Devoted husband, Grandfather of thirteen, Artist, Cartographer, and keen Games Master. As a RPG Convention List Compiler he attends many RPG conventions per year across the U.K. His work as an Entertainment Venue Manager means he gets to meet the equally famous and obscure of Britain’s popular culture.
Darran has a small mischievous streak [that is a mile deep!] and often boarders on pure schadenfreude. With a penchant for drawing weapons he is certainly not a man to cross.
GrogMeet 2019, Fan Boy Three, 25 Hilton St, Manchester. M1 1EL
Friday 8th - Sunday 10th November 2019
https://thegrognardfiles.com/grogmeet-2019/
So I set off early from Derby on a crisp and foggy autumn morning. There was some confusion at the Railway Station as many northern trains were delayed or cancelled due to severe flooding in Yorkshire.
I he a choice of going either via Stoke-on-Trent or Sheffield, I went for Sheffield and I am glad I did. I ended up being half an hour late, catching a later connection.
I got to Fan Boy Three just as the games had already started.
I like the set up at Fun Boy Three, the main level where the majority of the shop products were on display had five round tables for games. They were great tables (I have a thing about venue furniture) and were a perfect size for running RPGs. There was a ‘hidden’ staircase down to the lower level where they had the store’s game library and six more gaming tables set up, each made up of three good sized rectangular tables, making the tables pretty big; perfect again for RPGs.
There was just a nice vibe to the place and the fact everyone was playing was nice.
My first game was Tunnels and Trolls, ‘Paddy’s 13’.
This was a great fun game! We were all playing Leprechauns that were double crossed by a wizard in the town of Sanctuary set in Thieves World. Now to be fair, he had hired us to steal this little gold idol, but he got us sent to prison on delivery and took the idol for himself.
We all vowed revenge on release from prison so we plotted to steal back the idol and to embarrass the wizard in the process.
What followed were some very silly plans to infiltrate the wizard’s house and steal back this idol, and any other valuables too.
We all had the ‘Wink Wing’ teleport ability and incredible Dexterity (and very poor Strength) to our very small stature.
My character’s speciality was thievery and a very heavy build.
By pure luck we managed to not only gain access to the wizard’s house but also to succeed against the wizard’s might. We even impressed Jubal from the Vulgar Unicorn.
The Tunnels and Trolls system works very well in it’s simplicity and helps to deliver a good game experience.
Some very, very bad puns were delivered and silliness abound during the game but it was fun and very satisfying. A great starter the day.
Credit goes to the wonderful GM and my fellow players.
Lunch was spent at the local pub for a cooked meal and a swift pint before the afternoon session.
I set up quickly for my afternoon game of Fria Ligan’s Alien’Three’s Company’. I was allocated a table in the downstairs section, nicely in middle of the room. The tables were nicely spaced out so noise from one table didn’t affect to others.
I had a total of seven players, all keen and raring to go. I quickly introduced the characters and let them make their choices, I also showed them how to open their foldout character agendas so that they could see their agendas for each act for later on in the game. I also had their agendas for each act split into two selections; their personal orders and allocations as part of Special Order #10015a, and their personal agenda. There would possibly be conflicting agendas for each character too!
Mike, a player returning to role-playing after a long break, was playing Corporal Carlos Gould. Matthew was playing Lance Corporal Hernandez, the Smart Gun operator. Nick’s character was Senior Hirsch, here to help the squad, “Good Luck Guys!” Ty was playing Captain Decoud who was in charge of the squad. Dr Monygham was played by Johnny, here to act as a medic. Dan was playing Lieutenant Antonia Avellanos, second in command. And finally we had Pookie playing Lance Corporal Conrad Kurze, the tech guy with a Plasma Rifle in the 40W range.
I then took them through the character sheets, describing how they Attributes and Skills work, more importantly how Stress works as well as the Buddy/Rival works too. I also issued a crib sheet with all their Talents described for them to check out as they play.
I then introduced the scenario, in character, as either Captain Joseph Mitchell - Commander of the USS Ribiera, and Sergeant Major Montero. I wore my Weyland-Yutani cap backwards when I played the Sergeant Major and his accent went dodgy Mockney. Captain Mitchell I portrayed with a crisp British accent and I wore the WY cap properly. Of course at one point the players wanted answers from both characters at once so I was swapping my cap around like I was some comic turn!
