Spaghetti ConJunction 3b Con Report

Spaghetti ConJunction 3b, Geek Retreat, 38 The Priory Queensway, Birmingham. B4 7LA
Saturday 19th October 2019, 10.00am - 7.30pm
https://spaghetticonjunction.wordpress.com/

I like this little game meet, taking place in Birmingham, just a short hop on the train from Derby.
Got there in plenty of time and was offering two games on the day. The venue is only a short walk from the train station.
It was a few quick helloes to start the day, paid my entry fee and buying a ticket for the raffle, then it was game sign up.
Game sign up is by raffle ticket, based on the last digit in random order, to give everyone a fair chance to get into the game of their choice. There were plenty of games on offer, I had my new scenario for Fria Ligan Tales from the Loop on offer as an attendee had requested it. I had two sign ups for it at first but another GM joined my game and two late comers joined latter too. I had a nice mix of players too, from an ten year old, a few a generation younger than me with lots of RPG experience, to a player with my age and experiences. Yet the eighties vibe still worked with the group.

I started the game with character generation but a slight difference to normal as the Kids were attending a summer camp. Not a nice American summer camp you see in the movies, but a UK one where the attendees were ‘troubled teens’ requiring extra attention during the school holidays. The players had to come up with ‘crimes’ they had committed as their Problem, as that was the reason they had been sent to the camp.

We had Topaz the Rocker with her guitar playing ‘Highway to Hell’ by AC/DC who was sentenced because she broke a bully’s nose at school.
The Troublemaker was Jimmy with his pen knife who loves ‘On the Waterfront’ by Simple Minds. He had talked back to the teachers so that was why he had been sent to the Camp.
Iris the Bookworm, with all her encyclopaedias, had been found guilty of being a public nuisance. Her favourite song was David Bowie’s ‘Ashes to Ashes’, the very essence of the eighties summed up.
Jason is our Young Farmer with his mini tool kit. He was sentenced due to him attacking the culprits that had poisoned his farm animals. Only Marillion’s ‘Grendel’ was a comfort.
Last to arrive was Arkady the Weirdo with her Cut Throat Razor. She claims she was sent here because she was political subversive, but the others suspected that it was for a minor infraction.


The summer camp was one based from one I know in Derby, set on a island in the River Derwent that was surrounded by river channels. The only way off is via the bridge that crosses the island.
The Kids were fellow hut mates of Hut D, that hut was their Hideout so they were able to personalise it.

The camp ‘commandant’ called all the children to an assembly to break the news that some of them would attend the launch party of a new Gauss Freighter, Cloud Nine, if they succeeded at their chores. Their chore was to clear a section of the river of all the rubbish that had collected there as it was between two weirs.
Now the chore was boring work, but playing in a shaded river during a heatwave, wasn’t too bad. The Kids did quite well getting rubbish out until they discovered some weird metal discs that had strange properties. The Kids discovered that they were Magnetrine discs that had broken off a crashed vessel.


Photo of group by Matthew Pook

What follows was an adventure with a crashed Magnetrine Ship, a rogue robot, a smelly tramp, a newspaper from tomorrow, a larger freighter swarming with little automations, and the threat of the total annihilation of the current dimension.

Of course the Kids saved the day!

There was a break for lunch between the gaming slots where I was able to catch up with people socially.
Before the afternoon slot started there was a quick raffle, as in quick as it was all over in a few minutes even though there were loads of prizes donated. I even won a prize, a Metamorphosis Alpha book.

Then it was game signup for the afternoon session and my Fria Ligan Alien game filled up straight away with seven players.

I had a larger table this time so I placed my laptop at one end against the sunshine coming in through the windows so it was easier to see, and I sat at the other end, remotely controlling the Keynote presentation via my iPhone. The players then sat around me, getting a good view of me and my laptop.

I was running my Alien
scenario ‘Three’s Company’ that I had ran at Furnace the week before. I was pleased how that scenario had worked but I had tweaked the character agendas to give more interaction between the player characters.

