Kapcon 22 - Part Two

Continued from Part One

Round Four -The Shadow Over Kafiristan

This was my first experience with the Laundry and the work of Charlie Stross.  Some of the characters seemed to have a lot of information to absorb – not me.  According to the briefing my character thought the entire mission to Afghanistan was a bad idea and wanted to get the team home safely.  To accomplish this he had some good interpersonal skills and a sidearm.  Okay, seems challenging, but perhaps this is the kind of challenging you might expect a fictional character in the Laundry to be able to accomplish.

I was a little concerned at having an agenda which was opposed to the entire mission.  I assumed to balance my opposition, either the initial mission would rapidly be changed, or other characters would have opposite agendas, setting the scene for character conflict.  The setting became a major element of the game, the same characters on their home turf would have been a different experience entirely, but in the backwoods of Afghanistan the language difficulties, cultural considerations and constant threat did work to fixate the players less on what their characters should know, and more on what they could know. 

There was a good and interesting story behind the game and Malcolm did a fine job of running it.   He did comment after the game he had made a major error by not starting the game in-media-res and I can see what he meant.  When things started to go wrong, my character doggedly tried to extract as many of the team as he could, as per his motivations, and ignored the major final encounter – something that might not have happened had the scenario begun as Malcolm originally intended.   As I had no authority over the other characters, fortunately most of them ignored me and continued to explore, and so the full plot was revealed. 

I enjoyed the game, and thought my fellow players did an excellent job with their characters.  There was nothing in my experience of this scenario that seemed like it wouldn’t have been perfectly at home in a Delta Green setting, but then I don’t know what access the other characters had to magic and whatnot.  A fun time overall, but I felt like I probably should have ignored my character brief in order to enjoy it to get the most out of it.

Round 5 - Price Slash

Price Slash can be a tricky scenario - Mash has dubbed it the weakest EPOCH scenario to date.  It’s certainly as detailed as Fever Pitch is simple.  Because I wrote it, I have obvious trouble being objective.  However, I believe that If run properly it should deliver you a movie experience reminiscent of elements found in movies like Saw, Devil, Hunger or Unknown.  What I learned at Kapcon, however, is that it’s not a good first-time EPOCH scenario. 

I had 6 players, one of whom had experienced EPOCH previously.  Their characters were great, but only 4 of them really interacted with each other in any significant way.  Part of the conceit of a locked box scenario is that the characters are forced together to an extent (rather than having a pre-established relationship), and ideally use this opportunity interact with one another to create interesting stories and flashbacks.  
 

Price Slash allows for individual development before bringing the characters together, and I think that this weaving of stories forces the characters to choose between engaging with each other, or largely ignoring each other.  Regrettably half my group chose the latter course, which naturally had a consequence in the ballot and play of cards. There are tools in the scenario which should provoke some engagement, precisely because of this risk, but these proved largely ineffective.

The characters that did weave their stories together were particularly memorable.  A young man cursed with Lycanthropy was responsible for the death of several of the other characters loved ones, a killer of serial killers calmly navigated the horror bumping off other characters while chatting happily with a valley girl, while Ruth had the distinction of creating Simon-Paul Christian, the most despicable character that I’ve yet facilitated in EPOCH.  These dark twists provoked a number of player initiated challenges – which were actually pretty great

Unfortunately, I feel like I didn’t do a great job for the other characters, who fell by the wayside, more from story neglect, then being claimed as victims of the horror.  It could just be that I wasn’t in top form facilitating this game.  Either way, I think I’ll be editing Price Slash to recommend it for experienced EPOCH players. 

Round 6 - Kapcon Summer Slam II

This game continued my tradition of running a Piledrivers and Powerbombs scenario in the informal sixth round of Kapcon.  I love the system – it’s very simple and free flowing, and allows for total hilarity.  There’s nothing quite like mocking professional wrestling, which itself, mocks the mainstream media.  Unfortunately I hadn’t actually re-read the rules since last Kapcon, so there was a bit of stopping and starting as  I checked a couple of elementary things.

