Saturday 2nd December 2017
So the taxi I had booked the day before didn’t turn up so I had to run through the dark streets of Derby to get to the Railway Station for my 06:01 train. I breathlessly got there to see my train depart. Had to wait an hour for the next one that ended up being late, if only the earlier one was late I would have caught it.
Got into London at 08:30 but it seemed that only one ticket machine that accepted cash on the Underground had a big queue so I was late getting the Tube.
Got to Hammersmith in short order and found the Novotel without any issues, getting in though was another matter. There was a long queue for two very slow lifts to the hotel lobby.
Quick and efficient service at the GM desk, though I learnt that my game had been pulled and the players put into other games that were running (quite rightly).
So unable to run my game and with no other games running in the morning I just had to twiddle my thumbs in the hotel lobby.
I caught a few great seminars though; Ken Hite and Robin Laws Talk Stuff was very entertaining as always, and Ian Livingston with the early days of Games Workshop and Fighting Fantasy was very insightful.
In the afternoon I ran my Tales from the Loop game ‘Bigtrax and Magic Tricks’. I had five players signed up from the start and it went fantastic. The players chose and generated the following player characters. We had Jed the Young Farmer who was sat on his tractor, young Chip who was a young troubled soul armed with a crowbar, Weirdo Ida with a pet rat called Poppet, a every popular kid called Joanna and her ever present hair spray, and a metal head called Dane wearing a cool leather jacket.
The player generation at the start of the game really helped to gel the group together as we had a father and son duo, two players from the Fantasy Tw*ts (https://tabletoptwats.podbean.com), and one experienced player.
Each of their opening scenes were short but very character based, giving glimpses into the Kids home life and backgrounds. They were keen to get straight into the mystery.
Dane had arguing parents and an absent older sister so left to get away, Joanna’s aunt had an episode, throwing cutlery at the smoke alarm (including the flyer for the County Fair) so she took that along for the ‘boys’, Ida’s parents wanted a ‘talk’ with her but she slammed her bedroom door and snuck out the window, Chip’s step dad was drunk on the sofa so he just left, and Jed tended his sick father before joining the others at the hideout.
The players from my Tales from the Loop game.
They all were excited about the Bigtrak and the Magic Show taking place the following day. They were chatting and planning to attend when they were interrupted by an American style car horn. A huge American lorry was stuck on the county road and the driver, Milo, was wanting help getting to Elvaston Castle to set up the stage and auditorium for the Doug Henning Magic Show. The kids all helped and the mystery unfolded.
Involving a robot called A-F1L-08, and mad scientist, dodgy roadies, weird spheres, a Bigtrak, incompetent armed guards, and a suspicious TV magician. It all comes to a crescendo with fireworks and ice cream!
Of course at the end of the game after such an adventure, the return to the mundane lives is a sober reminder of how those moments are so precious.
After that it was drinks in the hotel bar, chatting with the players about roleplaying games before speeding across London to catch the last train home to Derby.
#Dragonmeet
#TalesfromtheLoop
#tabletoptwats
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