How I went about setting up South Bend Games Day

I thought I would share some of the experience thus far...

Several friends and I have been tossing around the idea of running a convention or games day for years. We've had several conventions in town over the years, but nothing recently. All of us have participate in conventions at different levels, whether helping to organize, running booths, advertising, setting up, or run events at the convention.

A few months ago, I said, "Fuck it, let's do this." I contacted close friends that I knew would help, if they had the time available. All of them immediately agreed to help out. The first two steps were accomplished: mission decided and accomplices engaged.

We immediately began strategizing for location, date, and most importantly...cost. You see, my goal was to set up a games day and run it as a free or nearly free event. We scouted out several cost locations and then took the idea of how to do it for free to the next level. We could contact the local libraries and YWCA, but their hours would limit availability of the space. We looked into club houses at apartment complexes, swimming pools, empty property, and restaurants with back rooms. Local game shops were the next target. The group is on good terms with both local shops. We simply asked the first location we happened to be in after deciding to run with this idea. The answer was a resounding yes. What about the other location? I have plans for that and I'll discuss them later in this post.

While we were beginning to brainstorm and research the whens, wheres, and how muches, we began to toss around names for game masters at this event. We knew we wanted to have 3-5 tables available for two different sessions of play. Of the group helping to organize this event, all four of us are capable of running games. If it came down to it, we agreed to run anything or everything needed to make this happen.

So, we had our location and date hammered out, we had a targeted list of potential game masters, now all we needed to do was get the word out.

I started a blog on Wordpress to function as a website. I began dropping ideas there as reminders for myself and the others. I would later delete these ideas as they were executed upon. Everything goes back to the site or the email being used as the primary contact (mine).

I Tweeted about it, blogged about it on my personal rpg blog, set up a FaceBook event, and blasted it out on Google Plus. Thus, it grew. Within a few weeks, other game masters were beginning to sign up and invitees were confirming attendance on the FaceBook page.

At this stage of planning, it is down to managing the GM sign up process, then setting up pre-registration for players, coordinating any last minute details with the shop owner, and making it happen. I'm really looking forward to the event, because I have plans for what comes next.

My ultimate goal was to successfully run a games day event, bring together people who don't know each other and could make new friends (or players!), start building interest in an actual convention in the future, and begin providing a road map for others to follow on what to do or not do, when organizing such an event.

I've never organized something like this before. I've helped George Vasilakos (Eden Studios) run his booth at GenCon and Origins, I've run it alone or with help at smaller conventions, I've organized and coordinated 20+ GMs running 84+ games at GenCon for Eden Studios, I've written con/one-shot scenarios and implemented them out to a team of people I've never met, I've playtested rules for rpg books, written for rpg books, edited and helped produce rpg books utlizing remote freelancers, choreographed stunts and fight scenes for feature-length and short films, performed stunts and fight scenes for said films, and even served as second unit director for said films. But this? Nothing like this.

This is close to home. This is people I know and respect. This is for people I could see any day at any time, because we live in the same community. This is new. The only thing that comes close to it in my life right now is my wedding...which is occurring two weeks prior to this event. It's a big month for me and mine. We aim high, we aim big, and we plan to bring it all in successfully.

All along this road, Steve, Lowell, and Jason have helped with brainstorming, leg work, and everything you'd want from a great team. My wonderful fiance' has been patient and offers to help when she thinks I need it. I couldn't ask for better partners in crime.



As to future events, well, I hope to do something like this nearly every six months. Unless, of course, someone starts up a local convention. I would like to coordinate it with "free rpg day" and have it occur at both game stores at the same time. Much like the fact that everyone has their favorite game, most have their favorite game shop, and I would like to see everyone benefit from this experience.

I am sure I have left out bits. Feel free to ask questions, if you have them.

Not so old school, modern horror rpg revival?

I made this comment on Lowell Francis’ blog back on June 2, "Is there a not-so-old-school, modern horror rpg revival coming along anytime soon?" I've spent the better part of this evening browsing the Internet looking for blogs that are mostly dedicated to modern, supernatural, horror rpg topics. I have got to say, the pickings are slim. 

The biggest search hit is FlamesRising.com. Matt and Monica have done a good job building their site and its Internet presence. However, it comes across more as a promotion website than it does a blog website. They also cover a lot of material that isn’t strictly role playing games. Still, they cover a lot of material.

