Gaming Convention

This weekend is my fall trek to the Akron area for Con on the Cob, a great local gaming convention. I go for the role playing, but there are board games and all sorts of other games going on. The con is famous for its kids activities, which usually include costume contests, art activities, movies, etc.

The Wild West LARP I ran last year went well, so this year I'll be running a LARP called Death on the Gambia. There's a lot more intrigue in this one than in the Wild West game. Very few people are actually who they seem, and there's a great lost book mechanic where every single character starts with a copy of Agatha Christie's Death On The Nile. Some are normal copies of the books, others have secret information written in them.

I've printed out old images of the cover for Death On The Nile, and will make covers for some hardbacks to take with me. So every person will be carrying around an actual book, and if someone wants to steal a book they'll have to be pretty tricky about it.

I'll also be running a normal tabletop role playing game. Rather than bring out more of my Call of Cthulhu scenarios, I decided to go for minimum preparation and turn it into a virtue. The players themsevels will decide what genre and theme the game will have, and I'll improvise a fun adventure for them.

Hopefully I'll also get a chance to play some games during the weekend!

Gaming, Gaming, Gaming!

I spent part of last weekend at a gaming convention.

I normally go to this convention every year to run some games and to play in some games, but this year I had something else to do part of the weekend, so I was only able to run a couple of games.

One, Saturday night, was a Wild Western horror game. I got to the convention about 6pm on Saturday, and my game was at 8pm. They have signup sheets pasted on the walls, and I could see that only one person was signed up. I needed at least four people, and could take up to six. So things weren't looking good.

I spent an hour or so trying to convince people to play, only to have them go into other games. I also hadn't realized when I scheduled the game at 8pm that the convention was having a couple of parties at the same time. Only hardcore gamers pass up parties for gaming, so it definitely didn't look good.

I went down at about a quarter till eight, and saw three people signed up for the game. I could work with three. Unfortunately, those three never showed up!

While I was waiting for them, a group of people started eating at the table I was supposed to use for the game. I got to talking a bit with them, only to find out that they were big fans of the game system I was using to run the game. When 8pm came and went without the other players showing up, those six played in it instead.

So it all worked out.

The game Sunday was a straight Wild Western murder mystery game, no horror involved. I ended up with 12 people playing it it, which is a good number. We got started a bit late, and had to end early, so the game was a little rushed in spots, but I think everyone had a good time.

I was pretty beat by the time I got home Sunday, though!