So the players got plenty of information up front as they did ask lots of questions and they also introduced some of their own plot points. Gould especially mentioned the fact his brother is possibly one of the hostages, first time that has happened during the start of the game after running three times before.
They were also introduced to Guzman Bento, their pilot of the UD-4L Cheyenne Dropship that will be taking them down to planet-side. He is a bit gung-ho but the characters were confident in his abilities - mostly.
A few of the PCs managed to smuggle a few grenades with them as they were gearing up but none were pushing for any other equipment to take with them.
Now Gould was up to drive the M577 APC onto the Dropship, a Heavy Machinery roll, but his first roll failed (Heavy Machinery 2 + Strength 4 + APC bonus 2 = 8 dice). So this was the perfect opportunity to show how the Stress worked as the player wanted to Push his first roll so he gained a point of Stress, gained a extra Stress Dice to his roll, and rolled multiple sixes the second time around. So I described a bit of grinding metal as he tried to straighten the APC up but then he managed to drive up the ramp into the Dropship.
The players were pushing the banter between themselves as they got to the planet-side. They had chosen to go for the main landing pad at the facility, and managed to avoid any of the booby traps.
Hernandez operated the the turret of the APC to bring fire on the figures they spotted in the windows above the main airlock.
They also used their Motion Trackers early on, I provided the sound effects from my iPad, and that showed them where the dissidents were.
They even went after the movement that was trying to circle around them.
After that they went in with extreme prejudice and dealt with the dissidents. Again I had the sound effects of the pulse rifles to play as well, that went down very well as that sound is very recognisable.
The game progressed very well, with the PCs dealing with all the challenges presented. The banter between them continued but they were pushing their rolls and taking Stress early. When things started to go wrong the Stress for all the characters did grow quite fast. The moment that the Alien showed up you could hear a pin drop. I had an NECA Alien toy figurine 9” tall that I placed in the centre of the gaming table. It not only stopped the players around the table in their tracks, but the players on the other tables stopped to see it too I was told later on - it caught the attention of the con.
The player versus player started near the end of the session, though I had hoped that the good Dr Monygham would have taken a few of the characters out when presented with the best opportunity. Though I did realise afterwards that I hadn’t told the players to go to Act III Agendas before the end of the scenario so that would have done some bearing.
A great game with fantastic players, with some interesting actions at the end. Only a few of them survived but they were glorious deaths and fun was had by all the players.
After the game sessions were over it was a short jaunt to Bar 21 in the city centre for after show drinks. That was a nice wind down after the day and it was nice to catch up with people and just talk nonsense about role playing games. I even had my photo taken with a Alien!
With that I headed back home on some more delayed trains back to Derby, taking over three hours to get back.
I would like to thank the organisers and the staff of Fan Boy Three for all their hard work, hospitality and service throughout the day. I’ll hopefully be back next year again!
So a great day with the only downsides being the transportation on the day and the fact I failed to get a GrogMeet badge!
So my Alien RPG arrived today so here is the unboxing video.
I hope you enjoy and feel free to ask any questions below.
This was the Standard Bundle if you pre-ordered it in August 2019.
Contents include the Core Rule Book, Chariot of the Gods scenario pack, GM Screen, Maps and Markers, Custom Card Deck, the Base Dice Set, and the Stress Dice set.
So I was invited to run my Alien RPG scenario, Three’s Company, at Ludorati Café on Thursday as part of their Halloween RPG event. I had ran this scenario before at Furnace and Spaghetti ConJunction earlier in the month and it had gone down well.
I was worried as there had been only one person expressing an interest in the game on social media.
I needn’t have worried as I had six players turning up to my table in the Cube at Ludorati Café. Two of the players hadn’t role played before so no pressure there then! I later learnt that they weren’t even familiar with the Alien franchise as they hadn’t seen the films before either.
The Cube at Ludorati Café set up for my Alien Game
I like playing in the Cube as not only can I put up images on the large TV screen via my Laptop, but I can play background music via the Bluetooth speakers. I had a Keynote presentation playing from my MacBook Pro with images of the base, characters, ships, etc that I could control from my iPhone, I had the Aliens OST playing from my iPhone through the speakers and I was referring to my notes, as well as taking notes, on my iPad Pro. It is a good set up.
I started by handing out the character sheets to allow the players to choose which one they wanted to play. I also showed them how to use the foldable Character Handouts, they were impressed with them!
