Thursday, January 27, 2011

Kapcon 20 - Al Shir-Ma

Kapcon 20, after having taken 2 years out of the Kapcon circuit I decided to step back up to the plate this year and GM once more for the fine gamers of NZ and further afield. 

This year I teamed up with Dan L'Estrange (One of my closest friends) and him and I decided that this year we would run a Space/Future based game.

To be fair Dan did all of the game design and pretty much all of the work Pre-Con, It turned out that setting up a new Pathfinder Campaign and trying to write a Con game at the same time is not in my capability anymore and to be fair, I'm not sure it ever was!

I did however pour over Dans work and put my own slur on it before the Con, Though Im not sure I told him about it... Anyway, without further ado, here is my Kapcon Review.


Dal L (ArmyDan)                             Baz (Glock-9mm)


Pre-Con (Friday Night)


Under normal circumstances I would drink until very drunk, and then stagger home and drool my way through day 1... BUT not this year... This year I had a plan! Elaine had orders to come get me if I thought I was staying past 11, she promised she would! Not that she needed too! I managed to catch up with a few of people  James Glover & Jarrod K being but 2  of them! Drinks flowed and chatter enchewed, all in all a worthwhile night. :)



Day 1 (Saturday)

The day was warm but the company was good, Dan and I arrived on time and set up for our 1st 2 rounds of madness, Running network cables between rooms and setting up projectors, solving IP issues and preying that everything worked.. It did with a little kick from IT Baz.

Someone asked me at some point how I thought it would go, I answered with something along the lines of "We have 120 total characters, It should go well... We are aiming for a Tonne you know"... And just like that I'd set the bar!

We then waited for the players to arrive for Purgatory 13 - Decent to Abraxus

Round 1 - Purgatory 13 - GM Dan & Baz




Round one was slower and smaller than expected, we only managed to pull a total of 7 Players, that was far off the number 12 that we wanted, the game did run well though especially as we had never test played the game (I'm not  big on test playing games, Dan and  I have a reasonable idea what "will" and "wont" work, and inevitably we constantly tweak the game anyway). 


The game ran well and with our 1st 17 kills under our belt we made some adjustments to the game and prepped for the next game, to be honest I was nervous for the 2nd rounds attendance levels but I needn't have been!


After round 1 Dan and I headed to the Mt Cook Cafe for a few beers and some food, there we came to a few conclusions, Namely that we were moving too slow in the game and needed to ramp the hell up, so thats what we did, and the body count showed it.




Round 2 - Purgatory 13 - GM Dan & Baz




Round Two saw us pull 11 of the 12 players and the game was a lot more free flowing than in round one, I put that down to greater numbers, In round 1 we slid a few players here and there but now we really started to push people about, The players jumped on board and we rolled like Thunder through the game, This time the players did very well and Dan and I both commented that we thought they were so close to keeping the ship in orbit... However I think the players ran out of hope gas and the Ship split up and all hands were yet again.. lost!


This time though players seemed to get the idea that burning through PC was ok, One of the most disturbing things I heard was one person playing a guard cpt saying... "Right Guys, we need a computer tech, none of us have the skills... who is gunna take the hit?"


The Guards in this game were Ruthless, Killing all Prisoners they found and I put that down to Sarge, he seemed to love shooting folk! :) All in all, 27 killed, bringing the total to (44)


Round 3 - My Life with Boss - GM, Dan L
 


Round 3 saw me at a loose end so I decided to play in Dans game, My life with Boss, A parody play on "My Life with Master", Set in Wellington we played a bunch of Media junkies for a company no better than the "The Daily Sun"... This game was fun and with a good ammount of prep was really enjoyable. Dan pulled it off very well, My highlights of the game was almost convincing my co-worker it was a good idea to hook up with me and helping another player send the lapdog NPC off to be with a "Daddy" for a spell.


If you get the chance to play in this I recommend it, Just make sure you have a solid role playing group and not a roll playing. Dan got top marks!


 That night... 

That night I got home to discover something disturbing, Lemonade had got into the router, I spent an hour pulling it apart, cleaning it with handy towels, cotton buds and a blow drier. But fret not, It worked fine after a dry out :)




Day 2 (Sunday)

Round 4 - 3:16 - GM, Dan L



Dan and I Arrived wondering if we were going to be running in round 1, it turned out no! So I went to the Games on Demand (GOD) room and found that the most appealing game to me was 3:16. 

Having never heard of or played this game before it sounded interesting and yet again Dan gave us a full measure of madness! We shot folk, we had slow-mo moments of me and JJ yelling out "COmmMmmMmMmmEeEee GeTTtTttttT SomMMmMmmmMmeeEEe" while ripping up aliens up with side mounted Machine Gun's.


