Achtung! Cthulhu: The Book of Eibon (A Study in Fate)

Last week we had our first Fate Achtung! Cthulhu play session. None of the players had tried Fate before (well, one player had tried a sample combat in Spirit of the Century and was unimpressed). I have played and run several Fate games, but I have not run any Cthulhu or horror games prior to this one.

A Note on Nazis

I want to point out that the group has decided to play a team of researchers working under Germany's Ahnenerbe. The Fate Keeper's guide addresses this (p. 15 of the PDF, or p. 135 of the softcover) and suggests against it, but provides the resources to do so. As a group, we discussed it and agreed to tread lightly. To the players' credit, we ended up with two disgruntled veterans of the Great War and three civilians taking advantage of the German War Machine to further their own ends.

Character Generation

For the most part, we did character generation by the book. To facilitate this, Modiphius provides a handy character creation worksheet!

Although we did the phase trio (Life Before the War, Getting Noticed, and Crossing Paths), I asked the players to hold off on choosing aspects at that point. Ryan Macklin, who developed the Fate edition of Achtung! Cthulhu, wrote an article on Decoupling Aspects from Phases that basically says: Do the character creation phases, but don't tackle aspects yet. Once you have a character background, then fill in some aspects, with the option of leaving some blank to fill in during play.

Once we had full backstories and crossed paths, some of the players decided to use that information to create aspects. I did require at least the High Concept and Trouble aspects.

Here's what we ended up with:

Oberst Maximillian Loeb - The soldier
Maximillian started his military career almost missing end of the first world war, losing the opportunity to prove himself to the Fatherland. Between the great wars, he would take any assignment in order to further his career, even if that meant testing experimental weaponry. Unfortunately, one of those experiments backfired, scarring his face and derailing his plans of promotion. Despite his protestations, he now finds himself in charge of this rag-tag bunch of civilians.
• Grizzled veteran of the Fatherland.
• These scars keep me from claiming a soldier's glory.

Dorothea Bate –
The inspiration for Gerty.

Gertrude (Gerty) Hoffman - The archeologist
Gerty has been interested in the natural sciences since she was a child. Her fieldwork has only been interrupted by her studies. Her paper on Archaeozoology got her noticed by the Ahnenerbe. For better or for worse, she's found an outlet for her knowledge in the them.
• German pioneer of archaeozoology.
• I'm a woman in a man's world.
• I learned my social graces in the field.
• Science is my religion.

Gerulf Fuß - The veteran
Gerulf also fought in the first world war and was also scarred. However, his scars were more of the mental variety. He had witnessed some unnatural horror that wiped out the rest of his unit and left him with one eye that permanently peers into the Dreamlands. After several years of drinking, fighting, and therapy, he's sociable again, more or less. The alcohol seems to help.
• (Hard drinking) Great War veteran with an Eldritch eye.
• Don't take my bottle.

Klaus Heidelberg - The doctor
Dr. Heidelberg is well known in psychiatric circles, both for his understanding of the brain and his unorthodox methods. He is driven to know how the human mind works, particularly in the presence of occult phenomena – even if that means studying the brain directly. The Ahnenerbe seem to provide plenty of subjects.
• Neuropsychiatrist studying the effects of the occult on the brain.
• I won't let a little thing like morals or conscience get in the way of my pursuit of knowledge.

Yu Wong - The occultist
Yu started as a clerk in a warehouse cataloging artifacts for a national museum. What started as a passing interest in the occult turned into a full-fledged OBSESSION. During that period, the museum's curator was lost in an accident. Fortunately for Yu, he's just been assigned to Germany to protect Japan's interests in matters of the occult.
• Japanese Mythos Occult Enthusiast.
• Overenthusiastic to a fault.
• Always looking for an opportunity.
• Nothing is an obstacle.
• Blissfully arrogant.

Some post-character generation notes:
1. It's still difficult to explain exactly what aspects are, what they do, and how to use them. I find it's best to show though in-game example.
2. There's more fiddly bits and a longer skill list in Fate Achtung! Cthulhu than in Fate Core. It would be helpful if everybody had at least a digital copy of the Fate Investigator's Guide, which could be cost-prohibitive for some.
3. At least one player got the "role-playing comes first!" intent of the Fate system.

Sample Combat

I always like to start a Fate game with a quick conflict – it gives players a chance to become familiar with the rules and it starts the game off with a bang. This time, I tried to get in as many Fate concepts as I could.