Moving on, it becomes bleak very quickly. Blogs appear to either over-specialize or not be solely dedicated to modern, supernatural, modern role playing games. There are blogs dedicated only to the author’s favorite flavor of the World of Darkness, only Call of Cthulhu, only Delta Green, only The Dresden Files, etc. I guess that’s okay, but they seem overly anchored in those settings. If I cast a glance at blogs dedicated to fantasy settings, I see plenty of blogs that can be reviewed for use by a GM.

There are definitely blogs that have material I’m looking for:  Age of Ravens and Voices in My Head are a good start. Still, they both wander away from that material, as well. AoR dives into fantasy settings and TR delves into cyberpunk. I can’t fault them for it, I do the same here.

So, what am I missing? Are there blogs that are not overly-specialized that will allow me to Harvest their ideas and make them my own?

GenCon 2012 Haul

I spent Thursday down at GenCon 2012 with friends. As in years past, I thought I would post pics of the books I brought home. I even managed to pick up items released at GenCon, including Jason Vey's Amazing Adventures and The Paranormals Sourcebook for Conspiracy X. Not pictured is a handful of dice I picked up.

(in lieu of the GM Screen, which is the same image without "second edition" at the bottom)

Final Flesh and Retrospective

And thus ends my biweekly All Flesh Must Be Eaten game. . .

:-:

The party left the military convoy with which they were traveling. The goal was to hit Cape Canaveral, meet up with the Navy, and head to Hawaii. Having no proof that such an idea was a great option, they decided to go rogue and investigate an odd facility back up near Beaver City.

At the facility, they found a shed full of zombies, a building for observing zombies in a closed environment, two living quarters, a garage facility, a radio tower, and an office building. The entire complex was surrounded by ten foot tall fence line topped with razor wire – an easy feat to beat when your mode of transportation is a helicopter. They killed the shedful o’ zombies, discovered an underground tunnel system that connected the buildings, and a scientist.

The scientist confirmed what they had been told by an insider, that there was no known cure and everyone else had given up on finding one.

While investigating the tunnel system, they were set upon by zombies that were released into the tunnels. As it so happened, one of the zombies was carrying a 9mm handgun and knew how to use it. He managed to incapacitate one of the party members and nearly incapacitate a second. In the process of escaping the tunnels, the incapacitated party member died and took a bite out of another party member. Luckily, another member of the party was able to put the zombie down before he could do more damage.

Moving from the heat and into the fire, the cast was taken prisoner by the insider and her military squad. Quick thinking by the party led to an escape that resulted in no more PC deaths, but brought about the death of the NPC nurse traveling with the group.

The party fled back to their rendezvous point and an NPC they met a few nights prior came by (via the dead PC’s player). It was apparent that the informer and her military squad had tracked the party to this rendezvous point. All of the NPCs left behind with the gear were brutally killed and some supplies were taken. The party decided to head back to a fuel tank that they had stashed at an old farmhouse in order to fuel up their helicopter. They took a giant dump truck, Suburban, and the cable guy’s work minivan with them.

Arriving onsite, they discover the barn where the fuel truck was hidden to be chained and locked shut. They took the easy route and shot the lock off the door. With two party members in the Blackhawk helicopter, another in the dump truck several miles up the road, yet, and a fourth waiting in the Suburban, the fifth member of the party opened the door to the barn. Peering inside, he saw the fuel truck, several other trucks and tractors, plus what looked like feral human males, including an eight year old boy. The boy quickly turned and shot a .22 rifle at the party member. The other feral males brought their shotguns and rifles to bear and the party member ran for cover. Thus, started the end.

The helicopter came closer to the barn as the boy stepped outside the barn, chambering another round into his rifle. The door gunner cut a path with bullets in front of the boy, who shot at the helicopter and did no damage. The men inside the building began shooting at the helicopter, but not hitting it or the door gunner.

The party member in the Suburban grabbed bow and arrow, left the Suburban, and scrambled through a field to get behind the barn. The first party member poked out of hiding and shot the child.

The dump truck came rumbling on scene at this point, drawing fire from a nearby farmhouse. The dump truck pointed itself at the house and aimed to run down the woman shooting at it.

