A Recap of My Time at the NTRPG Con

My time at this year's con actually started nearly a week before. I was doing things like getting print copies together of Dragon Horde zines #1 and #2 (BTW, #2 will be available this coming Monday at RPGNow, and print will be available on both starting the same day), picking up the 2nd print run of the d30 Sandbox Companion from the printer (I do these in batches of 50), getting my sign from FastSigns, etc.

Wednesday night, I trucked it over for the pre-con events. There was some sort of HP event finishing up at the hotel, so instead of being in the atrium, the pre-con events were relegated to wherever space could be found. Our game of Battle Royal (under the direction of Frank Mentzer) took place in the bar (which was about as noisy as you'd expect, being full of patrons, and what with the Hewlett Packard karaoke festivities echoing from the nearby ballroom). But we did our best. Battle Royal is a sort of mix of traditional wargaming and RPGs. Each team was an identical group of D&D PCs which battle it out in an ever-changing arena until you capture the ring and return it to your starting pit, or you kill the other team (whichever comes first). We got a late start (several of the special guests inbound flights were delayed, including Frank's), I was not staying in the hotel that night, and had a 45 minute drive home, so I cut out about 12:30. They didn't go much longer after I left. Although the battle didn't finish, the arena was in a position such that everyone was trapped/blocked from where they needed to be (and who knows how long it would have been until the walls moved to allow passage).

Thursday morning started with me loading up the truck and heading back across town just around lunch time to get my table set up. I got to spend a good part of the afternoon at the table, meeting folks and hawking my wares. Then, Thursday night meant Part I of "Night's Dark Terror" with Steve Winter. It's always a slow start at con games, as all the players get the feel for each other. And "Night's Dark Terror" started simply and slowly enough, but had a nice rhythm by the end of the night, to be continued with Part II on Saturday morning.

Friday morning was my obligatory Metamorphosis Alpha game with Jim Ward. If you recall the events of last year, I died in one Jim Ward game, and survived in the other. It was the shame of surviving like a chicken last year that sparked my thought for this year's game... I would alternate;y be brave and cowardly (I wrote it off to a split personality). This allowed me to have fun doing stupid stuff (remember, Jim doesn't kill characters, characters kill themselves) and still have a chance of surviving. It was a blast, and I survived (though barely). I know take a moment of silence to remember my fellow coming-of-age tribesmen who perished in the attempt to prove themselves worthy as adults in the tribe.

Friday night was easily my most anticipated game of the con this year... Frank Mentzer's 1974 OD&D game. We relived the experience of the dawn of D&D, including monsters we had not memorized from the Monster Manual, the inclusion of hobbits before they were an intellectual property concern, and character classes that did not include the thief. Long story short, we investigated a small cave/dungeon complex with hobgoblins and goblins, and faced a final battle with an animated table (yes, an animated table). Earlier in the game, my magic user had found a diagram of the table with notes in a strange language. And when I discovered the diagram in a book, the conversation went something like this...

Me (to other characters): "Should I use my read languages spell now or later?"
Frank (smiling, astounded): "You actually chose read languages?

Look, the spell wouldn't have been on the spell list, even way back then, if it didn't get used. 2-out-of-3 of the adventures I write almost require the ability to read languages. It's a good back pocket spell, even if your 2nd-level magic user only gets 2 spells (the other was a sleep spell that was pretty much necessary). So I did actually choose read languages, and I showed my character sheet to prove it. Turns out, that was the saving grace for our party. When we met the table (and it started attacking, doing up to 4 strikes per round), and I read the diagram, Frank pulled me aside to let me know that all I could make out was that the table was possessed by elemental evil. I related that to the party and we attacked accordingly. Once we saw what the cleric's holy water did, and one of the fighter's oil/torch attack, getting the air (from a small device we retrieved earlier) and dirt (scraped from a couple of boots) returned the table to being just... well... a table. The "Table of the Elements." (Yes! That's the goofiness that, to me, is woven through the earliest days of D&D). Easily one of the coolest experiences I've ever had gaming. And it's got me jonesing to run a White Box game or two.

Saturday morning was Part II of "Night's Dark Terror" with Steve Winter again. No need to go into details here. It was a good game, and the module is very cool, has some great plot points, and some very interesting encounters. When I got home from the con to find out this is the inspiration for the starter adventure for D&D5, it does not surprise me.

Saturday afternoon was the auction and presentation of the Three Castles award (which I am still overwhelmed with having won). Saturday night was to be Shiverwhen with Michael Curtis. But only about half the group showed up, and we were all pretty beat. So we mutually agreed to forego the gaming. The activity moved to the bar with Welbo, Eric Tenkar, Erik's wife Rachel, James Aulds and myself having beers and shooting the shit and relaxing.

No Sunday morning gaming for me, but I did get to sit at the table with my wife Terri, and meet a few more folks, sell a few additional copies of Valley of the Five Fires, and then pack up and head home (after lunch at my wife's favorite Tex-Mex place as a "thank you" for her time helping me at the con").

Among the notable conversations I had while sitting at the table... Steve Marsh and J. Eric Holmes's son Chris. Both very cool. Plenty of time talking with others as well, though I wish I'd gotten to game with Tim Snider.

Okay, that's about all I've got for now, except that I left the con with a couple of new project ideas. More to come as they may/may not develop.

NTRPGCon Recap: Michael Curtis's Shiverwhen

NOTE: The image above is not from any specific Shiverwhen-related materials, is only loosely tied
to the events described below, and is meant only for flavor/reference because I like having pics on my posts.

