Gaming at GenCon
Aug. 22nd, 2005 03:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
So, a short discussion about the games I played (demoed) at GenCon:
DEMO'd:
These were mostly 5-15min. demos at the Forge booth. By necessity they were stripped down and didn't give a full test run of all the bells and whistles, but they generally communicated the core idea of the game. For people doing Forge demos this is key. Do you really need another game about superheroes? Or killing orcs? No. Do you really need a game with white-hot concepts that totally turn a genre on its ear? Yes, yes you do.
Burning Wheel: I've had this game for awhile and I really like it, but I wanted to try it out with an old hand. So I asked Luke to give me a combat demo. Oddly, this isn't the core concept in Burning Wheel. In fact, I'd say that the core concepts (BITs and Arthra) are things that can't be easily demo'd in 15 minutes and it's really a shame. However, running a combat shows off the base system and is pretty exciting in and of itself. My Elf Captain bashed in the Orc Named's helmet and just nickle-and-dimed him to death. I was helped by my deadly sword skills and my magical songs that made my sword magical. I was pretty much saved by my incredibly good dodging. Had the orc connected, I would've been in a world of hurt. I wish I'd gotten another chance to play with him or Judd, but it just didn't work out. I'm really anxious to sit some people down and run a few fights.
Polaris: I'd already purchased a copy of this, sight unseen based off the strength of Vincent and Emily's testimony. The next day I sat down with Ben to take his game for a test spin. I was not, in any way, disappointed. It's all about an Elder race living in a frozen wasteland under a starry sky. But these are the end times and their existence is doomed. Demons and the blazing dawn are coming to the Northernmost lands to end it all and you are one of the knights who stand between them. The book is gorgeous for an indie-press game and really sets the mood.
Play is rather slick. There's no GM. Instead, when it's your turn, you push your character sheet out into the center of the table. The player across from you becomes the Mistake (i.e. they represent the antagonists that fight against you) and the player(s) to your left and right are now in charge of different NPCs who have a relationship with your character. In essence, the GMing duties are split up among the other players. As each player gets a turn, the roles change, so you will always be someone's nemesis, or friend, or ally.
The game is more of a storytelling game than a traditional RPG, and it uses "key phrases" to help mediate conflict resolution. You can negotiate the outcome of a conflict, offer and receive concessions, or even escalate it out to an actual roll of the dice. It's all handled by these very evocative key phrases.
All in all, I was very impressed and inspired from the demo. I definitely want to run it straight, but this could also really be a fabulous alternate system for Amber (OK, that's pretty much a truism, but I mean it).
Capes: I'd seen this at Pandemonium and heard it mentioned a few times but the artwork kinda turned me off and the general rule of thumb is: All Superhero RPGs suck...yes, even [insert your favorite here]. But Tony was insistent and so I sat down to give it a whirl.
And I wasn't terribly impressed to begin with. It was a pretty fast system that mostly focused on setting up goals and then choosing which side of which goal you really wanted to pursue. You could play as hero or villain and you could choose to take the side of any goal. There's no real restriction on using your superpower other than it generates Debt. But you can use your Debt to help achieve goals -- the Debt drives you to succeed at your goals to prove you're worthy of power cosmic.
Still, it seemed kinda so-so until we wrapped up the demo and the goals got settled. If you succeed at a goal, your debt went away, but anyone taking the other side got a number of Action tokens (basically free re-rolls or turns) equal to the amount you Staked. If you lost, your Debt doubled (which is actually a bit of an advantage in succeeding later at other goals). As soon as I saw this reward system settle out, it was like a light from above. The game drove you to get involved and invested in what other people were doing. The interaction between Debt and Action tokens formed a dynamic "economy" that could be exploited in a ton of different ways. You might want to deliberately lose a goal so that you could get more Debt (or Action points) to spend on things you really wanted to accomplish, or foist off an unimportant goal no one else cared about to drain some Debt off. The Action tokens could be used to get in extra "moves" and resolve important goals before anyone else had a chance to pony up. In fact, the rulebook lists a number of tricks and gambits you can use with the system to gain or reduce Debt/Action points.
The demo completely sold me on the rulebook. I haven't had a chance to read it all the way through, but the heart of the system is clearly worth investigating in great detail.
GAMES I PLAYED IN DETAIL:
There were only two games that I really got a chance to try out over GenCon. These were both after-hours games with various Forgeites.
BARBAREN! This was a playtest copy of an English translation of a German game. It's a very tongue-in-cheek game about muscle-bound barbarians with huge swords and their adventures in fighting and fucking. Winning fights makes you better at fucking. Winning at fucking makes you better at fighting. It's an ever-increasing spiral of testosterone.