With the boy no longer in the way, the party member who had opened the barn door snuck in and to the side. He kept low and behind tractor equipment – staying away from the fuel truck.

The helicopter pilot brought the chopper closer to the ground, allowing the door gunner to start shooting at the feral men with long arms. The pilot’s only words to the door gunner (with 2 Life Points left to his name) were, “Don’t shoot near the fuel truck.”

The dump truck roared closer to the farm house. A farm house less than 50 yards from the barn.

The party member inside the barn shot and killed one of the feral men.

The party member with the bow and arrow managed to prop open the back door to the barn. He deftly put an arrow through the lung of another feral man.

The driver of the dump truck pulled up short and to the side of the house, providing cover for said driver to jump out. The plan? To sneak about and kill this feral woman with a shotgun who had retreated into the house.

The helicopter pilot kept the Blackhawk in place as the door gunner’s player BOTCHED his roll to near negative 20, spraying M-60 bullets throughout the barn. Several of them pierced the fuel tank on the fuel truck before a last bullet scraped metal somewhere near the leaking fuel, causing the rest of the fuel tank to go up in a massive explosion.

Faster than the speed of love, the barn exploded in a shower of splintery death. The feral men, bow and arrow PC, the PC who had snuck into the barn, and the door gunner were killed instantly. The helicopter pilot fought to maintain as much control of the bird as he could. The force of the explosion pushed it away from the barn and towards the farm house. It tore through the farm house, digging into the dirt just in front of the dump truck.

As we pull away from a close up of the dump truck driver pulling the unconscious helicopter pilot from the wrecked Blackhawk, we see the carnage of the explosion, the destruction placed upon the farmhouse, the ruined vehicles in the drive, and the giant smoke plume rising into the air as if to tell any zombie who can see it, “Come, there’s food here and it’s fresh.”

:-:

In retrospect, I picked up on a few of what I consider my old, bad habits as a ZM. I naturally prefer “sandbox” style games. The problem is that I usually don’t have any rails designed, so the cohesiveness of the party (or lack thereof) gets in the way of moving the story along in the right direction. Once the party got out of town and holed up at one of the party member’s country home, it because more driven. That stalled at one point, but then it picked up, again, with gang bangers coming out to play.

I put in too many NPCs that I wanted to be important. That resulted in very few of them being important to the players. There were a couple of moments, but it wasn’t until they met up with the military that the party would really start to interact with the NPCs. I need to let go and let them interact with the NPCs. I needed to develop more personality traits.

So, my lesson from this game is to remember not to dial the game out to the 10,000 foot level. Keep it dialed in, let the players dive deep if they want to and it bothers none at the table. Slow the pace down, unless it’s a race against the clock or combat. Make more interactions meaningful by bringing out the personality side of the NPCs. This will force me to have fewer NPCs that I want to be important.

Next up, I think I’m staying with modern, but not post apocalyptic. We will be heading into modern supernatural with horror. The group seemed keen on that, so I will send out the usual email asking for some feedback on ideas and see where that goes. I plan for it to be more structured than a sandbox and be more of a controlled setting. I suspect I will be pulling from source material such as Unknown Armies, The Esoterrorists, and Mutant City Blues.  

And here's the second announcement you've been waiting for:

Game masters wishing to run events for Games Day in South Bend, Indiana should either reply to this post or email DerekAS@gmail.com .

There are two time slots available for games:
1:30pm – 5:30pm
7pm – 11pm

Tables and chairs will be set up for 4-person games. We can likely accommodate one or two larger games per session. Please contact us for details.

Interested game masters will need to provide the following information:

1.       Time slot desired

2.       Game to be played (title of the scenario or just the name of the game)

3.       Game system utilized

4.       Game publisher

5.       Familiarity required (none/rules taught, basic rules understanding needed, full understanding of the rules and setting required)

6.       Number of players (minimum-maximum)

7.       Description of the scenario for potential players (your “ad copy”), please keep it under 200 words

The sooner we hear from you, the sooner we can get players signed up to play!

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South Bend Games Day announcement

Announcing South Bend Games Day! Info first, links to various items at the bottom.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Coming October 13:  South Bend Games Day, a role playing game event hosted at Fantasy Games in South Bend, IN

Join us for two sessions of high adventure and gritty action starring your favorite role playing games. There will be two sessions for games and four games per session.