I had thought of taking 6, 8 or 10 players and setting the wrestlers up to be each others nemesis.  However, despite having 8 players, the consensus in the room seemed to be that everyone wanted to create both a hero and a nemesis – leaving me with 16 professional wrestling characters to wrangle!

Sure enough, the game delivered the entertaining and hilarious experience I’d hoped.  The nemesis characters despicably used a training montage while the star characters connected with each other, meaning that there was a slight power imbalance which left a villain ultimately victorious – but the play of cards was tense and entertaining affair.  I think each year I learn a few more tricks for running this game better, so hopefully next year it will be better again.

 

Conclusion

So that was Kapcon 22.  I had a great time, and the organisation was first rate.  Every round ran on time, and I had no problems with player (or GM) wrangling.  I wasn’t called on for surge protection, possibly because numbers were down a little this year, and all the GMs showed up.  I heard a lot of great feedback about EPOCH and most people seemed to have a great time playing the EPOCH games on offer.  I was particularly pleased to see Igor voted the first-equal highest scoring GM in a single round with Red Gold.

Kapcon 21 - Part 2

In Rounds 3, 4 and 5 I ran the Love of Money, a recent Esoterrorists release. In December I was looking around for a published scenario to run as a second Kapcon offering and picked this after a skim read – in retrospect it wasn’t the best game to take to a time limited ‘con. Firstly Esoterrorists is a complex setting, I lost 35 minutes to establishing the setting and system alone. Secondly the pre-generated characters were very detailed (3 full pages of text). I don’t think they were overly complex (with one exception) but they were, perhaps, over written. As an existing team of investigators who have established relationships, who find themselves in a bad spot, there was probably more detail then I think could easily be absorbed in ‘con conditions.

Finally, the plot, which had several cool scenes, was overly complex, and unnecessarily convoluted. It prompted the players to think it was even more convoluted then it was, which chewed up a lot of time. Finally, investigative games are a tough ask in a ‘con. Players inevitably engage with the investigation more thoroughly than is anticipated by the scenario, and even in a fairly tight setup where the clues are guaranteed – like Love of Money – there is a fair bit of doubt and second-guessing which slows the scenario down.

After the playtest, I had taken steps to address some of the problems, and managed to cut the scenario down from 4.5 hours to 3.5, and with a little effort 3.25 hours, although this inevitably truncates the climax, which is a shame as this is a much better scene than the longest scene (the intro). Plus, I prefer to have my games come in on time, for everybody’s sake.

How did it go? Well, the averaged response is good. I think most groups enjoyed the game and had fun. But some games felt like they dragged, and some players played a less active role than I’d have liked, while others were better as the players managed to dig out some characterisation and conflict from the pre-generated characters. As a GM I found running Love of Money really, really hard work, and wished that I had offered Sundown to replace this for 2 of the 3 runs. It wasn’t a bad game, but I don’t think it lived up to my normal Kapcon standards. I think this is entirely my own fault for trying to force a square peg through a round hole, and I’ll certainly look to take some lessons away from it.

In Round 3.5 I was going to simply go and have a drink with some of my regular Cthulhu group to debrief the first day of the ‘con, but that wily salesman and veteran GM, Mike Sands managed to sell me on Psi-Run a game where people with psychic powers and amnesia are hunted down. It sounded cool, so I thought I’d give it a go.

Much like Geiger Counter, this game starts a little rough - from a cold start you have to make a number of character decisions that you might wish you could rethink once you understand how the game works – so subsequent runs would be fun, but it’s tough on the first run-through. Also, like Geiger-Counter, the system seems to not account for a player’s natural desire to have their character ‘succeed’ (which in this context is remaining on the lamb) at the expense of other elements – so on most of the tests we made people didn’t prioritise answering questions about their characters amnesia which prolonged the chase. This is reinforced by the fact that having the chasers get closer affects all the characters - regardless of their circumstances - so there is an additional social pressure not to screw everyone with your decision.