So I had Oberst Loeb gather up the group and "extract" the last member needed for the team – a veteran of the Great War who was accidentally "gifted" with the ability to see into the Dreamland. Unfortunately, he's a fan of the bottle, was well into it by the time the team showed up at Die Milch Mädchen, and someone had tried to take it away from him...

Compelling an aspect (decision-based): To start things off, I compelled Gerulf with, "You have the aspect, Don't take my bottle. You've had too much to drink and the bartender is trying to cut you off, so it makes sense that you'd lash out at him. This goes wrong when a whole bar brawl breaks out." and offered him a Fate point (in this case an empty 9mm Luger shell casing). He took it with a grin.

Situation aspects: Then I established the aspects on the scene: Bar brawl, Broken glass, Wet floors. They were invoked once or twice.

Physical Conflict: Throughout most of this scene, Gerulf is going toe to toe with other bar patrons and making quick work of them. Since this is one of the more common situations, I'll leave it to your imagination to fill in the fight sequences.

Mental Conflict: Once Oberst Loeb and the team shows up, Oberst commands the German soldiers in the mix to quit brawling and stand at attention. I asked the player if he wished to make it an aspect on the scene or to directly affect the soldiers. He chose the latter. For simplicity, I made it an opposed check: Provoke vs. Will. With his Stand to Attention! stunt, Oberst Loeb gets a +7 versus the soldiers' -1. Eight soldiers immediately stop fighting. One of them gets smashed over the head with a bottle just as he clicks his boot heels together.

Create an Advantage: Since Oberst Loeb is now the center of attention, one of the more inebriated patrons decides to splash a beer on him to try to bring him down to the rabble's level. The drunkard rolls Fight and Loeb actively opposes with Athletics. The player decided the defense was an instinctual sidestep and didn't invoke any aspects. Unfortunately, he rolls low and the drunkard hits his target placing Looks Foolish on Oberst Loeb. He ignores the attack and marches his way through the brawl to speak with Gerulf. Sadly, I never got a chance to compel the advantage later.

Refused Compel (event-based): Once Gerty realizes Oberst Loeb is talking to a friend of hers (Crossing Paths phase), she crosses the room as well. Since the room is packed, I tried "You have the aspect, I'm a woman in a man's world and you just happen to be in a room full of drunk uninhibited men. So it makes sense that one of them tries to get his grubby mitts on you preventing forward progress. Damn your luck." She refused the compel, paid the Fate point, and responded with, "I knee him in the nuts." He goes down like a sack of potatoes, marking the beginning of a string of ball crushings.

Teamwork with NPC mobs: Since single individuals are no match for Gerulf, a couple of them team up and tackle him mid conversation with Oberst Loeb. Together, they were able to do five shifts of damage, which brings us to...

Taking a Consequence: With five shifts of stress coming at him, Gerulf decides to soak up three with his third stress box and take a Mild Consequence. I decide the brawlers inflict a Pummeled (Battered may have worked better) consequence on Gerulf.

Yu finally ends the combat with a well-placed karate chop, Maximillian convinces Gerulf to join the team through some lovely roleplaying involving duty to one's country, and the team returns to base where Oberst Loeb receives the team's orders...

Achtung! Cthulhu: The Book of Eibon (A Study in Props)

I posted this image to the Fate Core Google+ Community with the lead-in "Here are my props for tonight's Fate Achtung! Cthulhu:"

This generated quite a bit more interest than I expected, including requests to see notes, images, and recaps of the game.

So here goes!

For starters, let me say that this is my first time running a Cthulhu game (or any horror game for that matter), so my knowledge of Cthulhu Mythos is weak. Fortunately, the folks who worked on Achtung! Cthulhu put a lot of work into all the historical and mythos research. I was able to put together a solid plot outline with only the core Investigator's and Keeper's Guides (well and a bunch of Googling, which probably put me on some watch lists...). Understanding the plot will show how I arrived at the props.

The Plot (oh, and Props)

In 1935, Heinrich Himmler founded The Ancestral Heritage Research and Teaching Society, or Ahnenerbe, to research, recover, and revive Germanic traditions by studying several cultures around the world. The various expeditions undertaken by the Ahnenerbe made it the perfect organization to look into Himmler's interest in the occult as well.

According to the Achtung! Cthulhu Keeper's Guide, in 1933, Himmler united the Order of the Black Sun, a group of occult scholars (with their own agenda) under the Nazi flag. Once the Ahnenerbe is established, the Black Sun took the helm of occult research. However, another subgroup, Nachtwölfe, splintered off from the Black Sun focused on what technology could be developed from occult artifacts. There is an unsteady truce between them, but some artifacts cannot easily be categorized as either arcane or technological (p. 73 of the Keeper's Guide PDF, p. 193 of the combined softcover book).