Photo of group by Matthew Pook

I had made new foldable character agenda sheets, based on a paper Jacob’s Ladder, they fold out revealing the new agendas for Act II and Act III of the scenario in play. Each PC has their own so they are able to keep their agendas hidden from the other players. It’s a clever gimmick but it does work well.
The agendas are a key aspect of their Alien game as they do provide the drives to each player character as well as developing relationships and possibly setting the PC’s against each other as they may have opposing agendas and contrasting aims or objectives. That is what makes the later parts of the scenario a lot of fun to play as the players are often at odds against each other.







The player characters are:
Dr Monygham - Trauma and Cryogentic Specialist
Senor Hirsch - Weyland-Yutani Operative
Captain Martin Decoud - Squad Leader
Lieutenant Antonia Avellanos - Squad member
Corporal Carlos Gould - Squad member
L/Cpl Juan Hernandez - Smartgun Operator
L/Cpl Conrad Kurze- Electronic Counter Measures

The squad has two “civilians”, actual non-combatants, with them that will help with the mission. The military ’wing’ of the squad is lead by the Captain with the Lieutenant assisting with the leadership. The Corporal and the two Lance Corporals are each specialists in different areas. They have many resources available to them including Pulse Rifles, Smart Guns, Plasma Rifles (in the 40W range), Motion Trackers, An APC, a drop ship and even a Conestoga-class Light Assault Starship.

The premise of the scenario is that a Mining Facility on remote planet LV-510 was reduced to a skeleton crew as the planet was going through a dangerous phase of terraforming. Dissidents in the workforce revolted and took over the Facility and took hostages from the Mine Management Team. They also took four executives, who were still in their cryogenic chambers, captive too.
The PCs are a corporate hit-squad, brought in to provide a ‘Final Solution’ to the problem. Their orders are to eliminate all hostiles with extreme prejudice, capture the leaders of the resistance for ‘questioning’, and to rescue the hostages especially the corporate executives in cryo-sleep chambers.

The players were very keen, getting into the military mindset straight away and organising themselves before the mission. They were happy with the mission and were confident. They were so confident that they were planning how they would take the prisoner, and hoped that they didn’t kill him accidentally so they asked for a photo of him.

The start of the mission went very well, they were dealing with the miners and other threats with ease. The lower ranks were doing the ‘work’, Hernandez was even keeping a tally of all the people he killed! They were diligently checking the bodies for the resistance leader as they went along.

Trouble started when they ignored one movement tracked going past them, instead they went for the easy kills. Having an enemy behind you is never a good situation to have.

They also didn’t work on their extraction plan so they managed to get themselves trapped in the Facility for a while, debating whether going for the crawl through the air ducts or going for the single umbilical corridor.

After that it all started going wrong, the traps that the miners left started to take their toll and the Stress Mechanic also started coming into its own.
Once the PC’s took the Control Room, that signalled the end of the first act.

Act II is where they learnt there was more to this mission. Things weren’t as they appeared to be and the secret agendas started to come in to play.

Things got heated at times for the PCs and when the Alien arrived it all fit very messy for some of the PCs whilst others could only watch on helpless in another area.


The Alien makes an appearance.


Surprisingly a few of the PCs survived! Though I wouldn’t rate their chances of survival in a dodgy escape shuttle in cryogenic chambers.

All the players enjoyed the game and were particularly excited when the Alien showed up.

With that I packed up all my stuff, made my goodbyes, and headed off to the Railway Station to catch the train home.

I like to thank the organisers and all the players in my games that all were so good and brought the awesome!
I would also like to thank the staff at Geek Retreat for their great hospitality and service.
It was a great day and I look forward to Spaghetti ConJunction IV in February 2020!

Furnace 2019 Con Report

Furnace 2019, Garrison Hotel, 635 Penistone Road, Sheffield, S6 2GB
Saturday 12th - Sunday 13th October 2019
http://furnace.org.uk

Sorry about the delay, wasn’t sure whether to post this report up or not.


