Shadow of the Century - Part 1. The Pitch Session

In 2006, Evil Hat published Spirit of the Century, a pulp role-playing game set in the 1920's and using the Fate system. Its premise is that, at the stroke of midnight, at the beginning of the century, extraordinary people—Spirit Centurions—are born with an innate urge to fight evil, right wrongs, shine light in the shadows, and generally make the world a better place.

Recently, Evil hat released Young Centurions to Fate Core and Fate More Kickstarter backers. Young Centurions uses the Fate Accelerated rules and posits, "what were the Centurions like as teenagers?"

Fast forward along that timeline to the 80's. Roles have flipped—the bad guys, specifically Shadow Centurions, are taking positions of power in megacorporations and political offices, and the good guys, the Spirit Centurions, are now relegated to the shadows and hiding their identities. However, they are still trying to do good and make change through their proxies: New-Wave Heroes. This is where the players come in.

The brilliance of Shadow of the Century is that it totally embraces the tropes of the 80's. Take several of the movies and TV shows of the 80's: The A-Team, Airwolf, Big Trouble in Little China, Charlie's Angels, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Goonies, Knight Rider, Magnum P.I... and you can imagine the old Spirit Centurions directing the young heroes to go out and make a difference!
(Hannibal, Archangel, Egg, Charlie, Uncle Jesse, Chester Copperpot(?), Devon, Higgins respectively.)

Recently, Evil Hat announced a Shadow of the Century beta playtest. Our regular play group was fortunate enough to get in on it. I've spent the last five days devouring the playtest document. Shadow of the Century uses the Fate Core system, but includes a simplified system of roles for character generation, simplified rules for generating NPCs, and lays out steps for having a Montage! The background text really captures the feel of the 80's—the energy, the excesses, the emerging technology we now take for granted. This Friday, we sat down to do the "Pitch Session".

The Pitch Session is where you set the tone, basic plot, and characters of your game's story. We repeatedly commented on how it felt very much like we were a bunch of writers trying to come up with a new TV show or movie to pitch to some media bigwigs.

Phase One: Format
First, you decide if you will be playing as if you are shooting a movie or a TV series. A movie has big, fast action and a shorter overall story arc. A TV series has a much longer major story arc and several smaller "season" story arcs that can be wrapped up quickly. Since our group suffers from what we call "Gamer ADD" and the fact that we want to get four or five sessions in before the playtest ends, we decided we were going to treat our game as a movie.

Phase Two: Gonzometer
The Gonzometer gives you guidelines for how crazy and wacky you want your game to be—from your basic competent action heroes, all the way to alien invasions and robots from the future. We set it at level 2 (out of 4)—just slightly supernatural.

Phase Three: Issues
It took us a while to figure out in what direction we wanted to take the game. The first thought was to concentrate on the Cold War, but decided that, in nuclear war, nobody wins. Eventually, we worked our way towards a group similar to the crew from the movie Sneakers. Even though that movie was from 1992, we liked the idea of outlaws with special skill sets trying to make up for their previous transgressions—possibly with supernatural abilities.

After some further discussion, it was decided a Centurion runs the group and he’s trying to rescue other Centurions. Since we needed to focus on just one rescue, one player suggested a very old Centurion. Since Young Centurions mentioned the Grey Ghost was from the 1800's, he was our man.

Big Issue: We have to rescue the Grey Ghost.

Subplot Issue: Criminals are using Grey-Ghost-like abilities to commit crimes - this needs to be stopped.

Phase Four and Seven: Heroes

Keith decided he wanted to play the ladies man who's secretly a huge computer nerd.

Mike Smith - Face/Hacker/Thief

High concept: Undercover Nerd

Trouble: Nerdgasm

Call to Action: Repenting former thief

Ken wanted to play the bookworm who's been following the exploits of the Century Club for as long as he can remember. In almost a stalker-like fashion, he wants to be one.

Raymond James - Brain/Detective/Warrior

High concept: Centurion Historian

Trouble: “Actually…..”

Call to Action: Following in the footsteps of the Spirits

And Michael decided he wanted to play a hippie pharmacologist who's stickin' it to the man!

Sunshine - Alchemist (Gonzo)/Detective/Saboteur

High concept: Tactical Alchemist

Trouble: Bad trips

Call to Action: Fighting the Man

Phase Five and Six: Cast and Villains

These phases are kind of a neat twist on Fate world building. In this case, all the players quickly generate three NPCs each by writing down names on three note cards and passing them to the left. Then everybody adds a quick note to each name and passes them on for another round of quick notes.

We changed it up slightly in that we did them as a "card draft": Write down names on three note cards, pass them to the left. Pick one card, pass the remaining two to the left. Pick one card, pass the remaining to the left. Everybody will end up with three cards from different people. Add a note to each one and repeat the process.

We had the most fun with these phases.