Enter the Book of Eibon, a spell book written by the Hyperborean wizard Eibon and translated by a handful of scholars - all manuscripts of which have been hidden or lost. If the Reich gets their hands on a copy, they could theoretically turn the tides of war in their favor. So, the Ahnenerbe send out teams from both the Black Sun and Nachtwölfe.

Unfortunately for Nachtwölfe, the Black Sun wants all the glory - and, well, to unleash the Valley of the Black Sun into this world. To further this end, they have let slip the current location of the Nachtwölfe team that's searching for the Book to... well... what the heck... The Inglourious Basterds. Bear with me here, this is alternate WW2 and there's nothing saying there wasn't a savage band of American soldiers scalping Nazis...

So, assuming you buy that, the Nachtwölfe team has a lead. There's a legend about a necromancer named Nathaire who builds a giant out of corpses. He is stopped by another necromancer named Gaspard du Nord. There is rumor that Gaspard is one of the scholars who translated the Book of Eibon to French. The team is checking out a monastery in La Mont-Dore that matches a description from the legend just as the Basterds rush in and start taking scalps.

After the Basterds leave, the Black Sun sweeps in, takes any remaining notes and leads, and picks up the trail without getting Nazi blood on their hands.

This is where the players come in. They are tasked to go to the monastery, find the original team, join them if possible, and continue the quest for the Book of Eibon.

A Note on Nazis I want to point out that the group has decided to play a team of researchers working under Germany's Ahnenerbe. The Fate Keeper's guide addresses this (p. 15 of the PDF, or p. 135 of the softcover) and suggests against it, but provides the resources to do so. As a group, we discussed it and agreed to tread lightly. To the players' credit, we ended up with two disgruntled veterans of the Great War and three civilians taking advantage of the German War Machine to further their own ends.

Since I am sending them into France in December of 1942, I needed a map. Doing a Google image search for "France occupation 1942", I get this:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vichy_France

I dropped that into a simple image editor (in my case, Preview on a Mac) and cranked up the sepia filter to give it some age.

Fortunately for the PCs, the Black Sun overlooked a few clues. The first is a torn notebook page referencing Gaspard du Nord and the story "The Colossus of Ylourgne". The leader of the Black Sun team finds the idea of a "good" necromancer ridiculous, tears out that segment and spits on it, leaving it behind. Also, the head of Nachtwölfe had just enough time to tear out and pocket the page listing his leads to where Hyperborea may be located.

For the torn notebook pages, I simply Google Translated a few important phrases, practiced handwriting that looked more driven (and less like mine), wrote them on actual notepad paper, and tore them. For the bloody thumbprint, I did a Google Image search and printed that on the note paper before writing on it.

Here's a PDF of the Torn Notebook Pages.

Hopefully, that first scrap of paper has the PCs looking for Gaspard du Nord's resting place by checking libraries for a book or story called "Le Colosse de Ylourgne." Which is a French "translation" of Clark Ashton Smith's short story, "The Colossus of Ylourgne".

You can find a copy of it here: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/27/the-colossus-of-ylourgne. To make the hardcopy, I basically munged the text through Google Translate, tidied it up in Word, exported it as a PDF, and used Adobe Reader to print it as a booklet on some brownish paper. Here's my version: Le Colosse de Ylourgne. This booklet I will then tuck into an old book a friend gave me (sadly, it is only about steam power and not the occult).

Since my players do not read French and I want them to focus on specific parts of the story, locations Gaspard du Nord visited in particular, I decided to leave a note as if another researcher has headed down this path before. This "poem" (which is really just passages from the short story) gave me what I needed.

I modified it a tiny bit, changed it to some handwriting font, and printed it on a 5" x 7" sheet of notepad paper. Here's my version of the file: Gaspard du Nord. This, I tucked into the short story booklet.

I figure while they are searching the library, another character will find this excellent map, done by Tim Kirk, inspired by Clark Ashton Smith's stories:

I also slapped a sepia filter on this.

Now, and here's the leap of faith, the players just have to pick out Gaspard du Nord's favorite locations on the Averoigne map and try to cross reference them with actual places in Auvergne.