My barbarian didn't do too well. Job one was to attack another player and the game doesn't easily support PvP. Once I struck out at my foe, other PCs jumped in to gang up on me and fighting multiple opponents really sucks. So I fled like a Nancy and wound up burning down the village's crops and dooming us to starvation. Other players had quite a good time fighting (NPCs) and wenching. Despite my less-than-stellar performance, the game had a fair amount of charm. Everyone agreed that it needed some work, but for a cathartic jock-fest it will be a good time. And lest you think it's only for guys, Emily's barbarian was the most successful Woo-er of them all (she got like two girls at once...not an easy feat. Clearly her "greatsword" was the biggest of them all).
Also, if you're curious, Ron Edwards is a fine gamer and he's clearly in a game to play and not talk about theory with you. I'm sure he'd fit in fine with most of my Boston gaming circles.
Bacchanal: This is a white hot game. I know what you're thinking -- Tom you pervert. And yeah, you're right. But trust me when I tell you that if you want a very dark, very erotic game and you're hanging out with people who can tell a sexy story that ever-so-slowly turns up the depravity....oh man. This game is like a diamond on fire.
The game also needs a good re-write. It might also have some end-game problems -- we didn't get all the way through, but from what we played, this game is probably my favorite from GenCon.
You're in this port city in the Roman Empire. You've been accused of some crime and you must flee the city. You have a dear companion whom you've been parted from and must reunite with before you can leave. And into the city wanders Bacchus the god of wine, Venus the goddess of love, and Pluto, the god of Death. Light fuse and get away.
This is really more of a storytelling game than an RPG. Unlike most other games, the challenges to your story doesn't come from other players (i.e. the challenges in Baron Munchausen), the challenges come from the pool of dice you roll at the start of your turn. Based on what turns up, you have to incorporate certain story elements into your narrative.
Normally, storytelling games are my forte. I'm regularly banned from playing them because it's usually not fair to the other players. I was a total schmutz in this game. Mr. M started the game off on the right note of mysticism and his wife Mrs. N jumped right into a steamy, dark, seductive scene that had everyone panting. I was just finding my feet (and the right die rolls) when the game got called on account of the hour. I'm pretty sure that if we'd kept going I would've ramped up into the zone, but ah well. I'm totally psyched to find some people and run this one -- I'd also definitely get all the props for this game as well.
So I didn't play a lot but I really liked pretty much everything I played. Polaris and Bacchanal were the two standouts in my mind. Capes was a very pleasant surprise. There are still a lot of games I picked up that I didn't actually get a chance to try out at the Con, but I'm looking forward to doing so. (more details on my haul coming soon)
later
Tom
So, a short discussion about the games I played (demoed) at GenCon:
DEMO'd:
These were mostly 5-15min. demos at the Forge booth. By necessity they were stripped down and didn't give a full test run of all the bells and whistles, but they generally communicated the core idea of the game. For people doing Forge demos this is key. Do you really need another game about superheroes? Or killing orcs? No. Do you really need a game with white-hot concepts that totally turn a genre on its ear? Yes, yes you do.
Burning Wheel: I've had this game for awhile and I really like it, but I wanted to try it out with an old hand. So I asked Luke to give me a combat demo. Oddly, this isn't the core concept in Burning Wheel. In fact, I'd say that the core concepts (BITs and Arthra) are things that can't be easily demo'd in 15 minutes and it's really a shame. However, running a combat shows off the base system and is pretty exciting in and of itself. My Elf Captain bashed in the Orc Named's helmet and just nickle-and-dimed him to death. I was helped by my deadly sword skills and my magical songs that made my sword magical. I was pretty much saved by my incredibly good dodging. Had the orc connected, I would've been in a world of hurt. I wish I'd gotten another chance to play with him or Judd, but it just didn't work out. I'm really anxious to sit some people down and run a few fights.
Polaris: I'd already purchased a copy of this, sight unseen based off the strength of Vincent and Emily's testimony. The next day I sat down with Ben to take his game for a test spin. I was not, in any way, disappointed. It's all about an Elder race living in a frozen wasteland under a starry sky. But these are the end times and their existence is doomed. Demons and the blazing dawn are coming to the Northernmost lands to end it all and you are one of the knights who stand between them. The book is gorgeous for an indie-press game and really sets the mood.
Play is rather slick. There's no GM. Instead, when it's your turn, you push your character sheet out into the center of the table. The player across from you becomes the Mistake (i.e. they represent the antagonists that fight against you) and the player(s) to your left and right are now in charge of different NPCs who have a relationship with your character. In essence, the GMing duties are split up among the other players. As each player gets a turn, the roles change, so you will always be someone's nemesis, or friend, or ally.
The game is more of a storytelling game than a traditional RPG, and it uses "key phrases" to help mediate conflict resolution. You can negotiate the outcome of a conflict, offer and receive concessions, or even escalate it out to an actual roll of the dice. It's all handled by these very evocative key phrases.
All in all, I was very impressed and inspired from the demo. I definitely want to run it straight, but this could also really be a fabulous alternate system for Amber (OK, that's pretty much a truism, but I mean it).