Here's what we ended up with. NPCs chosen as "villains" are marked with an *:

Alexa Park - Heiress to a Hotel Magnate, Big into biker culture

Big Pete - Bouncer at TechNoir, Trained in martial arts

Dr. Raymond Cunningham - Has a PhD in Philosophy, Always wears a surgical mask

Lenny the Snitch - Key witness to an ongoing investigation, Has no middle fingers

Mr. Zero - Buys and sells “questionable” electronics, Always wears a Captain Planet Inspector Gadget t-shirt

*Officer Joey Biggins - Detective, Takes payoffs from gangs

Sally Maxwell - Wealthy daughter of the Maxwells of the Maxwell Museum, Never seen without a “boy toy” on her arm

Samantha Patel - Girlfriend of drug kingpin __________, Does his books and is secretly siphoning off funds

*Slick Steve - User car salesman, Makes under-the-table deals with corporate types

*Tryn Velcog - Standoffish Greek hacker, Stands 5’8”, but 6’ with hair

*Vieger AKA “Switch” - Norwegian hacker–Tryn’s nemesis, Split personality disorder

Zed Kalista - Owns a pawn shop, Obsessed with Ninjas

Finally, a suggestion was made for another “Bad Guy”. Here's the notes we took: Technophobe, Can render tech dead with  an EMP-like touch. 

Now I just have to figure out who has the Grey Ghost and why for next week!

Katanas & Trenchcoats - A Cheat Sheet!

Occasionally, when I am learning a new system, I will make a cheat sheet as I go through the rules. I just so happened to make one for Katanas & Trenchcoats. It was useful as a handout when I ran K&T for my buddy Keith's birthday.

I got permission to distribute it, so you can get a copy by clicking on this image:

If you find any errors, omissions, complications, etc., please contact me and I will do my best to make the corrections.

Katanas & Trenchcoats - Fire & Lightning

Copyright 2015, Ryan Macklin

So, my buddy Keith asked me to run a roleplaying game for his birthday. I asked him what he was looking for genre-wise and he said, "Magic. A world full of magic."

Now, when he said that, I hope he didn't see me slump in my chair. In my experience, magic systems in RPGs are overly complicated – long lists of spells, tricky drain mechanics, flipping through books to find what effects do, arguing about the same... Even my current go-to system, Fate, doesn't have an explicit spell system – it has dozens.

So, I was just about to whip out my copy of the Fate System Toolkit, when I remembered that one of Fate's authors, Ryan Macklin, had recently released his latest episode for his recent RPG, Katanas & Trenchcoats: Episode 7: Celestial Boogaloo, in which he includes rules for celestial sorcery. Best of all, they take up maybe three-quarters of a page! It doesn't hurt that Keith is a knife and sword collector. I guess I'm running Katanas & Trenchcoats...

So, what is this Katanas & Trenchcoats RPG? 
Ryan Macklin (Mythender, Fate Core, Dresden Files RPG, various Pathfinder, and many others) has apparently been noodling on a dark and sexy roleplaying game about immortals doing battle with swords, a'la 90's movies and television, since at least 2014. Since talking Fate with Macklin over coffee at GenCon 2014, I've been following his blog. In March of this year, giant hints about an actual sword-swinging, trenchcoat-donning roleplaying game started showing up. And on April 1, he dropped the bomb and released it: Katanas & Trenchcoats - Episode 1: Welcome to Darkest Vancouver.

Since Macklin released it on April Fool's Day – in three editions: Basic, Premium, and Immortal – there was some discussion that it was an elaborate hoax. But, it soon became clear that it was a real thing that you could spend real money on – with the proceeds going to Seattle Children's Hospital. Since I am also a contributor to his Patreon, I purchased it at an insider's discount (but missed out on the Immortal edition - dang...).

Packed into 22 pages (not including covers and character sheet) is a fairly complete roleplaying system of epic sword fights between brooding immortals. Macklin and his fellow authors (dozens!) do an impeccable job of capturing the tone of those 90's shows in their writing. I can't help but read their mocking love for the genre without hearing the voice of the Movie Trailer Voice Guy or Mr. Torgue from Borderlands 2.

How does it play?
Character Generation:
To get the ball rolling, I emailed Keith and Dave (the other player) an intro blurb to explain the concept and set the tone, and asked them to noodle on their characters' backgrounds as laid out in the rules: Saga, Personal Tragedy, Badass Rep, Inner Deal, Historical Influence, Origin Story, and Name. To my surprise, when we got together to put the finishing touches on their characters and begin playing, Dave showed up with a page of background; Keith had THREE PAGES! I made sure to reward them with Grandeur appropriately (see below).

