GenCon / Origins 1992
From my 15th and 16th zines:
THIS ISN"T THE GENCON REPORT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR
Once I got to the hotel, I found the room I was sharing with Doc Cross, and Mary and Spike Chriest Jones. Tony Lee, Alan Kellogg, and Chris Pesl were all there. Tony handed me his next move in my PBM. I read it and collapsed with laughter, partly because of the discrepancy between what his character thinks is going on and what's really going on, and partly because Tony's good at writing dialogue. After filing the move safely, I headed off to Mecca with Doc. En route, we ran into Avis Crane, and Peter, Susan, and Chuck Hildreth. The lines at Mecca were confusing. I did find the right one, but then it split, and I picked the wrong half (judges only, I think). Fortunately, everyone was very decent about letting strays back into line. After that, Tony, Alan, and I discovered a mall and grabbed lunch. In a way, that was a mistake, because it meant I wasn't all that hungry when everyone went out for Thai food. Everyone was me, Alan, Tony, Doc, Spike, Mary, Chris, and Curtis and Tiffany Whysong, I think. I didn't order anything, but they brought rice for me anyway, and Curtis and Tiffany let me eat some of their food. That was more than enough to make my stomach feel very happy.
Mark Denman had a party with lots of Canadian beer. I managed to do a whole half. It was good beer, very wheaty. Meanwhile, Spike explained to me about the different kinds of character sheets. He grabbed a sheet of looseleaf paper, scrawled a vaguely AD&Dish character, and added another stat with a score of zero, crumpled the paper, unfolded it, and handed it to me. He explained, "Um, we play with another stat. This one is kind of like this one, but it isn't. And if it's over zero, that's good, but if it's under zero, that's bad. Yours is zero, so, um, actually, you don't have to worry about it." At the other end, he pointed to one of Mark's characters, neatly typed with lots of background info. In between, he said, was the character sheet photocopied so often as to be hard to read, but recognizably copied from an original.
Thursday, I fixed the problem with my tickets. I'd signed up for a bunch of things with a bunch more alternatives, and received tickets for the two events I most wanted. And two tickets for another event, in different time slots. I knew this would happen. I was allowed to trade in the duplicate for a generic. Then, I went to the Dealer's Room.
I didn't pass out from shock, but my eyes got very wide. It was as big as Chicon V's. And it was all games. Well, not all. There was garb, jewelry, books, and tapes. One tape was one that I'd been looking for, so I got it, using one of the dollar-off coupons that were provided in the program book. The room was divided into 10 areas, and there was one coupon for each area. I also won a coupon for 10% off on Cloud Kingdom Games, Inc. by answering a riddle. The problem is, there's nothing that I want. If anyone wants it, let me know. I'll send it to the first person who asks. If I get simultaneous requests, I'll roll a d6 or something.
I searched the Dealer's Room for Atlas Games. So did Doc, and, I think, most of the A&Ers at the con did the same. There was a card for the company at R. Talisorian's booth, but it was actually sharing space with Tri Tac Games. Later Thursday, I ran into John Nephew and Jonathan Tweet, and they moved the Atlas materials to Ragnarok's booth. By the next day, Atlas had moved again, to its own booth.
I got my copy of Over the Edge. Then, I headed to Stellar Games' booth, where I got to ask the questions I had about America AfterDark. The extra century of New York City's history was due to a simple type (1829 for 1729). The other question was more involved, and I'm going to be running the scenario, so I can't elaborate.
I had a 4-8 game and an 8-12 game, so I had to deal with lunch and dinner. I ate lunch at the Landmark Cafe. The service was excellent. There was a sign outside informing GenCon goers that the restaurant would be open till midnight Friday and Saturday. The food was delivered quickly. Very quickly. Nevertheless, I was able to write up a character for Jonathan's Friday session of OTE between the time I ordered and the time the food arrived. (This is one of many things I like about OTE.) I grabbed a sandwich to eat later.
