RPG.net Games Day at Games Plus

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I attended the RPG.net Games Day at the retail store Games Plus in Mount Prospect, IL, on Saturday. I'd signed up for an afternoon demo slot, 3 to 8 pm ... which is way too much gamin' for me, at least using one game. So I'd split it into two sessions, one for Sorcerer and one for Hero Wars.

People there included the XIG designer crowd, Rich Ranallo and Scott Leaton, among my favorite men in gaming (I'm serious! these guys are cool); the inimitable Ken Hite who was trying to claim that I talk more than he does but, in using so many words to do so, refuted his own point (ha!); Matty Helms, the organizer of the event and a very nice guy; Mark Clover, a fellow from the ENWorld site; Gary Gygax, in case anyone's interested, and actually it's always kinda cool to be in the same room with him, just for the sake of my inner thirteen-year old (I can still smell the camping trip during which I read the D&D rules for the first time); and probably some other people I should be mentioning, like Ralph Mazza and Mike Holmes.

Two people had signed up, including James (our own Damion, at the Forge) and a fellow named Matt. Then two other folks joined in (Ralph and Mike, actually)  and another friendly fellow named Bill ended us up with five, so I ran the Lincoln High Reunion demo. My friend Julie, who's in my regular group, showed up a bit later and participated in the Hero Wars run.

The Lincoln High demo is always interesting, but I think I found the right mix of system-teaching, in-character horror, and out-of-game orienting this time. James and Matt were demons in their own right in the role-playing - some folks just go all scary after the first dice roll in Sorcerer and I can only run to keep up. Bill had a harder time, as a role-player of three whole sessions' experience who had picked up a lot of non-Sorcerer habits ... but then, toward the end of the session, this light bulb went on and he had a great time with the final decisions of the scenario. I'd be really interested in people's impressions of the game from their end of things.

I've agonized for a while about the right way to demo Hero Wars, and this was my first try. Due both to time constraints and the nature of the game, it wasn't "real play" - it was a rules demonstration that showcased all the interactive mechanics and the fun of heroquesting blended with a physical conflict. I liked it, but then again, I wrote it, so I'm curious as to what everyone who was there thinks. Clearly I'd put enough material in there for a solid five-hour session on its own, but I'm hard pressed to imagine cutting it down.

Best,
Ron

[damion]

I guess I'm the one who gotta reply this.

I'll try and give my best effort at constructive criticism, although all in all I thought it was great fun, and can't really mount a complaint. Heck, just meeting Mike, Ralph and Ron was a blast.

I'd signed up for an afternoon demo slot, 3 to 8 pm ... which is way too much gamin' for me, at least using one game. So I'd split it into two sessions, one for Sorcerer and one for Hero Wars.

Ron, I think you tried to run 2 five hour games in 1 five hour slot. Still fun though.

Sorcerer: (I'll try to avoid scenario spoilers, but--you've been warned)

I actually had heard of sorcerer(read here and all) so I wasn't as surprised by the mechanics as some people were.

This went well, but I think the only problms were that there wasn't much reason for the characters to interact, at least initially. Another thing was
that there wasn't much initial conflict, so there wasn't much demon action.  
This wasn't really a problem from a fun POV, but it made the scenario slower.  I'd make the 'badguy' a little more aggresive in the beginning, to try to accelerate the point where the players realize they have to work together or compete. I think there came a point when all the players realized they were just gonna have to DO something, or the scenario wasn't going anywhere. So they all just kinda came togther and went off.
Another factor is that players don't have a whole lot of chance in this scenario with the 'extra dice' effects. Thus you need some early conflicts
to bring out these rules.

(This is if you want to make it shorter. It's fine as is, but would probably take all 5 hours)


Hero Wars: Like you said, this was more of a mechanics demo. Fun though.  I knew almost nothing about Hero wars going into this demo, other than alot of people said it was quite good, so I had a pretty high newbie factor.
A bit of the problem here is that it takes about half an hour to explain enough of Golrantha that people can play. Also, the setting is so deep that it's hard to get into really quickly.
Another thing is that it initally looks sorta normal. I.e. you have a characther sheet with bunch of numbers on it and you roll under with a D20. The different way these are used is a bit of a surprise, although a fun one.  Since this game started so late, there was a bit of lack-of-food effect also.
A way to cut this down might be to throw in an early, easy combat so people are comfortable with the system, then go more into the scenario. Thus people arn't trying to figure out what they can do, as they need to do it as much.