To finish up the characters, they rolled 3d10 for their birth year. Dave rolled triple threes, making him "Triple Edged!" I gave Keith three edges as it was his birthday. They then proceeded to choose their Traits, Skills, and Edges, and fill out their character sheets. I have summarized their characters in the following table:

SAGA	Viscount Vero "Feenix" Vivicar	"VOID"
PERSONAL TRAGEDY	Herr Emberedge killed my love Odelia.	My parents were killed by the monarch's assassin.
BADASS REP	I burn debt collectors with fire	I bring nothing into a fight except pure skill. A foe once said, "The look in your eyes is so empty..."
INNER DEAL	I appreciate brandy and other fine beverages. Aristocratic.	I want to provide equality for the underdogs. My long term goal is to find the man who let me live and gave me his katana with the promise to fight again in 200 years.
HISTORICAL INFLUENCE	I participated in the Boston Tea Party. I free indentured servants, usually by torching their masters' fields (or toes)...	I fought to liberate the Scottish in the Battle of Bannockburn. I fought alongside the British against the Spanish Armada.
ORIGIN STORY	I was in the Roman Legion. I was Orelius' personal accountant. After some shady business, Orelius and the Emperor's Advisor locked me in my home and set it on fire. This is when I first discovered I was immortal and could set myself ablaze at will.	My parents wanted to change the status quo for farmers. The monarch, not having any of it sent an assassin to kill my family. After murdering my parents, the assassin went after me. Lightning struck the assassin just as he plunged his sword into my chest. The lighting toasted the assassin, saved me, and melted the sword into the my chest. I have since discovered I can deflect metal by adjusting the electricity around me.
PRIMARY TRAIT	Mystical Talent - Flames	Mystical Talent - Electricity
EDGES	Armor of Passion Majestic Accent Human Torch	Deadly Hanzo Steel (a "gift" from Herr Emberedge) Electromagnetic Parry/Reposte Steel Wound
THRONE OF COMFORT	The urn of Odelia's ashes.	My parents' home in Portsmouth, England.

Actual Play:
Failing to follow my suggestion to start the game knowing each other, I had to force them together. We agreed that Herr Emberedge, who killed Feenix's love Ophelia, was the same man who gave Void his sword, vowing to return for it in 200 years. Perfect!

Now to start playing! The section, "Being a Damn Story Master," does a clever, albeit brief, job of hitting important storytelling bullet points. One of those bullet points is to start the game with a bang, something I regularly try to do, and includes three tables to randomly generate such a scene. Keith and Dave had provided enough background that all I needed was a location. Rolling on the "Where You Are Now" table, I got:  "4. A houseboat, some distance from the docks." I changed the houseboat to Herr Emberedge's yacht, set it on fire, and put Void on the dock, watching it burn. Feenix arrives on the scene and spots the unmistakeable Hanzo Steel strapped to a shadowy figure's back – who must be Emberedge! A fight ensues...

I find that combat is the fastest way to introduce players to new game systems, so we were on track. Swords are drawn and steel flashes. Feenix bursts into flames chasing Void off the dock and into the water. Feenix follows and Void electrifies the seawater as he enters. Eventually, the cloud of confusion is lifted and they realize they are after the same man.

The conflict resolution system feels epic! It basically boils down to: somebody acts and somebody else reacts. Actions are simmered down to three: Attack!, Boost (basically setting up for your next action, kind of like Create an Advantage in Fate), or Push (anything not an Attack! or Boost). Both participants then roll a fistful of ten-sided dice based on the Skill and Trait they are using, and whoever gets the most successes (each die that rolls a 7 or above) wins. What particularly makes it feel epic is that you can respond to an Attack! with an Attack! Edges are easy to implement and add that extra color to already outrageous characters.

After questioning the legless harbor master, fighting off muscleheads in suits who happen upon the immortals in the apartment of a dead security guard, and skydiving into Herr Emberedge's surgical implement factory, Feuerkante, Void (with a bum leg from epically failing his skydiving roll) and Feenix face off against Herr Emberedge himself.

Void and Feenix spend a few cycles keeping Emberedge talking; not because they care what he has to say, but because they want to recover from the wounds they received wading through Emberedge's goons. Once combat begins in earnest, sword nicks are traded back and forth. Void uses his Electromagnetic Parry to deflect a deadly blow. Feenix uses his Armor of Passion to save himself and responds by burning a saved up Boost, setting himself ablaze, and directing it at Herr Embererdge. He rolls a ton of d10s with a corresponding number of successes, and Herr Emberedge..... fails miserably – no successes. He goes down in a trail of smoke.

Void and Feenix attempt to vanquish their archenemy permanently, fail to land the perfect blow, and Herr Emberedge disappears in a puff of ash – to appear again when they least expect him...

What's your take on it?
We all agreed we had a good time playing immortals beating on other immortals with sharp objects. However, from the Story Master's (SM) point-of-view, I felt the rules, as presented, were a tad incomplete.

I would have liked a bit more guidance on how to set opposing difficulties. The only thing I could find was one sentence: "The SM just picks a difficulty between one and, oh, ten dice; more dice means harder."

In a similar vein, even though the authors provide a couple of pages on how to generate other supernatural beings, there's nothing on how to tackle statting up "mooks" that inevitably fill the ranks of those other supernaturals.