As such, they will need some reasonably decent maps of France showing the land features of Auvergne. After some more Google-fu, I found these lovely specimens:

 

I printed them out on larger paper (11" x 17"), trimmed them up, folded them (the first pleated like a road map, the second folded down the middle like a book), and scraped a sharp knife along all the edges and folds to prematurely age, rough up, weaken, and tatter them.

I'm hoping the players decide to select the curly source of the Dordogne River as their place of interest, but (WARNING: Sneaky GM Trick) will go with whatever they decide. (But to help them, I included a tiny hint from the first clue: the "...ogne-Fluss" along the tear in the page.)

Sadly, I have been unable to find a good map of Auvergne that shows towns, major roads, and land features (Google maps is terrible at doing land features). The best I've found so far is http://images.france-for-visitors.com/images/supersize/auvergne-map.jpg, but it's far too modern a map, so I'm still looking for better.

Following up on snippet from "The Colossus of Ylourgne" should give the PCs some clues as to where Gaspard du Nord is buried. There they shall find a his copy of the Book of Eibon.

Meanwhile, the Black Sun is digging up where Nathaire is buried and they find their own copy...

The rest needs to be fleshed out, but the plan (and where the second torn notebook page comes in) is that Black Sun and the PCs are racing to find Hyperborea - The Black Sun, to break the Hyperborean seals preventing the Valley of the Black Sun from entering our world, and the PCs hopefully to stop them. The spell will require 24 hours of darkness so that means a trip to the Arctic Circle, conveniently on December 21, 1942.

Fortunately, searching Wikipedia for Hyperborea, you can see this lovely map:

Look at that interesting red circle...

Atomic Robo: Katsumi Reborn

About a month ago, we finally got the chance to give Atomic Robo - The Roleplaying Game a whirl.

Character Generation
To help with character generation, I put together a set of worksheets with examples. You can check them out here: ARRPGchargenWorksheet

What we ended up with was:

Bongo (Experiment P37) - Sapient Circus Bear (Weird Character Creation method - Beast mode. Okay, brief backstory here: Bongo was a circus bear that had enough of riding bicycles and lashed out at the crowd, killing a few of them. Rather than put the bear down, they (who?) tried some behavior control experiments via gene-splicing. Going too far, they ended up with a sapient bear who now works for Tesladyne.)

Katsumi - Ex-Science Team Super Five (Yellow) Ninja Scientist (Weird Character Creation method - Martial Artist mode)

Rust - Plucky Battle Bot Jock (E-Z No-Math Character Creation method)

First Play Session
Since Josh (Katsumi's player) had a stated interest in Science Team Super Five, it was easy to make the jump to say that Big Science, Inc. called Tesladyne asking for help. I looked at him and asked, "why is that Josh?"

Josh responded that Science Team Super 5 was tasked with checking out a disturbance on a nearby island that has an abandoned outpost from World War II. Unfortunately, the whole team has gone missing, so Tesladyne was called in to help find them...

As the Teslajet sets down on Big Science, Inc.'s airstrip, the first thing Rust asks for is to borrow one of their drones. (Mistake #1 - The GM should have added a Fate point to the reserve for providing special equipment to the PCs.) She gets it up in the air and to the island with ease. From the air, she can see the wreck of Science Team Super Five's boat near the mouth of a cave inlet. On the island, she can make out the remains of a hangar that opens onto a large airfield that has been completely overgrown with trees. Rustling through the trees, she sees some movement and puts the drone into a dive for a closer look.

Just as she gets close enough to make out what appears to be a walking tank, it fires on the drone. The machine is no match for Rust's battle bot skills — she dodges the incoming rounds with ease and retaliates with missiles! Unfortunately, the multi-inch thick steel has no problem shrugging off the blow. Rather than risk losing the drone in the one-sided battle, Rust returns it to base.

At this point, the group is convinced the walking tank is invulnerable. Perfect time to try out the Brainstorming rules!

Step 1: Begin the Brainstorm
Question posed: "How do we defeat that walking tank?"
Step 2: First Fact
Bongo rolls high with Physics, 1 success. Considering the mechanics involved with a walking tank, he states, "Thinner armor in the rear."
Step 3: Second Fact
Rust rolls high with Engineering, 1 success. Noting that nobody has been on the island for years, she states, "It's remote controlled."
Step 4: Third Fact
Katsumi, allowed to use the free invokes on the previous facts, rolls high with Chemistry, and succeeds. Since the metal monstrosity has been on a Pacific island for centuries, he states, "Corroded."
Step 5: Hypothesis
Katsumi hypothesizes, "The easiest way to get to the control circuitry is through the thinner corroded rear armor. In other words, stab it in the butt."

