Monday, April 23, 2012

April Game Day Summary

Well another Game Day is successfully behind us.  While I think this one was a bit light on the RPG side (a slight rant I'll hit later in the post, don't worry no anger or accusations) I think that overall it was a very fun day and am both glad I was there and looking forward to the next one.

The day started off a little bit slow as far as number of people and events.  Misspent Youth started off pretty much on time with a GM and 3 players.  I'd describe the game as one in which the players play the type of teenagers that really loved Rage Against the Machine, and they are fighting some sort of authoritarian enemy in a near future setting.  In I think about 2-3 hours ( wasn't really paying attention to the clock) three rebellious teenage characters (HunterZ the ADHD psychopathic hacker, Ben the anger-issues ridden goody-goody, and Makena the manipulative sociopath) did their best to stick it to the man.  The "man" in this case was a pharmaceutical mega-corp, called Better Than Life, that was using drugs to make people into better human beings.  Of course this semi-altruistic mission statement was tainted by the fact that they were controlled by a secret religious cult, and "better human beings" means "people the way WE want them to be".  Data was stolen, systems hijacked, viral videos uploaded, authority figures kidnapped, and friends sacrificed; but in the end the characters struck a blow for freedom and individualism everywhere.  And had a great time doing it.

I think the other game that started pretty much right from the beginning was a Pathfinder Society game.  I didn't get much in the way of details about the game since I was not playing in it, but I believe everyone had a really fun time.  There were 5 players and a GM if I remember correctly, including a couple of younger players that are, I believe, relatively new to the whole RPG scene.  Always a great thing to see new blood in our hobby.

While these games were going on a few various board games also started up and got played.  I know there was a fairly big sized game of Roborally, a fun older game about metal on metal action in the world of competive fighting robots, and a couple of games of Space Alert, a cooperative sci-fi action game (can't forget the crazy noises!).  I don't know who won the Roborally game; but I believe the Space Alert games were an even split on win/loss; one of each.

Another round of board games started up at various times as the first round of gaming came to a piecemeal finish.  I believe the Pathfinder Society table was taken over by a game of Super Dungeon Explorer, dungeon delving with chibi/anime stylistic art to the best of my knowledge, with Ford leading the way in the GM type role, and 3 intrepid explorers fighting through to a victorious end.  The Misspent Youth crew pulled out Lords of Waterdeep, which is a really fun, euro-style, worker placement type game with a Forgotten Realms theme, and played a fun 4 player game of that, with Emily manipulating her way to a decent sized victory margin.  And a huge game of Cash N' Guns happened somewhere in there.  I didn't pay anywhere enough attention to catch any rules; but there was lots of foam guns and swords being pointed at each other, tons of machismo laced threats being tossed at ones enemies, and loads of fun being had.  The Mafia faction fought their way to the top in what I'm sure was an epic battle filled with blood and bullets.

After this another RPG hit the table with a small group playing Chris' Serenity Brawl scenario.  If my spying attempts were correct it looked like Jayne, Zoe, and Mal were represented; and they showed them Alliance dogs not to mess with Browncoats.  I am not 100% familiar with the system; but I know its based on Cortex system, which is really good, and the Firefly universe is absolutely gorram amazing, or in other words Shiny!

I also got an opportunity somewhere in that general time period to play a round of Murderous Ghosts with Jeremiah.  This is a RPG designed to be played by 2 people in a 20-60 minute window, and plays like a combination of a narrative, storytelling game and a Choose Your Own Adventure book.  It was a ton of fun, and even in the loud, well lit gaming store it was very creepy.  I loved it so much I pulled out the laptop and purchased a copy for myself a few minutes later.  I'll be sure to run it for some folks at later Game Days.

Various other short, simple board and card games in between larger games and as people's brains began to shut down from lack of sleep or over consumption of sugar (thanks for all the candy Emily!).  I participated in a 4 player game of Kittens in a Blender, a delightful card game where you do your best to save your own kittens while horribly killing your opponents.  Emily won that one.  Also a quick and fun 4 player game of Carcassone.  Emily won.  (Seeing a pattern yet?)  And a 4 player game of Forbidden Isle, in which yes Emily did win; but so did everyone else since its cooperative.

A second game of Roborally hit the table later in the night as well.  I did HORRIBLY, which I blame on being both online ordering a game, and on the phone arranging a place to have it shipped, but I had tons of fun running into walls, falling into pits, flying off the board, shooting other robots in the butt, getting shot in my robots butt, riding conveyor belts and spinning gears, and just being a boisterous silly man.  Also a second game of Super Dungeon Explorer happened as well, with 5 players this time I think, and I also believe the good guys won that one.

The night ended nicely with a bit of relaxed chit-chatting and discussion of future gaming and cons.  I was running on about 30 hours without sleep, a few metric tons of sugar, and pure gamer ecstasy right then; and it was a good thing.  I very much look forward to May's Game Day.  I think I'm going to run a hack of the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game, in which the players will be super-powered zombie versions of the Founding Fathers come back to fight the various things that are ruining America.

My only complaint or critique, the thing I mentioned way up at the beginning of all this, was that this Game Day, like the other ones I've been too, seemed to follow a pattern of one round of RPGs and then lots of rounds of board games.  Now don't get me wrong, that was a ton of fun and I love board games.  I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it.  But I would definitely be interested in seeing multiple rounds of RPGs happening at future ones if at all possible.  I would have LOVED to see either In A Wicked Age or Zombie Cinema hit the table in the 2nd or 3rd round of gaming on Saturday.  I blame myself, both for not being physically and mentally prepared to run Dungeon World, and for not pushing the ideas, but I was tired and was not really seeing anyone else jumping on the "more RPGs now" bandwagon.  I talked with John(Fulminata) about it, he was the one that mentioned it in the first place, and my hope is that we both are at the next Game Day so that we can each play and run in each others games; one after the other, and hopefully facilitate more RPGs being played at each game day.  But like I said, its a minor critique and I sure as heck had fun.