The player characters are:
Dan had picked Lance Corporal Juan Hernandez the Smartgun Operator
Becky had chosen to play Dr Monygham, the Trauma and Cryogentic Specialist
Helen was playing Corporal Carlos Gould, the murderous soldier.
Lucy had gone for playing Lieutenant Antonia Avellanos, the second in command.
Miles chose to play Captain Martin Decoud, the Squad Leader.
Adam was playing Lance Corporal Conrad Kurze with his Plasma Rifle (in the 40W range).
Photo by Damon Mitchell
The mission is simple: Special Order 10015A - LV-510 - Phoronis Eliminate all hostiles with extreme prejudice.
Capture the leaders of the resistance for questioning.
Rescue all the hostages especially the corporate executives in cryogenic sleep.
Minimise damage to corporate facilities that have significant dollar value.
All other considerations rescinded.
After the mission briefing on the USS Ribiera the players chose to take the more risky option of the plan, getting closer to the main target facility rather than the main landing pad. This did prove costly as they lost their transport after dust off.
They managed to deal with the resistance set against them, moving through the facility slowly but surely.
They used their Motion Trackers, I used the sound effects for that at the table that was well received, to track the movement of the miners. They discovered that most of their opposition was ahead of them, but some were moving through the facility on either side, trying to get past them or flank them. The group decided to move forward and attack the main group.
The round opened with rolling for initiative, 1d6 plus the Agility score of the character instead of drawing cards, the highest going first. It worked well and it ended up with one of the miners firing first, pelting the Captain with shotgun fire. His armour didn’t stop the shot, so he took damage. The Doctor then helped the Captain heal up with her Medkit. The Captain returned fire with his Pulse Rifle, I used the sound effects again, and he was able to take down the opposition.
The rest of the group took turns in attacking the miners, each shooting the miners, and taking a tally of their kills. Corporal Gould was very brutal, getting in close with his sawn-off shotgun to deal with the miners. It ended with the last miner shouting out, with his dying breath, a message over his comms, “launch it, launch it now!”
But launch what?
After that the PCs managed to move through the facility to the control room, running afoul of a few traps along gathered way, but they managed to secure the facility. The rescued the hostages and captured the leader.
From there the tension built up and the PCs started taking Stress as things started going very wrong with the mission.
The funniest moment is when they were planning to getting everyone off the planet, working out how to fit the hostages into the different escape shuttles and ships. Of course no one is going to make it out alive!
When the Alien arrived things did get hectic, Corporal Gould tried to shoot it, but Dr Monygham (played by one of the new to role playing players) decided to take him out to protect the Alien. What followed was a tense battle as each player tried to out do the other. Of course it was a disaster but it was great fun for the players!
The Players with their character sheets
The player realise they are all going to die!
It was a great game and both the new to role playing players did very well, getting very involved in the planning and actual execution! It was a lot of fun.
My thanks goes to Damon at Ludorati Café for organising the Halloween special, there were quite a few great costumes on show by many of the visitors to the cafe, many of them playing games.
Also my thanks goes to all the staff at Ludorati Café for their hospitality and service.
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 LiganTales 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 LiganAlien 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!
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.
My first game was Tunnels and Trolls, ‘Paddy’s 13’.
This was a great fun game! We were all playing Leprechauns that were double crossed by a wizard in the town of Sanctuary set in Thieves World. Now to be fair, he had hired us to steal this little gold idol, but he got us sent to prison on delivery and took the idol for himself.
We all vowed revenge on release from prison so we plotted to steal back the idol and to embarrass the wizard in the process.
What followed were some very silly plans to infiltrate the wizard’s house and steal back this idol, and any other valuables too.
We all had the ‘Wink Wing’ teleport ability and incredible Dexterity (and very poor Strength) to our very small stature.
My character’s speciality was thievery and a very heavy build.
By pure luck we managed to not only gain access to the wizard’s house but also to succeed against the wizard’s might. We even impressed Jubal from the Vulgar Unicorn.
The Tunnels and Trolls system works very well in it’s simplicity and helps to deliver a good game experience.
Some very, very bad puns were delivered and silliness abound during the game but it was fun and very satisfying. A great starter the day.
Credit goes to the wonderful GM and my fellow players.
Lunch was spent at the local pub for a cooked meal and a swift pint before the afternoon session.
I set up quickly for my afternoon game of Fria Ligan’s Alien ’Three’s Company’. I was allocated a table in the downstairs section, nicely in middle of the room. The tables were nicely spaced out so noise from one table didn’t affect to others.
