0 Tentacles Untapped. Castle Stahleck, Bacharach, Germany.
Friday 25th - Monday 28th May 2007.http://www.tentacles-convention.de/
Well I had a complete blast!
What a fantastic con. And the usual problems that have plagued this con in the past [things not under the control of the convention organisers] have been resolved.
All the guests were approachable and very talkative, the freeforms just looked amazing with almost every player being in costume, and all the games I ran had international players of very high standard.
The Friday went well and did seem to start earlier with the Opening Ceremony going well. The Moon Design Seminar was good, Rick Meints and Simon Bray explained about the new products and about the completed manuscripts they have lined up. Authors Greg Stafford and Jeff Richards also added further insight.
There was plenty of new product released at Tentacles, ‘Blood over Gold’ the 154 page trader princes campaign book, ‘Champions of the Reaching Moon’ the Lunar Hero/Hero Band book and ‘History of the Heortling Peoples’ one of the Stafford Library unfinished works. All look fantastic and it is good to know that Rick will stick to doing the larger page counts rather than splitting books down that has been done in the past.
Interesting to hear that they have a number more books in the pipeline, an Elf Book, a Prax pack, two books about the West, the Great Argrath Campaign by Greg Stafford, and of course the new setting-less HeroQuest core rule book.Though there are plenty of works ready to come out there was a call for more.
Any idea will be considered though there will be a contract issued with deadlines and a project leader will be required – any interest contact Mark Galeotti.
The rest of the evening was more of a social gathering, drinking beer and chatting with friends new and old. Also had a good talk with the 'Smart Party', a group of players from Nottingham who were Tentacles Virgins though regular convention goers. We even played the pub quiz as one of the teams and didn't do too badly considering the other teams had the creators and writers of the games we were being asked questions on!
All day Saturday I ran my Serenity:HeroQuest games for 12 hours and had a good time. The first game was with the Smart Party and a couple of others joined in as well. A very good game though I did have problems putting on the blue rubber glove under the table, which spoiled the surprise some what. The players managed to get me in a fit of giggles at one point. I was annoyed with myself that I didn’t take a photograph of the group though.
The second game was also a hoot with the players really got into the characters and hammed it up a little even though some did not know the setting that well. All the players were surprised by the big reveal at the end.
The last game ended up being a player verses player as the player of Johner accepted the bride and turned on the rest of the team. All the players were up for this, all played like they weren't expecting the double cross and we did run with it; putting us all on the spot as I had to make it up as we went along.
One thing I do love about running games at Tentacles are the international players. I had English, German, Dutch, French and American players in my games and was a nice mix to have. I am just sorry they had to struggle with my Derby mumble.
On the Sunday there was a little mix up with where the group photo would be taken due to the rain. The tried to fit everyone into the main hall but due to sheer numbers they wouldn’t all fit in! Luckily the rain had stopped in time for us all to file out and get into position. I wore my silly Jayne hat that is bright orange so that I would be stopped easily. The mess about with the group photo delayed the set up for the freeform so that ended up starting a little later than hoped.
The Serenity/Firefly freeform 'You Can't Take the Sky from Me!' that I helped to write and run went very well. I was very nervous as this was the first freeform/Larp I had run and GMed and I wasn't sure if it would go well. Once we started the game none of the GMs were need for about the first hour; all the players just carried on playing and staying in character, getting twisted deeper and deeper into their plots. So good to see.
I think part of the reason it went well was the support of Simon, Colin Driver and Bazz Hoftijzer as the GMs and the quality of the players.
I think I will do another again now that I have caught the bug!
Sunday ended with sitting in the auction and the closing ceremony where I had won a prize [and a cool tentacles badge] for running games. It is good to have a convention that rewards the GMs.
I did witness the ‘Daughters of Darkness’ book burning that I am always in two minds about though it was funny to see Daniel Fahey spill a drop of his drink on the burning ashes to see them explodes in a great gout of flame!
So the highlights were winning a set of duck miniatures on the tombola, being declared having the loudest snore, getting excellent players in all my games, laughing so much over the whole weekend and meeting old friends and making new ones. The lowlights were being declared having the loudest snore, going up and down the stairs of the castle and the fact that the weekend is over.
So special thanks to Fabian and all his team for organising such a fantastic convention. I do appreciate all the hard work that goes into running a convention from my experience with Continuum and Furnace but I do not think that I could do it each year!
Cheers and here’s to Tentacles 2008, Friday 9th to Monday 12th May 2008.
To see photos of this year’s Tentacles go to my Flickr Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/darran/
Tentacles Untapped photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/darran/sets/72157600285540891/
Nick's Tentacles Untapped Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23016277@N00/
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