The 4-8 slot was Midnight Snack of Champions, run by Cliff Winnig. It was a Stormbringer / Hawkmoon / Call of Cthulhu crossover, involving eight incarnations of the Eternal Champion, all at age 12. This was the last of a four year series, the Four Meals of the Apocalypse. There were only five players at this one. We moved upstairs to get away from all the noise of the gaming hall. The incarnations were Elric, Jherek Carnelian, Dorian Hawkmoon, Randalph Carter, and Ilian of Garathorm. Elric was grabbed at once, of course. The other woman player took Ilian. I debated between Jherek and Randalph. Then, one of the other players took Jherek, so I took Randalph. I think I was the only one who'd read Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (besides the GM, that is), so this was probably for the best. It was a fun session. Elric was a spoiled brat, so, of course, we all voted for him as best roleplayer, but everyone was good. The plot was very linear, but it went with the genre, and I think we all knew that it would be before things started. The GM read lots of excerpts from Lovecraft.
The 8-12 slot was Don't I Know You?, run by Bob Rosenthal, using ICE"s CyberSpace. This one was not as much fun. It wasn't because of the system. While I would never run anything with all those charts, the GM was on top of things. He always had the right chart in front of him, and we didn't have to do anything but roll the dice and raise our hands if we got over a certain number. I think we needed stronger roleplayers.
There were two conspiracies replacing delegates at a peace conference. I was in one and got very worried when none of my co-conspirators recognized me. Problem is, one of them was really on my side. Only he didn't trust me. Okay, no problem. But when I finally realized we were working together, I couldn't convince him that the other three members of our team weren't who they should have been was a problem. After all, we had a job to do, so we should just do it and no ask questions. Apparently, the fact that we had been sent as a team, given each other's identities, and needed to work together to get things done meant nothing. The other conspiracy should have had more problems with me, and two of the people not involved in either conspiracy should have figured out something was going on.
I don't know if this was all the fault of the players. This was a complicated scenario, and perhaps it was the wrong sort of thing to run at a con, where you don't know who your players will be. Nevertheless, the guy who took best roleplayer deserved it. He was very good. I just wish his character had had more reason to associate with mine. It might not have made the game better, but I would have had more fun. Luck of the draw, I guess. We didn't choose our characters; the GM handed them out.
Back at the hotel, Spike and I debated whether it's fair to insist that the pcs take notes. I sort of feel that if you can't keep track of things, It makes the GM's life easier if you take notes, but Spike pointed out that you don't know what's important. There are ways to have the characters remember, even if the players don't, such as CoC's idea rolls. We also had a discussion about game designers inventing new terminology when the industry has developed its own. The changes range from merely unnecessary to beyond the call of absurdity. Examples of the latter were given in the review of Dangerous Journeys that Spike was reading.
On Friday, I ate at the Olympian Cafe. This was the third restaurant I'd been in. All three have bathrooms in another building. You go through a door, and you're in a different building, and it's the bathroom of that building you use. My first thought: Gaming applications -- gotta work this in somehow.
After breakfast, I picked up Kin Rise, a NightLife supplement, and showed up at the Atlas booth-of-its-very-own-at-last for the OTE demo, and met Nicole Lindroos. Then Jonathan took the OTE players upstairs. The only restriction on our characters was that we were all freshmen at D'Aubaine University. I announced that I was playing a male character in the hope that this would help the other players remember this. It may have; my character was only referred to as "she" once. Of course, this may also have been due to the fact that since all the pcs were male, we were rooming together -- well, in two adjacent manufactured triples.
Once we had our characters worked out, Jonathan went to the bathroom, leaving us to get acquainted. Originally, my character, Christopher (art history) was rooming with Alex (art) and Bob (English -- an older student, discharged from the army, I think) Alexander (music), Charlie (computer science), and Mark (I think -- I didn't take notes till a day after. I don't remember his major) were in the other room. Mark looked at Charlie typing on the computer, and Alexander, playing on the violin, and asked Chris to switch with him. He agreed, and it turned out to have been a good idea. Alex had this habit of opening up his old wounds to paint with the blood, which really disturbed Chris, and it turned out that he had a couple of things in common with Alexander.
I'd read the playtest version of OTE, but had to forget most of it since Chris had never been to the island. He was relying on the knowledge of Alexander, who had lived there all his life. I was convinced that Erik Baker, who played Alexander, had read the playtest version, because he always had the answers to my questions about the island. Turns out Erik had never read it; he just asked Jonathan if he knew anything about what was going on (and probably read the handouts more thoroughly than I did).
