Top Science Fiction #ttrpg action over the weekend at The Garison Hotel, with a great family of gamers.
Cortex Prime, New Eden. Paul Mitchener’s excellent GMing provided a great setup and the right hooks to propel us players to some rolepay and problem solving. Thank you for allowing me to go wild with psychohistory and long term societal integration as the right solution. You have re-affirmed my faith in AI as being the equal or better of humans, and that logic and evidence are crucial in decision making. A masterclass in preparing a few sides of notes, and shaping it into a memorable and involved roleplay experience. Cortex Prime is a good fun game, and Paul seems to have pulled just the right tools out of the toolbox. We had a blast!
Traveller, The Dewclaw cuts. Tom Zunder ran an excellent game. Here are some of the reasons I think it went so well. Good light and approachable exposition to the setting, coalescing a lot into an engaging little, with some wry and cheeky humour. A ‘fun first’ demeanour and much levity to the interactions (players were on board and helped). The right level of complexity in terms of plot – Tom didn’t overstuff it. Traveller is fairly rules light, but with some rabbit holes if not careful. The rules were expertly kept to a manageable amount and although not ‘front and centre’ provided some meaningful game to interpret outcomes. Lots of attractive and engaging Bling! Good spotlight switching was in evidence so that everyone had opportunities.
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| My table in the midst of action |
Traveller, Tellerian Repo. Me as Referee. I really enjoyed the outing into a sandbox. The players could approach the target system in any way, and I would manage the timeline accordingly. Critical hit on the adversarial corsair ship!
We had some bling out on the table, particularly a nice image representation of the Zelos system, a starfield mat, some starship cards and character standees. Altogether a welcoming and informative table for play.
It was good to push the ‘right a situation with moving parts’ rather than a tightly crafted plot. The looser structure allowed for maximum creativity for the players and I could just react to what they decided. I could have brought the NPCs a little to the fore if I had felt it would have added, but maybe I’ll try that more next time.
The game was slightly on the short side, and I reflect that my online gaming habits of runing 2.5 hour gaming sessions maxiumum seems to have rubbed off on my one shot convention offerings. I don’t see ay way that I’d ever get to 4 hours. I may need to stuff my games with moar!
May write it up as another adventure out in the Hinterspace setting.
Those Dark Places, Gamma-Sigma 12. Debbie ran a typically excellent game full of danger, horror and laughs. The system is new to me and certainly on the light end of the spectrum. It has enough to underpin the action and escalate the feeling of panic and despair. We actually managed to get away with both objectves complete. Not sure about our medic though, it may not end well for him. Hoorah!
Myriad Song, The Lost Chord. Simon ran a very well constructed scenario and allowed us to experience a quite rare game. The system is good fun and seems quite smooth. I’ll need to look out my PDF copy again and check it out. Bizarrely, unless I am having some kind of psychic episode, I remembered every last detail of the scenario. I simply must have played it before, even though Simon says he has never run it. Like, er, wow man.
We are running the convention again next year and looking to grow the numbers. Watch the spacelanes for more information!