JACKERCON VII "I Want To Believe" Lessons Re-Learned

[D.T. Pints]

Well that about wraps up Jackercon VII...(might still have a Age of Rebellion game and Kainguru's Dogz in Space game to happen tomorrow). All told about ten games were played with about 25 players and GMs participating. This is about half the size of where I think the sweet spot of this CON should be. Still I got to run my Living Presidents game in GUMSHOE with a great group of players that had the POTUSi doing such amazing things as sliding down an ICBM while firing an M-16, President Regan shooting a .50 cal Rambo style atop Devil's Tower and President Carter and President Ford sitting in the cockpit of the stealth bomber smoking "Alien Seeing" crack pipes. Epic stuff.

I got to play in a GURPS Fallout game where none of the players characters actually died! I was also impressed with Ed from Minnesota's skills as a detailed narrator, the guy can really off the cuff describe a scene! Very fun group of players that all seemed ready to shoot each other in the face if it made the most sense while laughing about it.

It was also a great joy to take part in tomes Star Frontiers LEGO extravaganza. All the glorious nostalgia of Star Frontiers coupled with his incredible LEGO spaceship crawl creations using Savage Worlds. We had a great time! Vrusk make quality traitors (spoilers!).

So, a few points for me to put in my crack pipe and smoke...

• Google+ still is a pretty shitty interface and people get lost in it BUT its free and involves minimal effort
• A "standards & practices" video will be created before the next one so we can hopefully all get on the same page using G+
• Flaking happens. GMs had to cancel games and players just dissapeared even I had to cancel the same day for @whodo 's game and that sucks but it happens; alternates are good thing to have
• This is a con for fans of HJs and I will make more effort to promote the CON through the show (if Stu Venable is cool with it)
• I had a shit ton of fun and am really looking forward to the next one!

Cheers,

Curt.

[ayslyn]

I'm curious why you opted for GUMSHOE for your Living President's game. Seems like you wanted a real action oriented game, and GUMSHOE is very investigation oriented...

[tomes]

And kudos to D.T. Pints for pulling off another con by herding these forum cats. Thanks man, for making this thing possible.

So, I ended up chatting on G+ later with one of the players who flaked on my game (he actually did show, but over 30 minutes late, and I didn't know until after the game was over). What was interesting is that he isn't even on the forum! He joined the Jackercon community on G+, but doesn't really know about Happy Jacks podcast or the forum. I'm giving him the education, but I thought that was interesting.

[Deleted]

As always thanks for organising things D.T. Pints even if it wasn't as big a Con as you were aiming for. I didn't get as involved as I'd liked but glad that I got to run one of the games I put up. On reflection I've got the following thoughts:

• Scheduling stuff on G+ is a pain, especially given it regularly messes up the listed time zones (I had one player who almost missed my game because of G+ not displaying the start time correctly)
  
• With that in mind I need to ensure that I post games far enough in advance that people will see them.
  
• I don't check G+ often enough so don't see messages / comments quickly enough.
  

As for the game I did run, well it was ok but as the GM it should have been much better and it could have definitely benefitted from more prep, both on the combats (which were underpowered due to being the first time I'd run the system) and the adventure layout. Similarly one of the characters was mechanically over powered which I didn't realise until we'd gotten into the game. The biggest take home though was that I really should have reigned in one of the players more than I did. At the time I let it go because it was using the skill that he was mechanically over statted in but looking back at the session it tarred the impact / feel of the setting as he was bringing in a lot of OOC knowledge.

[sbloyd]

I'm hoping I can take part in Jackercon more next time. I'm always a huge cheerleader for the idea, I just don't always have the opportunity to escape from the baby and thus am reticent to schedule time that I may not in truth have free.

[HourEleven]

Aug 8, 2015 15:20:36 GMT -8 sbloyd said:

I'm hoping I can take part in Jackercon more next time. I'm always a huge cheerleader for the idea, I just don't always have the opportunity to escape from the baby and thus am reticent to schedule time that I may not in truth have free.

I have a similar scheduling issue, except replace "baby" with "job where my schedule varies wildly with no notice and I'm on call nearly 24 hours a day" (which actually sounds similar to baby now that I write it). So I'm thinking I'm better off scheduling the game I was going to run outside the window of jackercon so if I have to cancel and reschedule twice I don't have to try and cram the reschedule into the same week.

[Kainguru]

The google calendar function works well - it's just accessing it isn't intuitive. I'll bet my left nut most people were unaware it even existed.


Aaron

[kaitoujuliet]

Speaking of attendance numbers, how do you feel about publicizing the con to non-HJ folks? I could talk it up to gamers of my acquaintance in case any of them are interested.

[D.T. Pints]

Jul 25, 2015 11:48:43 GMT -8 ayslyn said:

I'm curious why you opted for GUMSHOE for your Living President's game. Seems like you wanted a real action oriented game, and GUMSHOE is very investigation oriented...

There was a fair amount of investigation occurring in this game. And for con games just having the clues get obtained if you have the relevant skill is amazing at streamlining the thing. Its rather brilliant as most things Robin Laws creates are. Much more entertaining to have the players try to piece the puzzle together instead of spending two hours digging around in the couch trying to find them in the first place.

[D.T. Pints]

Aug 22, 2015 8:17:29 GMT -8 kaitoujuliet said:

Speaking of attendance numbers, how do you feel about publicizing the con to non-HJ folks? I could talk it up to gamers of my acquaintance in case any of them are interested.

Absolutely! Its always good to deepen up this sometimes terrifyingly shallow gene pool . Since drinking the Jacker-aid (maxinstuff I make it too easy) the philosophy of the podcast is one I think resonates well with hopefully an ever increasing audience. I think at its core are a bunch of older gamers that are rediscovering the hobby or devoting an increased level of passion and attention to it. It always nice to get some new blood!

[andreasdavour]

Good Thing(tm) in general. Sadly I was not able to participate at all this time. I will try to actually prepare some stuff for the next one.

[D.T. Pints]

Man andreasdavour I still have great memories of that really creepy and weird Stormbringer game you ran. Felt like I was wandering around the cover of some 1970's King Crimson poster. Well done!

[maxinstuff]

When is the next Jackercon D.T. Pints ?

[D.T. Pints]

First week of November ? That's a tentative. But a lovely bit of interludes is starting to occur so that numerous opportunities to game like tomes MICROSCOPE game and some guy running Traveller Character gen...after having just played in a Lamentations of the Flame Princess game (Scenic Dunnsmouth) I hope to run that game this month. Its kinda like the Temple of Elemental Evil's Village of Hommlet but GRINDHOUSE edition.

[maxinstuff]

Aug 28, 2015 19:59:04 GMT -8 D.T. Pints said:

First week of November ? That's a tentative. But a lovely bit of interludes is starting to occur so that numerous opportunities to game like tomes MICROSCOPE game and some guy running Traveller Character gen...after having just played in a Lamentations of the Flame Princess game (Scenic Dunnsmouth) I hope to run that game this month. Its kinda like the Temple of Elemental Evil's Village of Hommlet but GRINDHOUSE edition.

LotFP is on my wish list. Apparently it's dark as fuck.

Isn't there a spell that involves throwing little kids (or virgins or whatever) Into a pit of burning coals?