I had a total of seven players, all keen and raring to go. I quickly introduced the characters and let them make their choices, I also showed them how to open their foldout character agendas so that they could see their agendas for each act for later on in the game. I also had their agendas for each act split into two selections; their personal orders and allocations as part of Special Order #10015a, and their personal agenda. There would possibly be conflicting agendas for each character too!
Mike, a player returning to role-playing after a long break, was playing Corporal Carlos Gould. Matthew was playing Lance Corporal Hernandez, the Smart Gun operator. Nick’s character was Senior Hirsch, here to help the squad, “Good Luck Guys!” Ty was playing Captain Decoud who was in charge of the squad. Dr Monygham was played by Johnny, here to act as a medic. Dan was playing Lieutenant Antonia Avellanos, second in command. And finally we had Pookie playing Lance Corporal Conrad Kurze, the tech guy with a Plasma Rifle in the 40W range.
I then took them through the character sheets, describing how they Attributes and Skills work, more importantly how Stress works as well as the Buddy/Rival works too. I also issued a crib sheet with all their Talents described for them to check out as they play.
I then introduced the scenario, in character, as either Captain Joseph Mitchell - Commander of the USS Ribiera, and Sergeant Major Montero. I wore my Weyland-Yutani cap backwards when I played the Sergeant Major and his accent went dodgy Mockney. Captain Mitchell I portrayed with a crisp British accent and I wore the WY cap properly. Of course at one point the players wanted answers from both characters at once so I was swapping my cap around like I was some comic turn!
So the players got plenty of information up front as they did ask lots of questions and they also introduced some of their own plot points. Gould especially mentioned the fact his brother is possibly one of the hostages, first time that has happened during the start of the game after running three times before.
They were also introduced to Guzman Bento, their pilot of the UD-4L Cheyenne Dropship that will be taking them down to planet-side. He is a bit gung-ho but the characters were confident in his abilities - mostly.
A few of the PCs managed to smuggle a few grenades with them as they were gearing up but none were pushing for any other equipment to take with them.
Now Gould was up to drive the M577 APC onto the Dropship, a Heavy Machinery roll, but his first roll failed (Heavy Machinery 2 + Strength 4 + APC bonus 2 = 8 dice). So this was the perfect opportunity to show how the Stress worked as the player wanted to Push his first roll so he gained a point of Stress, gained a extra Stress Dice to his roll, and rolled multiple sixes the second time around. So I described a bit of grinding metal as he tried to straighten the APC up but then he managed to drive up the ramp into the Dropship.
The players were pushing the banter between themselves as they got to the planet-side. They had chosen to go for the main landing pad at the facility, and managed to avoid any of the booby traps.
Hernandez operated the the turret of the APC to bring fire on the figures they spotted in the windows above the main airlock.
They also used their Motion Trackers early on, I provided the sound effects from my iPad, and that showed them where the dissidents were.
They even went after the movement that was trying to circle around them.
After that they went in with extreme prejudice and dealt with the dissidents. Again I had the sound effects of the pulse rifles to play as well, that went down very well as that sound is very recognisable.
The game progressed very well, with the PCs dealing with all the challenges presented. The banter between them continued but they were pushing their rolls and taking Stress early. When things started to go wrong the Stress for all the characters did grow quite fast. The moment that the Alien showed up you could hear a pin drop. I had an NECA Alien toy figurine 9” tall that I placed in the centre of the gaming table. It not only stopped the players around the table in their tracks, but the players on the other tables stopped to see it too I was told later on - it caught the attention of the con.
The player versus player started near the end of the session, though I had hoped that the good Dr Monygham would have taken a few of the characters out when presented with the best opportunity. Though I did realise afterwards that I hadn’t told the players to go to Act III Agendas before the end of the scenario so that would have done some bearing.
A great game with fantastic players, with some interesting actions at the end. Only a few of them survived but they were glorious deaths and fun was had by all the players.
After the game sessions were over it was a short jaunt to Bar 21 in the city centre for after show drinks. That was a nice wind down after the day and it was nice to catch up with people and just talk nonsense about role playing games. I even had my photo taken with a Alien!
With that I headed back home on some more delayed trains back to Derby, taking over three hours to get back.
I would like to thank the organisers and the staff of Fan Boy Three for all their hard work, hospitality and service throughout the day. I’ll hopefully be back next year again!
So a great day with the only downsides being the transportation on the day and the fact I failed to get a GrogMeet badge!
