Breakout 2018 Convention Debrief (Part Three)

Day three! The final, bleary-eyed day of the con! (If you missed the first two parts, you can find them here and here.)

After a late night of horror playing BLUEBEARD'S BRIDE, we were ready for something a little lighter, and luckily, we had just the game. We were lucky enough to have Epidiah Ravachol on hand to run a traditional Sunday morning game of SWORDS WITHOUT MASTER, his very clever swords-and-sorcery storytelling game.

Breakout 2018 Convention Debrief (Part Two)

Today I'm writing about our big day Saturday at Breakout. (If you missed Part One, it's here.)

I didn't get a great night's sleep on Friday, which is pretty normal for me in a strange bed, but especially after a day of great games. I had the momentum from playing ROSENSTRASSE to carry me through the low-energy bits.

Breakout 2018 Convention Debrief (Part One)

It's been a while since I've written in these pages regularly, but every once in a while you just have to gush a bit about something awesome. In this case, it's our second trip to Breakout, a gaming convention in Toronto.

We had a really great time with our first visit to Breakout, where we got to play great games with wonderful designers and enthusiastic players, so our expectations were high going into this year's con. Megan said she was trying not to get her hopes too high, in case it wasn't quite as good, but we were both delighted to find that this year's convention was better than ever. Two of the organizers warmly welcomed us with a hug in the first few minutes we were there, taking in the swanky new digs in the Sheraton Toronto. That kind of warm atmosphere was what we loved about Breakout 2017, and this year's model was the same thing in a bigger space.

Welcome to Prepville! Population: YOU

Shout out to Alex, who suggested this topic. Thanks Alex! I don't know how I've been writing this blog for several years and not directly addressed the topic of prep, but it's a huge one.

We started chatting about prep because I was talking about having just finished preparing for the first session of the new game I'm about to start running, MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. It's a big change of gears after wrapping up NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE, which was a small-cast, high drama affair. MRD is a more traditional game, running on a traditional (even retro, in a lot of ways) rule system, with a lot more demands on the GM side of things.

I think the two games will provide fruitful points of comparison in terms of what was required to prepare for both of them.

Maybe We Haunt Ourselves: NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE

Strathclyde House. Whatever walked there, walked alone.

Last week, we finished my haunted house campaign NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE. It was a strong finish to a game that had a lot of powerful stuff in it.

Everything about this game was an experiment, really, and it's probably lucky that it came out as well as it did, but I had great players and good tools to play with. The objective of the game was to play something that was focused on going deeper, playing harder than we had for a while, even in games that had a lot of good stuff in them. We were playing with a slightly smaller group, three players and a GM, which had important implications for play down the line. As far as mechanics go, we were using the dramatic petitioner-granter rules from DRAMASYSTEM, with the 2d6+Trait mechanic from Powered-by-the-Apocalypse games to serve as our procedural rules.

Review Omnibus

August's flurry of RPGaDay activity has me wanting to post material more often, so I thought I would re-share some older material that might still be of general interest. Today, here's a collection of game reviews I've written in the last couple of years for some pretty awesome games. Maybe you're still thinking about buying them...? Read on.

Bittersweet Farewell to #RPGaDay2017

31. What do you anticipate most for gaming in 2018?

I have to echo Rob Donoghue -- I'm looking forward to DUSK CITY OUTLAWS and SHADOW OF THE CENTURY a lot. I'm also looking forward to seeing what the revised edition of STARS WITHOUT NUMBER looks like.

But, to be honest, I'm also looking forward to catching up on a couple of 2017 games I haven't got my hot little hands on yet -- DRESDEN FILES ACCELERATED and BLADES IN THE DARK are definite must-gets for me, when I've got the cash. And I'm looking forward to getting some play time with a few games I've Kickstarted, especially THE WATCH. And if I'm very brave, maybe I'll get a chance to play BLUEBEARD'S BRIDE.

Well Mash My Potatoes! #RPGaDay2017

30. What is an RPG genre mashup you would most like to see?

How about Jazz Age space opera? Spaceships and fedoras. Glamourous intergalactic speakeasys. Private eyes walking the mean streets of giant art deco space stations. Gangsters disposing of their inconveniences by tossing them into a black hole.

