News Archives: July 2010

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Continuum 2010

Last weekend was Continuum. Claire's sister had agreed to dog-sit for us, so we decanted Sarah, Chris, and too much luggage in to the back of the car, and headed south. We made good time, arriving about four. Signed in, and unloaded the car into the rooms. John Foster halls were much as I remember them - large, clean, sparsely furnished rooms, and too frickin' hot. We had time to catch up with a few friends, and grab a pizza. Then it was time to get in to costume for the first game.

"Veterans Day" is a superhero game, set two decades after the heroes had thwarted an alien invasion. I'd been cast as a rockstar, with cheerleader-style regeneration/immortality powers. No type-casting there. Claire and Sarah spent half an hour on my hair and make up. Combined with leather trousers, frilled shirt, and swishy highwayman coat I presented the fine image of a new wave poseur. (Sadly, there appear to be no photos from the game.) The love of my life (played by Claudia) had dumped me years before for "refusing to grow up", and getting her back was my major goal. I had to spend half the game trying to seduce Claudia - the hardships I suffer for my art. The rest of my time was largely divided between trying to find out who was stealing my money, and why, and trying to figure out just how big a bastard one of my former bandmates was. "Veterans Day" is a great fun, rules free game, and was the highlight of the con for me. Play it if you get a chance.

I'd set Saturday aside as a quiet day. Following a pretty decent breakfast, Claire and I wandered into nearby Oadby, in search of last minute props for my game, and raided the Asda. Bottled water being deemed essential in the heat, we chickened out of walking back, grabbing a taxi instead. A kindly, and magnificently armoured, orc helped us carry the shopping from where the taxi could drop us to our little flat. Unfortunately, the cleaners were in the kitchen. I walked in, giving them a shock. Then the poor lass saw the orc behind me...

The rest of the day was spent in chatting, watching the rubber sword larpers taking on all comers, watching the Germany match with German friends, playing with friends' children, and generally relaxing. We headed back in to Oadby to the Wetherspoon for dinner. They kept up their usual standard of customer service - we ordered four steaks, covering the possibilities from rare to medium-well. They arrived covering medium to shoe leather. Replacements were requested. Then they took forty-five minutes to bring out the belgian waffles, which only appeared when we chased them. Back to the con, and the most one sided game of Battlestar Galactica I've ever seen. The cylons were clearly going to win before the first jump occurred, partly through bad luck, partly through the secret cylon Boomer using the recon power to stick the best of the crisis cards to the bottom of the deck. By halfway through, my only chance of victory was being dealt the remaining cylon loyalty card. I got lucky, and had one turn as a cylon before "we" won.

Sunday was freeform overload day, with my "The Last Voyage of the Santa Anna" running twice, morning and evening. Both went well, though rather differently. The players seemed to have fun, the big plots worked more or less, and the "oh, cool" stuff I had planned was greated with "oh, cool". I'm not going to say too much, as I plan to run again, after I pile through the three pages of tweaks I've so far assembled. If anyone else has feedback or photos, both would be very much appreciated. I was very impressed by both the high standards of play, and the high standards of costuming. Thanks to everyone who took part.

In between "Santa Anna" voyages, I was playing a thinly disguised Del Boy Trotter in a game based on Firefly. Costume this time was my Victorian gentleman outfit, with a more modern shirt and a couple of toy pistols. There are some photos of this, but mainly of the back of my head. I've not seen a decent picture. The game had some definite fun moments. Early on, I was being interviewed by the sheriff, and he hit the triggers for my flashbacks of the war. As I over-acted this, I misjudged where a table was, and scrapped my nose. Between the noise and the blood running down my face, a crowd of people soon gathered, worried both in and out of character. The sheriff's explanation that I'd "just fallen over in the cells" didn't help... After being released, I did a quick loop round the gaming area, complaining loudly about "police brutality", before washing the blood off and getting back to the game proper. I ended up ditching my ship to pay some old debts, joining the Serenity crew as co-pilot, and dating Kaylee. Apparently, she was impressed by my piloting skills. Overall, I think a win for me.

Too many players to list turned out excellent performances, making for an enjoyable afternoon. Unfortunately, the game itself has some major flaws. The rules are too complex, and the most complex bit I had to deal with (spaceships) isn't explained at all. The GMs didn't know the rules, resulting in them overrruling each other. Achieving anything positive is hard work, but negative effects can be played on someone else in seconds without thought. (In my case, two hours of hard work was undone in under thirty seconds.) Worst, there's an auto-kill built into the rules. I, and everyone else I've spoken to, had a goal of "see the Doctor about..." At the end of the game, the GMs announced that everyone who'd been to the doctor was dead. Okay, several of us decided that something that stupid hadn't really happened. But killing characters for completing a straight-forward goal without even a hint that this might happen is just plain dumb. All of which is a shame. There's a decent game in there, but the writers need to overhaul the parts that don't work.

Sunday night devolved into the usual late night drinking, chatting, tall tale telling (how can anyone not know the story of the dread gazebo?), and only occassional shepherding of drunk norwegians. Two years may be too long to wait for the next one. But next time, I'm bringing a fan.

Posted by graham @ 10:20 pm

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