Gencon

Man, the costume contest was intense this year*

Okay, here it is finally. Now that I've been able to catch up on sleep and unpack everything that happened, here's my post about GenCon 2010. Let me preface this by saying that this is from my point of view, and I'm just some opinionated smartass with a 'blog. I am, in no way, objective or unbiased and I implore you not to assume in any way that this is real journalism. If I miss stuff here, it's because I missed stuff at GenCon, and I wasn't going to pretend that I was a really real reporter with a fedora and a little card that read "press" in my hatband. So, keeping that in mind and without further ado, here's my report!

Risk Assessment

I'll take min/maxing for fifty, Trebek!

Let's get this out of the way right off the bat, I love it when bad shit happens to characters. Your character, my character, it doesn't matter. When a cunning plan doesn't survive first contact, when a die roll goes bad, when you role-play yourself into a corner, whenever something unfortunate happens in game it warms the cockles of my stainless-steel heart. Why? Because that threat, that jeopardy, it makes me tingle all over. In my opinion, a game that doesn't punish as much as entertain, and doesn't have an element of risk, isn't much of a game at all.

Friday Mea Culpa: No Excuse Edition.

Mea culpa, mea culpa...

Okay, look. I know going over two weeks between posts is total bullshit. I know I've let down my tens of readers, and for that I'm sorry. I don't really have a good excuse, not one that holds water anyway. Let's just say that I took a little hiatus, and I'm in good company, but now I'm back. Instead of boring you with what I did on my hiatus, I'll just skim some important points, starting with what caused my absence, the train-wreck that was Origins.

Hastur, Hastur, Hastur. See? Nothing hap...

Welp, that's it. Sadly, we did not all die in a nuclear fire while being consumed by a Shoggoth. There were, however, a few casualties. While we were crossing Lake Hali in a boat made of bones, Franco, our own Wayne Smith, decided he'd jump into the lake, which was made of mist, to see where the light beneath us was coming from. Of course it was the gate to Hastur's realm, and while down there in the mist he happened to look upon the face of The King in Yellow himself and was instantly driven mad. So, there's one. Then Yuri went absolutely apeshit when Franco started speaking to him in Yuri's mother's voice, blaming him for the miscarriage of a sister he'd never heard of. Yuri was then tranqued when he tried to twist Franco's head off. This all culminated when the remainder of the party lowered the nuke into the gate and buggered off back to Carcossa and eventually back to Earth where, as we discovered in the epilogue, they were put to work ferreting out and destroying the last vestiges of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. Sadly, it was during the denouement that it was revealed that Yuri did, in fact, come to an unfortunate end. After intensive therapy and behavioral modification, Yuri was brought back to operational status with the team and even went on a few missions until at last he tricked the job into killing him as a way to end his constant emotional pain.

Now, I realize the the guys I play with and I may be in the minority here in regards to what we think is a positive outcome, but all in all it was a great way to wrap up a long and epic campaign. Sure there was a lot more Munin could have thrown at us, he could have kept us busy for years. It was better to go out on top, though. So now Shadowrun's over and it's time for me to take over as GM and run a Rogue Trader game. The RT game is already shaping up to have every session end with "and hilarity ensued", so it's looking good at first blush. I'll keep you posted.

More Human Than Human: Body Modification in RPGs

Only .001 essence left? No sweat, I've got a Willpower of 6...

I tend to play mainly sci-fi or modern style games. I rarely play fantasy, as it holds little interest for me unless it's a setting like Iron Kingdoms where there's a fair amount of technology. Aside from my fetishistic love for technology and machines, one of the things I find most compelling about these games is the theme of human modification that runs through them. Think about it. Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, Rifts, and a dozen other games like them all allow the player to make a Faustian bargain wherein they trade greater or lesser degrees of their humanity for some amount of power. Why? What would drive a person to graft machine parts to their body or submit to dehumanizing brain implants or accept a swift and painful death by narcotic overdose? That's the question I'm curious about, and what I want to talk about today.

Thursday Bonus Post: Tweeting from the Shadows

Just to let you all know, I'm going to be live tweeting our Shadowrun/In Nomine/Cthulhu mash-up game tonight. Let me bring you up to speed:

The Characters:
Hunter: A famous Matrix personality and paranormal investigator who is mildly magic proof.
Yuri: An unstable Russian mad bomber and safecracker with a developing PTSD problem (me)
Moretti: A UCAS military contractor. Combat medic and mage.
Lt. Franco: A dwarf Shaman and CAS Navy SeAL. Played by Palladium's Wayne Smith.
Maj. Nigel: A detached SAS special operative: Orc, Combat Mage, Wanted International Terrorist
Bogart: A private investigator and the group's face. A physical adept with a wicked punch
Cleric: A clandestine operative of the Church of Rome with amnesia. Hell on wheels with pistols

The Lowdown:
A secretive philanthropic organization seeks the raising of Atlantis to bring about world peace. Unfortunately, this will also raise R'lyeh and wake mighty Cthulhu from his dreaming death. The hosts of Heaven and Hell have put their ancient war on hold long enough to keep the fish people from bringing the Old Gods back to Earth, and the characters are stuck right in the middle.

The Run:
The players, working for the secret international quasi-governmental organization Operation Majestic Lantern, have just busted a crazy but popular simsense actress out of a tony private psych hospital in Beverly Hills. Upon interrogating her, the players learn that she was filming The King in Yellow, a play that drives people who read or see it insane. Now they need to find the "Lost Carcosa" that the actress was babbling about, and shut down filming with extreme prejudice.

The Result:
Hilarity will ensue. Oh, yes. Yes it will. Stay tuned!