EYECON 2009

It’s been a while since I did a con report. Admittedly, I was an organiser for SYDCON 08, but I still could have written something. Anyway, other than providing the IT services, I was largely left to play games at this year’s EYECON. For the first time in ages, I played only freeforms (oh, and a LARP — you can’t have everything). I’ll review them in a second.

I want to acknowledge the hard work of all the game designers (whether or not I played your game), and my colleagues in the SRGA. As a secondary organiser, much of my work was done weeks before people started registering for games. Props go to everybody who did all the running around, lost hours of sleep, and nearly went insane due to everyone else’s “special” requests. You guys know who you are, so give yourselves a pat on the back and get some sleep.

Before reading further, be warned that I may not be able to avoid spoiling these games. In the event that you may want to play them in the future, you may not want to read my review.

Hereticus – James Layton

This Dark Heresy freeform was an exercise in ducking and weaving, while misdirecting the authorities’ attentions elsewhere. Ok, that might be a summary of many freeform characters, so let me elaborate. I’m a relative WarHammer 40k newbie, so I might get some setting details wrong. The Inquisition has got word of cult trouble on the world of Belross. Everybody is suspect (of course) – from the local government, to the local church, to the law enforcement and nobility.

I played a local street preacher, who was probably a little too compassionate for the church’s liking. I was harbouring a small group of mutants (the Church has a zero-tolerance view of mutants since they’re chaos touched). This could be viewed as the beginnings of a cult by the wrong people.

Fortunately, the inquisition had bigger things on their minds (and they were played either by people inexperienced with the setting or freeforming or both), I was able to dodge the consequences of that. Instead, I managed to  round up the followers of the local Machine Cult (the only legitimate non-Church cult) and have them executed. This apparently didn’t go down well with the Inquisition who felt that they needed the Cult to  quell the uprising of approximately 2000 people set on rebellion. Fortunately, the blame for that fell on my superior and his bodyguard, who were executed at the end of the game.

I would say that I was moderately successful, which was good. My secret got out early in the game, but I was able to evade getting questioned on that.

If I were to make any suggestions for the game, it would be to give some of the groups more reason to work together in spite of mutual distrust.

The Tragedy of Lear Bonisagus – Brian Ballsun-Stanton

I was excited to see any form of Ars Magica being run at a convention. Philippa tries to get a campaign going every couple of years, but people never seem to buy into it. This was Brian’s first attempt at any sort of freeform or LARP, and while his inexperience shows, it was still a good game. The plot was based on the King Lear, with the setting transported from a pre-roman British kingdom to a Hermetic Covenant in 13th century Normandy. That much certainly worked. The characters translated fairly well, though I think the Fool was underutilised as a GM-controlled mage’s familiar.

The structure of the session as three Seasons (acts, for the uninitiated) was interesting, and certainly helped direct the flow of the narrative. However, I think too much time was spent on covering the rules of the game, rather than the setting. Ars Magica is a rich setting, with much to cover. Either player handouts or posters would have been very useful.

I don’t think character balance was very well planned in this game. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but my character (Edmund, the bastard half-brother of the Duke of Normandy) had everything stacked against him. A dark secret that would turn every single character in the game against him, an enemy capable of detecting this secret at a glance, and not a single ally to begin the game with. I did the best I could by manipulating the metagame and abusing my setting knowledge, but I had the leniency of the investigating Quaesitore (whose player knew my secret, but wouldn’t allow her character to take advantage of that until late in the game).

I was told that in the second running of the game, my character did much better, but his main enemy wasn’t present. He still went down in the end, but not before causing a demonic invasion of Normandy. I also suspect that the GMs were heavily against Edmund. A number of times I drew fantastic cards to perform tasks, and they were still turned against me. My general advice to any game master (of any game, but especially in a freeform): abandon any preconception of how things “should” turn out. Your players will feel frustrated if they come up with great plans, roll well on the dice, and you override it because you think that things shouldn’t go their way.

Anyway, I had fun, but certainly wouldn’t count that amongst my successes.

Softer Shadows – Rhiannon Davis & Tanith Donaldson

I mainly played this because Philippa likes Regency-era fiction, and Rhiannon and Tanith are good friends. Both are accomplished game writers and awesome gamers. This game was set as a dinner party thrown by Lady Trevelyn for her impoverished half-brother’s daughter whom she had taken under her wing.

The plot was fairly rigidly structured around what would have been standard proceedings at such an event in Regency England. This in itself would have been fun, as it restricted who we could talk to, what would have been acceptable conversation, and what information we would release. However, it did little to drive the game. The characters were not exciting enough and did not have enough information on their character sheets for three hours of conversation, which was essentially what the game was. A number of the other players obviously felt this, as the improvisations were starting to get a bit silly towards the end.

In the debrief, Rhiannon and Tanith told us that the game was based on a Georgette Hayer novel, Cousin Kate. They hadn’t deviated very much from it, instead couching the characters in language designed to evoke metagaming responses in the players. There were a few external events that any gamer worth his salt would have gone for as evidence of supernatural interference, but were actually the doings of normal humans.

This in itself was an interesting experiment, but I think it should have been the basis for something more engaging. I still had fun, but I suppose we were all waiting for the other shoe to drop. One thing I’ve learned about myself is that I need to be less cautious as a roleplayerand start rocking the boat sooner. People tend to have more fun if things are happening, and it isn’t always up to the GM to provide that.

A Colder War: Black Hole Sun

This is the second-last instalment in Troika’s long-running freeform campaign, A Colder War. Seeing as Boots is a good friend, and the game always gets good reviews, I felt I should play at least one. I was rewarded with a god-like character of mythical proportions.

Franz “Earthbane” Detweiler was once a genetically-engineered Nazi scientist, who went his own way when Grossdeutschland collapsed. He had been pursuing greater and greater technological prowess for its own sake, totally unfettered by regular human morals. He certainly wasn’t the only one, but he was one of the oldest beings left in the galaxy, having learned how to transfer his mind from one clone to another. He had already utilised one weapon of mass destruction to destroy Earth, and was pursuing another powerful alien artifact, which was the focus of “Black Hole Sun”.

Once again, I had a character much distrusted by the others in the game (no dark secrets, thankfully — those were all in the open this time), so I had to make friends fast. The majority of players were concerned with moving ships around the system, trying to save humanity from a threat that seemed hell-bent on destroying human-controlled systems.

I went to the only group that had technology that I was interested in and made them an offer: add their alien cybernetic implants to me and integrate me into their vast wireless network, and I would put my resources and my near-mythic research vessel, the Eidelweiss, at their disposal. Having done this, we were immediately able to put together some devices to block the signal controlling and providing energy to the weapons destroying humanity.

From there, it was a simple matter to transfer my consciousness into the energy medium that powered and controlled those weapons. I no longer had access to my body, but could control my ship. That essentially made me true god. Although I was the last one of three characters to do this, I was satisfied that I had achieved my goal of becoming a god and leaving humanity behind forever.

We’ll see how this pans out in the finale. This game was definitely the hilight of the con for me.