Interested GMs can sign up at the South Bend Games Day website or by emailing Derek (derekas@gmail.com).

Sign up for interested players will be completed in a similar manner, after we post the games for official sign up. We’ll do that just as soon as we have the GMs signed up!

Questions should be addressed on the SBGD website or via email to Derek. Fantasy Games is not managing this event, so they will be unable to properly assist you with questions related to the games.

Main Site

General announcement

GM announcement

Player announcement - coming soon

2 more quick game ideas

I use to be an adventurer like you, until I took an arrow in the knee (or, CSI:  Pavis)

Premise:  The cast plays the part of city guardsmen in a major fantasy city (Pavis, Waterdeep, Minas Tirith, etc.). In this setting, there are no patrol men, investigators, or crime scene technicians. There are only guardsmen, sergeants, and captains.

This game can go many different directions. Players can take on the part of those guardsmen lucky enough to clean up after adventurers. They have to talk to innocent bystanders, find ways to placate the citizens from outright revolting against these supposed do-gooders who take on bounties hunting down monsters, and figure out how to rebuild whatever was destroyed by the adventurers. Perhaps, the cast were all seen as either bumbling idiots or did something to irritate their supervisor. Now, their job is to go out and stop adventurers from breaking laws. (I’m sorry, Mr. NPC Necromancer, casting "raise dead" is against the law. I don’t care if he’s the only person who knows the whereabouts of a missing “magical” sword.) The game can also be run as a straight up crime drama with the cast going after Big Bads and little evils. Classic monster tropes like vampires, werewolves, and a guild of thieves play into this send up. All in all, the cast is on the side of the law. Whether that law is more The Shield, Magnum Force, or  Dragnet is up to the GM and players.

Starting Point:  The cast are assigned to a guardhouse ("precinct") and work a shift together. Let's face it, we all know the excitement is going to occur during the evening and late night hours. That should likely be the shift they work. Then, again, this setting isn't likely to have unions stating when employees can and cannot work. Instead of late night/early morning phone calls, there will be other “lesser” guardsmen banging on doors to wake up the cast. That leads to irritated neighbors and more opportunities for role playing.

Basic Assumptions:

1.  This is not a sandbox setting. The stories are all based in the city of choice. There may be occasional forays outside the city, but these should be minor occurrences and not major plot points. That is the work of the army or adventurers.

2.  Magic is somewhat common. While a setting that uses magic to replace modern technology would likely break the setting, Vancian magic is quite okay. A setting with magic being less common could be interesting from the standpoint of giving the cast an edge if they have a magic user or two. However, it also means villains that can cast magic have a higher threat rating.

3.  Technology stopped with plate armor and crossbows, in other words, standard D&D.

4.  No psionics

5.  While magic does exist, a list of what is legal to cast and illegal to cast will need to be developed and delivered to the players before the game begins. Knowing that information, what happens if one of the cast is a magic user and eventually needs to use that illegal spell they secretly learned in order to solve the case?

System:  Any system will do. Pick your favorite fantasy setting and go!

For an alternate take on crime drama and investigation, check out Robin D. Law’s Mutant City Blues. Yes, it is designed for something more modern day and involving superheroes. However, his treatment of how to run a crime scene investigative game is good. I like more die rolling than this game does, but I’ve stolen plenty of ideas from it.

Links of Interest for I use to be an adventurer:

CSI:  D&D

Creating a forensics Based Adventure

CSI:  Waterdeep

Thanes of Whiterun (or, What's the matter, someone stole your sweatroll?)

Premise:  I'm blatantly stealing this idea from Lowell. On his blog, Age of Ravens, you can read his wife's write-up of a session he ran of this idea using Hollowpoint. I played in that session. It was all types of awesome. The setting is Bathesda Softworks, LLC's Skyrim. The cast are all thanes for the Jarl of Whiterun (or low fantasy setting of your choice). Thanes in this setting, are more or less, troubleshooter, ala any '80s action TV shows and movies, and work for the local jarl. The game is set before the events of the video game, but will move through a similar storyline, including the choice of joining Ulfric's rebellion or not. This game will give the players the opportunity to enjoy the realm of Skyrim, while making the setting their own.