Finally, Katanas & Trenchcoats includes a Grandeur Rank, a reward system for good roleplaying. It provides a mechanical way for "showing favoritism" in game. I just wish it did more, like power Edges or modify die rolls.

Overall, we had fun playing K&T. Hopefully, the minor omissions will be tackled in the future Episodes Ryan Macklin has hinted at releasing.

P.S.
I totally forgot to use this playlist while running it!


Edit: Corrected to note that dozens of authors contributed to making K&T a reality. Sorry guys!

Numenera Status Tracker

I've recently started running Numenera for my Friday night gaming group. We're all having a good time exploring the Ninth World.

One thing I noticed, however, is that the players are constantly erasing and redoing their current stat pools, particularly when in combat or burning points to apply Effort. After just one session, their stat blocks on their character sheets are a mess.

So, I decided to whip up a Status Tracker to take the brunt of the erasing and rewriting. If you run out of space or burn through the paper, just print out another one (two per page) and fill in your stats – you don't have to rewrite your whole character. You can get the PDF of it here.

Warning: I'm apparently on a hexagon kick...

The Amazing Sinbad (Glue)!

Go ahead! Try to break that bond!

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Step right up and witness the one glue for bonding everything to everything else! Canvas! Cork! Glass! Leather! Metal! Rubber! Stone! Vinyl! Wood! You name it and this product will stick to it! And it will do it in 30 seconds flat! How strong is the bond you ask? Not only will it hold aloft a construction worker glued to a girder by his helmet, but he can be riding a motorcycle at the same time! That's right! It will hold up to 2000 pounds! And can you believe this miracle glue is non toxic?!? You there! Watch as I cut this vacuum cleaner belt and repair it with our wonder glue. Try to pull it apart....."

That's not exactly the pitch the salesperson used to get me to stop and look at Sinbad Glue, but it might as well have been. And it still would have been free of marketing lies and half-truths.

This sales pitch happened at the Sinbad Glue Corp. booth at Gen Con – the Google tells me it was 2006 – the only year that Sinbad Glue Corp. was at Gen Con. Fortunately, I happened to be there and happened to walk past their booth. It didn't take much for the woman to convince me this was a superior cyanoacrylate "super glue".

I have just purchased my fourth bottle.

For those of you familiar with "super glues" and good at math realize that I've had three bottles of CA glue in nine years, when it should have been a bottle of glue each year minimum, probably quadruple that. Honestly, I have tried several brands from the generic "super glues", to better quality glues, such as Gorilla Glue's version, to hobby CA glues, like Zap. Although some are decent glues, they all cured in the bottle once opened. I didn't even take the Gorilla Glue out of the package before it cured! If you check the wikipedia entry on cyanoacrylates (go ahead, interesting stuff), it says the shelf life of CA glue is about one year from manufacture, or 30 days once opened.

Sinbad Glue Corp. boasts that their cyanoacrylate has an incredibly long shelf life of 3 years, opened or not! I can attest to that statement – after all, I'm only on my fourth bottle! Further, they say if you store it in the refrigerator, it will last indefinitely.

As a side note, even the bottle design is clever! There is a steel pin in the cap that keeps the nozzle from clogging. If you keep the tip of the bottle clean, you shouldn't have a problem with the cap sticking, but they suggest applying their Sinbad Gloves product to the tip to prevent it altogether. More on that later.

But how's it work as a CA glue? Simply fantastic! Just as they claim, it will bond in about half a minute (less with their accelerator) and will bond pretty much anything. I use it for assembling tabletop miniatures of all materials. I'm sure there are some things it won't work on (maybe acrylic?), but I haven't found out which yet.

Here are some more facts from their website:

• Shear strength of 1,000 lbs. after cured. 
• Holds up to 2,000 lbs. 
• Non-toxic. 
• Dries clear. 
• Waterproof.

By the way, it won't fog plastic. This is huge! If you've ever tried to glue clear plastic windows into a toy or model, you know that fogging is a legitimate concern.

Okay, so what's the downside? A 20 gram bottle of Sinbad Glue will cost $20 plus shipping & handling and is only available by calling them or direct from their website: http://sinbadglue.net
In their defense, they say, "It takes an average person 3 years to use up the glue." That may be true for someone doing regular household repairs, but after 3 years of gluing miniature arms and heads on, I only use about half a bottle. And sure enough, after that time it starts to get thick and stringy and loses some of its strength. So, I have to buy another bottle.

That's not to say it's not worth $1 a gram – it's worth every penny – I just wish I could buy it in 10 gram bottles so I wouldn't be tossing so much of it out.

The "Value Pak"!

