Dexcon After Action Report

[Robert Bohl]

I was guilty of that.  I forgot about that part of the rules.

[Judd]

Taken stronger fallout?

When did I say that?

You dogs can punk out of the conflict at any time and its up to you to look the King of Life in all of His splendor when your time of Judgement comes and explain yourself.

I don't recall saying jack-all about that.

He's not referring to fallout, but rather taking the blow. A lot of the players at the game were taking the blow with their dice but describing a see instead.

Ah yes, I started catching that a bit at the end as I remember.

Well, something to remember for next time.

I'll re-read the book between now and G.C.

[Russell Collins]

Yes Brennan said it better than I did.

Although this does open the possibility for a supplement; Spin Doctors in the Vineyard:

Brother Augustine walks briskly out into the parched fields as the dying sunlight is overshadowed by the roaring flames that consume the small town's temple and all the slain faithful.

"Eh, I didn't really want to save anybody today anyway."

If that has ever really happened to anyone, I apologize for my sarcasm. The image was too good to ignore.

[Lisa Padol]

I had a blast (and I was the one who bought that copy of Ripples from Carcosa). I'm currently writing up as much as I can about the games I played in for Alarums & Excursions so I can email my zine to Lee for the upcoming 30th Anniversary issue. I have a brief con summary on my livejournal, http://www.livejournal.com/users/drcpunk.

Ben, I had an absolute blast with PTA and am finishing that write up now. I so wish it had been taped.

Michael, I think I made the error of creating a minion who was way too normal for MLWM. Still had a great time, and I'll try not to do that again. I wish I'd known you didn't know about the party -- when I ducked out just before game start, I was zipping up there to beg a cup of homebrew.

Oh, and our larp went well, and Gordon Olmstead-Dean is an absolute mensch.

And I'm making up my shopping list for GenCon Indy. Can I pre-order from folks and do pick up at the convention?

-Lisa Padol

[Michael S. Miller]

Michael, I think I made the error of creating a minion who was way too normal for MLWM. Still had a great time, and I'll try not to do that again.

Not an error at all. A decision, certainly, but not an errror. If there was any error, it was that I wasn't ruthless enough with my Commands to you, and I should have played your librarian Connection differently. When you listed him, you said "we love arguing with each other." I should have said "Well, you love arguing with him, fine. We'll see how the Overtures go to see how he feels about you." Plus, with all the violence going on all over the place, and the lateness of the hours, I wasn't able to focus on you More-than-Human and Less-than-Human very well.

The mundane can be quite horrific--it just needs the right context. Context which I did not provide. When I characterized teh session as 90% as intense as it should have been, I was referring to this kind of thing.

[Luke]

BW's combat is liquid fun.

Judd,

you looked a little vexed during the big fight at the end of the Gift. Was that just my imagination? Talk to me.


Russell,
That was an interesting Duel of Wits. I think it suffered a bit on one side due to a lack of understanding of the rules, the volume of players and the nature of the conflict. HOWEVER, it absolutely solved the social conflict and kicked that damn conflict ball back into play!

-L

[Judd]

BW's combat is liquid fun.

Judd,

you looked a little vexed during the big fight at the end of the Gift. Was that just my imagination? Talk to me.

Nah, it was just so many close calls.  I almost had that puny little elf in my dwarven hands so many times and he always managed to just get out of it.

I wasn't vexed, just...I dunno, on some level I wanted to win and choke the life out of that damned immortal grief-machine with his grey-ed out sword skill.

[Russell Collins]

Russell,
That was an interesting Duel of Wits. I think it suffered a bit on one side due to a lack of understanding of the rules, the volume of players and the nature of the conflict. HOWEVER, it absolutely solved the social conflict and kicked that damn conflict ball back into play!

-L

Yeah, I probably just need to play more so that the rules are more fluid.

As I already mentioned I was breaking my own concentration anyway, but the "arguement" mechanic with so many people seemed uneven to me. Perhaps it was because everyone always had something to say on each side, that slowed the rhythm I had enjoyed from the demo. Maybe fast thinking characters deserve more weight to their statements than less sharp ones?