I wasn't entirely pleased with my roleplaying. I had trouble getting into the dorm scene. OTOH, I designed Chris so that it made sense that he'd be the same one beat behind that I was. And I had fun when Chris discussed music with Alexander and Charlie.
The plot was straightforward: An innocent woman from Libya, Fatima, had been brought to Al Amarja to be used as a virgin sacrifice. We prevented this, and Bob disqualified her.
Afterwards, Jonathan said that when we made up characters, instead of having them handed to us, he could tell what we wanted. Bob had the flaw of being a lech, a pretty clear indication that the player wanted him to get involved with a beautiful woman. In fact, Bob was the one who first hypothesized what was going on. I asked Jonathan if he'd created the plot in response to Bob's expectations. He said that it had been planned that way from the start.
Lyle, Charlie's player, wanted to play around with the occult and with computers. Erik wanted Alexander to have a chance to do things with his music. I wanted Christopher to get involved in intrigue. I forget what Alex's player wanted. I think Mark's player wanted to get involved in whatever weirdness was going on.
I'd be really interested to learn what happened at the other sessions. I gather that at one, one of the players had a fundamentalist Moslem character who was scandalized that Fatima was in shorts.
After the session, I grabbed dinner at the Landmark Cafe. On the way, I ran into Gregg Allen, who recognized me because I was short and carrying Over the Edge. After dinner, I went in search of a game for my generic ticket.
I landed in a Cthulhu game, To Stop a Thief, run by Claude Sigmund. It was excellent. The characters were the staff and patients of a rest facility. No one knew anything about the Mythos. Everyone played very well. My character was a (male) German psychologist, and I managed a halfway decent accent, and I even remembered a bit of the syntax. Another woman played a (male) hypocondriac. At one point, in chracter, I thought he was improving. Out of character, I was convinced he was serving the Outer Gods. Both of me were wrong. He was a private detective investigating rumors of malpractice. (The institution was ahead of its time and had made enemies.) Best roleplayer went to the man who played Meredith Breithweight, the wife of the Institute's founder, who was being driven mad by dreams sent from the villain. She died heroically, saving us from the icky. The player described the scene very dramatically. He said that he seemed to have a talent for picking characters who were destined to go loudly insane. (The GM told us who each of the characters were, and we spoke up when one sounded good.) We got to keep our characters. The GM had lots of fun playing about 20 loonies.
Saturday, I had breakfast at the Landmark Cafe, then went to the Dealers' room. I finally broke down and bought Night Edge, a supplement for R. Talisorian's CyberPunk, done by Ianus. Then, I sat in on an OTE demo that John Nephew was running. The three players made very strange characters. Onre was a pyrophobic werewolf. One was a man with a demon trapped inside him. The third was a man who was trying to categorize 1001 ways to die. He'd reached 666 when he came to Al Amarja. I think he killed his parents. He was inspired by a serial killer whose bodies he kept discovering.
After the characters (hereinafter referred to as Werewolf, Demon, and Death) were made up, John told the players that they were sharing a triple, told them to get acquainted, and went to the bathroom. The conversation was priceless. Some bits I remember:
Death starts watching a tape of vehicle crashes. Werewolf hangs his martial arts paraphenalia on the wall. Demon puts his occult paraphenalia on his desk. Werewolf picks up a piece of Demon's occult paraphenalia.
Demon: Did I say you could that?
Werewolf: No. (Keeps playing with it.)
Demon: Put it down.
Werewolf: Oh. Ok. (Puts it down.)
Demon: I'm not one of those share-and-share-alike roommates.
Werewolf: Well, ok. I was going to let you share my stuff, but now I'm not so sure.
Death: You can share my video tapes.
Werewolf: No thanks.
Upon establishing that Demon's paraphenalia included candles, Werewolf hung his fire extinguisher on the wall.
Death: All men, whether Caucasian, African, Asian, or European, have one thing in common.
Werewolf: Penises?
Demon: Assholes?
Death: They all die!
Demon: What about women?
Death: Oh, women die too.
Werewolf: This guy's sharp.
Around then, I left because otherwise I would've broken down and begged John to let me in the game. I might've broken down and begged John to let me in the game. I might've done just that, but I wanted to be in Doc's Toon game.
