RPGaDay 2023 #13 to 17

#14 Favourite convention purchase

My most used convention purchase is my trusty dice bag and dice tray from the fine folk at All Rolled Up. I found that my pens fell out when I turned it upside down, so Miss H added a flap to keep them secure during transport.

My favourite convention purchase, however, might be my most recent: The Floor is Lava and Bored? Games! by Ivan Brett, both purchased at Airecon earlier this year. (I reviewed them here.)

#15 Favourite con one-shot

I run quite a few convention games, but based on my last convention (Continuum in Leicester), it's Hillfolk - specifically, the one-shot playbooks created by Jon Cole. It was a superb session, but I've only done it once, and I'm looking forward to seeing how repeatable it is.

For me, the key to a good convention game is getting the characters right. If you get the characters right (with links between the PCs and, ideally, a little conflict), the scenario runs itself. Much of that can be created at the table, with a shortened session zero.

As a player, my favourite game was a Fate Accelerated game run by Neil Gow at Furnace. The setting was Werewolf: the Apocalypse and we were the last werewolves facing the apocalypse. (Although I was an elf. Anyway.) Alone, we faced the baddies and prevented the apocalypse. It was epic and huge – and it felt like we were playing in a movie. Brilliant.

From a freeform perspective, they're all one-shot games. I don't have a favourite, though.

#16 Game you wish you owned

There's nothing from the past I think I want. (One thing I like about playing RPGs is that it can be a cheap hobby if you want it to be. Some rules, dice, pens and paper, some friends - that's it.)

There are a couple of boardgames that are coming out that I've got my eye on, but I've not made any decisions yet.

#17 Funniest game you've played

Fiasco is often the game I laugh most in, just because it's so wrong. The game itself isn't funny, but the situations players end up in...

RPGaDay 2023 #10-13

And on we go, into the middle of the month.

#10 Favourite tie-in fiction

I don’t read tie-in fiction, so I don’t have a favourite.

I also don’t read other types of tie-in fiction. I’ve read a little Star Wars fiction, and a little ALIEN fiction, but I usually find them unsatisfying.

#11 The weirdest game you've played

I’m not sure how to answer this. I’m not sure what a “weird” game is – RPGs are all pretty weird. Especially when trying to explain them to my father-in-law…

So how do you play them?

Er, you sit around and talk. Each player has a character and another player plays the rest of the world and sets interesting situations for them.

And what do the different dice mean?

Er, it depends on the game. They’re used to make decisions or decide how much damage something does in an attack.

Is there a board?

Er, sometimes. I don’t usually have a board, but others use a map with miniatures.

And do you dress up?

You can, but I don’t. Dressing up is more common in <takes a deep breath> larping.

What’s larping?

It’s like tabletop roleplaying, but standing up. And in the woods, or a castle.

This sounds most peculiar…

And so on..

#12 Old game you still play

For me, an old game is one I was playing last century – so something like Traveller, Call of Cthulhu or Vampire: the Masquerade. I don’t currently play any of those, and even if I did, I’d use their latest ruleset.

As for boardgames, I still play Cosmic Encounter when I can (which isn’t often enough, as discussed in question 6). But again, with a modern edition.

#13 Most memorable character demise

A couple of years ago, I ran Destroyer of Worlds for ALIEN, and although I am not fond of combat in RPGs, it did create our most memorable scenes. In an assault on an insurgent compound, Captain Silva froze (panic!) while trying to make her rappelling roll—and moments later, the dropship was hit by two RPGs. The NPC android Chaplain was hit (he was piloting), and the dropship went into a spin, crashing and killing Silva (skull crushed) and disabling Chaplain (severe chassis breach--legs torn off). All in a matter of moments.

As far as a freeform goes, my most memorable character death was in Tutankhamun: Evil Under the Egyptian Sun where I played movie star (and serial murderer) Rudolph Valentino. At the end of the game, my past caught up with me and I was dragged away for execution. When it came time to be executed, I tried to escape and was shot in the back like the villain I was.

RPGaDay 2023 #9

#9 Favourite dice

D6s. Always.

The dice of my childhood. Of Monopoly, backgammon, Traveller, Escape from Colditz, and more.

As I said before, proper dice.

RPGaDay 2023 #4-8

 Where is the time going? Anyway...

#4 Most recent game bought

Same answer as #3:

• RPG: Codex of Worlds for Monster of the Week. 
• Board game: My City (actually the last game I bought).

#5 Oldest game you've played

I started playing RPGs in 1981 with Traveller, which probably makes that my oldest RPG. While D&D was published in 1974, I didn’t play it until 1985-ish, and we played AD&D anyway, which was 1978, I think. So Traveller.

This year, the oldest RPG I’ve played (or rather, GM-ed), is 2013’s Hillfolk at Continuum.

As for board games, I think the oldest physical game I’ve played is Reiner Knizia’s Lord of the Rings from 2000, which I rescued from an inaccessible cupboard in Miss H’s bedroom. I’ve also played a couple of games of Cosmic Encounter, which dates from 1977 (but my copy is the 2008 FFG version, so that may not count).