Jarl Balgruuf the Greater charges the cast with maintaining the peace in his lands (Whiterun Hold). His hold benefits by being in the center of the realm, having a major river flow through it, and sitting upon a major trade route. He understands the desires of freedom expressed by Ulfric Stormcloak and the benefits of working with the Empire ala Jarl Elisif the Fair. This means that the players will be asked to cross territory lines to deal with situations outside of Whiterun.

The end of the first season should have a major moral twist to it that forces the group to choose between the Empire and Ulfric. Leading up to that decision, the cast will be approached by both agents of the Empire and Stormcloaks, asking for their support. When the cast makes their decision, they are effectively also making the decision for Jarl Balgruuf. They are, after all, his thanes and when he hears what they were put through, he will follow their lead and cast his lot in with their choice.

Season two would pickup with the cast being brought into the fold of whomever’s cause they decided to support. By the end of the second season, the cast will have begun helping take over holds (and maybe they were successful in a few attempts?) and the kingdom of Skyrim is on the brink of an outright war amongst the Jarls.

Oh yeah, and somewhere in there, the cast will need to get involved in helping decide who will be the next high king.

Starting Point:  Why hold back? Start the game in Dragon’s Reach with the jarl handing the cast a situation to handle.

Basic Assumptions: 

1.  This setting can be more sandbox than CSI:  Pavis. Yet, it is definitely set up to be a quest-driven game, at least in the beginning.

2.  Players may not be Dovahkiin and the GM is free to drop them from the game, being naught but legend.

3.  The GM is allowed to alter what happens and how the NPCs behave in the game, versus the video game. When the players are in doubt of motivation, they can ask if the GM has changed the NPC’s motivation from the video game. While the GM should answer either “yes” or “no,” they are not obligated to state how or why it was changed.

4.  The video game storyline involving Alduin and the end of the world is not part of this game.

5.  Horses, can, in fact, enter cities.

System:  This is another game where any system will work.

For an alternate take using a system that plays with trust issues, take a look at Cold City. In using Cold City as inspiration, I would suggest making each of the cast have a different hold as their point of origin. All of them have been sent to Whiterun Hold as agents for their individual jarls, who have their own agendas and their own thoughts on choosing the Empire or Ulfric. When the ball goes up, whose side will the cast be on?

Links of interest for Thanes of Whiterun:

Postmortem Studios blog

Telluric Contents blog

Discussion on RPGnet

Homebrew via the Forge

What Skyrim Does Right in the Eyes of Tabletop

A discussion on playing a one shot at a con

Elder Scrolls Wikia for Skyrim

Kilts

My kilt has been ordered (from the UK).

Groomsmen gifts are also ordered.

Groomsmen rented kilts to be ordered this week.

It grows closer!

Where are you from?

I know some folk who fought their way to and through Mercy Hospital. They went on to Riverside and it was a bust. They crossed the Whitney County Bridge to get to Fairfield. They found nothing worth staying for in Fairfield and continued on to Newburg. I hear they tried to reach the Metro International Airport, only to find out their flights had been cancelled. The Allegheny National Forest wasn’t safe for campers and not because of the bears. The Millhaven base was near there and near Outpost Echo, the northeast safe zone. I guess they didn’t stay there long, either.

Savannah wasn’t any better, really. We went through fancy hotels, gun shops, and even a mall. After Savannah, we went to Rayford. There wasn’t much there, either. We met those other survivors there, helped them cross a bridge in a fancy car. They were looking for a boat down in the docks, hoping they could make it to the Florida Keys. I hope they had some luck.

We cut a swath through Griffin County, heading for the Whispering Oaks Amusement Park. Turns out, the folk we were hoping to meet up with there, had been overrun. Funny thing, posters for the Midnight Riders concert were still up, even though they never got a chance to play the venue.

The Village En Marais faired better than most did against the infected. Better than Shreveport or Bossier City. After that, we moved through Mississippi. I think the town’s name was Ducatel. There was a sugar mill there, but all I really remember of that place was all the rain. It kept coming and coming.

