DunDraCon after action report!

I got back from DDC this afternoon. I was pretty worn out but glad I went. As I’ve mentioned before, the last time I went to DDC before this was exactly 20 years ago, in 1991, just about one week before I left for Japan. And that time, I did little more than hang out.

So, here’s how it went down for me.

Friday

We got out there about 2 or 3 and after settling in, I started my first game at 6pm – Agon. It wasn’t my first choice for the time slot, but turned to be pretty fun(ny). Agon is a game about Greek heroes doing heroic Greek things. And since the characters are the sons and daughters of the gods, it follows that the gods are interested in their lives. The GM, Gil, was running this game simultaneously with Sean Nittner, and in that game, the characters were the gods our characters worshiped. The idea being events in one game affected the other. Cool indeed but tough to make it work. But Gil and Sean made a great effort, using a live video and audio feed that projected the images and sound of what us heroes were doing into the room where the god game as going on so they could observe us in real time.

Pretty cool! The effect would be for example, if I called out to Hera (whom my character worshiped) for aid, Hera (the player) would actually come over to our room down the hall and help me out! Neat! But of course the gods had their own politicking going on and for one reason or another might smite you as soon as aid you. In our game, we heroes engaged in heroic stuff (quests) for glory and often tried to outdo each other. The resulting competition was at times quite hilarious as we connived to make a rival look bad or steal the spotlight.

Unfortunately the hotel’s wireless sucked and about two hours in, the system went down and the AV setup was lost. So the two GMs decided to try texting each other to maintain contact. Unfortunately, in a fluid game like this, there was no way they could keep up and things got a little out control. Not that we were running wild, but just that it became very difficult for Gil and Sean to hang on to things as the PC began moving and reacting faster than texting would allow.

But the game was a huge blast and I had a lot of fun with it. I applaud Gil and Sean both for trying something novel that took a lot of work and coordination to even attempt – and it was working pretty well I thought, at least until we lost the realtime connection. And even after that it was still fun and coherent (if not a bit chaotic).

After this ended about 11:30, I went straight back up to my room and hit the sack. My Godlike game was at 0800 the next morning and I knew I needed to sleep.

Saturday

I got up at 6. Good lord, I still can’t believe they had games scheduled to start at 8am. This was the earliest I have ever kicked off a game in 30 years of gaming (my prior record was a 9am start for a session of Shadowrun years ago). Anyway, I was rested and motivated. And nervous. Was I going to get a crowd of good players? Even one loser would have harshed my zen for this one. All the bloody work I put into it…

I had a decent breakfast and was in the room at 7am to set up (Jeezus!) Jack helped me set up and gave me a few attaboys and that was much appreciated. He’d run his Godlike game the night before and that had gone well too, so I wanted to do my part to wave the Godlike banner.

As the players filed in, I noted that no one was late and no one was missing. Everyone seemed pretty cool and that was good sign too. As it turned out, 3 of the 6 players had used their GM priority slips to get into the game, so I had a bit of a pucker factor going on since I felt I really needed to deliver. All this freaking out gradually subsided as we got started and I realized I indeed had a very good crew. Four of the players were WW2 buffs and that was a big part of the draw for them, only one other player had experience with Godlike (and he actually had his book, yay!). But even the players who didn’t know much about the war were ready to jump in.

If you’ve read the AAR of the initial playtest I did for this game last year, things pretty much went the same way – a few opportunities to establish characters in the base watering hole the night before, followed by the mission itself. It really is a very simple scenario but with the amount of stuff going on it can be a long one, so I was worried about the time. Perhaps because the players didn’t know each other so well, there was not quite as much interaction in the bar scene as in the playtest but that was okay.

The players had at least some feel for their characters when it was time to take off. As the mission progressed and they started to encounter enemy activity and other problems, the players found their feet with the game and started really getting into it. When the main action set piece began – the attack on the airbase at Rabaul – they went at with a lot of gusto.

