RoundCon 2010 – Saga Game Wrap-up

Oh, for the recap.

RoundCon 2010 was a success.  Our Cave of Wanders went pretty well for a first time.  I got to see what Paul was planning for his three games, and he got to see mine.  We filled our our worksheets interviews between games so that we knew what was important and what should echo in future games both at RoundCon and other conventions.  I’d like to think it was universally great, especially in that when things did go wrong, Paul and I were both almost immediately certain of a corrective action.

Full Text can be found at Regret Games.

Kagematsu was, without a doubt, the best game for me.  It was so easy to drop in little details to enhance the scenes on the fly, or to butt heads with the main theme of the game (or even the Saga itself) without disrupting the play experience or fiddling with the mechanics.  We had such a fantastic time with it, in fact, that we played another game after the Saga was over.

I love this game, and I’m very much looking forward to presenting it again and again this year.

I didn’t get to play in Dogs in the Vineyard, because there were just too many people interested.  I sat back and watched Paul run it instead.  The mechanical conversion work he did to turn it in to “Dogs in the Dungeon” worked marvelously.  The sheet he used for the Dungeon (instead of the Town) was genious, and I really like how he handled each “room” or trap in the Dungeon as if it were an NPC to be in conflict with.

Although, background noise and other things led Paul to believe he wasn’t really engaging the players as much as he could have.  So, next time there will probably be a list of Bang! decision points or trademark moral gray issues to feed in to the situations that arise and get that familiar Dogs in the Vineyard squirm out of the players.

DonJon went as expected, with some fun thematic elements to carry forward for next time.  The players behaved just as I was hoping they would, given the situation and the system.  I don’t have much to add other than what’s already on RegretGames.

Ingenious was next, and man was it cool.  I had never actually played, despite editing and contributing to Paul’s work.  We encountered a myriad of oddities, but I kept screwing up and getting knocked out or separated.  Paul worked in a lot of neat themes to the Saga which I hope he posts about soon.

Little Fears was a little chaotic.  Sometimes, at conventions mostly, when you try to run a game about kids, players show up who just want to be utterly disruptive.  But we did have at least four really focused people who carried a great story weight on their shoulders and moved us along really well.  The Usagi Yojimbo game was linked to this one chronologically, but Paul and I hadn’t collaborated much on how to execute either one, so I got to see his ideas unadulterated.

Then he got to see mine.  Usagi Yojimbo the next morning, and since I was overfull, I told people that the game was not as simple as the others we had seen so far.  The game is rigidly structured, almost as formal as a GURPS game can get, and we needed people to make complex decisions fast.  That filtered us down to six, so we got started.

The cards I made to lubricate the process worked pretty well.  I got some worthwhile feedback on the character sheet I customized, and the look and feel of the Gift cards too.  Hopefully I’ll post some of that stuff here soon.

The UY plot, however, wasn’t my best work.  I overcomplicated it, and the dialogue with the NPCs was just… confusing.  Paul was playing in the game, and he (even if it wasn’t intentional) drove that point home with full force.  I rewrote the game on the drive home that night, and I know it’s going to be utterly awesome next time.

End result:  Excitement!

The saga will appear in much the same format at ConCarolinas this year, and with an extended format for GenCon.   Thanks for reading!