SirGuido
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Post by SirGuido on Sept 26, 2013 6:48:26 GMT -8
I have two cons coming up in the next couple months, and a total of 4 con games scheduled at said cons.
For JackerCon I'm running a secret Fate Accelerated game with a theme that I want to keep a secret because I think that will make it by far more fun. However... I'm worried that this will lead to no one signing up. Luckily I can run it with as few as two people since FAE is so flexible. I just don't want people to miss out on what I think will be a great game just because I'm keeping it a secret. Ideas?
For a local con, PandoraCon, I am the games track coordinator. I have scheduled ALL of the gaming for the entire weekend in affiliation with my local game store. Unfortunately I had a few problems getting slots filled and the slots that did fill have NOTHING to do with the con's theme(basically its steampunk with some Doctor Who and Harry Potter thrown in), as a result I felt compelled to set up something in theme. I took Kimi's lead and scheduled a Harry Potter game. Going to do the same thing and make it Harry Potter in America. I am in the process of making wands for each of the possible PCs and I will put them in a bag and have them blindly draw a wand and each wand will correspond to the character they play. You know... because the wand chooses the wizard and in this case... literally. I'm trying to decide though if I want to make it a game of kids in school or as adults. Thoughts?
The other theme game I've scheduled is a version of the Supernatural tv show set in steampunky Victorian London I plan to give the characters stunts which equate to cool and interesting steampunky weapons. The players will be members of the Men of Letters(for those of you unfamiliar with the show its a brotherhood/fraternity of sorts who gathered information on all kinds of baddies and looked for new and better ways to defeat them). My only unsure part is what kind of bad guy I should put them against. My first instinct is vampires, and I think that would go over well with this crowd but since Supernatural vampires are so different and vampires are so... cliche I'm hesitant. Can anyone think of a better alternative?
The last game I have schedule is an L5R game, its a con scenario I've run multiple times so im sure it will be fine.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
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Post by jazzisblues on Sept 26, 2013 8:03:59 GMT -8
SirGuido,
I feel your pain brother. It is always hard to write a description that is enticing and gives potential players the idea of the game without giving away the reveal. The best advice I can give on this point is to write a description of the world in which the game takes place but only allude to specific things about the story itself. That way players perusing the game listings will see what sort of game it is and hopefully be teased about the game itself but not know precisely what to expect.
I love the idea of having them draw wands from the bag. Something I've done with success is to put a sigil on the table that represented the character, but didn't have any mechanical information. For Gateway 2013 I put illustrations of the Norse gods on the table and the players had to pick their characters from that alone. For my sci-fi ai's game I just had a symbol that represented the character. I think your idea of having them draw the wands to pick their character is a great idea. I might put them on the table so they could see them and then they can try to divine something about the character from the wand itself. Fun stuff. As far as making them adults or kids I would say it would totally depend on the nature of the game itself.
What purpose do the bad guys in your steampunky game serve? What is their nature? What are they about? That more than anything will inform what sort of thing they are. Vampires are cliche but cliche's often work very well in rpg's.
Cheers,
JiB
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Post by Houndin on Sept 26, 2013 9:03:30 GMT -8
The other theme game I've scheduled is a version of the Supernatural tv show set in steampunky Victorian London I plan to give the characters stunts which equate to cool and interesting steampunky weapons. The players will be members of the Men of Letters(for those of you unfamiliar with the show its a brotherhood/fraternity of sorts who gathered information on all kinds of baddies and looked for new and better ways to defeat them). My only unsure part is what kind of bad guy I should put them against. My first instinct is vampires, and I think that would go over well with this crowd but since Supernatural vampires are so different and vampires are so... cliche I'm hesitant. Can anyone think of a better alternative? I'm a huge fan of the supernatural TV show but for people who aren't it might be hard to adapt their understanding of "standard" monsters, like vampires and werewolves, to the show's definition. My suggestion would be to pull from history for an antagonist. I did a very quick search and came up with Spring Heeled Jack and The Hammersmith Ghost both of which started me down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. I think a Haunting would be a good target since it's generally solved on the show by burning the bones, but a potential twist could be that it is actually anchored by an object instead (if you're running short need another scene).