However, unlike Geiger Counter, Mike acted as GM and did a great job of contextualising the chase, setting and the inevitable psychic surges. This helped structure the game to a point where most of the player believed that actually it might be better if the psychic escapees were recaptured, rather than continuing to wreck havoc on the world. In my opinion, the weird mix of complete creative freedom, which is then straitjacketed by an overly dictatorial dice mechanic. All in all, I had a lot of fun playing this, and would recommend it to others in the hands of a GM who loves to improvise.

For Round 6 I ran Piledrivers and Powerbombs for 8 players. In retrospect I think 8 might have been a touch ambitious and I probably should have used a variant of the ‘royal rumble’ party rules. Needless to say I will tinker with it to try and get a slightly more coherent approach for the next outing. It was a really great time, and a great way to have some silly fun to close out the 'con. I’ll cross post my remarks from NZRaG:

Kapcon Summer Slam in round 6 was epic-level insanity - the players were screaming, cheering, jeering, waving hillarious signs, smack-talking and scene framing until they could wrestle and game no more. I salute your ridiculous, magnificent, amazing wrestlers:

- Rainbow Warrior (Sophie)
- Polar Bear (Nick P.)
- Jolly Roger (John B.)
- G.I. Joey (Liam)
- Baseball Boy (don't remember your name, sorry)
- La Cucaracha (Stephanie)
- El Diablo (Andrew M.) *Crossover character from D.O.G.
- Drunken Truckie (Grant)

And, all of their hilarious and tragic nemeses.

You can read my report of Kapcon 20 here and here.

A Day of Games

On Saturday I attended my first Day of Games (DOG) organised by the local legend Sophie Melchior. DOG is a small to mid-size, mostly indie games ‘con, where people bring games which require little or no preparation, and offer to run them over three rounds, with the most popular games (as voted by the audience) being selected to be run. I brought along Piledrivers and Powerbombs, a simple wrestling game as my contribution. What follows are my reflections on both the games and the systems I played.

Round One – Piledrivers and Powerbombs: Chokeslam of Darkness Edition


The Game: This was enormous fun, I had a full load of 6 players, and they set about creating wrestlers with silly gimmicks, and their enemy wrestlers with glee. Sophie featured as the evil NPC General Manager of the league and everyone got into the spirit of things rapidly. I was hugely impressed with everyone’s contribution, and I think that despite the disparate levels of knowledge or love for professional wrestling, and different gaming experience levels, everyone really came to the party in this game. It was massive fun and we managed to run through two complete match-cards with pre and post match scenes in the time allotted. I was particularly pleased by the willingness of the players to jump into the guest commentary roles when their own characters were not involved in a scene to really keep the flow going. The game and characters could have easily managed another hour in my opinion. Wrestlers created included:

• Leeroy Harlem – Avenger of the disadvantaged street children, and his nemesis Max Power, a wealthy developer.


• Man of Science – Educator and quoter of all things Darwin and Dawkins, opposed by his nemesis, bible-toting Father O’Mallet.


• The Rainbow Warrior – Environmental activist and her fearsome hulking nemesis, the HAZMAT suit clad, Industrial By-Product.


• El Hombre Lobo – The howling luchador known for abrupt ring entrances, and his nemesis the fearsome Shadow Man accompanied to the ring by his sexy zombies.


• El Diablo – Another luchador who stands for the underprivledged opposed by the evil Developer and his bulldozer of destruction!


• Last, but by no means least, Ronald Ray-Gun – Presidential wrestler with a tefelon smile and scantily clad Secret Service bodyguards opposed by the twisted head of the United Nations, the Secretary General.

The System: P&P is a neat system, it uses really simple techniques and a easily understood system to represent the different parts of the game. The real genius of the system is the use of pre and post match scenes to allow character developments and storytelling, while also delivering a mechanical advantage. It flowed smoothly and easily.