Capes: I'd seen this at Pandemonium and heard it mentioned a few times but the artwork kinda turned me off and the general rule of thumb is: All Superhero RPGs suck...yes, even [insert your favorite here]. But Tony was insistent and so I sat down to give it a whirl.
And I wasn't terribly impressed to begin with. It was a pretty fast system that mostly focused on setting up goals and then choosing which side of which goal you really wanted to pursue. You could play as hero or villain and you could choose to take the side of any goal. There's no real restriction on using your superpower other than it generates Debt. But you can use your Debt to help achieve goals -- the Debt drives you to succeed at your goals to prove you're worthy of power cosmic.
Still, it seemed kinda so-so until we wrapped up the demo and the goals got settled. If you succeed at a goal, your debt went away, but anyone taking the other side got a number of Action tokens (basically free re-rolls or turns) equal to the amount you Staked. If you lost, your Debt doubled (which is actually a bit of an advantage in succeeding later at other goals). As soon as I saw this reward system settle out, it was like a light from above. The game drove you to get involved and invested in what other people were doing. The interaction between Debt and Action tokens formed a dynamic "economy" that could be exploited in a ton of different ways. You might want to deliberately lose a goal so that you could get more Debt (or Action points) to spend on things you really wanted to accomplish, or foist off an unimportant goal no one else cared about to drain some Debt off. The Action tokens could be used to get in extra "moves" and resolve important goals before anyone else had a chance to pony up. In fact, the rulebook lists a number of tricks and gambits you can use with the system to gain or reduce Debt/Action points.
The demo completely sold me on the rulebook. I haven't had a chance to read it all the way through, but the heart of the system is clearly worth investigating in great detail.
GAMES I PLAYED IN DETAIL:
There were only two games that I really got a chance to try out over GenCon. These were both after-hours games with various Forgeites.
BARBAREN! This was a playtest copy of an English translation of a German game. It's a very tongue-in-cheek game about muscle-bound barbarians with huge swords and their adventures in fighting and fucking. Winning fights makes you better at fucking. Winning at fucking makes you better at fighting. It's an ever-increasing spiral of testosterone.
My barbarian didn't do too well. Job one was to attack another player and the game doesn't easily support PvP. Once I struck out at my foe, other PCs jumped in to gang up on me and fighting multiple opponents really sucks. So I fled like a Nancy and wound up burning down the village's crops and dooming us to starvation. Other players had quite a good time fighting (NPCs) and wenching. Despite my less-than-stellar performance, the game had a fair amount of charm. Everyone agreed that it needed some work, but for a cathartic jock-fest it will be a good time. And lest you think it's only for guys, Emily's barbarian was the most successful Woo-er of them all (she got like two girls at once...not an easy feat. Clearly her "greatsword" was the biggest of them all).
Also, if you're curious, Ron Edwards is a fine gamer and he's clearly in a game to play and not talk about theory with you. I'm sure he'd fit in fine with most of my Boston gaming circles.
Bacchanal: This is a white hot game. I know what you're thinking -- Tom you pervert. And yeah, you're right. But trust me when I tell you that if you want a very dark, very erotic game and you're hanging out with people who can tell a sexy story that ever-so-slowly turns up the depravity....oh man. This game is like a diamond on fire.
The game also needs a good re-write. It might also have some end-game problems -- we didn't get all the way through, but from what we played, this game is probably my favorite from GenCon.
You're in this port city in the Roman Empire. You've been accused of some crime and you must flee the city. You have a dear companion whom you've been parted from and must reunite with before you can leave. And into the city wanders Bacchus the god of wine, Venus the goddess of love, and Pluto, the god of Death. Light fuse and get away.
This is really more of a storytelling game than an RPG. Unlike most other games, the challenges to your story doesn't come from other players (i.e. the challenges in Baron Munchausen), the challenges come from the pool of dice you roll at the start of your turn. Based on what turns up, you have to incorporate certain story elements into your narrative.
Normally, storytelling games are my forte. I'm regularly banned from playing them because it's usually not fair to the other players. I was a total schmutz in this game. Mr. M started the game off on the right note of mysticism and his wife Mrs. N jumped right into a steamy, dark, seductive scene that had everyone panting. I was just finding my feet (and the right die rolls) when the game got called on account of the hour. I'm pretty sure that if we'd kept going I would've ramped up into the zone, but ah well. I'm totally psyched to find some people and run this one -- I'd also definitely get all the props for this game as well.
So I didn't play a lot but I really liked pretty much everything I played. Polaris and Bacchanal were the two standouts in my mind. Capes was a very pleasant surprise. There are still a lot of games I picked up that I didn't actually get a chance to try out at the Con, but I'm looking forward to doing so. (more details on my haul coming soon)
later
Tom
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 07:37 pm (UTC)Yer all set.
Tom
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Date: 2005-08-22 08:37 pm (UTC)