With this information in mind, they take a boat out to the island. Smartly deciding not to take the same route Science Team Super Five did, they find a nice sandy chunk of beach to quietly coast into and disembark; Bongo taking the boat's machine gun with him. (No, seriously, imagine a big brown bear, wearing khakis, a white short-sleeved shirt and a tie, and carrying an M-60!) Discretion being the better part of valor, Rust and Bongo start sneaking up to the hangar. Ignoring that valor nonsense, Katsumi makes a beeline towards the walking tank.

Upon arriving, Katsumi sees that it is indeed a Laufpanzer and tries to make an entrance with a hastily concocted smoke bomb using his portable chemistry set. Since "stab it in the butt" was established, it became important to know which way the Laufpanzer was facing. Looking at the table for a random direction generator, I noticed that the Fate Coins we were using (also for the first time!) had nice big arrows on them! Check out the A in the embossed Fate logo at the right. After a quick coin spin, unfortunately for Katsumi, it was pointing directly at him. The dance begins! Sword flashing. Machine guns fire. Both sides ducking in and out of the smoke.

With the sound of gunfire, Bongo decides to go help Katsumi. Rust sticks with the plan (she's stubborn that way) and makes it to the hangar. She steps over the fallen and dilapidated hangar doors into the dark maw. Just as her eyes start to adjust to the darkness, three sets of red lights blink to life - each set attached to another Laufpanzer.

Back in the tarmac forest, Bongo's arrival is just the added distraction Katsumi needs to get position on the metal monster. Two quick stabs with his katana and the beast powers down. (Mistake #2 - Some bad guys cost Fate points from the scene's allotment.)

Rust makes out a human-sized doorway behind the three warmachines and bolts for it, just as they open up with their machine guns. She clears the doorway and through the observation bay as bullets shred the glass and furnishings. Bongo decides Katsumi's got the tarmac under control and sprints towards the gunfire at the hangar.

Katsumi pops the rear hatch of the Laufpanzer and finds Guardian Blue inside! His Science Team Super Five helmet has been removed and replaced with some sort of neurohelmet that connects directly to the tank, but Katsumi can't figure out how to disconnect it without frying the Guardian's mind.

Bongo arrives just in time to draw the attention of the three walking tanks in the hangar. A protracted battle plays out between them.

Meanwhile, Rust is following fresh footprints in the ancient dust when Katsumi calls her over Facetime/Skype/TeslaTV and shows her the mess of wires. With her input, Katsumi removes the wires from the tank first, then removes the neurohelmet from Guardian Blue, saving him.

After some cleverly aimed shots and lots and lots of ammo, Bongo is able to disable one of the Laufpanzers. (Mistake #3 - Don't forget to take into account Armor:2 rating!)

Rust follows the footprints all the way down to some sort of control room. There are several banks of clunky controls, eight or nine ancient monitors, eight vestibules, four of which are empty, four with neurohelmets dangling, and (What the heck! Why not?) a Helsingard Warbot at the controls! Rust fires the first shot with a snarky comment about how far behind all his technology is. He returns fire with a giant robotic fist.

With Bongo holding their attention, Katsumi is able to run past the two functioning tanks and join Rust. The two of them spend a few cycles discovering swords and pistols have no effect on Helsingard's chassis. They also discover being pummeled by a warbot hurts. Rust resorts to belittling Helsingard's lack of progress in the field of robotics.

Bongo is able to cripple another Laufpanzer and Helsingard Warbot brain #6 explodes after a string of extra-harsh insults. (Mistake #4 - Don't forget to give Helsingard Warbots their extra three stunts!)

Rust is able to shutdown the the remaining Laufpanzers, the team extracts the remaining members of Science Team Super Five, and brings their semi-conscious bodies back to Big Science, Inc. At which point, there is some awkward conversation between Dr. Junji Yumeno and Katsumi as neither of them look at each other.

Somewhere in a secret underground base, Helsingard brain #7 is being loaded into the next Warbot frame...

Afterward
Josh and I decided that this was to be Katsumi's "origin story". It turns out he was the only survivor of Super Team Science Five's mission to the island, he doesn't remember a thing of what happened, and he was disgraced enough to leave the team and join Tesladyne.

Come for the Action Science, Stay for the Fun!

