The Owlbear and the Wizard’s Staff 2025, St. Patrick’s Irish Club, Riverside Walk, Adelaide Road, Leamington Spa, CV32 5A.
Friday 12th -Sunday 14th September 2025.
https://asakosoh.wordpress.com/2025/04/13/the-owlbear-and-wizards-staff-12th-14th-september-2025-leamington-spa/
This is Part 3 of my con and games report from The Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff 2025.
Part 1 can be found here:
The Owlbear and the Wizard’s Staff 2025 Con Report Part 1
Part 2 can be found here:
The Owlbear and the Wizard’s Staff 2025 Con Report Part 2
Photo by Jim. The Electric State GM screen.
We get to Liberty and drive up to the Amador Inn. The contrast between the raw concrete building and stark florescent lights, with the hand written sign, fills us with confidence.
The motel is served by many service robots performing menial tasks and maintenance. Some of the robots serve as waiters too.
Amador Inn by Simon Stålenhag.
The police station is behind the motel and there is a parking lot in between. There’s a gas station opposite on the other side of the road.
We check-in to the Amador Inn, Lolly and Jack Harney are the proprietors and they welcome us at the check-in desk. We try to get a discount, a good price as Old Toby told us we could have one due to the inconvenience, we lie. Lolly and Jack react incredulously to us as they don’t trust Old Toby as the Sheriff. They explain that to them Old Toby isn’t their Sheriff, they believe he is Alan Brown, a former Liberty resident that murdered his sister and fled. He has come back years later with a changed name and identity and has become the Sheriff. To them he is a murder and shouldn’t be in a position of authority, especially investigating murders and enforcing the law.
So we didn’t get our discount as it was very obvious that they were bitter enemies.
We ask about the past murder. Lolly and Jack inform us that it occurred over a month ago and the murder victim was James Anderson, a student from out-of-town. He was chopped up and his body parts were spread out on the roadside. We ask to book the same room that he stayed in. It was Room 9, though I joke it might be Room 6, the number spinning over.
The motel has a restaurant on the first floor with a small stage and a bar. The bedrooms are on the ground floor with the lobby including a dedicated neuroscape lounge with two neurocaster terminals.
Cade and Billy-Lee decided to plug in to the neuroscape whilst we wait for our rooms to be made ready. Willy doesn’t trust the neuroscape as he uses a jury-rigged neurocaster and my character, Nancy, doesn’t have her own neurocaster and doesn’t risk joining the neuroscape as “it’s just an excuse to get advertisements plugged straight into your brain!”
Cade has a WITS of 4 and gets a +2 from his Johnny Jolt Theme neurocaster. The player rolls four red base dice and 2 white gear dice. The player rolls and gets a success.
Billy-Lee’s WITS are 3 and gets +1 from his Stimulus GO neurocaster. His players rolls three red base dice and only one white gear dice. He doesn’t roll any successes and rolls a ‘1’ on his base dice so he spends a point of Hope and re-rolls. He gets two successes on the re-roll.
The two players enter the neuroscape, like the internet we know today but more interactive. Both players seek information on Sheriff Old Toby and are able to get into his personal records. It looks like that Old Toby has changed his name several times over the years and certainly looks like he had a troubled youth. However his original name was Curtis Fellows and he had a few misdemeanours to his name, hence the identity change, but he cleaned himself up and earned a law degree. He went into the police and now is the Sheriff of Liberty. He is NOT Alan Brown. They are two separate people. There is no link between them.
While Cade and Billy-Lee are in the neuroscape locked away from real life, Willy and Nancy go into their rooms. We have been given Room 9 as requested as well as the connecting Room 8. Willy moves one of the beds out of Room 9 into 8 as Nancy is the only girl. Nancy flips the mattress and searches the room, she turns the hot water on to get the room steamed up and sees the word “DECONSTRUCT” written on the mirror. She doesn’t find anything else.
When Cade and Billy-Lee disconnect from the Neuroscape, they have to make EMPATHY rolls as something weird is happening. Both players get two successes each when they roll.
Before they disconnect they see on the Neuroscape darken, they normally in an environment that is safe, like a mountain meadow, but it seems that the sky darkens like a forced sunset, a falling night. Not what normally happens. Weird.
They report the malfunction to the Harneys but they insist they are well maintained.
Willy decides to investigate the SENTRE Neurosphere on the outside of town. He wants to see what kind of traffic that goes through it. He gets his Jury-rigged neuroscaster and connects up once the others come back into the room.
Willy has a WITS of 4 and gets a +1 for his neurocaster. He doesn’t roll any successes on his first roll but does roll a ‘1’. He decides to Push the Roll so he rerolls all the dice except the ‘1’. He rolls another ‘1’ but also rolls a ‘6’ so gets a success but he loses 2 Hope Points.
He learns that all of the neurocaster traffic from the town has to go through the SENTRE Neurosphere before then going on globally if it needs to. The local Neuroshpere provides most of the town’s entertainment and needs for the most part. Willy can’t access the user logs but learns that there is a restriction on the traffic here.