To get the best bang for your buck, they offer a "Value Pak" which includes their whole line of anything to do with cyanoacrylate glues:

• 20 gram bottle of Sinbad Glue - The best CA glue you can buy!
• 1/2 ounce bottle of Accelerator - The pump sprayer cap allows you to prep a surface for immediate bonding or to accelerate the glue bond while holding two items together.
• 10 gram bottle of Sinbad Filler Glue - A very thin version of Sinbad Glue. The company intends you use it with the Sinbad Filler to seal leaks in pipes. I use it for flowing into hard to reach gaps and for stiffening cardstock and wood.
• 1 ounce bottle of Sinbad Filler - Essentially glass micro-beads. You can use it as snow on miniature bases!
• 2 gram tube of Sinbad Glue Gel - A thicker no-drip CA glue with a slightly longer working time. Has some gap-filling properties.
• 1 ounce jar of Sinbad Gloves - A water-soluble cream that you are supposed to apply to your hands. Once dry, it prevents CA glue from sticking to the applied area. When done, simply wash it off. They also recommend coating the tips of your glue bottles with it to prevent the caps from sticking. In use, it feels kind of weird on your hands and I always forget to apply it anyway.
• 1/2 ounce bottle of Debond - In case you do stick things together unintentionally, you can use the brush in the cap to apply it to the problem spot. It does say it takes two hours to work, tho...

So, there you have it – Sinbad Glue – my favorite cyanoacrylate glue of all time!

Feel free to ask me any questions in the comments.

Gen Con 2015 Recap

This year's Gen Con was fantastic (and crowded) as usual! However, it's been over a week since Gen Con ended, so forgive me if the details have faded a bit. You won't get all the games played and meals eaten as much as in my Gen Con 2014 Recap.

You know you're at Gen Con
when you got your badge!

Wednesday:
Eight of us arrived in Indy early afternoon. After sorting out rooms (the hotel pre-registration in January was a nightmare, BTW), we went down to Will Call to grab our badges, coupon books, and bags. We then indulged in tasty food (and slow service) at Granite City Food & Brewery.

Afterwards, we scurried back to the hotel to grab a table and get to gaming. I forget what all was played, but Brad finally got to try out Arctic Scavengers. This time we played with the Medic cards, which made purchasing cards from the common decks much easier.

Thursday:
Initially, I had a ticket to the 10 AM Privateer Press Speed Painting Event, but wanted to check out Evil Hat's "State of the Hat" address, so I talked my buddy Mike into giving speed painting a try. This had an interesting repercussion.

So, I attended the "State of the Hat". Evil Hat has their own breakdown on their site, but here's what I took note of:

• Fate Accessibility - Elsa Henry of Feminist Sonar announced her handbook "for bringing characters with disabilities into games and players with disabilities to your table, using the Fate system as a lens for both."
• Fate of Cthulhu - Think Terminator, but replace Skynet with Cthulhu.
• Portal Jumpers - A kid-centric game along the lines of the 80s cartoon, Dungeons & Dragons, utilizing the Apocalypse Engine. It's my understanding that they will be revealing several worlds over time - fantasy, space, dinosaurs, etc.
• Kaiju Incorporated - From Evil Hat's page: "A satirical setting about corporate excess and profiteering in the wake of wide-scale kaiju attacks..." Will be released as both a card game and an RPG.
• The Dystopian Universe Roleplaying Game - A Fate-system RPG based on Indie Boards and Cards’ games The Resistance and Coup.
• Dresden Files Accelerated - There was a discussion of using "Mantles" as part of character creation.
• Bubblegumshoe - Veronica Mars-like teenage detective RPG using Pelgrane Press' GUMSHOE system. It's been enhanced with relationship mechanics and a fun layout. You can bet Kenneth Hite is involved.
• Dresden Lives - The Dresden LARP continues to evolve.
• Majestic 12 - A supplement for the Atomic Robo RPG with new comic art! I'm looking forward to this one.
• Young Centurions - A young adult prequel to Spirit of the Century using Fate Accelerated.
• Do: Fate of the Flying Temple - A Fate version of Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple.
• War of Ashes RPG - To sum up in two words:"Muppet wars". It's a loosely Fate Accelerated RPG based on Zombiesmith's miniatures game and capable of using minis. It is in the process of being printed, due in October, and they are taking preorders.
• Shadows of the Century - Spirit of the Century takes on 80s action TV. It is currently in alpha playtesting. I'm SO excited to get my hands on this!
• Blood on the Trail - Vampire Oregon Trail anyone?
• Don't Turn Your Back - Card game based on the Don't Rest Your Head roleplaying game. Just starting to ship to Kickstarter backers.

Say it: "verdigris"

I had to leave "State of the Hat" early as I had another Privateer Press Speed Painting Event at 11 AM. There were some extra seats, so Mike decided to purchase two of them and speed painted TWO miniatures in 45 minutes! I did some nice burnishing, verdigris, and rust effects, but they did not impress the judge.

After that was a quick run into the exhibit hall to hit up the Games & Gears booth for my Gen Con Collectors Brush Set that I preordered. They were kind enough to let me upgrade my set so I could get Mike a set of synthetics, a towel, and some brush soap. While we were there, we ran around looking to take advantage of some of the coupons.  Imagine my surprise when we ran into Trace Beaulieu and Crow of MST3K fame. I totally didn't realize he played Dr. Clayton Forrester!