I love attending this convention and the venue, the Garrison Hotel, is one of the big draw factors too.
I missed last year’s Furnace as I broke my leg a week before at work, incapacitated I couldn’t attend. Due to that I was given full blessing by my wife to attend this year, even though it fell on her birthday. She is a great wife!

I headed up nice and early on the train from Derby to Sheffield, I was intending to catch the tram to Hillsborough from the railway station but they were running so irregularly I had to catch a taxi in instead. That meant I was the first to arrive, so I was roped in into moving and setting up the tables and chairs in the upper gaolhouse area.

It wasn’t long before all the attendees were turning up for the first Saturday slot. I spent that time showing off my folding character sheets I had developed for my Alien game, many were amazed, others were miffed (in jest) that I had pushed the bar on novelty character sheets further.

Then it was the welcome speech from Graham, celebrating the fourteenth Furnace at the Garrison. He also mentioned about Tony, the owner-manager of the Garrison Hotel, Who was retiring and there was a collection and card for him. Also that the Furnace convention was supporting the use of the X-Card and that there would be an X-Card on each gaming table. I have been using an X-Card in all my Tales from the Loop games as I think it is an important safety feature to have during games.

I had pre-booked for Slot 1 in a Wordplay 2 game by Graham Spearing called ‘Into the Haunted Ruins of Dura’.
The game was set in 3rd Century Palmyra after the fall of Rome. We were heroes of Queen Zenobia and we were called on a quest to the ruined city of Dura on the River Euphrates. I was playing Varo Maximus, an ex-roman Legionary who saw himself as a leader of sorts. We also had Sorcerer called Nabonidus who was an ambitious scribe of the court; Jason, a scout of some renown who wants to be a true hero; Ishtar Belessa an archer who uses mathematics to work out her shots; Elamassi and ‘treasure hunter’ with wit and charm; and finally Cadmus, an ex-gladiator, who has worked his way up.



The Wordplay 2 system works nicely. Attribute number plus Trait number plus any modifiers from Equipment or Scene Traits. That number is the number of dice you roll in your dice pool. Any dice with results 1, 2, or 3 are discarded. Dice with 4 or 5 count as a point each and dice with 6 count as two points each. You total up your score and hope to beat the target number or beat the opposition (ether another player or the GM).

We had to gather more information after being given our mission by the Queen’s representative, so we headed down into the Scribe Quarter of Palmyra to follow up a lead there. Ifarlea, a scribe of some renown, had discovered a clue in some ancient texts so we were heading to her home to question her. In the Ramshackle Streets (2) with Shrouds and Laundry (2) and packed with Milling Crowds (2) we made our way but we detected the Dark Cloaked Assassins making their way there too along the roof tops.

What followed was a chase and then combat as we all charged ahead to deal with these dastardly assassins.
The dice system worked a charm and with a couple of hiccups along the way, my character was wounded, we caught one assassin and killed or driven off the others.

Yet this captive assassin didn’t reveal much information and choose to kill himself than to speak to us. Yet his body and tattoos told us much. He was a Persian Assassin of the Order of the Spider. There were other players in the game to get the Treasure of Dura.

With that we headed off on our desert adventure and our destination of the Ruins of Dura.

It was a lot of fun and a great start to the day of gaming. I really liked the Wordplay 2 system. It gives nice flexibility and allows creative solutions to the situations in play. The player characters are very easy to grasp and I imagine char-gen is a breeze with just coming up with descriptors for the character in question. The dice pools were very manageable too, as the largest was around ten dice and most average around six or seven dice.




The Sand and Sandals setting was cool too. Lots of maps!
Is this the real life? Is this just Fantasy? Is it alt-history or real history? But the setting was a lot of fun to play in and I would love to return to it again. Perhaps a sequel is in order, Graham?

After that game it’s was a nice lunch at Morrison’s Café before heading back to the Garrison for Slot 2. I had a full game of seven players, all keen to play Tales from the Loop.