At this past weekend's North Texas RPG Con, I had a chance to playtest Michael Curtis's in-development RPG Shiverwhen. Michael himself admitted he's still working on the elevator pitch for the game, but at the end of the playtest evening, he seemed to be very close with a newly minted description of "Victorian Shadowrun" (which grew from his early elevator pitch of "slow-apocalyptic, fantastical, alternate Earth"). I will say that "Victorian Shadowrun" actually comes pretty close to describing the experience I had, but only points to the tip of an iceberg that is richly developed and understood with only the most modest of elements; with little more than the character classes and some setting history, you get a rich view of the entire world as it was, as it is, and as it will become in the future. Please understand the following is my take on Shiverwhen and is not meant to replace Michael's description of the setting prior to the game session (which I cannot recall well enough to repeat accurately).

In Shiverwhen, preternatural gunslingers (ballisturgists), brickhouse melee fighters (combatants), psychically-gifted divination empaths (uncannies), reality-flexing writers (scriveners), balladeer bard folkmen (sorsingers, sp?), tinkering electricians (gimcrackers), fate-influencing theurgists (esotericists), and energy-shaping caretakers (kindlers) work side-by-side in a place where and conspiracy and intrigue are interwoven with gothic shadows, menacing horrors, and fading technologies rubber-banded together by ingenuity and magic.

When you consider the history of Shiverwhen (the place within the game), its previous epochs (Springwhen and Summerwhen, if I recall correctly) point to the theme of the lost Utopia—an Earthly eden that's slowly decaying (a "slow apocalypse") into a dark place where even simple technologies (think gaslights and steamboats) work best in the places where people and industry are densely gathered (cities) and tend to "fade" in places where populations are thin and nature abides (the rural countrysides). The dystopia is mild in Shiverwhen (the game and the place). There is some elitism and awareness of social class, but it seems to be "organic"; that is, there isn't some ruling class that enforces its will on others, but there is a mild and "unofficial" caste system that separates those born to higher stations in life (or those that have achieved it) from the lower (i.e., "poorer") rungs on that social ladder.

We played the part of a group of come-of-agers striking out to make our name in a world where we held positions of general disfavor. The characters were pre-gen as Michael had sought to balance the party for the adventure before us based on the number of players and save the time of character generation. Considering I tend toward playing magically-endowed characters, I welcomed the opportunity to take up the role of the gunslinger. Understand though, that in one way or another, classed characters in Shiverwhen are able to tap into magical "embers," which makes them all magical in some way (some more than others).

Just in case any of you find yourself at a future con (or possible future gaming group) engaged in the introductory adventure ("The Perils of the Book Trade"), I won't give too much away in terms of plot. What I will say is that it started off immediately with a test of the combat mechanics before unfolding into a string of investigational discoveries, capped off by a final showdown. It became obvious quickly that my role as the gunslinger was profoundly important to the party in eliminating our enemies during the combat encounters; but that really seems to be the role of the gunslinger character. Guns seem to be the most effective combat weapon in Shiverwhen (place and game). Keep in mind, however, in Shiverwhen's cities, guns are ridiculously illegal; that means the gunslinger is the one character that can easily end up in jail for simply doing his job (in the context of a mixed-class party of PCs).

The mechanics of the game are simple, smooth, and effective. The character skills grow congruously from the classes; I think there's some leeway in choice during character creation, but it's hard to tell with pre-gens. The skill checks (including attacks) are percentile-based and fair, including rushed/reactionary "second" actions, and the armor mechanic is elegant and seamless. Armor types tend toward the unassuming (e.g., the long leather coat worn by my ballisturgist and the heavy coats worn by many of my comrades), but it suits the setting to a tee. There's also room for the uncommon armor types as well (like a robed, hooded figure wearing a metal breastplate). Without giving too much away (hopefully), armor works like a saving throw against damage, either mitigating it or eliminating it altogether. This armor mechanic seems to be something that went over well in Michael's playtest of the game back in February at TotalCon as well as it did in our game. More than that, the mechanic has an understated "narrative" effect during play as well; what I mean is, even though the use of armor was experienced as a die roll and wasn't expressly phrased in prose, I could almost imagine reading in a pulp novel about that moment where a piece of armor does or doesn't do what it was meant to. I think I remember somebody likening it to a timeslice from Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes movies; that's kind of what it's like.

As for non-combat gaming mode, I have to say that we as investigators played things too cagily. Michael himself said we "kind of came at things bass ackwards." That's our fault, not Michael's (who is a really great GM, BTW). Ironically, our bass ackward investigation style seemed to allow us to try out some of the games talents and skills that are meant to be used outside of combat... and it's the character types, their talents and skills, and how they require the player to get involved, which really breed the game's flavor. Take, for example, the kindler—a sort of "shaper" of the characters' preternatural energies, able to "borrow" this energy, "multiply" it, then lend larger amounts back to them. Or the scrivener, whose player is actually required to write small stories off-the-cuff at the gaming table in order to effect the character's abilities.

I'm definitely looking forward to where this game goes, and how quickly it gets there. I know Michael is still tweaking the character classes and the skills list, and I'm sure there's probably plenty of playtesting yet to be done, but I'd hate to think I'd have to wait for it too long before the final game (or at least a beta version) is ready. Intuition tells me this will likely find its way to becoming a Kickstarter at some point in the not terribly distant future (and one I'll be backing for sure). Worst case scenario, I get to play again at a future con in the meantime.

(BTW, Michael, if you read this and I've gotten anything wrong, please correct me. I took only the most minimal of notes during the game, and am going 98% from memory.)

ADDENDUM: I noticed that Michael wrote a new Shiverwhen post last night after I'd already drafted this one and schedule it in blogger. Hopefully I haven't said too much about anything he wants to hold close to the vest while the game is in development. Click here to read that post >>