I just posted this review of Atomic Robo the Roleplaying Game to Amazon and figured I'd post it here as well:

---

I just finished reading Atomic Robo The Roleplaying Game and can't wait to play it! If you've been following, you already know I'm a huge fan of the Fate RPG system, but I've only ever been a passing comic book fan. I initially picked up the Atomic Robo RPG as a sourcebook to have other optional rules available at the gaming table — and there are a some nifty ones. However, the concept, layout, artwork and examples made me interested in seeing what it had to offer as the standalone game it is intended to be. Atomic Robo RPG has a lot going for it, but these are the things that struck me most:

Character Generation Using Modes: Modes basically take Fate Core's skills and bundle them up into packages that you "purchase" at different ratings at character generation. There is some overlap, but it makes for quick work of figuring out what a character is proficient at. As I said, I have yet to try it out in play, but I see it making character generation quick. I'm not so sure about how well it will simplify things particularly when you introduce Weird Modes, however.

Brainstorming: Once you get your head around the idea of letting your players come up with their own solutions to the boss battles and death traps you throw at them, the section on Brainstorms walks the players through the process of establishing the facts and forming a hypothesis to help defeat said bosses and traps. I really want to see how this plays.

Inventions: I always liked the idea of Gadgets in the previous version of Fate in Spirit of the Century, but could never quite grok how to build them without rehashing one of their examples. NOW there are concise rules/instructions on how to build them.

Practical Examples: Throughout the book, there are colorful snippets from the Atomic Robo comic series, overlaid with narration describing how that scene would be handled in-game. Evil Hat has always been good about examples, but these just knock rules clarification out of the park!

To reiterate, after reading Atomic Robo The Roleplaying Game, I can't wait to play it and try out the new additions to the Fate roleplaying system. As an added bonus, the examples ripped from the comic books made me purchase and plow through all the available Atomic Robo trade paperback volumes. Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener are masters of Action Science! but that's a review for another day...

The Depot - A Fiasco Playset

It started as a way to pass the time with my wife waiting for a show at a bar in Chicago.

Then, my good friend Martin Burnham and I banged away on it until it resembled something usable.

Now, it is a finished Playset for the Fiasco role-playing game.

I give you:

The Depot

Click the image above for the PDF

The Score

Snow. Neck deep and everywhere. Far as the eye can see. It doesn't look to be letting up any time soon and here you are in the middle of it, stuck, countless miles from where you want to be and going nowhere fast. You were fortunate enough to find shelter from the blizzard in a backwoods bus depot. Unfortunately, now you find yourself caught in an interstitial moment, caught on the threshold between a past you're trying to get away from and the future you so desperately hope to achieve. What happens to you during these trapped moments, as the time ticks away like snowflakes caught in a storm?

Enjoy.

If you end up playing it, I'd love to hear what you think in the comments below!

Gen Con 2014 Recap

Despite yet another record attendance and sold-out events, this year's Gen Con was one of the best in a while. Here's a sampling of Gen Con Indy 2014 from my point of view:

Wednesday:
The first wave of friends — Pete, Adam, Jeremy, and I — arrived in Indianapolis. After unloading all our gear in the hotel rooms, we made a bee-line for Will Call so we could get our badges and event tickets. That was followed by swag bags graciously provided by Jon Sudbury Games, sporting their Ortus Regni iconography.

For dinner, we hit the food trucks. Adam and I picked up Greedo sandwiches (Black Forest Ham, Hickory Smoked Turkey Breast, Applewood Smoked Bacon, Cheddar Cheese and Wasabi Horseradish all on a large pretzel bun) from Der Pretzel Wagen. Kudos to them for going with a Star Wars theme! This would be the first of four Greedos Adam would get this weekend.

We finally settled in at a coffee table with a few comfy chairs and played:

• Arctic Scavengers - A post-apocalyptic deck building game with a skirmish mechanic. We finally finished a game. Lunchtime is just not long enough.
• Alien Frontiers - A resource management board game where your dice represent space ships which you assign to various resources with the goal of colonizing a planet. Jeremy just would not let me get the "ghost" ship.
• Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar - A worker placement board game with a Mayan theme. My heart wasn't in it, but I still came in second place by concentrating on crystal skulls.

Privateer Press Speed Paint
Honorable Mention

Thursday:
I got up early and hustled to the one Speed Paint Event I had a ticket for: Privateer Press. This year, Speed Painting was sponsored by Games & Gears and we were each given one of their synthetic brushes to use and then keep. I was only able to pull off an Honorable Mention, but one of the place winners couldn't make it to the final, so she gave me her seat. Thank you whoever you are!