I learned firsthand the truth that comedy is harder than tragedy. I have a handle on being dramatic, but being (intentionally) funny doesn't come easy. I played William Goat, an inventor and cook. Mary was Queenie, a 250-lb duck with a crush on William. William, of course, didn't know this. I just couldn't find a way to be funny ignoring her. I forgot who played Barbara Woolly, a sheep who wanted an Oscar, but he was very good. Curtis was a martial artist pig, Van Hamme. I forgot who was Chicky, a trigger happy chicken. I think the best player was Scott Bennie. He played Cluck Kent, a boasting rooster. We had been hired to remove a Foogle Bird from a rich toon's house, with as little damage as possible. This made me nervous until it finally clicked (about 5 minutes into the game) that causing damage was not only expected; it was funny.
Queenie and William invented a Foogle Bird detector, which pointed at Cluck. Cluck marveled at the ingenuity of the Foogle Bird hiding in his clothes. It then led William on a wild foogle chase, until he fixed it. Meanwhile, the house was taking a great deal of damage. Barbara found the Foogle, and was locked into the oven by him. She was then disguised by him, first as a Foogle Bird, and then as Cluck. When Cluck found the Foogle, he was told that an imposter was besmirching his good name and supporting gun control. He fired at Barbara while singing the NRA anthem.
William found the Foogle Bird. Foogle tried to trick William. I wish he had -- that would have been funny. Unfortunately, William kept making his Resist Fast Talk and Smarts rolls. Sorry, Doc. Then Queenie splashed Female Foogle Bird pheremones over her, and Foogle followed her. William shot, missed Foogle, hit Queenie. Chicky got sucked into William's pocket, running afoul of an anti-pickpocketing device while trying to find a spare gun in William's pocket. Foogle tossed William into a jail cell. Chicky shot at Foogle from inside the pocket, aiming to missed, and missed missing him, thus hitting him. Queenie summoned the Animator to revive Foogle.
William came up with a theory to explain the Animator's presence. This was my best moment. Spittle flew from my lips as I gathered a crowd by explaining that it might be possible that there existed creatures of such power -- um, I forget exactly what I said, but it was funny. It was even funnier when the Animator opened the wall, stuck his head in, said, "Or not," and pulled his head out, closing the wall behind him.
Cluck, meanwhile, wanted to see the director about his contract, saying that he was only supposed to be shot once a week. The director explained the fine print. ("No, that states you cannot be shot twice in the same episode by the same character with the same gun. Except on Tuesdays, when it's null and void.") Eventually, the Foogle Bird was caught, but not before he had disguised Queenie as Vice President Quayle. William told him to chase the Foogle Bird, so he went to the bathroom instead.
After the Toon demo, I went to my last scheduled event, Witch Hunt, run by Ray Johnson, using NightLife. He had an assistant playing an npc. In addition, there was an extra player, using a character made up outside the game. I had fun shouting my throat hoarse.
Since this was NightLife, we all played supernatural creatures, known as the Kin. Our mission was to stop a witch from casting a spell that would destroy all the Kin -- including said witch. She was insane. This may be a technical flaw; the only reason we defeated her is that she kept not casting the spell, preferring to play games. Justifying it by insanity seems a bit weak. Still, it wasn't too serious a problem. Another technical problem was that the background info wasn't as carefully prepared as it should have been. We were all from various factions, and, somewhat late in the game, I decided to take a quick tally and see who was working for whom. I asked the Shocker, and he said, "For you." The GM confirmed, saying that our characters were best friends. I said that it would've been nice to have this on my background sheet, and he admitted the goof. Then I asked the Bugwalker, and he said, "We're all working for the Commune, aren't we?" We weren't. We were from varying factions, all working together against the witch. This should have been made clearer, either in our sheets, at the briefing, or by allowing us to talk to each other for a few minutes before the briefing.
Ultimately, this didn't make much difference, since no one wanted to be exterminated, except for the Bugwalker, who was a traitor. The ghost of Julius Caesar had figured this out, but we had no proof. Out of character, we were freaked that we saw no one passing notes to the GM. Stupid us -- the Bugwalker's player sat right next to him and passed the notes under the table. And, ultimately, it didn't matter. All he could do, without getting caught and killed, was slow us down. He did this well. The only reason the spell didn't come off was that the witch kept not casting it.
