Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
My last weekend was spectacular. I was out in western Massachusetts at a house con that's a weekend of glorious board games and video games. I offered to run a game of Dread and Mutants & Masterminds for anyone who was interested. (I didn't know most of the attendees before the weekend.) And hey, I'd run Fiasco if anyone was interested, but I didn't expect. . .
Ha!
It's remarkable to get that caliber of players; all four games I ran were superb due to the folks playing. Here's a quick run-down of the RPGs only, since I also played pinball, about 6 board games and a few video games:
1. Fiasco (base playset): This is a game where you basically create your own Coen Brothers movie. I was playing Bubba Sr, an out-of-work fellow who had been shoplifting porn from the local drugstore for more than 20 years. There was Bubba Jr., my identical twin who was 3 years younger, a brand new ambitious alderman, the old alderman who now worked in McDonalds after a scandal where we'd framed him for shoplifting porn, and my partner in shoplifting. We somehow ended up getting mired in a morass of revenge and lies after importing New Jersey mobsters to film a sketchy movie (named "Your order's up.. in my pants") in the local MickeyDs. Pure unalloyed hilarity for four hours. Also, a lot of Scotch, Fiasco being the one RPG that probably gets better while drinking.
2. Fiasco (Harry Potter playset): This turned into a tale of young love and revenge at the magical school of Ipswich-Upon-Pond-Pond Academy, as my Harry Potter analogue (Winton Crumpley) realized that he had enough dirt on the headmaster (Rupius Cumberbatchbottom) and Dark-Lord-loyal-students (Penelope Fritworth and Grondo Mactaggert) to try and boss them all around. Crumbelina Mumbleford, Professor of Elocution, and the spying janitor Jasper Winklepot tried to stop him. By the end of the game we decided that the Dark Lord had actually been turned into the Headmaster's pot-bellied pig familiar, the elocution professor had been turned into a pig herself, the janitor was transformed into an intelligent empty sack (sort of like the sorting hat) by the Dark Lord, and young Winton ended up alone and friendless after he learned the Dark Lord was actually his father. You needed to be there, but one person literally threw up post-game from laughing so hard. It was awesome.
Fiasco summary: holy crap, go buy this game right now! It needs no GM and no prep time, it runs best with 3-4 people (5 max), it's available on PDF for cheap, and it's my favorite game from last year. Worth every penny. It's also good for new players; we had several people at these games who had never roleplayed before in their life, and they were great.
3. Dread: This is the horror game where you pull blocks from a Jenga tower to resolve actions instead of rolling dice. I ran my game Separation Anxiety, which starts as a reality TV show where all the PCs are couples in the process of divorcing. Of course, a challenge goes bad and everything falls apart in the worst possible way. By the end of the game we had panicked contestants climbing an Aztec step pyramid in a rainstorm so that someone could cut out their own heart on an ancient altar.
And wow, did it go well. Playing in a basement where we could gradually turn off lights made it that much better. Scraping a coffee cup on the floor to match the sound of a sharpening knife in the darkness creeped people out. And the role playing was superb, enough that the game's resolution completely surprised me. I do so love this game.
4. Mutants & Masterminds: I ran my good-intro-to-MnM game "Antiheroes," where half the PCs are superheroes and half are supervillains. A really touching, emotional ending, which is sort of unexpected in a comic, and we were able to fit the host's 7 year old son into the game halfway through. The kid did wonderfully; highly focused, really imaginative, and he made the game more fun instead of less fun for the other players. Since we didn't have a sheet for him, he invented a hero on the spot (an archer named Longshot) and he'd tell us what he wanted to do. I'd tell him what to roll. Frankly, his hero's tactics were better than my own...
So, a great weekend. I love my three regular D&D games, but the learning curve for picking up a new character (especially with 4e IMO) is too great for one-shots. "Smelly hippy RPGs" (as we like to call the indie press games) have filled this niche just beautifully.
Ha!
It's remarkable to get that caliber of players; all four games I ran were superb due to the folks playing. Here's a quick run-down of the RPGs only, since I also played pinball, about 6 board games and a few video games:
1. Fiasco (base playset): This is a game where you basically create your own Coen Brothers movie. I was playing Bubba Sr, an out-of-work fellow who had been shoplifting porn from the local drugstore for more than 20 years. There was Bubba Jr., my identical twin who was 3 years younger, a brand new ambitious alderman, the old alderman who now worked in McDonalds after a scandal where we'd framed him for shoplifting porn, and my partner in shoplifting. We somehow ended up getting mired in a morass of revenge and lies after importing New Jersey mobsters to film a sketchy movie (named "Your order's up.. in my pants") in the local MickeyDs. Pure unalloyed hilarity for four hours. Also, a lot of Scotch, Fiasco being the one RPG that probably gets better while drinking.
2. Fiasco (Harry Potter playset): This turned into a tale of young love and revenge at the magical school of Ipswich-Upon-Pond-Pond Academy, as my Harry Potter analogue (Winton Crumpley) realized that he had enough dirt on the headmaster (Rupius Cumberbatchbottom) and Dark-Lord-loyal-students (Penelope Fritworth and Grondo Mactaggert) to try and boss them all around. Crumbelina Mumbleford, Professor of Elocution, and the spying janitor Jasper Winklepot tried to stop him. By the end of the game we decided that the Dark Lord had actually been turned into the Headmaster's pot-bellied pig familiar, the elocution professor had been turned into a pig herself, the janitor was transformed into an intelligent empty sack (sort of like the sorting hat) by the Dark Lord, and young Winton ended up alone and friendless after he learned the Dark Lord was actually his father. You needed to be there, but one person literally threw up post-game from laughing so hard. It was awesome.
Fiasco summary: holy crap, go buy this game right now! It needs no GM and no prep time, it runs best with 3-4 people (5 max), it's available on PDF for cheap, and it's my favorite game from last year. Worth every penny. It's also good for new players; we had several people at these games who had never roleplayed before in their life, and they were great.
3. Dread: This is the horror game where you pull blocks from a Jenga tower to resolve actions instead of rolling dice. I ran my game Separation Anxiety, which starts as a reality TV show where all the PCs are couples in the process of divorcing. Of course, a challenge goes bad and everything falls apart in the worst possible way. By the end of the game we had panicked contestants climbing an Aztec step pyramid in a rainstorm so that someone could cut out their own heart on an ancient altar.
And wow, did it go well. Playing in a basement where we could gradually turn off lights made it that much better. Scraping a coffee cup on the floor to match the sound of a sharpening knife in the darkness creeped people out. And the role playing was superb, enough that the game's resolution completely surprised me. I do so love this game.
4. Mutants & Masterminds: I ran my good-intro-to-MnM game "Antiheroes," where half the PCs are superheroes and half are supervillains. A really touching, emotional ending, which is sort of unexpected in a comic, and we were able to fit the host's 7 year old son into the game halfway through. The kid did wonderfully; highly focused, really imaginative, and he made the game more fun instead of less fun for the other players. Since we didn't have a sheet for him, he invented a hero on the spot (an archer named Longshot) and he'd tell us what he wanted to do. I'd tell him what to roll. Frankly, his hero's tactics were better than my own...
So, a great weekend. I love my three regular D&D games, but the learning curve for picking up a new character (especially with 4e IMO) is too great for one-shots. "Smelly hippy RPGs" (as we like to call the indie press games) have filled this niche just beautifully.
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