Trace, Crow, and me!

Trace is starring as the human in the VERMIN Web Show, which just got funded on Kickstarter!

"El Toro"

Mike and I couldn't stay in the exhibit hall very long as I had a ticket for the 2 PM Reaper Speed Painting Event. Mike decided to sit in on this one too. There was some sort of mix-up and we were given clay golems from the Bones line to paint instead of a primed metal pirate. It was difficult trying to paint mounds of flesh and still stand out from the crowd. I decided to paint mine as a luchador complete with an "El Toro" tattoo on his back. Mike painted his as the grown up version of the Coppertone Baby. Surprisingly, I came in second place, beating Marike Reimer! Marike is a real good sport and gave everyone who placed above her a $10 gift certificate to the Dark Sword Miniatures booth.

I couldn't celebrate too long, as I had the "Airbrush Techniques Q&A" class with Angel Giraldez immediately after. It was amazing seeing Angel work up a miniature from a black primer coat to clean highlights with just an airbrush. Immediately after that was "Highlighting & Shading, The Next Step to Competitive Painting" with Golden Demon winner Dennis Smith. I was able to follow what Dennis was doing, and actually achieved some decent highlights on the provided Infinity miniature (pictures don't do it justice), but I was not keen on the color choices – the red came out more orange when we were done.

Since this was my busiest day, the rest of the evening was a blur, but I'm sure I had a Greedo sandwich from Der Pretzel Wagen. Unfortunately, they forgot the wasabi horseradish!

Friday:
At 10 AM, I participated in the only hands-on class I could get with Angel Giraldez: "Painting with Angel Giraldez: NMM". It was my first time trying Non-Metallic Metals under instruction, so it came out surprisingly well. It turns out it's pretty much highlighting up to white. The Non Metallic Metals Set from Vallejo made it relatively easy. I should post a photo...

Angel Giraldez's work on the left, my attempt on the right.

I spent the rest of the day walking the entirety of the exhibit hall, even handing off my 2 PM Reaper Speed Painting Event ticket to Mike. I bought surprisingly little this year, but I did pick up a slightly dinged up copy of Machikoro from CoolStuffInc based on recommendation alone.

Upon leaving the hall, I made arrangements to meet Brad, Scott, and Kristin at Mikado Japanese Restaurant for sushi. Even though they are contemporary sushi, the fish was good and their Seafood Puff is to die for! Yum!

After returning to the hotel and staking out a couple of tables to game on, I followed the ENnies twitter feed. Even though Dungeons & Dragons swept most of the categories, I was happy to see Evil Hat Productions (Atomic Robo The Roleplaying Game), Monte Cook Games (The Strange, Ninth World Guidebook), Modiphius Entertainment Ltd. (Achtung! Cthulhu: Terrors of the Secret War, MUTANT Year Zero The Roleplaying Game), and Kenneth Hite (Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff, Ken Writes About Stuff Volume 2) get some lovin'.

Around that time, you could clearly see fireworks from the window of the room we were gaming in. It was part of a nearby baseball game, but I like to think it was Gen Con's way of saying hello.

Even though we had planned to play Fiasco Wednesday night, Friday was the first time we actually got a chance to. Mike and I wanted to see how Fiasco would handle cyberpunk, so we played the Hard Wired Playset by Alex Mayo. Sadly, it wasn't the best attempt as half the table wanted to do J-pop cyberpunk while the other half wanted to do dark and gritty cyberpunk. I will give Rich credit for staying in character and shooting the kneecaps of two other PCs in the first go around the table, particularly since he hasn't roleplayed in years.

Saturday:
Saturday started with another 10 AM class: "Freehand with Marike Weimer". Found out two interesting things about Marike: 1. Her Real Life Job™ is IT-related (as is mine) and 2. She takes quite a few clever shortcuts when painting miniatures, not that you'd know it. Her freehand is impeccable. Go ahead, check it out. Here's her website again.

After her class, I decided to drop in on the Games on Demand room and see if I could pick up a 2-hour game. Note for newbs: you need to sign up for games at the table in front of the room and games cost generic tickets, generally two. I did none of these things. I wandered in looking for Will Hindmarch to see if I could drop in to his Project: Dark game. Will kindly let me know his game was full, but his buddy Cory was available to run a game and runs them well. So, I stopped by Cory's table, and he let me know I was a newb and how to get things sorted out. At the registration table, under Cory O'Brien (I'm pretty sure this is his website), was listed Fate and Leverage. I chose Fate as I'm always interested in seeing how other folks run it and headed back in. Eventually, the table filled up and we jumped into an animorphic pirate tale full of swashbuckling and shenanigans! Cory does run a fine game, and started by canvassing the players for a list of 'Pirate Codes' unique to our ship – breaking one of these codes created a one time boost against you. Unfortunately, my two hours went quickly so I had to leave. But, I left the metal golem stuck with a "tangled in rope" aspect with two free invocations.