I kept trying to avoid repeating myself feeling that was no way to win an arguement. At least from my debate team years, it's good to reiterate a central point, but parroting your own words just makes your arguement flat and one sided. Maybe a repetition loses effect after so long? Eh, whatever. Now I'm turning it into the Questions game from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

[Shawn De Arment]

Some quick thoughts on Dexcon

I had a great time at Dexicon

I made a decision to only play games that I never played before. Ok, I played Ganakagok twice (because I was an unneeded alternate for the Dictionary of Mu). Inuit Punk Rocks!!!

My highlight, of the con, was the midnight game of PTA. Ben did a great job of getting all 6 of us invested in the show. It amazed me that everyone was so into the game that late at night.

My play in Polaris was defiantly informed by the 2 sessions of Ganakagok. There were decapitated heads and journeys to the land of the Dead/Spirit World in all of them. I still suspect that either Ben or Bill bribed someone to make the gaming room cold so everyone would get into their games :).

With Great Power, on the other hand, was very different from Capes.

I think the room party needs to be treated like a gaming slot, either as War Stories with emphasis on food, or as over the Bar with emphasis on booze. The 2 games could be run back to back. I would suggest that the announcements should be plastered over the IDE tables from the start of the con. Don't let me drink all the mead by myself, I enjoy it too much.

[Lisa Padol]

Don't let me drink all the mead by myself, I enjoy it too much.

Shawn, I will gladly help you with the mead. I have a particular weakness for mead ever since the Chaotic Elves Rescue Brigade introduced me to it at my first Pennsic War.

-Lisa

[Lisa Padol]

Not an error at all. A decision, certainly, but not an errror. If there was any error, it was that I wasn't ruthless enough with my Commands to you, and I should have played your librarian Connection differently. When you listed him, you said "we love arguing with each other." I should have said "Well, you love arguing with him, fine. We'll see how the Overtures go to see how he feels about you." Plus, with all the violence going on all over the place, and the lateness of the hours, I wasn't able to focus on you More-than-Human and Less-than-Human very well.

Point taken, but that also argues that I did not choose my MtH and LtH as well as I might have. Players need to pay attention to context, too. I remember the Deliria game I played in last year at GenCon. Due to position around the table, I was the last to have to name my character concept. Originally, I'd had something fairly low keyed and DeLintesque in mind, but, by the time it was my turn, I'd changed my mind based on what the other players had come up with. I wouldn't have been wrong to stick to the original concept, but I think the rock dryad I created fit in better and was more enjoyable to play.

-Lisa

[Sydney Freedberg]

I had this idea that I was going to make a fake pager- If you're in a crappy game, you hit a button... wait two minutes, and the pager rings.....Nowadays, we have cell phones...

Just pretend it's on "silent" mode and you just felt it vibrate. "Did my phone just...[scowl at screen].. Damn, it did. I gotta find a room with a better signal -- sorry...."

Not that, y'know, I've ever done that.

[elgorade]

There was a player who turtled and turtled hard.  Every time Luke gallopped around the table, pointing to players, panting, "Whaddya want to do?  Are you goign to just sit there and take this?" the turtler would say, "I'm using the inconspicuous skill." 

Luke, you might want to look at this character.  I think that player was turtling and was not grabbing the opportunities given to him but the character he had seemed particularly weak to me.  I wonder how many other skills the player had other than inconspicuous the player had at is disposal.

I may have been that player.  I had a good enough time with the scenario, but I never had any idea what I wanted to do.  BIT and skills didn't helpme much. There was a huge, nest breaking conflict going on and Shin's BIT's and skills seemed to be driving me to just be unnoticed.   He did want more recognition, but I never came up with a way to get it other than trying to listen well to have info to report -- basically back to inconspicuous.  (In the end it fell on his lap, but that was gravy.)  The two times I did try active things, I was stopped immediately by group commands from The Boss.

My impression was that there was supposed to be some conflict at the lowest levels, but that not all the characters were there to help make it happen. 

As I already mentioned I was breaking my own concentration anyway, but the "arguement" mechanic with so many people seemed uneven to me. Perhaps it was because everyone always had something to say on each side, that slowed the rhythm I had enjoyed from the demo. Maybe fast thinking characters deserve more weight to their statements than less sharp ones?

Mechanically we wanted to add dice, and it was being suggested we participate to do so.  Which probably helped it avoid being just dice rolling, but did take a while.  Most of us only had one point to make multiple times anyway.