I was running my new Tales from the Loop scenario ‘On Cloud Nine and Golden Sunshine’ for the first time. I have been developing this from a summer camp I visited in my childhood, mixing my memories with research I have done on a real world location in Derby. Of course the fantastical elements I have added as part of the alternate history of the setting, snatched from my childhood imagination. I had been struggling with one element but I have had some inspiration recently about it.

The scenario, and char-gen, starts off a little bit differently to my usual Tales games, as the Kids are stuck at a Summer Camp. Not a nice American style Summer Camp we see in the movies, but a British Juvenile Detention Camp.
As part of the char-gen they had to come up with the ‘crime’ they committed to get sentenced to this camp, the reason that they are all in the same hut on this awful holiday experience. The hut that they were berthed in was all their Hideout too!

We had the Jock Rodger who had a Cricket Bat for play, loved ‘Lilly the Pink’ by The Scaffold, and was sentenced due to being ‘too angry in class’.
Josh
was the Young Farmer with his mini tool kit and his favourite song ‘What?’ By Captain Sensible. He had been sent to the camp because he had broken his brother’s leg. Our Troublemaker is Lenny who swings his bike chain for kicks and finds Bon Joni’s ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ a calming influence. He was guilty of hitting his teachers at school.
Karen was the Computer Geek with her Commodore 64 and ‘Ablaze’ by School of Seven Bells was her favourite song. Her ‘crime’ was to have been found altering records on the school computer.
Edgar the Bookworm with his magnifying glass was found guilty of stealing books from the local library. He loved Simple Minds ‘Don’t You forget About Me’.
The Weirdo Kimmy with a compass and the tune of ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ by Lou Reed playing whenever they entered a room, fully admitted to posting dead rats through letterboxes of the families of fellow school kids.
Vern the Rocker with his ever-present guitar playing ‘Rock You Like a Hurricane” by Scorpions had broke the school’s grand piano in a rage.

They were all stuck in Hut D, they renamed it Jabba’s Palace, away from the more criminal and remedial children attending the camp; some of them were very scary. Set during the heatwave of August 1984, they were all called out into the heat and sunshine by the ‘Camp Commandant’ Mrs Jones.

There was an invitation to the launch party of a newly constructed Gauss Freighter, called ‘Cloud Nine’ in Derby on the Sunday evening. Only the children from the best hut could go so Mrs Jones had some easy tasks for them to do to see who goes. Whilst the other huts were tasked with litter pick-up in the burning sunshine at a festival ground, or posting leaflets in Derby, or cutting the grass in a near-by field, Hut D were tasked with dredging litter and junk out of the section of the River Derwent that encircled the island the camp was based on. Not a bad task as the Kids could play in the shaded section of the river between two weirs and cool down in the cold water. The water levels were low too due to the drought at the time.
They got stuck in but then started finding strange metal discs in the river water, metal discs that seem to float!

After that the adventure continues with the discovery of a crashed Gauss Freighter, a wild tramp hiding in the woods, a damaged robot, flying about in machine, stealing diesel fuel, time travel portals, and the revelation that the end of the world was due!

A great adventure ending with the Kids arming themselves up for smashing Automations with wild abandon.  A great game and I was very happy with how it unfolded. Everyone got their moment to shine and push the crazy antics forward.



With that is was down to the main bar downstairs for a hot meal and a couple of pints!

So another game system by Fria Ligan was my Slot 3 game, Alien.

I have ran the Cinematic Pre-release scenario ‘Chariot of the Gods’ a couple of times before, once for my Derby home group and once for strangers at Nottingham’s Ludorati Café. This was the first time out for my own scenario, ‘Three’s Company’. I was really excited about running this game, I just love the Stress Dice mechanic and how it can spiral out of control for the player characters very quickly.