Or a steampunk game where it's steampunk + NOTHING. I really don't care for adding magic to my steampunk Victoriana, but it always seems to weasel its way in. How's that for an anti-mashup?

Ain't That A Kick in the Head? #RPGaDay2017

29. What has been the best-run Kickstarter you have backed?

Hmm, this is a tough one, because I'm a relative newcomer to backing Kickstarters at all. Not for lack of wanting to, but because I mostly don't have the extra cash. I've only backed a handful of things, and most of them have delivered quite nicely. I've never backed anything that didn't produce a product at the end of it, luckily.

Three Answers and a Baby #RPGaDay2017

26. Which RPG provides the most useful resources?

FATE provides an incredibly robust set of tools that can apply to practically any genre, and they're tools that the group can "tune" to their own tastes. FATE is such a staple of gaming to me, though, that I feel like it's almost cheating to use it as an answer.

So here are a couple of other games with great tools, just to keep it all above board.

Tanks a Lot #RPGaDay2017

25. What is the best way to thank your GM?

Say "thank you".

OK, slightly less sarcastic answer incoming.

You're Worth It #RPGaDay2017

24. Share a PWYW publisher who should be charging more.

Evil Hat offers a lot of quality products on a PWYW basis, funded by their Patreon. They are usually high quality, and could easily go for at least a nominal fee.

But I'm sure everybody already knows about them.

Apropos of Recent Celestial Events #RPGaDay2017

23. What RPG has the most jaw-dropping layout?

I think ECLIPSE PHASE gets the nod for me. I picked up a bunch of supplements recently, and they're all just gorgeous. The art is amazing, and the books look crisp and modern.

Evil Hat also does consistently good-looking, clean books, with nice artwork and very readable layout. ATOMIC ROBO is just a knockout. What a gorgeous book.

Take It Easy #RPGaDay2017

22. Which RPGs are the easiest for you to run?

I can dive into a FATE game with very little prep work, especially if I've got pre-gen characters for the players ready to go. This is something I used to do when I ran regularly at local cons -- set up pretty, accessible character sheets for running various things in Fate, so all I'd need to do was have a vague idea what the adventure was and I was ready to go. My pre-gens look like characters about 3/4 of the way done, and with a couple extra aspects/choices they're ready to play.

Hold On, I'm Comin' #RPGaDay2017

19. Which RPG features the best writing?

I don't really look to RPGs for elegant writing, the same way I look to literature, and I'm often put off by games that insist on including fiction with their text.

You're The Most #RPGaDay2017

18. Which RPG have you played the most in your life?

I suspect, like most people who started playing RPGs in grade school, that there is no real contest for this question.

It's got to be ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS.

My Oldest Nemesis #RPGaDay2017

17. Which RPG have you owned the longest but not played?

Oh, it's like that, huh? This month-long conversation just got a little too real.

I own an awful lot of games, and I have enjoyed them all (even if a number of them I've only read). I was happy to realize, after staring at my shelves for a while, that the vast majority of books I've got as a hard copy I've played at least once over the years. I had to compare copyright dates to see which of the contenders was published first.

I think it's WEREWOLF: THE FORSAKEN.

There's Always Vanilla #RPGaDay2017

16. Which RPG do you enjoy using as-is?

Hmm. This is a harder question than which RPG I tinker with, which is a lot of them (in small ways). Again, it feels like cheating to say FATE, because that game is designed as a powerful and flexible toolkit that is intended to be adapted to whatever subject you're playing, and it includes explicit assistance to help you do it.

It also feels like cheating to answer using a vanilla ruleset like CALL OF CTHULHU uses, despite the fact I've been playing it (and by "it", I mean the 5th edition rules, from the early 90s) with virtually no changes for a long, long time.

Adaptation #RPGaDay2017

15. Which RPG do you enjoy adapting the most?

This one's no contest. Definitely SHADOWRUN.

Endless Highway #RPGaDay2017

14. Which RPG do you prefer for open-ended campaign play?

I do not prefer open-ended campaign play, to be perfectly blunt.

In my experience, I've had much more productive play at my table by changing my focus to a short-game model, where every player at the table knows that they've only got (x) episodes to get their character issues on the table and they'd better play hard to make that happen. I know that in some quarters, this is seen as weird, but it's meant that in the last decade our games have been exponentially better. As an adult, I need my game time to be focused and for shit to get done.