Darran Sims

I have just undergone a small crisis recently with some players of my group not happy with the game system I am running. Now I must admit that I do *really* like HeroQuest, and the new version of the rules for the most part have improved the game to me no end.
I did go through a bit of self examination but by the end of it I was still happy with what I am doing though I have taken some steps to see if I can improve my GMing techniques. I think that I have to be a bit harsher and put the PCs at risk a lot more.

The best thing for me was to run another good game - I did that yesterday and not only did I have a good time but my players were very happy.

 

I ran my 'Winter Warriors' HeroQuest 2.0 playtest game for my brother, my sister and even my wife joined in.
I usually get the players to create their own characters for this game as art of the playtest but as our time was a little bit limited I allowed them to pick from the characters already created in previous playtests. Most of them are excellent characters and offer great opportunity for role-playing.
They picked their characters and got playing, enjoying the setting of the Fimblewinter and stepping up to be the BIG heroes.
It went very well as all the players were trying to work out what was going on and my wife got quite blood-thirsty attacking the Lunar Sorcerer with gusto!

So I am feeling much better about myself and my games and look forward to running a new Firefly game at Dragonmeet 2008 and getting a load of games ready for Conception 2009.

0 Continuum 2008. John Foster Hall [also known as New Hall], Leicester University. UK.
Friday 1st - Monday 4th August 2008.
http://www.continuum.uk.net

Continuum 2008 is a three day convention for 250+ attendees held in a modern conference centre at the University of Leicester Halls of Residence, Oadby, Leicester, UK.
Freeforms, Call of Cthulhu, HeroQuest, RuneQuest, BRP, Savage Worlds, Indie games, and plenty of other game systems will be played at this convention.

A colour Convention Book will be produced and given free to all attendees on arrival.
As well as information on the convention, venue and games programmes there will be articles on gaming and role-playing.

We are looking for contributions for this year's Convention Book, whether it is artwork, maps, articles, non-player characters, scenarios, encounters, gaming or GMing advice, settings, stories or anything else you can think of.

We can not pay you but all contributors will receive the heartfelt thanks from the Continuum Committee, the joy of seeing their work in print and a free copy of the Con Book.

All copyright of any material we use in the book remains the authors or artists, so you can use it again elsewhere.

If you can send all submissions to darransims AT googlemail DOT com.

Thank you for your time.

 The East Midlands Dungeons & Dragons Meetup Group August Monthly Meeting
Sunday 12th August 2007 
The Brunswick Inn
1 Railway Terrace, Derby, DE1 2RU.


So this was my first East Midlands D&D Meetup Group monthly meet and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
I know the Brunswick Inn well, having spent my last night of freedom before my wedding there, though I have never played a game or knew that people meet up there for games.

There were a few problems with the original date as it clashed with Derby County’s first match of the season; the pub is one of the closest to the stadium and the railway station and was packed with football supporters. This would have made it very difficult to play games!
I did try to snag one of the small meeting rooms in the Assembly Rooms on the same day but was denied by The Powers That Be. So it was moved to the Sunday instead; nice and quiet but unfortunately the kitchen is closed on Sundays so people had to buy their food from the very expensive café at the railway station.

So I arrived at one o’ clock and sorted out my membership card and handed over my donation to the group of thirty-five badge-holders with neck chains. The membership cards double as name badges having a mug shot as well as the on-line avatar of the wearer – nice touch!
I then set up the table ready for my game in the far corner of the room. Sorting out all the money and other props.

I did have three people pre-booked for the game at the EMD&DMU website but I also managed to rope in four more players for the game, giving me a full set of players.
After checking that they all were familiar with the setting of Firefly/Serenity [they were!] I started off telling them that given a choice between doing something sensible but boring or doing something risky and fun always go for the risky option!


The whole group of gamers playing Serenity:HeroQuest.

The players picked their characters; all choosing characters that suited them well and I handed out the small stacks of money to each of them [except Call who only gets a ripped 1 Cred note!] along with their Gun Cards.

The money is used to show how rich [or poor] the characters were and they could use it to buy extra equipment or supplies with it. One player, Chris asked what else it was used for. I told him that you could earn or steal more and I would take some off you if you walked into a bar, brought fuel, weapons or ammo or pay your docking fees. It is part of the Firefly setting – ‘Get a job, get paid, keep flying’.
“Pay Bills? I play these games to get away for paying bills and direct debts and the like!” He stated incredulously. Nice moment that.

The gun cards are a new thing I have introduced to my games. I wanted to give the players more ‘flavour’ for the setting by allowing them to see picture of the weapons they will be using along with the associated abilities and capabilities of those weapons. Also it allows me to take them off them should they lose them or hand them over to someone else or they can trade them between each other. The Captain has the most and he can choose to give them to the other players or not.

More photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/darran/sets/72157601417033593/
 
And
http://dnd.meetup.com/700/photos/?photoAlbumId=199663&photoId=1886068
 


So in all a very good afternoon and a very good game, probably made better by washing down pints of ‘White Feather’ ale.
It is a shame I could stay on after my game and play Paranoia with the rest of the group but I had to get back to wife who was feeling a little neglected.
All being well I will run the sequel ‘The Quick and the Dead’ Serenity:HeroQuest at September’s EMD&DMU monthly meet up.