As he logs out of the neuroscape he has to make an EMPATHY rolls as something weird happens too, unfortunately he fails the roll.
He finds that his safe operating environment has been transformed into a darkened mansion, with rooms with dark crumbling walls cast in shadows. He hears a metallic clicking sounds coming closer and closer to him. He doesn’t like the sound of that so try’s to exit the neuroscape faster. As he leaves he catches a glimpse of a silver metal blade.
Willy is a little freaked out by this, this isn’t normal operating procedures for the neuroscape. Something is wrong.
We seek a mansion but there isn’t one in town, so could the mansion be inside the SENTRE Neurosphere?
So we start to investigate the situation, exploring the motel as well as planning to break into the Neurosphere, or should I say trespass as it is a corporate building so it can’t be classed as ‘breaking and entering’ as it is not a private residence?
Before we can head out to investigate we are interrupted by all the townsfolk turning up to the motel.
All the townsfolk are holding a town meeting at the motel, hosted by the Harneys. Of course we interfere with the meeting, feeding into the Harney’s paranoia over the Sheriff to get them antagonistic towards him more.
Of course when one of the Sheriff’s deputies turn up to say the road is now clear, the townsfolk think the Sheriff’s deputy has turned up to stop the town meeting, to disrupt the townsfolk. Of course the townsfolk react badly to this (fed by our interference) and try to stop the deputy. It gets a little bit chaotic at the meeting with the townsfolk holding the deputy hostage.
It’s then when the service robots attack!
We try to escape but struggle to fight off all the robots. As we flee we discover a hidden basement and section of the motel.
What follows are the exploration of the hidden sections of the motel, re-programmed robots with murderous intent, and a mystery that takes a very macabre turn.
Unfortunately I had to leave to catch my train home before the full conclusion of the game. A shame as it seemed to be going well.
I really enjoyed the game and I like The Electric State RPG. The vibe was great and although the game uses the same Year Zero Engine that Fria Ligan are renowned for, this system feels very different.
Just using the four Attributes to draw dice pools from is very liberating. Though the Attributes are a little larger than in other YZE games you are still rolling less dice each time. That means less chance of success so you may have to Push the Roll more. That will eat into your resources, like Hope Points but here it is random too as it depends on you rolling any ‘1’s.
With no Skills to delineate the characters more, no one in this setting are honing and refining their skills to such a point of high-expertise. There are no specialists like there would be in sci-fi or fantasy settings. It is a modern contemporary setting, alternate 1990’s, with everyday characters and people so just having the broader Attributes makes sense.
Jim, the GM, did a fantastic job of introducing the setting and the game to us without a huge information exposition dump. He did some great world building as we went along the Mystery scenario. Each of our characters were compelling and fun to play, even if the mood was a little melancholy due to the setting’s dystopian portrayal.
Jim made our time trapped in the everyday motel seem claustrophobic and a pressure cooker for the PCs.
The other players were also great, getting involved with the mystery and role playing their characters really well. Although we were a mis-matched group of misfits loosely together to be on the same journey, in the same vehicle, we pulled together when sharp blades came a swinging!
It was great to actually play too!
So with my gaming day over I packed up my bag and headed off after saying my quick goodbyes to the group.
My train journey home was on time and was fairly uneventful. The train was crowded due to the football fans but I was lucky enough to get a seat, even if it was accompanied by football chants and singing throughout the whole journey.
I got home early evening without incident.
The Owlbear and the Wizard’s Staff 2025 was a great gaming convention. I do like this one even though I have missed as many as I have attended over the years it has been running.
The convention has a strong focus on having a wide variety of different games running and all the gaming tables looked busy. It also has a strong focus on the social gathering too!
Those staying for the weekend (I only pop up for the day on the Saturday) can meet up at a restaurant on the Friday night and then play games Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon. Saturday evening is dedicated to a social meet in a local pub. More games follow on the Sunday too.
Leamington Spa is a lovely town too.
Photo by Matthew. The main gaming hall with gaming tables. The trader All Rolled Up is to the right of the photo.
Matthew has done a fantastic job of organising this convention, having refreshments like tea and coffee available all day as well as providing lunch is above and beyond.
All the gaming tables were not only numbered but were also labelled with the games that were taking place on them.
And though the convention is focused on social and gaming rather than being a glorified trade hall that some conventions are, there was one trader there; All Rolled Up.
All Rolled Up are an independent trader who makes excellent rolled up gaming bags, dice bags, dice trays, and sells other gaming accessories too. They support these smaller gaming conventions as well as attending the larger conventions with a stall.
In all a great pick-me-up for me personally, especially due to my recent Cancer diagnosis, so I will be making a greater effort to attend in 2026. I may even attend for the whole weekend next year!
Photo by Fabio. Me in action GMing my game at OBaWS25.
Photo by Matthew. The somosas we had for lunch! Excellent!