Like the playtest, there were many similarities but still many differences. In this game, much of the action took place at the airfield and the Talents managed to stop or otherwise destroy about a squadron’s worth of Zeros on the ground before they could get airborne. The furball over the harbor raged and the Japanese Talents did their level best to wipe put the Americans. But, my enemy dice rolls were for shit and I did not make any spectacular kills on the American Talents! Two Talents died in the playtest by comparison. That said, I did do a lot more damage to TOG302 overall. Almost all their planes were fairly shot up during the fight, and several characters had taken wounding hits of some severity. So I guess I spread it out more.

The players all did a fine job and there were many excellent moment of action and roleplaying. Everyone found ways to do cool things with their characters and I felt they were all doing a great job when the spotlight was on them. My hat’s off to Gil, James, Frank, Jill, Geoff and Thumper! Any RPG is only as good as its players and they were all very good!

We ended on a high note, with all the characters making it back to base. Everyone said they had a good time, enjoyed the theme of the game and the setup with all the minis and maps and whatnot. There were a couple things I wish I had done better or more of – I think I rushed a bit. But there were smiling faces and words of thanks so I’m very happy with that!

So, once again, Godlike TOG302 for the win!

The rest of my Saturday I just chilled. Originally I’d thought to get into some other game at 4pm, but on second thought I realized I’d be wasted from my own game and falling asleep around 5 or 6. And indeed, I was spent. I decided to spare any potential group I would be playing with the sorry sight of me dozing off mid-game and canceled my registration for the 4 o’clock games. I spent the rest of the day wandering around, in the dealer’s room, and just hanging out. In the evening I had dinner with Chris R. and we played a game of Age of Conan (boardgame) to round things out.

Sunday

Slept in a bit on Sunday but still had to hustle up to check out at 10 and get to open gaming where I was going to run The Mountain Witch for whoever came along. I ended up with 3 players (I’d hoped for at least 4) but all three were very good. One, James, had actually been in my Godlike game the day before! He and another player, Bryan, had been recruited by Matt Steele, who’d said he wanted to play. TMW is one of those games that actually works better with more people, but three is the minimum required to make it work so we went for it.

The smaller group is one of the standout aspects of this particular game of TMW. The other more significant thing about this game was, the characters didn’t betray each other! As we rolled into the end game, and the Witch’s influence became overt, I was doing everything I possibly could to get them to stab each other in the back, but they stayed loyal. The character with the Revenge fate had all kinds of Trust built up with the guy he had established as the target of his vengeance and yet… he couldn’t bring himself to kill him! Likewise, the guy with the Unholy Pact fate decided in the end not to betray his fellows to the Witch! Even Matt’s character with the True Motives fate managed to accomplish his goal with backstabbing anyone – even though he could have plenty of times.

There was a bit more to it, but in the end, they all survived! In maybe 9 or 10 games of TMW that I’ve run, this is the first time the characters haven’t betrayed each other or succumbed to their Dark Fates! Very awesome! This unexpected outcome is just one of the many reasons I love TMW. The players all seemed to enjoy it and I hope they play it again if given the chance.

The dealer’s room was smaller than I’d expected but quite busy, and EndGame seemed to be doing well, which I contributed to by picking up a copy of Legends of Anglerre. I also bought a copy of the old Fiend Folio, a pack of original WFRP 1e character sheets, and an Underground supplement, all dirt cheap. And last but not least, I got a copy of Remember Tomorrow.

One unexpected but cool (and just a bit freaky) thing was having people I didn’t know say they recognized me or had heard of me in some way. When someone mentioned this rep I seem to have in a game I was playing in or running, it kinda made me feel I had to live up to it and not disappoint, which is why it was kind of freaky.

Another cool thing was just meeting people. My sense of the Bay Area gaming community was widened – I usually interact with the crowd and EndGame only so it was good to meet some new people.

And that was my DunDraCon!