The reason I left early? Another Reaper Speed Painting Event at 2 PM. The miniature as a fur-clad female druid and I tried some of the NMM skills I picked up, but no win for me.

Brad picked up Poop: The Game for my lovely wife who finds humor in all things scatalogical. It's kind of like Uno, but there's a toilet/flush mechanic that can return stacks of cards to your hand and keeping you from going out.

Shortly after, I got a text from Keith Potter, one of the Chicago Area Game Writers Colloquium (CAGWIC) guys, asking if I'd be interested in hosting a Fiasco game for a few friends. We were also able to snag another CAGWIC member: PK Sullivan. I secured a game table at the JW, we decided on the News Channel Six Playset by Chris Norwood, Ken Coble, and Tom Gurganus, and ran with it. I played, Bruce Bauer!, the grizzled veteran news anchor just looking to retire after 60-some years. Keith played the Arts and Events reporter, Olivier Devereaux, who had been around as long as I had, but was having the best time of his life and looking to keep me around for company. His roommate, Jeff Flynn, played by Bear, was an unscrupulous bookie and all-around crook. On the other side of me, PK played the young, fresh-faced rookie, Rob Bolton, with a proper education looking to make it big. He had ousted the previous weekend anchor, Drake Dunbar, played by John, who had slipped into a drinking habit after losing his job of 15 years, wife and kids. The game was rife with ballot-box stuffing, horse racing scandals, and even Rob punched Bruce ON-AIR. Loved it! Easily in my top three favorite Fiasco games!

After bidding my CAGWIC friends adieu and taking a quick breather, I sat down for a full night of card and board games. Specifically:

• Castles of Mad King Ludwig - A tile placement game where you purchase rooms to build a castle worth the most victory points. Players take turns as the Master Builder who sets the prices for the room tiles. It was fun and I won the game (never mind Jose bumping the score track), but I found myself trying to build the perfect castle. Is there a solo mode?
• Red7 - A card game that looks like Uno, but is so much more intricate. Each card has a number, color, and rule attached to the color (and an icon that does special effects for the super-advanced game). The object is to follow the current rule but be higher than the rest of the table by number or color – red being high on the ROYGBIV scale – thus Red7 is the highest. If you cannot play a card to follow the rule, you can change the rule, or both. Yeah, it's tricky. I was just starting to get the hang of it and would like to try Red7 again.
• Tricks & Treats The Card Game - What a way to come down from Red7. You lay out several trick-or-treat baskets, randomly and secretly determine which is your basket, and then play candy cards on top of the baskets, trying to get the most candy at the end without letting on whose basket is whose. Aimed at a younger crowd, methinks.
• Chopstick Dexterity MegaChallenge 3000 - The premise of this Kickstarted game is simple: fill a large bowl with 25 wooden food pieces (in five colors and five shapes), flip over a cardboard token with a picture of a piece of food, and use chopsticks to grab that piece of food and drop it into your smaller dish before the other players do. In reality, it's a mad frenzy of chopsticks jousting, food flying, and bowls clacking! The box says it takes 15 minutes to play. It took us half an hour to get through 10 of the cardboard tokens and we were drenched in sweat. 

Sunday:
Sunday, we packed up the cars, checked out, and headed to Steak and Shake for a surprisingly quick breakfast. Then it was back to the exhibit hall for one last shopping spree.

I headed to the Geek Chic booth to pick up a new "Cowboy" mustache monocle/necklace for the wife. Then I picked up the 3rd edition rulebook for the Infinity tabletop miniature wargame - the art is gorgeous! While I was at the Infinity/Corvus Belli booth, and since my regular gaming group is playtesting the Infinity RPG, I picked up some Infinity Tokens from the Warsenal folks who were sharing the booth. In talking with them about the Infinity RPG, they mentioned that Corvus Belli would be producing miniatures for the Kickstarter when it launches. They just happened to announce the miniatures at Gen Con. Check out these beauts:

I got a chance to thank Angel Giraldez and shake his hand one last time before he had to leave. Before I left the booth, I had to snap a few pics of this gorgeous piece of scenery/terrain:

Finally, at 2:30, was the Reaper Speed Paint Final. We painted the same miniature we had for the final last year, so I decided to go with lighter colors. I did not win. Alas.

And with my brushes, gaming bag, and fresh purchases in hand, we left Indianapolis; Gen Con 2015 came to a close.

Obligatory Speed Paint Finals Photo
Courtesy Pete

Achtung! Cthulhu: The Book of Eibon (A Study of the End - Part 2)

Ahnenerbe Team M have discovered that the Black Sun is planning on tearing a hole between the Waking World and the Dreamlands to allow the physical Black Sun to pass through. This comes with all sorts of problems, so the team had successfully followed a large contingent of Black Sun operatives to the Beerenberg Volcano on the Norwegian island of Jan Maynen and plan to stop them.

