Nuke-Con 2019

[Necron 99]

Hmmm. 5e and PF2 overshadowing other games....I think Peter sums up my thoughts for Nuke-Con if that turns out to be the case.



Hopefully things will take a turn for the better and both your game and the games you're playing will get some players.

[Ancalagon]

Still no one signed up for my game but tonight I saw there are three sessions of Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok being offered. If the WFRP4e ends up cancelled then I'll slide over to one of those events.

[Ancalagon]

The After-Con Report

Friday, 4-Oct: Arrived at the venue, picked up my badge, walked around for a few minutes, chatted a bit with a local game store owner and... of course... bought some more dice. By 3:30 another member of The Barons of Bellevue arrived so we BSed a bit. Found out at 3:45+/-, about 15 minutes before schedule start time, that the GM for the WFRP4e game cancelled the event and was not going to be present that day... which also meant that the 8 PM event was cancelled as well. This didn't sit too well with me since the night before the website still had everything list as a "go" for the con. So me and my fellow Baron hit the event guide and signed up for a 5 PM 1-hour intro to Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok (lasted about 45 minutes with explanations, backstory of the designers, etc but no actual game play) and a 7 PM, 2-hour Raganrok adventure.

We grabbed dinner between sessions and made it back to discover only the 2 of us signed up for the 7 PM game. We had about 1a 15 minutes intro to the adventure with backstory and some minor RP then off to find the monsters and beat some ass. The use of the tiles was a fun mechanic but every time we got close to putting down the Big Bad, it would howl to summon help and/or absorb some kind of black vapors that seeped up from the ground to make it grow bigger and heal up. Wash, rinse, repeat. The 2 hour game stretched to 4 hours in this fashion which didn't really grind my gears as there was nothing else I was interested in due to the WFRP4e GM flaking out and cancelling. From what I could gather, Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok is geared mostly towards combat. By what was presented, I'm not sure how this game could sustain a long term campaign beyond a hack and slash style of play.

Saturday, 5-Oct: Arrived at my table 10 minutes before I was to start my AD&D game, The Skull of Tamoachan to discover 3 players at the table. I had been wondering if I'd have any players at all since no one had signed up. My fellow Baron texted that he was on his way but would be a little late due to a sick kid that morning. So I had 4 of the max 5 players desired which was enough for me to run the demo. No one chose the kensai to play so I ran him as a NPC who, from time to time, had to give hints to the players who seemed to stumble with some of the brain-over-brawn elements of the scenario. The game ran over by 30 minutes and everyone had fun (even with 2 PC deaths and 2 in poor condition without completing the objective) so I'll need to trim the adventure a bit to fit into a 4 hour session for GCXII... though I am thinking about using everything for the Sunday session at GCXII since we won't be rushed for time.

Me, two players from the game, and one of their spouses all went to grab some dinner at a really good Italian place next door to the convention venue. Good conversation and camaraderie!

My fellow Baron of Bellevue had to depart for the evening due to his sick kid so he missed out on the Call of Cthulhu session we both signed up to play in. The couple we had dinner with had signed up for CoC so that was a cool coincident. The CoC session was being run by the same guy who cancelled the WFRP4e sessions so I was a bit wary. I was at the scheduled table 15+/- minutes prior to start time and waited. By the 7 PM start I was still the only guy at the table so I went to the on-site event registration table to see if CoC had been cancelled. It had not and the GM was sitting at another table about 30 feet away, obviously in no hurry to be on time and have his shit together.

The GM and 2 of his buddies moved over to the scheduled table. This guy hadn't touched a razor in a couple of months, wore a stretched out t-shirt with a wrinkled button up shirt over it (worn unbuttoned), the collar of it was decorated with a healthy dose of dandruff flakes. At least he didn't give off any "gamer funk." He handed out pre-gens and several of them didn't even have skill points allocated so the 2 buddies had to burn time finishing the pre-gens. Not a good first impression.

I played a late-50s professor of languages which was cool. The adventure itself was a published work that dealt mostly with cats & dogs in the vicinity being found drained of blood with puncture marks on the necks. Since the game was in the 1920s, it wasn't long after Stoker's Dracula was published which could've been a cool connection. But the vampire idea was a red herring. The real culprits were softball sized tarantulas that had been shipped over from Italy. Big spiders. No mythos critters. Nothing that "man was not meant to know." Just big spiders draining blood. For a convention game it was pretty anti-climactic and, to be honest, took very little effort to run. That, combined with the GM torpedoing my entire Friday schedule by cancelling, being late to the Saturday CoC game, not having all the pre-gens ready has pretty much banned him from future consideration for events I'll sign up to play in. Maybe I'm a bit anal retentive in this regard but when I schedule events I always follow through, on time, ready to go. When folks sign up to play in my games I do my best to "deliver the goods" so they'll want to come back or at least not be disappointed.

[Necron 99]

Interesting to hear about the Fate of the Norns game. The entire combat focus doesn't seem to fit the overall vibe I get from reading the books. If you can recall the name of the person running, I'd be interested to see if it's either of the guys who were present at GC last year. I'm hoping you just had a random GM who decided to run that game system and not someone who may be at GC in 2020.

The GM cancelling the WFRP game sounds like a complete dolt. Personally, I think you have every right to talk smack if the game session is a) canceled last minute for no good reason, and b) sucks in general. Wasting player's time at the table is just rude and inconsiderate, no one attending a con should be subjected to crap sessions. I get if a GM is new, and even forgiving if they let players know that fact ahead of time. On the other hand, if you consider yourself a regular DM/GM then you best bring the A-game, all the time, every time, barring being sick or some other legit reason.

That adventure, too, sounds like a snooze fest, giant spiders, really? I can get that playing D&D. Granted, CoC can do general horror, but if I were doing general horror that isn't Mythos related, then I'd find another system.

Glad to hear your game was a success, I look forward to checking it out in March.

[Ancalagon]

The guy who ran the FotN: Ragnarok session handed out business cards with the name Keith Dusheke (Sales Associate). Nice guy. I enjoyed BSing with him.

[grodog]

The GM cancelling the WFRP game sounds like a complete dolt. Personally, I think you have every right to talk smack if the game session is a) canceled last minute for no good reason, and b) sucks in general. Wasting player's time at the table is just rude and inconsiderate, no one attending a con should be subjected to crap sessions.

Agreed. James you should also, IMO, follow-up with the game coordinator and convention manager directly, so that they know what a crappy job this referee did. Perhaps they'll give some thought whether to allow him to run games next time around.

Allan.

[Ancalagon]

The GM cancelling the WFRP game sounds like a complete dolt. Personally, I think you have every right to talk smack if the game session is a) canceled last minute for no good reason, and b) sucks in general. Wasting player's time at the table is just rude and inconsiderate, no one attending a con should be subjected to crap sessions.

Agreed. James you should also, IMO, follow-up with the game coordinator and convention manager directly, so that they know what a crappy job this referee did. Perhaps they'll give some thought whether to allow him to run games next time around.

Allan.

Emphasis mine.
Y'know... strangely enough... that had not occurred to me. Gonna roll that around in the old noggin...

[grodog]

They may not do anything at all with the feedback (in particular if he's an entrenched fixture at the show), but they also have no chance to try to change things at all if they don't hear your feedback in the first place, either.

Allan.