( The Furnace logo )

0 Furnace 2007. The Garrison Hotel, Sheffield. UK.
Saturday 20th - Sunday 21st October 2007.
http://www.rpgfurnace.com/ 


( To read more and see some photos of the event )

Signup here: http://www.rpgfurnace.com/?page_id=13

To see photos of the venue and last year's event:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/furnace/pool/

Tentacles Untapped 2007 Con Report.

0 Tentacles Untapped. Castle Stahleck, Bacharach, Germany.

Friday 25th - Monday 28th May 2007.
http://www.tentacles-convention.de/

Well I had a complete blast!

What a fantastic con. And the usual problems that have plagued this con in the past [things not under the control of the convention organisers] have been resolved.

All the guests were approachable and very talkative, the freeforms just looked amazing with almost every player being in costume, and all the games I ran had international players of very high standard.

The Friday went well and did seem to start earlier with the Opening Ceremony going well. The Moon Design Seminar was good, Rick Meints and Simon Bray explained about the new products and about the completed manuscripts they have lined up. Authors Greg Stafford and Jeff Richards also added further insight.



There was plenty of new product released at Tentacles, ‘Blood over Gold’ the 154 page trader princes campaign book, ‘Champions of the Reaching Moon’ the Lunar Hero/Hero Band book and ‘History of the Heortling Peoples’ one of the Stafford Library unfinished works. All look fantastic and it is good to know that Rick will stick to doing the larger page counts rather than splitting books down that has been done in the past.
Interesting to hear that they have a number more books in the pipeline, an Elf Book, a Prax pack, two books about the West, the Great Argrath Campaign by Greg Stafford, and of course the new setting-less HeroQuest core rule book.Though there are plenty of works ready to come out there was a call for more.
Any idea will be considered though there will be a contract issued with deadlines and a project leader will be required – any interest contact Mark Galeotti.

The rest of the evening was more of a social gathering, drinking beer and chatting with friends new and old. Also had a good talk with the 'Smart Party', a group of players from Nottingham who were Tentacles Virgins though regular convention goers. We even played the pub quiz as one of the teams and didn't do too badly considering the other teams had the creators and writers of the games we were being asked questions on!



All day Saturday I ran my Serenity:HeroQuest games for 12 hours and had a good time. The first game was with the Smart Party and a couple of others joined in as well. A very good game though I did have problems putting on the blue rubber glove under the table, which spoiled the surprise some what. The players managed to get me in a fit of giggles at one point. I was annoyed with myself that I didn’t take a photograph of the group though.
The second game was also a hoot with the players really got into the characters and hammed it up a little even though some did not know the setting that well. All the players were surprised by the big reveal at the end.



The last game ended up being a player verses player as the player of Johner accepted the bride and turned on the rest of the team. All the players were up for this, all played like they weren't expecting the double cross and we did run with it; putting us all on the spot as I had to make it up as we went along.



One thing I do love about running games at Tentacles are the international players. I had English, German, Dutch, French and American players in my games and was a nice mix to have. I am just sorry they had to struggle with my Derby mumble.

On the Sunday there was a little mix up with where the group photo would be taken due to the rain. The tried to fit everyone into the main hall but due to sheer numbers they wouldn’t all fit in! Luckily the rain had stopped in time for us all to file out and get into position. I wore my silly Jayne hat that is bright orange so that I would be stopped easily. The mess about with the group photo delayed the set up for the freeform so that ended up starting a little later than hoped.

The Serenity/Firefly freeform 'You Can't Take the Sky from Me!' that I helped to write and run went very well. I was very nervous as this was the first freeform/Larp I had run and GMed and I wasn't sure if it would go well. Once we started the game none of the GMs were need for about the first hour; all the players just carried on playing and staying in character, getting twisted deeper and deeper into their plots. So good to see.
I think part of the reason it went well was the support of Simon, Colin Driver and Bazz Hoftijzer as the GMs and the quality of the players.
I think I will do another again now that I have caught the bug!







Sunday ended with sitting in the auction and the closing ceremony where I had won a prize [and a cool tentacles badge] for running games. It is good to have a convention that rewards the GMs.
I did witness the ‘Daughters of Darkness’ book burning that I am always in two minds about though it was funny to see Daniel Fahey spill a drop of his drink on the burning ashes to see them explodes in a great gout of flame! 



 

So the highlights were winning a set of duck miniatures on the tombola, being declared having the loudest snore, getting excellent players in all my games, laughing so much over the whole weekend and meeting old friends and making new ones. The lowlights were being declared having the loudest snore, going up and down the stairs of the castle and the fact that the weekend is over.

So special thanks to Fabian and all his team for organising such a fantastic convention. I do appreciate all the hard work that goes into running a convention from my experience with Continuum and Furnace but I do not think that I could do it each year!





Cheers and here’s to Tentacles 2008, Friday 9th to Monday 12th May 2008.

To see photos of this year’s Tentacles go to my Flickr Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/darran/

Tentacles Untapped photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/darran/sets/72157600285540891/

Nick's Tentacles Untapped Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23016277@N00/