Monday, April 3, 2017

GamernationCon 4: A New Hope



GM’s Log, 40317.11; I find myself at the end of yet another GamerNation Con. This was the 4th such con in existence, my 3rd.  All and all, travel to the convention was uneventful which is how I prefer it.
Andrew accompanied the away team on this expedition. Dono and Eric would join the party at Ten 50 BBQ down in Texas. We rented an intermediate-sized SUV, since there would be four of us getting back to the airport on Monday. We were almost given a Jeep Cherokee when I noticed a Nissan Rouge waiting in line.

We elected to “go rogue”.

Ten 50 BBQ was a great place to start the adventure. I’m not much of a BBQ guy, I like grilling but ribs and most other traditional barbeque is lost to me (much like beer), but Ten 50 BBQ had many things for me to enjoy; especially the Angry Orchard on tap. Greetings, handshakes, and hugs were had with the Gamer Nation in attendance. We ate, we talked, and then broke to the hotel.
GNC 2017 was hours away.

Thursday

I elected to run The Justice League of the Republic module first; an 8 hour epic with the Justice League reimagined as Jedi knights. The module went well, the PCs were appreciative and enjoyed the story. A rousing success for a first run (live Beta, if you will). I found that the first scene lasted way too long (almost 3 hours), so some changes would need to be made. The big reveal of Darkseid as the final villain fell flat, but that was due to some errors I made in storytelling. Even so, two members of the Norwegian Delegation were able to get seats at my table, and told me later that the module set a high bar for them for the rest of the convention. I finished off by playing in Wes Goodwin’s module as a Heavy (IHC-187) in a story involving an Imperial Commando Team and a bio-weapon.  Good times.  Total Hours GM’d; 8 

Friday

I was able to get in on a Savage Rifts game run by Darren West. Because I just happened to bring my old Glitter Boy mini from 1994, I got to play a Glitter Boy in the module. They play so much better in Savage Rifts than Palladium Rifts; much more balanced.  I took a short break, and got in a game of Artemis; the Starship Bridge Simulator. I state once again; I need to get some friends with laptops and get this game.  At 4pm I ran the JLR a second time, ending a little after midnight.  This run went much smoother.  Total Hours GM’d: 16

Saturday

IF you can only make it to one day of GamernationCon, Saturday is the day to come. I started off with a follow up to last year’s Fallout: Edge of the Wasteland module, titled “Fratricidal Tendencies”. Last year’s module was a showcase of the Fallout hack of Edge of the Empire I wrote. This module was a lot truer to the theme of Fallout, where there are rarely good choices, only a series of gradually worse choices. The players enjoyed the module, especially Burt who got to play Percy the Super-Mutant again.

I had to end Fallout quickly, because as soon as it ended I was on tap with GM Chris and GM Dave for the premiere of “The Black Nova Gambit” using the FFG Star Wars RPG system. The Gambit is a delve; 3 GMs, 18 PCs, 3 teams, 3 scenarios each 1 hour long real-time. The premise is a group of Jedi, Commandos, and Pilots simultaneously assaulting Darth Revan’s super battleship before it can attack the Republic. Finish the objective within an hour, success or failure will affect later scenarios in not only your group, but other groups as well. Running the Gambit was IN-SANE fun. After scenario one, where the Jedi squad finished their objective in 28 minutes, one of my players asked with some concern “are these going to get harder as they go on?”  Two hours later, those same Jedi are shouting “ROLL THE DICE!” as they are within 3 minutes of failing the objective of the whole damn delve. After 4 hours of frantic action and daring saves, the Republic scored a total success against the Sith, only suffering the loss of one valiant jedi who got sucked out an airlock after grappling with one of the villains.

At 8pm, GamerNation After Dark beings; which is the alcoholic gaming portion of the Con. I purposefully set aside time during After Dark to get a game in with players I wanted; GM Chris, GM Dave, GM Hooly, Andrew, Keith Kappel, and GNC2017 Guest of Honor Kat Ostrander from FFG. I was looking forward to this after getting my party together a couple days before; I’ve never GM’d GM Chris or Dave in all the years we’ve been friends (or maybe Dave once?), and Kat was very excited to get the chance to play after hearing about the game from Sam Stewart’s experience at last year’s con. Hooly is too fun to game with, I’ve been trying to get Keith at my table for a couple years, and Andrew would pick up on all the in-jokes of running a game set in the post-apocalyptic Hoosac Valley. GM Dave valiantly gave up his seat at my table for another con attendee Andy (Ross?) who had two games he pre-reg’d for blow up on him as the GM cancelled their events. Dave wanted Andy to have a good experience, and gaming with the celebrities and “celebrities” of the con in my module seemed to hit the spot. The game couldn’t have gone better; good people, good game, good RP, and good drinks (the apple moonshine Sarah sent me down with was throat singeing candy, lovely lovely burn-y candy).

After an hour or so of sobering up, and talking with some good friends like Chris Bradshaw, we headed back to the hotel at 2am. Total GM’d hours; 28.

Sunday

After about 4 hours of sleep and a meal, I was back at the con for my final run of “Fratricidal Tendencies”. I had to be done by 2pm for the closing auction to the Con, and we finished with about 15 minutes to spare. It was a glorious run, and a great way to end my GNC2017 gaming experience. Total Hours GM’d; 32; 2 over the 30 necessary for “Iron GM’, which was my third so I earned the “Titanium GM” badge (90 hours of GMing at multiple GNCs).

The auction was great; every hour of gaming earns you “xp” to bid on items at the end of con auction. Andrew and I pooled our resources, and received a few more donations from others who didn’t need their XP. I got a mini painted by Darren West, and Andrew got a few cool games. As I posted in another post, Sarah’s quilt was highly sought after by a few bidders, the person who won confided in me that her quilt was the one item THEY WERE GOING TO GO HOME WITH. Fortunately, they had the 520 xp needed to win it.

Final Thoughts

The 8 hour JLR module was a success, but I’ll be very unlikely to run it in the future.  8 hours in one sitting is too much, both from a stamina perspective and a “give more players a chance to play” perspective. I run 8 games (basically) at GNC, that’s 48 slots that 12 folks got to double up on, locking out another 12 attendees from gaming in a game with me. That’s not fair, and something I should have considered. Seven so, it was fun, and folks enjoyed being super-heroes in Star Wars.  (“I’m Hawk-Batman…”)

Fratricidal Tendencies was a nigh-total success; folks really enjoyed the story, the plot twist, and the final encounter. I say “nigh” total because I would have been happier if I had finished painting one of the important minis in the way I described him. Ah well.

The Black Nova Gambit was BRILLIANT, and big kudos to GM Chris for adapting his Saga Module to FFG. It can REALLY only be run at a Convention, you need that space and player pool to draw from. There were ideas from GM Dave to head up to Minneapolis and run it at FFG’s Gaming Center. 

Now there’s a thought…

I’ve really fallen in love with this con; it’s a trip I look forward to every year for the past few years 
now. I miss my wife, horribly, but my family in Texas do a real good job at distracting me. 😉
Final shout outs to my cohosts Chris and Dave, Krista who runs a mean Con, Hudson, Hooly, Keith, and Brev, Darren and his gaming crew, Larry and Will on Artemis, Jegergryte and the Norwegian crew, and all the pcs at my table as players under me or fellow players. Bonus shout-outs to Kat Ostrander (you have my card 😉), and Andrew, Dono, and Eric as my glorious away team companions.

Until next year at GNC 5 and The Order of Gamers; May the Dice be with you!