Immediately after that was the Painting Infinity Miniatures: Faces Master Class with Angel Giraldez. Here's proof from facebook: Photo 1 and Photo 2.

Armed with some generic tickets, I was able to get in to one of the Reaper Speed Paint Events. I pulled off Third Place on my own with the help of some freehand work.

Reaper Speed Paint
Third Place

I had preordered a Games & Gears Limited Edition Gen Con Collectors Series Brush, but since you could only pick it up from the exhibit hall, this was my first opportunity to do so.

After a quick couple of stops in the hall, I tried to sit in on Angel Giraldez's Painting Infinity Miniatures: Weather and Leather Master Class. Even though Angel said I could observe, I wasn't getting much out of it without being able to put paint to metal. So, I went to Evil Hat's State of the Hat Panel instead. It was good to hear what they're planning next and they handed out free swag, including another copy of Fate Accelerated.

While I was there, I caught up with Ryan Macklin. Since he had jumped in on a question I had about ownership of Boosts on the Fate Google+ Community, I promised him a cup of coffee. I fulfilled that promise between panels and we had a pleasant discussion about the many facets of the Fate system. As an added bonus, he blessed my Fate Core book with his signature and a one-time +8 invoke!

Then off to Evil Hat's "Look under the Hat" Q&A Panel. They are a good group of folks and are gamers making games for gamers. One of the interesting take-aways was Rob Donoghue singing the praises of Adventure MAXIMUS!, an RPG designed for kids.

At that point, it was time to grab some grub and meet back up with the gang. I grabbed a Spinach Artichoke Grilled Cheese with Truffle Fries and a side of crab cake from Serendipity Mobile Catering. Talk about a tastesplosion! Then I settled in to play:

• Sheriff of Nottingham - A bluffing game it which you are trying to smuggle contraband past the Sheriff. Probably the most fun game purchased at the con.
• Shadowrun: Crossfire - A cooperative deck building game that does a good job of capturing the Shadowrun feel. And it kicked our butts.

As midnight rolled around, I realized I had missed the Painting Black and White on Miniature Figures class with Rhonda "Wren" Bender. Sadly, that marked the end of the roller coaster ride that was the first day of Gen Con Indy 2014...

Friday:
First goal of the day: find and speak with Rhonda Bender. I apologized profusely. Rhonda was very understanding and was cool enough to give me the class notes and miniature (from Dark Sword Miniatures).

Then I tried to get in to both of the Privateer Press Speed Paint Events for that day again. The first round had a waiting list 9 people long. The second round, I just barely made the cut, but ended up giving my seat to a gal who had never painted a miniature before coming to Gen Con.

I decided Friday was my day for trolling the Exhibit Hall. Here's the highlights:

• Picked up Mindjammer - The Roleplaying Game from the Indie Press Revolution booth
• Bought Hyperion and Black Mesa T-Shirts from the Glitch Gear booth
• Found and demoed Adventure MAXIMUS! Rob was right: the card-based character and adventure generation is slick. The game's designer, Francis James Hogan, put some serious thought into making kids feel included, particularly with the "Mad Libs" adventure opener.
• Armed with a coupon, I bought Danger Pack 1 Booster Cards for Fortune and Glory: The Cliffhanger Game
• Picked up resin terrain (specifically, convenience store and restaurant furnishings to go with my Convenience Store) from The Miniature Building Authority
• Visited Luke Ski and Sara
• Ended up snagging the last copy of Infinity Operation: Icestorm. There was much fanfare:

After dropping off the spoils of the day back at the hotel, I met up with Brad and his friends Scott and Kristen for sushi at Mikado Japanese Restaurant. From there, back to the hotel to get some gaming in. We played:

• Adventure MAXIMUS! - I was so excited about it, I texted my buddy Brian earlier and he picked it up. As such Brad and I ran through a quick adventure with Brian's family (it was Brian's wife's first time GMing! She did great!)
• Firefly Board Game - I had heard from several people that the Firefly Board Game did service to the source material, but was kind of dull and lacked player interaction. Scott insisted I try it for myself, particularly with the newly released Blue Sun expansion. I'll admit it was fun, but I felt it was still far too long of a game. I was content to play up to the point at which you meet the requirements to actually start the missions. Fortunately, Mike showed up at that time, I brought him under my wing, showed him the ropes, handed off the con to him, and went to bed. Mike got Kaylee killed.