As a critique I would say that there needs to be better guidance for the players during the initial creation phase to help if they get stuck – the NPC gimmick and finisher tables are useful, but could be better tailored for this purpose. The pre and post match scenes are a little too similar and should have better demarcated points of uniqueness. There also needs to be a mechanic for linking subsequent match cards including rules to aid with the use of the GM to mess with the wrestlers and the commentary needs to be officially turned over to the players while different match types should have some optional special rules (e.g. in a cage match anyone who draws a face card takes a point of sellage in addition to the normal rules reflecting a collision with the metal) and finally, the actual wrestling itself needs another phase. The idea of drawing a hand then having an option to fold is nice. There should also be a chance to ‘raise’ drawing on the poker theme, to increase the tension and allow for the players to engage better, and more strategically, with the fight.

Round Two – Dread (D&D scenario)

I was actually ‘volunteered’ for this game by Alasdair, but I had been wanting to try Dread for ages, so was interested to see how it runs. Paul was offering a D&D version of Dread so I thought I might as well give it a shot.

The Game: I’m not a huge dungeon crawl fan so found motivation for this game a little tough, compounded by the need to fill in a questionnaire at the beginning of the game. However, my fellow players, and their characters were fairly motivational, so I created Old Ali a wizened demon worshipping wizard and together we ventured into the depths of the Dragon God’s dungeon and slew the beast with the loss of two of our number (including Old Ali). The game was solid and finished with an hour to spare, so Paul broke out Fiasco. I opted to wander off for a coffee and catch up with some folks instead, resulting in some interesting discussions about the nature of horror games at ‘cons.

The System: The Jenga Tower is a strong idea, and it does a remarkable job of increasing the tension. My main criticism is that the method of engagement with the tower encourages players to not engage with the scenario - if taking actions forces me to draw from the tower and imperils my character - then I’ll try and find ways to avoid taking action directly or even simply avoid engagement with the scenario. Now, obviously it is desirable that players do not play this way, but the reality is that some do, and any game that relies on ‘like minded players’ has an inherent weakness. My view is that any system should actively support the player’s engagement with the game, and be aligned with the aims of the scenario – Dread seems to fail this test to some extent. I also don’t like the character questionnaire used to help shape the character. I appreciate the technique and I like what it is trying to accomplish, but I personally think such a crude device to accomplish these aims alienates and excludes a segment of gamers who don’t like to be put on the spot, or don’t engage well with written material in a ‘con setting.

Round Three – Fiasco (London Underworld Setting)

Fiasco is another game I’ve wanted to try for ages. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Fiasco of late, so although I was a little disappointed I couldn’t get sufficient wrestlers for another run of P&P, I was happy to join Mike’s game of Fiasco.

The Game: I pushed for the London Underworld setting as I love Guy Ritchie’s irreverent movies of this genre. Fortunately I was persuasive and we began the setup phase of the game. It turned out that I was playing ‘Fancy’ Frank Farley an ex-con who had a frankfurter stand, was trying to scam a cat welfare lady and had a shared love interest with Alasdair’s character. So began our caper, which was enormous fun and had me in stitches through most of the game. Having involved any number of underworld factions I thought our game was pretty wild – until, that is, we had a visit from the crew of Jenni’s ‘clothes optional' Harry Potter Fiasco game. Nonetheless, it was a very enjoyable time, and although things didn’t work out too well for ‘Fancy’ Frank, I had a blast.

The System: The genius of Fiasco is clearly adding structure, in a fairly traditional way, to the beginning and ending of the game. The creators seem to have cleverly identified that these areas are often the most important, and by helping to shape them while also allowing a degree of player autonomy, it makes the prospect of the game falling flat, or lacking motivation, much reduced. I’m not really sure about how the dice are allocated during the game, we pretty much ran with a story (okay, I might have occasionally hijacked the story in places) and the formal structure of the set-up or resolve mechanic seemed unnecessary given we were all on the same page. I suppose, however, that if players are less together on what they’d like to have happen this might be a bigger factor. As a newbie to the game I found the complexity and sheer volume of dice a little overwhelming, and I think that a strongly systems-focussed player might have struggled to ‘trust’ the game sufficiently to allow it to progress smoothly. On subsequent play, however, this seems unlikely to remain an issue.

So, a fun day with some really enjoyable games. My thanks to Sophie for organising a great Day of Games.