I also put together an interesting way of revealing the player character hidden agendas during the game; a Jacob’s Ladder folding sheet. Coupled with a re-designed character sheet this works really well. There is no handing out of little bits of paper to the players during the game, especially when some of the pieces are larger than others.
So when the game starts the Act I agenda is shown along side weapons, spacesuit, and gear they are carrying. When it comes to the start of Act II in the game, all the players fold open their sheets together to reveal their previously hidden Act II agendas on their own sheets. The players read their own agendas without worrying about the size nor number of pieces of paper given to the other players. Some character agendas could be simple and straightforward with not much written whilst other characters can have in-depth agendas with multiple points too.




The premise of my scenario is that the group of PCs are a Weyland Yutani hit squad doing the ‘wet work’ on behalf of the Corporation. They have been sent to a mining facility on the planetoid LV-510 to deal (with extreme prejudice) some dissidents in the workforce that have taken hostages including some corporate executives still in cryogenic sleep.
A straightforward mission with full military equipment including the USS Ribiera Conestoga-class Light Assault Starship, transit to the planetary surface via UD-4L Cheyenne Dropship, a M577 APC with pulse rifles, Smart Guns and even a Plasma rifle in the 40W range. Nice!

I had six players for this game, the seventh player didn’t turn up.
They chose their characters, it was the blood thirsty Corporal that wasn’t picked.

The miners will just have ship-shot shotguns (designed not to breach the hull), and whatever booby traps and barricades they can rig up.
Easy work if you can get it though some of the team have differing agendas and will be investigating reports of strange incidents from a cavern discovered in the mine.

The game went so well, the Stress Dice were building up nicely and the unraveling situation was deteriorating splendidly. I was able to crank up the tension nicely throughout the session.
The players were pushing their agendas well, the scenes with the prisoners they had taken for ‘questioning’ were fun to play. The panic in the players, never mind the PCs, was great to discover.
The players at one point were discussing the chain of command and how it works and who can take command of a situation. Ultimately it went unresolved as the PCs were taking their own actions at that point.
When I had my first player versus player moment near the end of the scenario it was shockingly delightful. Both players managed to take the other PC out.
The whole situation was resolved between all the PCs and even when the titular Alien turned up it really had very little affect as the PCs were too busy dealing with their own issues.
Of course the whole game ended with a Total Party Kill, my first ever one!

The only bad thing about the game was that one player (who was a vocal opponent to the principle of the X-Card) decided to play an X-Card totally inappropriately during the game just to prove a point that the X-Cards could derail a game. Because there wasn’t an emotional issue to by-pass or side-step it did halt the game for over five minutes and left all the other players hanging with nothing to do during that time. I had to step out with the player because he wasn’t happy that one of his agenda items had been negated due to another player’s actions due to his agenda. NOT the reason for an X-Card to be played.
Fortunately I was able to get the game back on track, though it did leave a bad taste in my mouth.

With that I was able to catch a taxi from the hotel to the Railway Station to catch the last train home.

[October Update] UK RPG Convention Listing

This is the October update for the UK RPG conventions for 2019 and far beyond. 

Each has a website (though a few have Facebook pages) for information and details. 

If you know of any that have been missed please mention them in the comments below. 

Please note, a few conventions have asked to be removed from this list. 

DragonDaze 2019, Newport Centre, 1 Kingsway, Newport NP20 1UH

Saturday 5th October 2018, 10:00am - 5:00pm

http://www.dragondaze.com

Con+2, On-line

Friday 11th - Sunday 13th October 2019

https://conplus.live/

Furnace 2019, Garrison Hotel, 635 Penistone Road, Sheffield, S6 2GB

Saturday 12th - Sunday 13th October 2019

http://furnace.org.uk

Spaghetti ConJunction 3b, Geek Retreat, 38 The Priory Queensway, Birmingham. B4 7LA
Saturday 19th October 2019, 10.00am - 7.30pm

https://spaghetticonjunction.wordpress.com/

StabCon South Autumn 2019, DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Southampton, Bracken Pl, Chilworth, Southampton SO16 3RB

Friday 1st - Sunday 3rd November 2019

https://m.facebook.com/StabconSouth/

GrogMeet 2019, Fan Boy Three, 25 Hilton St, Manchester. M1 1EL

Friday 8th - Sunday 10th November 2019

https://thegrognardfiles.com/grogmeet-2019/

GBCon Winter 2019 Tabletop Gaming Day, Lopping Hall, 189 High Road, Loughton IG10 4LF

