version of Tales from the Loop. )

So the players go on runs, then return home for downtime to deal with their dysfunctional families.

The rolls are as FitD, there are playbooks and gear (lots of crazy gear) and monsters and more. It’s all extremely charming, nicely laid out and fairly concisely written. (It’s a masterpiece of conciseness compared to the weighty tome that is Urban Shadows' second edition.)

I have a chequered history when it comes to running FitD games (see here and here). I don’t think the rules quite work for me. I’m not sure why – I think I’m missing something fundamental. I probably need to play more to see how it’s supposed to work.

Slugblaster's cycle of play

Anyway, Quinns made Slugblaster sound like a lot of fun, and I think I’d rather play it than run it. Although I’d quite like to run it. (And it needs more than my usual preference for a one-shot.)

And that’s because of beats.

What are beats?

Basiscally, beats are dramatic character development arcs. Slugblaster has loads – several common beats plus a unique beat for each playbook. Some examples:

The family arc:

1. Trouble at Home (2 trouble). Your family disapproves. How? Why? Do you care? +1 slam (distracted, worried, etc.) and pick a teammate who notices.
2. Final Warning (3 trouble). An argument, punishment, or ultimatum. What do they want? What do you? What don’t they understand? What don’t you? +1 doom.
3. Last Straw (4 trouble). Nuclear war, scorched-earth, and words you both regret. +1 slam (grounded, lost device, etc.) and +1 doom. What’s the crew think?
4. Redemption (4 style). Who makes the first move toward forgiveness? What’s changed? How will you treat each other differently now? −2 doom, +1 legacy or trait.

The angst arc:

1. Angst (2 trouble). You’ve got issues. Do we know why? How do they show? +1 slam (angry, jealous, depressed, etc.) and pick a teammate who notices.
2. Struggling (3 trouble). Your issues get worse. You act out, project, or try to solve the problem the wrong way. +1 doom.
3. Darkness (4 trouble). You are not okay. Your issues hurt your own crew. How? What did you say? What did you do? What did you not do? +1 fracture.
4. Catharsis (4 style). Who helps you? What do you understand now that you didn’t before? What will you change? −1 doom, −1 fracture, +1 legacy or trait.

During downtime, you can use beats to clear the trouble you have accrued during runs (when you are messing about in other dimensions). And you don’t want trouble to get too high…

Let’s say you start on the angst arc. It’s your turn, so you clear two trouble and start a scene where you describe your issues and how they are manifesting. You can bring in a teammate, and it’s up to you whether you roleplay this in full or just describe it. And when you’re done, you get +1 slam (“…lingering problems that directly affect your body, mind, spirit, or gear. Things like bruised, exhausted, freaking out, humiliated, glitching device…”).

So yes, to start with, all you get for clearing those two trouble is something bad (a slam). And the next two beats are worse – until, finally, you triumph and you are redeemed or overcome your troubles. The final beat gives you lots of nice bonuses, but frankly, I imagine the real bonus is all that angsty roleplaying.

Yes, you do have to accept the narrative leap that allows you to use the angst arc to clear the trouble you received from fleeing a salvage crab. As Quinns points out, Slugblaster is a resource management game – and trouble is just one resource. (And if you have players who struggle with that, then this probably isn’t the game for them.)

I imagine that when beats are working well, they will only encourage the players to take more crazy risks (to rack up the trouble), thus making the runs even more fun. That makes it a virtuous circle and is probably the main reason I want to play Slugblaster. With the right group.

I don’t think I’ve seen anything like beats in another game.

And the rest

The rest of Slugblaster is all the stuff we’ve seen before. Playbooks. Gear (lots of gear, much of it gonzo). Hillview, the PC’s home town, is described (along with some alternatives). There are crazy worlds (and a world-generator) for the PCs to go slugblasting in, and a bunch of crazy monsters (and a monster-generator) for them to meet. There are maps and NPCs and and factions and so on. I’ll be honest, I didn’t read this. I didn’t pick up Slugblaster for the background. If I decide to run it, I’ll read it then.

Slugblaster also contains rules for solo play, a chapter on changing the game, and examples of play. At the end, there are two boxes which explain the game in broad terms to D&D players and Blades in the Dark players.

So am I going to play Slugblaster?

I don’t know. I hope so, it looks like fun. But I’m not sure I want to run it.

You can pick up Slugblaster here.