At one point, the GM forgot that my character was a Toxixx, a creature of toxic waste who could spit radioactive waste. (I think this was limited to three times / night.) As self-appointed leader, I came forward to talk with what I thought was the being who sent us on the mission. Turned out he was a demon. My fault -- I'd stopped paying attention for a minute. Anyway, when he lunged for Asid's (my character) throat, I explained that Asid was spitting, and the GM asked if he didn't want to dodge. I decided that he would only do that if he could still spit. The GM explained that the demon now had his hands on Asid's throat. I asked about the effects of the spit, and the GM looked blank until I reminded him who Asid was.
GM: Oh! I thought you were just --
Me: No. I wasn't being defiant; I was just attacking.
GM: That sounds pretty defiant to me.
Me: Well, I wasn't just being defiant.
Another Player: He's being actively defiant, not passively defiant.
We spent too much time arguing. I would've been glad to let someone take over the planning, but no one person did. I was extremely glad when things improved. I came back grom the bathroom to find out that we'd recon'd a church. Laser, a vampire, showed me the floorplan, and asked if I wanted a single frontal assault or a multi-front assault. I said that I preferred the latter, and he immediately explained how it could be done. Wonderful man.
The guy who took best roleplayer deserved it, but I didn't know how much until the end. He was the werebat, Bat Masterson. He'd dealt with security in one building by changing his appearance to that of a dead guard and explaining that the alarm was set off by a bird hitting the window.
NPC: A bird? That's it?
Bat: Well (looks at other guard's nameplate), Dave fired three shots at it. Sorry, sir. We got the bird, sir.
He later repeated this performance, even more brilliantly, for the police. Then he left a note, signed "Frank" (the guard's name) explaining that he'd done all the damage. Since Frank was dead, he couldn't complain. Later, after the battle in the church, he left a note that said, "Frank was here."
What I didn't know until after the game was that Bat had changed his shape at the scene of the final battle. He went down to a bunker, looking like one of the men who'd been killed, and told the witch's troops that all was well, and they should stay put. This saved all our asses.
I discovered afterwards that the man who played Caesar was not playing in character. This wasn't something like the CyberSpace game, where the guy who played my co-conspirator may simply have had a different interpretation of instructions, albeit one that struck me as idiotic. (Then again, I'd done something which had confused the issue.)
My character sheet had said that Asid thought Caesar was a fool, and that he was ready to grab leadership from Caesar at first opportunity. Caesar refused to be goaded, and made no comment when Asid put himself in charge. Asid figured he was just being reasonable, for a change. I wondered if the player was at fault or if the info was simply confusing. After the game, the player said I could have his character sheet (the GM let us keep them). I took it and discovered the following sentence: "Julius is a proud leader, he is sure of himself and his mission, and will tolerate little insubordination from anybody." Sigh. I was so looking forward to conflict here.
After the game, I grabbed dinner, headed back to the hotel, hit the White Wolf party briefly, and went with Doc and Mark in Nicole's car to the Atlas party. We got back late, and I packed up and collapsed.
I had to leave early on Sunday, which was just as well. I'd rather leave when I'm still wanting more than when I'm sick of it.
TOP TEN LIST
The ten best reasons to buy Over the Edge and carry it around with you are (credits in parentheses:
10, It's really think, and it will stop a small caliber bullet. (Spike Chriest Jones) (for large caliber bullets, you need Dangerous Journeys.)
9. If you don't, Her Exaltedness, Monique D'Aubainne, Historic Liberator and Current Shepherdess of the Island of Al Amarja will have you shot by the Peace Force. (Jonathan Tweet)
8. It allows you to come up with goofy jokes for top ten lists. (Jonathan Tweet)
7. It scares off men with low self-confidence. (Jonathan Tweet)
6. When people ask why you're wearing a noose, you can show it to them. (me)
5. You meet such interesting people when you're carrying it. (me)
4. Gregg Allen recognizes you when you're carrying it (if you're me, that is). (me)
3. The fate of the free world may depend on it. (Avram Grumer)
2. It makes Jonathan Tweet very happy. (me)
1. Having OTE is the new definition of cool. (Avram Grumer)