Saturday:
Getting up early, I was finally able to get into the last Privateer Press Speed Paint session. After all that, I didn't place. So, I checked on our regular GM, Josh, who was running a Stars Without Numbers game. Unfortunately, only one player out of the six who registered showed up. On my way out, I stopped by Games on Demand and caught Will Hindmarch running Project: Dark

By the time Will's game wrapped up, I wasn't feeling too hot, so I popped back to the hotel for an hour nap. At that point, Josh (of Fair Game fame) texted me, so I joined him in the Exhibit Hall. I introduced him and his boys to Adventure MAXIMUS! While the three of them were digging in, I headed back to the Indie Press Revolution booth to pick up Dungeon World for Josh. By the time I returned, Josh was deep in discussion with the distributor and his boys were swapping places with Francis, the game's designer. It goes to show how easy and fun Adventure MAXIMUS! is. Josh ended up purchasing 7 copies with the trimmings.

I bid farewell to Josh and his minions and met up with Brad to have Shrimp Po-Boys from the Sot Sot food truck. We then returned to the hotel to play:

• Fiasco - We played The Beast of Sucker Creek Playset. It was Mike's first time playing and one of the best Fiasco games I'd been in in a long time. Three drug-addled monster hunters and a conspiracy theorist country girl all caught up in a government conspiracy. Only the girl got away.
• The Resistance: Coup - A brutal last-man-standing bluffing game. Brutal.
• Kittens in a Blender - "You are twisted. I can’t believe you actually want to put these adorable kittens in a blender!" Yes. That.

Privateer Press Speed Paint Final
Honorable Mention

Sunday:
The day started out with a bang with the Privateer Press Speed Paint Final. I achieved an Honorable Mention for going with a more aquatic theme. The First Place Winner already had a set of the Games & Gears brushes that was part of the prize, so she gave them to me. Thank you!

That finished up around 11:15 AM - just enough time to grab one more Greedo from Der Pretzel Wagen! Then, Brad and I hit the exhibit hall for some last minute goods:

• A Bigfoot Meeple from Bigfootses
• The Sands of Cairo Booster Cards for Fortune and Glory: The Cliffhanger Game
• Ca$h 'n Guns Second Edition (with a coupon)

Reaper Speed Paint Final
Third Place

Brad and I then went up to the Miniature Hobby Events area and waited for the 2:30 Reaper Speed Paint Final to begin. Despite the fact I thought my color choice and blending were poor, I guess my freehand and OSL (Object Source Lighting) were enough to secure me Third Place! The prize included another set of Games & Gears brushes, so I payed them forward to the Honorable Mention.The gal I gave up my seat to earlier took First Place! That was something like her seventh miniature total, but she had an art background and paints nails at a mani/pedi shop.

Since we packed the car earlier, it was just a matter of jumping in and going home — tired.

It was definitely one of the better Gen Cons in memory. Also, between purchases, freebies, and prizes, I ended up with 11 brushes!

Obligatory Speed Paint Finals Photo
Courtesy Pete

It's been a while...

Links!

Miniatures:
Dark Potential Miniatures (IndieGoGo Gallery)
Hand Cannon Online
Infinity Wiki
Marike Reimer's Miniatures
Midnight Lurker Miniatures
Paintrix Miniatures
Zach Lanier's Miniatures

Miniature Terrain:
Game Craft Miniature Terrain (Including 1/285th scale)
Gidian Gelaende (amazing...)
TerranScapes - Water Effect Tutorial

RPGs:
Advancement in Fate
Casting Shadows - RPG resource
Hollow Earth Expedition Downloads
Rob Donoghue's Fate Spies
The Century Club (Bulletin Board)
Fate Core Tri-Core Skill Hack
thoughtcrimegames.net
The Journeyman GM
Rob Donoghue now is The Walking Mind
Ryan Macklin
Spirit of the [blank]
Resolution in RPGs
Discussion about Player Agency and the Quantum Ogre
http://critical-hits.com/2009/07/23/robin-laws-revisited-the-complete-series/

Big List of Fate Core Links

Wickedly Cool Art:
Aaron Beck
Christian Pearce
Ben Mauro
Ben Mauro's Blog
Adam Kuczek
Adam Kuczek's Blog

Music:
http://8tracks.com/psychomantits/baseball-disco-part-2
Tabletop Audio

Miscellaneous:
Cool Animated Gifs
Cycops
Doug Engelbart 1968 Demo
Neuromancer Turns 30
On Killing
Telikos Protocol
Vanquish Interactive