Phenomenon 2009

One of the main reasons I haven’t put out many updates in the last week or so was due to being in Canberra for Phenomenon. Overall, I had a good time. As usual, the con was held at Daramalan College, which was close to the amenities of Dickson shops and all the takeaway Asian you can stomach, and the classrooms with ceiling heaters that made some sessions seem as though they were set in ovens.

Click over for a review of the games we played.

A Tangled Web we Weave

This promised to be a good game. Fifteen people in a house for a society party and seance? Great premise for a Cthulhu freeform. The physical setup certainly seemed to live up to this promise. The room was partitioned to simulate different rooms in the manor house, and there were props and music to get you in the mood.

Unfortunately, it felt like the physical preparations had overshadowed the creative preparations. Some characters seemed to have little to do, with their goals left as “make sure you get married” in a game where a major Mythos creature is guaranteed to make an appearance. Add to that some very belligerent characters, GMs who were never around when you needed them, not enough game content to justify two sessions, and I felt that I hadn’t got my money’s worth of fun and entertainment.

Regency Revels

I’m not sure I’m qualified to review the game that my wife wrote, but even from an objective standpoint, it was better written and prepared. There was only one scheduled event, characters had been looked over by at least three other sets of eyes, and societal rules were made quite clear through the character sheets and ancilliary material.

The Erebus Incident

If A Tangled Web We Weave was a waste of two sessions, The Erebus Incident more than made up for it. Again, a two-session game, but this one had a rationale for the extra time, and a clear event to delineate between the two. The characters were well-defined and quite varied. Societal boundaries were written into the way characters thought about each other, and enforced by GM plants. The defining moment of the entire con for me can be summed up with this threat to my character’s life: “Roast chicken, or roast steward!”

I’m hoping that we can convince the writers to bring Erebus to a Sydney con, so I don’t want to provide any further details, but take my word that this was the game to play.

Execute Order 66

Set six years after the slaughter of the Jedi in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, this systemless tabletop brought together a group of Jedi who had managed to escape Order 66 in one way or another. The characters were relatively well written, with no real surprises in them. Although his first game, it was evident that the designer is an experienced GM. He had a real sense of the dramatic and the cinematic, and described scenes and actions handily. He also handled our team’s tendency for comedy well, weaving Spaceballs and Lock Stock quotes into the game.

Oh yeah: “MOOOOOOOOOOOOON!”

The plot was somewhat linear, but when dealing with a setting  that has a strongly defined timeline, there isn’t much room to wiggle. It’s far more important to explore characters than events, anyway. As a final note, I wonder if we could have sacrificed a little of the fluidity for some structure by introducing a game mechanic. Star Wars d20 is probably too much, but the West End D6 system might have suited.

Phoenix

If nothing else, you can be sure that Mark Somers delivers good Shadowrun. A follow on from the game he ran at GenCon last year, Phoenix required us to nab a rich socialite without much in the way of damage to her or her bodyguard. We spent two of the three hours collecting information and planning, and 90 of the remaining 60 minutes executing the plan. It is to Mark’s credit that he rolled with what we threw at him… or was it simply a war of escalation? How else does one explain Ork sex?

I Wanna be a Rock Star

Finally, an honourable mention to Sim Lauren for sharing her PS3 with hundreds of strangers. It’s good to know that there are other Rock Band addicts out there. My team had a great time showing off our skills and talking RB with people outside our group.