Gaming Life: GottaCon 2015

Recently I attended the GottaCon in beautiful Victoria, BC, Canada. It’s the 7th convention they’ve held and it’s dedicated to gaming of all kinds, but for me it was all about the RPGs.

The convention itself was held at the beautiful Victoria Convention Centre after it’s early beginnings in the gyms of recreation centres.

With over 3000 attendees, the convention has even spilled over into the adjacent Crystal Gardens, where the dealer’s hall and wargaming was held.

Friday

Trail of Cthulhu – King in Tatters

I ran Trail of Cthulhu for the Friday night session using the Tatterdemalion adventure from Call of Cthulhu’s Fatal Experiments. I changed it up significantly after a playtest with my Victoria group showed that it was far too deadly and railroady the way it is written. That group ended up lost in Carcosa and accidentally dynamited the gate back to their own reality, thus ending in a TPK.

I also added a prelude in which the characters were chasing a masked figure through an old mansion and into strange lands with an abrupt end where they wake from the dream, only to realize that the figure that killed them was the host of the party they were about to attend. This prelude not only served to establish the mood and themes of the night, but also gave the player’s a chance to test out the game system, gaining a full refresh at the end of the dream.

The main session focused on a masked costume party. One of my oldest and best gaming buddies, Mark, came down for the convention and joined this session. As a long-time gamer who had honed his skills running Call of Cthulhu for me and others, he quickly moved to counter the threat and the others joined in on wrecking the play that was about to be held, ultimately starting a fire to disrupt the proceedings and burning down the mansion in which it was being held.

A dramatic end to a very dramatic game. A good time was had by all. You can see in the pictures the many figure flats created for this adventure. This also ended my GMing at the convention and for a change, I was able to just play in games.

Saturday

Savage Worlds – 10,000 B.C.

For my first game of the day, I joined my old Victoria group to play in a game of Savage Worlds set in 10,000 BC. We played in the same guy’s game in the same setting last year, so it’s almost a tradition.

Unfortunately, although the game started out well with our group searching for a new home for our tribe as the Ice Age was approaching, it soon went off track.

One of the players was playing a shaman who could shape change and speak with animals, so when we ran into a wolf pack he approached it in wolf form, chatted a bit and made friends. Same thing with a big bear when we accidentally got between it and its cubs. Then, yet again he found a way to make friends with another tribe that we encountered. He was playing his character well enough, but the game soon became “make friends” in 10,000 B.C., not a wild and crazy caveman game.

The previous years’ hijinks-filled session was a blast, unfortunately, this one was not. Unfortunate, but it was good to play with old friends.

In the same timeslot, my Surrey group friend Michel ran the Sailors on the Starless Sea adventure to great admiration for the work that he puts into it.

He uses Dungeon Crawl Classics as the game system and all the player characters start as 0 level villagers.

The big finale is an assault on a step pyramid with cultists on top about to bring a demon into the world. You have five rounds to stop them. Go!

Savage Worlds – Deadlands Reloaded

Michel then joined me for my second game, Deadlands Reloaded. As I’m running my own “campaign” of this at home, I thought it would be fun to play in a game. I think the last Deadlands game that I played in was the original Deadlands many, many years ago, run by my friend Mark as it happens!

The action started immediately with a devil bat attack and then led into an investigation in a town into the cause of a series of mysterious murders. Deadlands is one of those great game settings that almost merges the action of fantasy games with the mystery of a good Cthulhu game. I like the mix.

We solved the mystery almost halfway through the last hour of play and rushed to confront the cultists in the barn as they attempted to sacrifice the last victim. I like the figure flats that the GM uses, the bases are home made using pieces of plastic and stapled close together forming a nice slot for the figures to go into, put on a cardboard base. This session was definitely more action packed than the previous one with a good mystery and some fun encounters. The final battle was close, as all of our characters were pretty battered and exhausted. A good climax to the adventure.

Cryptworld – Teens & the Haunted House

The final game on Saturday was using an old game system (originally called Chill), now called Cryptworld. We played teenagers who were having a tailgate party in the woods close to a haunted house. A strange fog pushed us toward the house and led to a night of close encounters with ghosts, all with their own troubles and dangers.

I really liked Chill as a kid, it was one of my first games back in the mid-80s. The game system was very innovative for its time and holds up pretty well. All rolls were percentile based, but it had one table for all die roll resolutions with a range of degrees of success: CW Action Table.

The simple setting and storyline made for a great exploration and mystery session. Unfortunately, again, (a theme for my weekend perhaps?), someone decided that burning down the house was the best plan, which ended the adventure in a fiery mass of destruction. We survived, but something evil was released.

A very cool atmospheric game. It ended a little too early, but I understand that’s why game modules now have specific instructions about “the building cannot be burned down” rules.

That wrapped day 2 of the convention. Halfway through the day, I spent a bit of time racing through the vendor’s hall and snapped up some new terrain for future games, including a farmer’s field, a few sets of trees, some rock clumps, an animal pit and a small cemetery piece. Definitely looking forward to using them in the near future.

Sunday

Games on Demand – The Sword, The Crown, The Unspeakable Power (SCUP)

I had intended to play Games on Demand the whole weekend, but seeing various games that piqued my interest, by the time of the convention, my only free slot was Sunday morning. And so, I immediately set up camp in the Games on Demand area.

I had seen that Todd from The Jank Cast was running games and had been intrigued for a long time by their game, SCUP. It’s an Apocalypse World hack for a Game of Thrones-like setting.

We pulled a couple of the other GM’s together to form a group (first thing Sunday morning for some reason was quiet) and got started building our world and power dynamics.

We were only able to play for a couple hours, but in that time we made characters, built our world and managed to engage in a very intense scene or two of politics in which my character (the Voice), a servant in the king’s palace who ran a network of female spies was trying to consolidate her power through her lover (the newly installed king – another PC playing a Noble) against the old power held by the Magisterium who were visiting to try to assassinate the king. I fumbled a couple critical rolls and nearly sparked a palace coup.

This was a great game and I would have loved to have continued it. I’m looking forward to seeing this game in print.

Night’s Black Agents – Assault on Castle Ravenloft

My final game of the weekend was to be an epic one – the modern spy thriller of Night’s Black Agents set in the wilds of Romania, facing the power of Count Strahd. It was D&D’s original Ravenloft meets Jason Bourne.

The RPG Manager for GottaCon himself, Mike Gruber, ran this amazing adventure, complete with awesome props. He even provided expanded maps of the castle itself after my character (a hacker) spent points on obtaining them. They were incredible!  This game was non-stop action, starting with packs of wolves and swarms of bats trapping us in a house with Ireena and her brother and then turning to Strahd picking us off as we searched his castle, guns blazing. I managed to shoot one of my team-mates after Strahd assumed her form. At least I think I did. There was some great fog of war going on.

My only regret of this game was that I had to catch my return ferry and left a half hour before it ended, so missed our amazing victory or catastrophic defeat. I’m hoping it’s the former.

GottaCon is one of, if not the best, gaming cons in the Pacific Northwest and I highly recommend if you’re in the area, check it out next year.

I know I’ll be back.