I’m not sure which is the oldest freeform I’ve played this year, as Retcon B and Continuum both featured several freeforms that have been run before. My guess is it’s one of Marlow 2020 or Hope Springs Eternal (at Retcon B), or Veterans Day (at Continuum).

#6 Favourite game you never get to play

My favourite game I rarely play is Cosmic Encounter. I wish I played more. I’ve played two games of it this year (a good year for me). While Miss H enjoys Cosmic Encounter (and I last played it with one of her schoolfriends), the theme doesn’t appeal to Mrs H, alas.

As for RPGs, I wish I played more Hillfolk. I’ve had the book for a decade and ran it for the first time in July. And it was awesome, and I’d like to run more of it – so that’s my plan. I’m not sure it’s my favourite game, though. At least, not yet. Other games I want to play more of include Microscope, Monsterhearts and Hot War. But none of those are my favourite games either. 

I’m not even sure I have a favourite RPG.

#7 Smartest RPG you've played

Hmm. Smart as in appearance, intelligence, or pain? Or all three?

Appearance: Traveller, in its little black dress with red trim. I prefer Traveller’s elegant design to most RPGs. (So much so that when I bought The Traveller Book, I threw away the dust jacket with its J Andrew Keith painting in preference for the original black-and-red design beneath.

Intelligence: Fiasco is one of the smartest RPGs I’ve played, the second edition especially. It does so much with a slim rulebook and a couple of decks of cards. I love it.

Pain: Anything with a lot of crunch I find painful. When I’m wading through the numbers and figuring out rules and exceptions and modifiers, I’m not enjoying the bit of roleplaying I enjoy – riffing off the other players. I don’t like playing crunchy games, and I try not to run them.

#8 Favourite character

I’m not sure I have a favourite character. I play a lot of one-shots (or 7-8 session mini-campaigns), and as a result, I’m never with my characters all that long.

My most memorable character was Kira, a Traveller character. I can’t remember her skills or anything, but I and another player decided we were married (which was actually a ruse, if I remember right). Anyway, I derailed the campaign (which was supposed to be Twilight’s Peak) when, a few sessions in, I threw a grenade into the game by declaring that my character was pregnant. Things didn’t last much longer after that.

RPGaDay 2023 #1-3

I can’t post every day, so for RPGaDay, I’ll post now and again, catching up with old posts. Like today, when I’m doing three posts.

#1 First RPG played this year

My first game of 2023 was the first of three sessions of Kingdom by Ben Robbins. Kingdom is a collaborative story game where you chart the rise and fall of a kingdom. Or, in our case, The Egregious Society of the Silver Fork. I wrote more about it back in January.

My first freeform of the year was Incense and Insensibility, which I played at Retcon B and wrote about here.

And according to Boardgamegeek, my first board game of 2023 was London (second edition). Probably against Mrs H, and almost certainly resulting in my defeat because she is so much better at it than I am.

#2 First RPG gamesmastered

Of all time? Traveller back in 1981.

This year? Kingdom (well, I facilitated). If facilitating doesn’t count, then Count Magnus’ Descendant, a Cthulhu Dark investigation in February.

As for a freeform larp, that was Death on the Gambia, I think. I wrote Death on the Gambia some years before starting Freeform Games.

#3 First RPG bought this year

I buy very few RPGs. I know how I like to play (and run), and I’m not a big fan of learning new mechanics and settings.

For a few minutes, I couldn’t think of any RPG material I’d bought – then I remembered that I backed Codex of Worlds (on Backerkit) for Monster of the Week. So, a supplement rather than a full game. There’s a stone age setting that looks interesting, but I haven’t run it yet.

As for board games, I’ve bought My City (a tile-laying legacy game) and backed an expansion to D-Day Dice (cooperative dice rolling set in Normandy 1944), which is due to land before the end of the year. I’ve also pre-ordered Daybreak, the new global-warming cooperative game from Matt Leacock; I’m not expecting that until October.

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.

Hillfolk playbooks

For Continuum, I’m using the Hillfolk one-shot playbooks designed by Jon Cole. The playbooks are inspired by PbtA games, and consist of:

• The Captain
• The Elder
• The Curate
• The Homemaker
• The Libertus (a freed slave)
• The Warrior
• The Pariah
• The Artisan
• The Chief

A one-page summary of the rules for a one-shot Hillfolk.

(The playbooks are here, towards the bottom of this list of Hillfolk resources.)

Each playbook is a single sheet and consists of a front and back cover, and a double-page spread with everything you need for your character (example dramatic poles, a blank table to fill in relationships and wants with other characters, a summary of the rules and typical petitions, and something unique about each character).

Although they’ve been created for one-shot play, I’m sure they’d be fine for an ongoing game as well. The playbooks have 90% of the information you need – they’re missing the action types used for procedural scenes.

Playbooks seem like an accessible way to play Hillfolk – I think the series pitches would have been stronger (and easier to use) done as playbooks. (There’s also a set of playbooks for Dream Askew on Pelgrane’s Hillfolk Resources page, but I don’t know anything about Dream Askew.)

Once I’ve got my head around Hillfolk, I will create my own playbook set.

But first I want to run it…