Saturday 9th November 2019. 10:00am - 10:00pm

https://www.facebook.com/gbconuk

Dragonmeet 2019, Novotel London West, Hammersmith, London, UK

​Saturday 30th November 2019, 9.00am - Midnight

https://www.dragonmeet.co.uk

+

Winter StabCon 2020, Britannia Hotel Stockport, Dialstone Ln, Stockport, SK2 6AG

Friday 3rd - Sunday 5th January 2020

https://m.facebook.com/groups/21195645768

HandyCon 7, Holiday Inn, Maidenhead, Manor Lane, Berkshire, Maidenhead, SL6 2RA

Friday 17th - Sunday 19th January 2020

http://handycon.co.uk/

ConTingency 2020, Searles Leisure Resort, South Beach, Hunstanton, Norfolk. PE36 5BB
Wednesday 22nd - Monday 27th January 2020.

http://www.con-tingency.uk/

Dudley Bug Ball 2020, Station Hotel, Castle Hill, Dudley, DY1 4RA

Saturday 22nd - Sunday 23rd February 2020

https://b-m.facebook.com/Dudley-Bug-Ball-Games-Convention-328010347608331/

Revelation 2020, Garrison Hotel, 635 Penistone Road, Sheffield, S6 2GB
Saturday 22nd - Sunday 23rd February 2020

http://revelationgames.org.uk/

AireCon 2020, Harrogate International Centre, King's Rd, Harrogate HG1 5LA

Friday 13th - Sunday 15th March 2020

https://airecon.uk

Concrete Cow 20, The Old Bath House, 205 Stratford Road, Wolverton, Milton Keynes MK12 5RL

Saturday 14th March 2020, 9:00am - 11:00pm

https://www.mk-rpg.org.uk/Concrete_Cow

NormCon 2020, Entoyment Wargaming and Hobby Centre, Unit 2 Fleetsbridge Business Centre, Upton Road, Poole, Dorset BH17 7AF

Friday 27th - Sunday 29th March 2020

https://www.facebook.com/normcon20xx/

Seven Hills 2020, Garrison Hotel, 635 Penistone Road, Sheffield, S6 2GB

Saturday 4th - Sunday 5th April 2020

http://7hills.org.uk/

North Star 2020, Garrison Hotel, 635 Penistone Road, Sheffield, S6 2GB

Saturday 9th - Sunday 10th May 2020

http://www.northstarcon.org.uk/

Mega Charity Games Day for Mind 2020, The Core, 32 Foley Trading Estate, Herefordshire, HR1 2SF

Saturday 16th May 2020, 11:00am - 11:00pm

https://m.facebook.com/events/459922967890974

UK Games Expo 2020, NEC, North Ave, Marston Green, Birmingham B40 1NT& Hilton, Pendigo Way, Marston Green, Birmingham B40 1PP

Friday 29th - Sunday 31st May 2020

http://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk

Continuum 2020, John Foster Hall, Manor Road, Leicester, LE2 2LG
Friday 7th - Monday 10th August 2020

http://continuumconvention.co.uk/

FeatherCon 2020, Featherstone Castle, Hall Bank, Northumberland NE49 0JG

Friday 28th - Monday 31sr August 2020

https://www.facebook.com/groups/485003805271383/

Wyntercon VII, Eastbourne Sports Park, Ecat House, Cross Levels WY, Eastbourne, BN21 2UF

Saturday 26th - Sunday 27th September 2020

https://www.wyntercon.org

Continuum 2021, John Foster Hall, Manor Road, Leicester, LE2 2LG
Friday 6th - Monday 9th August 2021

http://continuumconvention.co.uk/

Continuum 2022, John Foster Hall, Manor Road, Leicester, LE2 2LG
Friday 5th - Monday 8th August 2022

http://continuumconvention.co.uk/