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SirGuido
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Post by SirGuido on Sept 26, 2013 9:20:40 GMT -8
SirGuido, I feel your pain brother. It is always hard to write a description that is enticing and gives potential players the idea of the game without giving away the reveal. The best advice I can give on this point is to write a description of the world in which the game takes place but only allude to specific things about the story itself. That way players perusing the game listings will see what sort of game it is and hopefully be teased about the game itself but not know precisely what to expect. See that's just it though, the setting is what would give it away. I could be very vague on basic setting information I guess. I think drawing from a bag blind really drives home the idea of "the wand chooses the wizard" and I love that idea but the only thing I'm worried about is if someone gets a female and has issues playing female or vice versa. I haven't written anything for the game yet, and as I mentioned its in FAE which is incredibly flexible so I intend to have a very loose outline and let the players loose within that outline. I'm just trying to decide what people will like more... an adult aurors game or a kids intriguey kinda thing. I even considered painting all the wands really dark and making it a Death Eaters game. I just don't know what people would prefer. Well, if you've ever seen Supernatural its very much a Monster of the Week kind of show and I want to reflect that in the game. I'm thinking this group is based in London and they are very much scholars of these monsters in addition to being badass killers of that which threatens the world. So they stay at home near their libraries and other resource material as opposed to traveling around like the Winchesters do. In this case I think that a group of something(like vmpires) moves into the city and a war ensues. I was going to pick up the game during a big combat against a band of these badguys to start the action early. Then a ton of the good guys will fall leaving just the party to deal with the remaining group. They have to track down and take out the leader to prove their superiority and control of the city or else who knows what will want to come next. I like the idea of vampires just wasnt sure if it was a good idea.
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tomes
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Post by tomes on Sept 26, 2013 10:26:24 GMT -8
Re male/female characters, Kimi did an interesting thing this last con in that her 6 characters all had gender-agnostic names (like Terry, Chris, etc.) As long as the character mechanics or storyline isn't dependent on the gender, then you can do this and have the player choose the gender.
Or, if gender roles are important, just add a small gender symbol to whatever clue you are providing for that character anyways (next to the wand or whatever)
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2013 11:47:51 GMT -8
For the Jackercon game would putting the character sheets up in advance give away the game too much? Similarly what about basic genre info rather than actual setting details?
For your HP game I would think any of those ideas could work but if you go for one with them playing the baddies I'd make that very clear in the info as I expect fans of the series may tend towards wanting to be heroes.
Name wise I take the approach of always providing 2 names, male and female with the default randomised. That way everybody can pick any of the characters without feeling like a particular role has to be a given genre.
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SirGuido
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Post by SirGuido on Sept 30, 2013 14:43:48 GMT -8
I have decided that the Harry Potter game will be as adults and as aurors. I think that will be the most interesting thing for the congoers.
Additionally for the Supernatural game I gave in and am doing Vampires.
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SirGuido
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Posts: 2,127
Preferred Game Systems: L5R, Traveller, Fate Accelerated, Masks
Currently Playing: Nothing.
Currently Running: Nothing.
Favorite Species of Monkey: Anything in a Cage.
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Post by SirGuido on Oct 18, 2013 4:29:48 GMT -8
The first con for these games was this past weekend. I didn't get to run the Harry Potter game because no one showed up for it. I did have 6 players for the Supernatural game and ran it very investigatey. We had a murder that was "weird" so the group was notified of it. Upon investigating the murder had drawn a crowd which in turn drew a bunch of street urchins who were picking pockets. One player caught one of them trying to pick her pocket so she offered to pay him and his friends one pence each to go and listen for gossip on the murder. He said there were 12 of them so she handed him 12 coins which he took and ran off with. They learned that the victim was a prostitute and tracked her back to a brothel run by the con man's old friend. He looked sick and turned out to be on his way to becoming a vampire. They then tracked down more info to a pub where they were confronted by some of the prostitutes intent on scaring them off the trail, but they failed. Instead the group intimidated the lead prostitute into leading them to the vampire's lair where they stabbed him, chopped off his arm, burnt him with the sun, shoved him out the window, cut off his hand, and impaled him on the gothic style fence. They loved it.
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