I had a great time at Expo, and many thanks to all those that made it so, there are a lot of you!
My hotel was the Ibis International Airport, a short journey away from the venues. I really loved it. I liked the experience of travelling in for 20 minutes each day, going up to the first floor of the airport, taking the monorail shuttle to the airport and ambling down into the NEC. There was a certain delicious stillness to the NEC at midnight as I took the journey back. It further helped that the nightly rate was a third of the Hilton.
Thursday night Nandos with Elaine was a great start to the convention, really nice to catch up.
Friday morning was shopping. My haul by the close of the weekend was modest. A Symbaroum book, a few yin and yang, black and white, d10 for my Qin game and the digital copy of Era the Era the White Wolf Rip-Off SF game on a neat USB stick. I bought it on the strength of the enthusiasm of the stall and wanted to support them. I’ll look at the game in more detail another time. I got Gallic hugs from my mates on the Esteren stall, manly chat from d101, nice banter with Mike, Paul and Ian from Chaosium and had my ritual fondle of a Cubicle 7 book that I couldn’t buy because I’d pre-ordered from a game shop and it had yet to arrive.
Two highlights of my convention, the first of which was my Qin game on Friday afternoon in UK roleplayers central, Gladstone . It all went beautifully, and everyone seemed to have a really good time. Many thanks to all my players, who really made the game. You even allowed my NPCs to shine and join in the fun with you. Top! Qin doesn’t see a lot of table time at conventions, so it is tempting to run some more.
Friday evening quickly arrived and I decided to see what was around, and brought me into Mark Threlfall’s 7th Sea Kickstarter Quickstart game, Long Live the Prince. That proved to be a rather surreal experience. I wanted to try the game as I had jumped into the kickstarter along with half the global gaming community. The thought of being a swashbuckler and chewing through the narrative system beckoned. Sadly we jumped in and out of meta game with much grumbly dissection of the system, which Mark clearly didn’t like. I thought it a shame that he hadn’t run this using 1st ed 7thC, I think he might have enjoyed it more. As it was I didn’t get much of a game but a hint of a taster of the game, which held much potential and betrayed good signs of Houses of the Blooded.
Saturday morning was my pre-sign game, Nigel Clarke’s, The Vault of Ossaru, Runequest 6. I enjoyed this, and felt I contributed some system knowledge to help move the game along. The scenario focussed on two contrasting combats, which left me wanting to explore much more of the setting, that was based on a work by Clark Ashton Smith, in tales for Weird Fiction magazine.
Saturday afternoon had me and Darran mooch about eating, chatting and a bit of shopping.
I jumped in late to Ben Counter’s, Sleeper RPG – Operation Zenith on Saturday night. I had no idea what it was and it turned out to be a skirmish wargame with some skill rolls. The group were fun and cooperative, the game was incomprehensible, but Ben guided us through that with good knowledge. My overriding feeling about the system was that it did nothing remotely as well as Savage Worlds. Indeed Sleeper is even more grounded as a skirmish game, and not a great one from my viewpoint. Sorry, I really didn’t take to the system, but it didn’t stop me having some fun at the table and Ben ran a tight and well organised game
My Sunday morning game had no sign ups. A late inclusion, OSR fantasy light dungeon adventure. Declan signed up with his delightful 5 year old, Rupert, so I knew I had two players. Knowing this I had to adjust my expectations and hoped that I could bring out a game that the youngling could enjoy.
It was just the three of us, when the mother and the two ten year old girls arrived, having swapped out from another game. I knew then that I was in for an experience. One of the girls had a unicorn fixation, so I tried to work them in, as faerie ponies weren’t good enough. It was fairly anarchic and slightly larpy as I pulled my best grimaces and played up the situations as much as possible to highlight and signpost the action. I ditched quite a bit as I went, though probably should have excised a bit more. I dropped the game down to two hours. The Black Hack is fairly easy and they seemed to grasp what to do.
Young Rupert was outstanding, very into the game and picked out a big barbarian as a character to play and played him well.
My second top moment of Expo was when we reached the end of the scenario as they dispatched the wicked Fae sorceress and the three kids rushed over and beat me up!
The two girls were clearly being dumped, which I think is wrong and I was kicking myself at the end as I wasn’t clear what was safe once the game was over. They insisted they were fine, had mum’s number on their phones and would just go back to their room. I let it go, but actually worried quite a bit afterwards.
I’ll not forget the game in a hurry. Maybe I am stuck a little in the ‘GM as entertainer’ thing, sorry, but mostly hoped that I had presented a game that they could enjoy.
It was just the three of us, when the mother and the two ten year old girls arrived, having swapped out from another game. I knew then that I was in for an experience. One of the girls had a unicorn fixation, so I tried to work them in, as faerie ponies weren’t good enough. It was fairly anarchic and slightly larpy as I pulled my best grimaces and played up the situations as much as possible to highlight and signpost the action. I ditched quite a bit as I went, though probably should have excised a bit more. I dropped the game down to two hours. The Black Hack is fairly easy and they seemed to grasp what to do.
Young Rupert was outstanding, very into the game and picked out a big barbarian as a character to play and played him well.
My second top moment of Expo was when we reached the end of the scenario as they dispatched the wicked Fae sorceress and the three kids rushed over and beat me up!
The two girls were clearly being dumped, which I think is wrong and I was kicking myself at the end as I wasn’t clear what was safe once the game was over. They insisted they were fine, had mum’s number on their phones and would just go back to their room. I let it go, but actually worried quite a bit afterwards.
I’ll not forget the game in a hurry. Maybe I am stuck a little in the ‘GM as entertainer’ thing, sorry, but mostly hoped that I had presented a game that they could enjoy.
Sunday afternoon was a very pleasant chat and shop with Pete Griffith, where we spun around some game design thinking, a fine beer and then some final shopping.
I am very grateful to Mr Watson to allow me a ride home on the Geordie Fun Bus.
Personal circumstances next year may limit my attendance at cons, so I particularly enjoyed this year knowing I might not be able to make the next. The venue was great (heating issues to one side), with the split site working very well. The convention will continue to go from strength to strength.