We hitched a ride with a former shrimper and snuck into NOLA via the waterways. It was just more of the same Bienville Park, the bus station, the market along the waterfront, Sant Roches Cemetary – all empty, all dead. We made it to Veterans Memorial Bridge, to where they were taking survivors to cruise ships. Can you imagine? Cruise ships sailing the seas with no infected on them. Such a beautiful idea.

If only.

I’ve met other survivors. They come from all sorts of places. Fort Harris County in Texas. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. British Columbia, even. So, where are you from?

Half Full or Half Empty?

The world ended. All of the crazies were right. World War 3 was fought over water, someone's deity sent down a plague, and the end was really fucking nigh.

Edgesphere, a pharmaceutical company, came up with a way to better purify water. They went after the really foul water, anything hard to clean up and ripe for government grant money. They succeeded in devising a chemal that could cut standard purifying time in half. They revolutionized the conversion of sea water to drinking water. They also found ways to supply pure water to those countries suffering from a lack of water in Africa and the Middle East.

We do not know where it started or how it started. Research and rumour suggest that the G.I.s returning from the world war in the Middle East brought it home. They were said to be carriers. At first, all of the research confirmed those theories. Later, it would come out that the government had covered up the problem in the Middle East. Our access to foreign news was shut down during the war. Even Internet access to foreign sites and hosts was removed from USA citizens. So, maybe the military boys weren't carrirers. Maybe the potential existed in all of us to be carriers.

What we know for sure is this: the areas where Edgesphere was heavily invested were the first to be overrun and they were the hardest to be overrun. Suddenly, World War 3 didn't matter to those at home, stateside. It didn't matter to the boys fighting the war - of either side. There was a new enemy and its name was death.

That was three years ago. Some things have changed since then. Water is clean, without needing a chemical enhancer. Gasoline in autos needs a chemical enhancer to clean it for use. There are no more governments to wage a world war.

At least one thing has not changed: the deadliest creature on the planet is still man.

What it is: a Deadworld for AFMBE

What you will need: AFMBE corebook, but the Zombie Master Screen, both Book of Archetypes, One of the Living, and Atlas of the Walking Dead will help. The ZM Screen is a standard screen, all the damage stats you will need for your usual weapons. You also get an article on running horror survival games and a scenario. The two Book of Archetypes books are filled with pre-made characters. The first one will likely be of more use, overall. The Second Book of Archetypes has characters for modern games, Fistful o’ Zombies, Enter the Zombie, and Pulp Zombies. This means that your use ratio will be much smaller. If you can not find either of the archetypes books in your local game store, I suggest picking up the .pdfs via drivethrurpg.com. That will allow you to print out only the characters need and keep the game moving. One of the Living is everything a zombie master or player will need for surviving after the fall. Since this Deadworld is set after the fall, it is right up your alley. Atlas of the Walking Dead will help flesh out the zombies. You may want something beyond the usual shamblers or runners.

Antagonists: Your standard zombie movie is about humans fighting off other humans, while trying to avoid zombies. In this setting, I want to up the ante. I suggest using quick zombies ala 28 Days Later or the most recent Dawn of the Dead. If you really want shambling zombies, I think it will be more challenging than usual, as there is not much left of the world. Humans will be few and far between, in theory. Zombies are the main antagonist in this setting.

Strength: 2, 10
Dexterity: 3
Perception: 2
Constitution: 0
Intelligence: 2
Willpower: 1
Dead Points: 15
Endurance Points: n/a
Speed: 18
Essence Pool: 10

Attack: As normal human

Weak Spot: Brain (+6)
Getting Around: The Quick Dead (+10)
Strength: Dead Joe Average (0), Iron Grip (+1)
Senses: Like the Living (+1), Life Sense power (+1)
Sustenance: Weekly (+4), All Flesh Must Be Eaten (0)
Intelligence: Animal Cunning (+2)
Spreading the Love: One Bite and You’re Hooked (+2)

Power: 27

The characters should be survivors. This is after the fall, after all. Norms are not going to cut it in this world.

The chemical designed by Edgesphere is no longer important. Some characters may want to go after it or those involved with it. ZMs are free to explore as they feel free.

This setting is all sorts of messed up. You can combine Last Man Standing, the aforementioned Dawn of the Dead, and suck in any end of the world type game material. Mix, match, do a little shake ‘n bake, and you're done.