Back in March I went to Edinburgh for Conpulsion, a fun Con of about 200 people. I was there as part of the Collective Endeavour, and we ran an Indie Games Track with short sessions of our own and other folks games.

Death in Venice was one of my contributions, a 2 hour game of Covenant. Players were myself as Director, Joe, Graham and Biorn. You can take a look at the scenario on the  Covenant Downloads Page.

The first thing that's worth mentioning is that this was a modification of a scenario I ran at a previous Con (Concrete Cow) where it fell a bit flat. Not terrible, but just not as engaging as I would have hoped. Between the Cons I made a number of changes to both my approach to delivering the scenario and the scenario itself. Largely as I knew I'd sold my game short, and I'd pretty much hit on the reasons why.

My first change was to make sure I left the Cell sheet more open at the start, allowing everybody to add conventions and motifs. This is pretty much a key part of getting people on board with play anyway, but in the original session I'd worried too much about prep "eating into play time" and filled in some details for the players to "get them moving".

But that was a dangerous move, by defining so much I'd set myself in a subtly more traditional GM position, and looking back it really impacted play. Leaving it open allowed for that nice bouncing around of ideas to flourish, and players to hit the fill in the gaps mentality, as that part of the rules is meant to do. The players added some wonderful details, from the fact that the society all wore blue roses as identification to "we're all somehow failures" as a convention and the evocative "sunlight streaming into dark places".

Secondly I tweaked the various characters' truisms (beliefs in doubt) to be more conflicting within the group and the characters themselves. The first run had ended up with a very us vs them vibe, and I wanted to make sure there was plenty of inter-PC conflict ready. In the previous game there wasn't enough doubt and conflict, and play slipped into "investigate things" mode, which isn't really the point of the game. For a short con scenario you really need to start breaking down the cell early on and hammering home the conflicts of interest. For the Covenant structure it's pretty much jumping in at act two.

The various tweaks really paid off and resulted in some wonderfully dramatic moments. Most notably as the cell met on a rooftop an one member decided to burn vital evidence and the truisms "Truth will set us free" and "Truth destroys us all" exploded into a drama as arguing escalated to violence based around the goal "if I win the truth gets out". There were hails of bullets, characters hanging by one hand from rooftops and then crashing through the roof of a chapel library for a final fistfight. It was pretty much the archetypal Covenant scene, and I was very pleased.

The final scene, in which Graham's character faced off against his captors and, in a short and sweet conflict, totally unnerved them with his calm and brought their self confidence crashing down around them (with the building around that) was a wonderful piece. Especially the "and then I walk untouched from the wreckage" final piece of narration. A nicely satisfying end.

So, things to remember. Don't start making exceptions for a Con game. You know it works, you playtested it long enough, stick to the rules. Next time I'll swallow my doubts and do full game prep and start with an empty sheet.

-Matt

If I remember correctly, the game at Conpulsion was in a much shorter slot than the one at Concrete Cow - how do you think that impacted on it? Did it encourage a faster pace of game?

Have you considered going one step further with the setup and leaving it completely open at the start of a con game? Or do you think that would be too wide-open?

Yeah, that's right, Machell, it's all about you. If it goes well, it's nothing to do with the players: it's because you tweaked the character sheets.

OK, sorry, sarcastic moment over. But although the character sheets played a part, I think it helped that you had players who went straight for that player-vs-player style of game. Especially me and Joe, who started hitting up against each other right from the start, and then did all the funky narration with running across the roof and so on.

It really was a superb, exhilarating game. The open Cell sheet was wonderful, a great way to get us involved, right from the start. Oh, I have to say, I didn't really understand the whole backstory with going to take out the other Cell.

I think Joe and me were on the same page, from the start, drowning each other in fountains and killing NPCs. Bjorn took a while longer to get into it: at first, he looked quite confused, then got going until, right at the end, he wanted to lose the last conflict.

I think it made a huge difference that most conflicts were three-way conflicts, between the three PCs. Great stuff. Got everyone involved.

You seemed to allow two things different from the rules as written: using Conventions and Motifs to reroll your opponents' dice, not just yours; and allowing each player to use more than one Convention and Motif per conflict. Is that right or have I misinterpreted?

But, yes, Covenant is superb. Really enjoyed it.

Graham

using Conventions and Motifs to reroll your opponents' dice, not just yours

Graham wrote:
Yeah, that's right, Machell, it's all about you.

It really was a superb, exhilarating game. The open Cell sheet was wonderful, a great way to get us involved, right from the start. Oh, I have to say, I didn't really understand the whole backstory with going to take out the other Cell.

You seemed to allow two things different from the rules as written: using Conventions and Motifs to reroll your opponents' dice, not just yours; and allowing each player to use more than one Convention and Motif per conflict. Is that right or have I misinterpreted?