All in all I enjoyed this game SO much that its now on my list of things to buy, the game was fun, easy and all in all a bloody good lark! :)





Round 5 - Purgatory 13 - GM Me & Dan





After yet another fine meal (Although we were slightly soggy from the walk) we made a few assumptions, 
  1. If we didnt have enough players for our last game, we were going to steal them from GOD, turns out we didnt really need too.
  2. Game on, no prisoners taken, no mr nice guy!
  3. Airlocks are NOT your friend!
  4. We were going to have to push bloody hard to make the tonne..
Little did we know that 3 of the old school GM/PLayers had fallen on loose ends, Dan was sent upstairs to grab some players and he nabbed a few, Just before we started play though like 3 of the Horseman of the Apocolypse Dale, Morg and Luke W rocked up, It was right then I knew we were going to have no issues making the tonne, because these 3 would let loose in a blaze of glory!


So between Dale ripping out 10 fellow PCs and Sophies random headshots we were quickly back on track, and like round 1 any hope of getting to the planet were quickly lost in the en shewing madness. The plot was quickly out the window, the space shuttle in peices it all came down to 1 thing... Who could get the highest body count!


I think the Final room scores for this round was "Dan 26, Baz 55", It was something close to this anway. It didnt matter though, the players went nuts and the newer players who had never played in a game Dan and I were running were treated to what I consder today, Thumbs up Fun!



Prize Giving


Prize giving was held and there were new winners in almost all Catagorys which was groovy, I think Dan and I were a bit sad though at our overall performance, maybe we need to push harder? The prize selection was AMAZING and I think people were pushed to decide what goodies they would get.


After this I rolled home as unlike most, I had to work on Wellington Anv. :(



Wrap Up Notes!

Good Things
  • GOD was well set up to handle players and yet again a good ammount of fun
  • Kapcon orginisation was yet again very good, at no point was I left "lost", Unless of course I was looking at the games board, see below.
  • Hells Pizza orders rocked, Although I didn't order it people seemed to love this facility.
  • Everyone was friendly and happy, although having so many people know me and me not knowing them was a concern.
Disappointing Things
  • The website was ALWAYS down, This meant I couldnt pre reg and never got my name badge, This of course made me sad. But lm sure this will be fixed for next year :S (Not that I care, I have my own solution)
  • The boards with games on them were a little disorginised, I quickly lost interest in trying to read game blurbs and so simply went with whatever was left over. Looking for numbers on them became annoying as hell!
Things that could give added Value!
  • Signs on each floor stating what room numbers are on that floor. I had some annoyed looking people ask me where each room was... I had no idea, I knew where I had to be! lol.
  • Adoption of new Con GM's (Something I think Dan L is taking point on)


Purgatory 13 – Decent to Abraxus 

Number of Players: 12 (two games running concurrently) 
System: A nod to Grey Ranks 
Theme: Sci Fi 
Maturity: 16+ 
Facilitators: Dan L'Estrange & Bryan (Baz/Zak) Clark 

BLERB
----------------------------------------------------
Purgatory 13 Prisoner Transfer Log

Main dock lock complete... transferring computer core in 3... 2... 1... Mark.
Prisoner records transfer complete.
Passport control transfer complete.
Computer core transfer.... incomplete.

ALERT ALERT ALERT. Main dock locks fail. Emergency thrusters online.
ALERT ALERT ALERT. Fire in transfer tube. Decompression in main dock. Lock down procedures in effect.
ALERT ALERT ALERT. Lock down fail.
ALERT ALERT ALERT. Main computer offline. Attempting restart.
ALERT ALERT ALERT. Restart failed.

-----------------------------------------------------

Far from Earth in the distant arm of the equinox system the prisoner starship “Purgatory 13” has suffered severe system and hardware damage after what should have been a standard docking procedure that went wrong!

Purgatory 13's main computer was forced into quick action, and attempted to place the ship into a stable orbit around the Abraxus prison planet, however venting gases and system failures are slowly forcing a descent towards the atmosphere of Abraxus threatening not only the lives of ships crew, but also the lives of the prisoners!

Purgatory 13 attempted a reboot to correct himself, but the computer lost control of the almost all ship systems and stalled (blue screen!). The lock down of prison quarters started to fail sporadically and some the “meanest sons of bitches” destined for prison… are set free!

This rollercoaster scenario pits the (Upstanding Ship Crew) VS (Mean “Son of a Bitch” Prisoners) in a fight to gain control not only the Purgatory 13… But their lives!

With everything going so wrong… Who will be victor?!?


Reviews:

Luke W - http://grandexperiment.livejournal.com/137654.html
Dale - http://total-party-kill.blogspot.com/2011/01/kapcon-20-part-2.html
confusion - http://confusiontempst.livejournal.com/508878.html

Artwork Kudos goes out to

  • Comegetsome - Military Photos (http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=Helicopter+Gunner#/d2c7svx)
  •  Boss - Edi the Yeti (http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=Mad%20Boss&order=9&offset=48#/d164s5a) 
  • Spaceship - Ben Hassad (http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=Spaceship#/d187nr9)

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