My Life With Master at Unicon

[muddlepud]

So, Unicon was on during the weekend. A two day con, seven sessions, each 2.5 hours. I ran My Life With Master. Here's the blurb I used for the game:

Pick Your Poison
Long shadows are cast across the land as dark clouds roil around the solitary tower. From its highest balcony, the dark wizard surveys his domain, the gleam of triumph in his eye as he watches the peasants tremble in fear.
I stand by the throne wiping the mystic blade clean, the king's knight at my feet, defeat within his eyes.

Lightning strikes the collector array atop the ancient manor house, showering sparks throughout the laboratory. The mad doctor throws his head back, laughing maniacally as his creation spasms from the sudden jolt. With halting movements, the creature climbs from the vat, pustulent green ichor oozing along its deformed and misshapen body, a haunting moan escaping its bloated lips.
I hold the great doors closed as the village mob gathers outside, pitchforks and torches held as they ready to storm the manor.

The evil genius strokes his neatly waxed goatee as watches the view of the unsuspecting capital city on the main screen. He reaches out a gloved hand to press the solitary red button on the console and smiles as the hidden volcano lair shudders, signifying the successful launch of the doomsday rockets.
Behind the tall humming computer banks, the secret agent struggles in my grip unable to thwart my master's plans.

This is the story of life in the shadows.
This is a story of My Life With Master, a roleplaying game of villainy, self-loathing and unrequited love. Presented by Scott Vandervalk.
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Out of 7 sessions of the con, I ran 5. I managed to double book some people and luckily enough I had a bonus GM around to help
me out, so she ran two further sessions of the game. They were all pretty full. I managed a few converts too, people who said they'd definitely be checking out the game.

The game was all improv really. We'd create everything from scratch – the master, setting and minions within the first half an hour and then crammed the story into the rest of the session. I think everyone took to the game really well. We had some great diversity of ideas and play styles between the groups. We had camp fun, we had games that were a bit more atmospheric, we had games that were horribly disgusting and some that were just plain surreal.

Some summaries
Session 1: The Master was pretty much Elizabeth Bathory but during Spanish Inquisition Time. Her minions, lady servants in her castle set to bring her both those she would feed upon and those she needed to turn to make an army to impress her fellow kind. Quite atmospheric.
Session 2: The Master was the supervillain known as Dr Malfeas who was trying to win across the heart of The Snow Queen. He would use his army of mutated animals to show her how much he loved her. Some real emotional stuff between his mutated animal minions.
Session 3: The Master was Borff, the owner of a newly opened fast food restaurant in the 1950s. Horrible hygiene all around for both master and minions in this one. He was trying to impress a bunch of food critics, but one minion snapped and drowned him in deep frying oil.
Session 4: The Master was a great AI onboard a space station in the far future. The AI believed itself to be the next prophet. It would amass ships onto the station and would absorb all. The space station was sent into the sun!
Session 5: Set in Melbourne during a rampage of giant hamsters and chickens, The Master was The Director, who headed a company bent on destroying the Big Four (fast food restaurants) by creating giant animals to use in a fast food chain. He was obsessed with finding the perfect recipe to be stolen from Jaimie Oliver. Somehow we ended up with a giant Jaimie Oliver in a King Kong ending. The surreal game!

All in all heaps of fun!

[droog]

Hi, Scott.

I played in the Dr Malfeas game – my first chance actually to play MLwM. You could probably tell I enjoyed it immensely. Thanks for the game, and the award!

I couldn't help but notice that the game people talked about the most afterwards was 'Pick Your Poison'. Within the context of the Melbourne con scene, is it an unusual game?

[muddlepud]

Hi, Scott.

I played in the Dr Malfeas game – my first chance actually to play MLwM. You could probably tell I enjoyed it immensely. Thanks for the game, and the award!

I couldn't help but notice that the game people talked about the most afterwards was 'Pick Your Poison'. Within the context of the Melbourne con scene, is it an unusual game?

Hi Grof!! or Jeff....

It's hard to say - I've been too busy running games over the last few years to sit in on many to make that solid comparison. I think the game was just a bit different to what's been run at cons recently. What I think made it stand out was that each session could be so different to another (in setting and mood at least). So this aspect would make it easy for players to start anecdoting and so on about their sessions. That and the play style - the serving of the master whom they all want to kill with a passion. That became an important aspect of the game. I had groups cheer when they're master died. It was fun to be rather evil!

Scott