Like said though, all in all, I can't really complain.

[Mike Holmes]

I started the day off by playing, of all things, TFOS. When I got there, I hadn't signed up for anything (an MO of mine), and looked for something to jump into. Rich Ranallo was awaiting the TFOS game, so I decided to join him.

For those who may be unawares, TFOS stands for Teenagers from Outer Space. I first played this game way back in high school in the eighties, and then I ran a couple of scenatios later with it in college ('90?). Anyhow, it had been a while. What I remembered about the game, however was it's incredibly lighthearted approach and that it made me laugh way more than any Toon game that I'd ever tried to play. So I was excited to try it again. Especially with Rich, who I figured (rightly) would be a great player.

In TFOS you play a group of, as the title would imply, teenagers who are either from outer space, or are friends with aliens who are. Usually the group concept involves all being students at a High School run by govenment agencies that are aware of aliens. But the existence of aliens is not usually a fact known by the general public. Thus teen's at the school are often off getting in trouble by buzzing normies with flying saucers and the like.

To give you an idea of the mechanics, you have several stats like Smarts, Bod, Bonk (Hits before you fall down), and RWP (Relationship with Parents). Roll a d6 and add, high is a good thing. That's about that.

Anyhow, what I hadn't remembered was it being so amime. The game was presented by the designer, and a new edition was out. In addition to the anime feel, the game was also sort of "fuzzy" in feel. I think that the changes may not have been so large as my perception; I am much more in tune with anime now than I was wayback then.

The other thing that I noticed was different, was that the chargen system now had "racial templates". Previously, you simply selected from Human, Not Quite Human, Very Much not Human, and Complete Weirdie. Or something like that. So if you weren't human, you could decide in exactly what way you weren't human. Which I liked. With the racial templates, I felt more constrained. I'm sure that the rules allowed for you to make characters up as before, but that wasn't discussed, and as always things like templates inform the player about choices. Also, it was the inclusion of Catgirl and Fox races and the like that gave it that "fuzzy" feel I mentioned. I'm not sure that the racial templates are a good idea.

Anyhow, I decided to play a Sproutling, a little plant-cowboy-aphid-wrangler from the planet Dirt. He had traits like "Almost Bad Attitude", and "Look Sweet in Western Leather Vest". I think we may have to look to TFOS as an influence as a system that early on allowed (nay, encouraged) players to take such Traits. I'd forgotten that.

Anyhow, the scenario was that an NPC had dissapeared at the beach, and that we needed to get her back. So we went to the beach where we found a gigantic sand castle. We shrunk down to get inside (eating cookies marked "Eat Me" that were made of sand; eveything in the castle was made of sand). We explored the place, got tangled up with the playing card guards, fought a giant (to us) Plushie, and rescued the cute little girl.

Pretty standard fare. What surprised me was how the Sim delivery worked against the feel. There was a lot of trouble with figuring out who was where, when, and pointless discussions. Because, the point of play in a game like TROS, is playing the silly character. And you can't do that if you're not in the scene. So people are always moving to the scene.

What the game really needed was agressive scene framing. As it went, it actually felt a bit, well, dungeon crawl-ish. I mean, there we were, in a castle, and at one point were led off by the guards to the...dunjon. And the rest of the action was trying to find the princess by searching rooms. Strange.

The scenario would have done much better to be presented like a Paranoia scenario. Preplanned scenes where the standard nonsense could occur easily.

Still, all in all, fun.

Oh, and then I played Sorcerer with Ron. I had fun acting like a serial killer. :-)

After the game, I got to talk with the one player who had some trouble with playing the game; the same one mentioned by Ron and James. I explained to him that given his experience that the problems he found were very much expected, and that he had overcome them very well in the end. He was relieved to hear that, I think, as he very was worried that he had ruined the game somehow. Which was not at all the case.

I gave up my spot in HW to Julie so that I could get home early to my family. Whatchagonnado? I figured that it would be better for us both to accomplish something than to have her just sit and watch. Still, I really want to get in some HW play. I find to my chagrin that I still have not played the game. Yikes.

Mike