Let's Meet Tonight's Cast of Characters

Oberst Maximillian Loeb - The soldier
Gertrude "Gerty" Hoffman - The archeologist
Gerulf Fuß - The veteran
Dr. Klaus Heidelberg - The doctor
Yu Wong - The occultist
20 German Soldiers uner Oberst Loeb's command

The Exarch, Reinhardt Weissler
His two Die Toten bodyguards
Ten Novices
Albrecht Lohmann, Prior of the Black Sun
Three Canons
Two Norn Dreamers
Astrid Urner, Prior of the Black Sun
20 Fanatical Black Sun Infantry, broken up into five groups of four, two of which are machine gun nests
Four members of the Fraternity of the Inner Light (basically specced out as more competent Norn)

The Fab Four

As the players started trickling in for the evening, I took the opportunity to play out what was going on with Yu Wang. As mentioned previously, Yu took a side track which lead him into four men in red robes sporting parkas with British flag patches.

As Yu gets closer, he notices they are wearing gold crests and sees their eyes are closed. The crest depicts a grail and a rose-wrapped cross set against a tower on a hill. Yu notices the men, despite standing, appear to be in REM sleep.

As he debates whether to kill the four Allies or not, a distinctly British voice enters his head: "I say, ol' chap, are you here to help or hamper the ritual?"

Yu ponders for a moment considering the intent of his mission, "hinder."

"Care to join us?"

"Sure."

"Then close your eyes..."

Yu does as instructed and awakes in a mirror world lit by the dark rays of the Black Sun. Four Brits stand next to him, their red robes bright against the grey of the Dreamlands. (And sanity check, please!)

At this point, I handed Yu's player the stat card for the Fraternity of the Inner Light, told him they are his to control, and they would act on his turn.

A Message from Our Sponsors...

For this massive conflict, I decided to use the Balsera Initiative System, as we had been doing up to this point.

Balsera Initiative System - A method of determining the order characters act during a game round in which the obvious character to go first does indeed start the conflict, that player then selects the next character to go, that player selects the next, and so on until every character has had a chance to act. Whoever went last chooses who goes first next round – which can be themselves. It is my understanding that Leonard Balsera came up with the system, shared it with Fred Hicks, who then passed it on to Margaret Weis Productions for use in their Marvel Heroic Role Playing Game. I am not calling anyone out, just giving credit where credit's due. If I am wrong, please correct me.

As you'll see in the recap below, with this many participants, it's hard to remember all that happened. In hindsight, it may have been easier to use a round robin initiative.

Lights, Camera... 

With all the players present, it was time to get the final big conflict rolling.

Heeding Gerty's warning that they had less than a minute to disrupt the ritual, Oberst Loeb commands his first squad to setup the mortar and begin firing on the stone circle in the middle of the caldera. He then sends two squads each to assault both ends of the line of Black Sun soldiers guarding the opening of the caldera.

Yu and the Fraternity of the Inner Light leap over the rim of the volcano and into a surreal scene — what appears to be ghosts of friends and foes alike. However, he sees two very tangible entities in SS coats heading straight for the mortar team. Yu chases after them, realizes the enchanted daggers have made it to the Dreamlands with him, and sticks one of the Norn in the back. It hisses at him but continues on its task.

The Fraternity of the Inner Light, seeing Loeb's ghost squads walking into the arc of a machine gun nest, whispers in the gunners' ears, "LEAVE." One of the gunners gets up and walks out of the caldera, sliding into the Arctic Sea.

Pretty much everybody holds back waiting for the mortar strikes. The first shell goes wide, causing most occupants of the area to hit the dirt rather than suffer casualties.

Both sides of infantry continue to whittle each other down, but Loeb's groups want to win more.

Albrecht Lohmann sends two of his Canons to deal with Loeb's two groups on the left side — black flame shooting forth from their hands as the are granted the Blessing of the Black Sun.

Gerulf is not pleased with that display so he charges in, knife in one hand, pistol in the other. He slashes the first Canon with reckless abandon, downing him.

Dr. Heidelberg takes a few aimed shots at the machine gun nests, helping out the Fraternity of the Inner Light as they whisper the gunners into unintentional suicide.

Yu continues stabbing at the Norn. This does not stop them from using whispers of their own to convince one of the mortar team to pull a gun on the rest. Oberst Loeb commands him to stand down. In a haze of doubt, he does.

The second mortar round goes off, inflicting casualties on both sides.

Impatient, Gerty runs in and heads straight for the summoning circle. Astrid Urner steps in front of her, warning her that she cannot stop the ritual, but that she will also not kill Gerty out of respect for Mina Wolff.

Gerty shoots at the old woman who is surprisingly spry and gets out of the path of the bullet. Astrid counters by knocking the pistol out of Gerty's hand with her Black Steel cane.

The Canon near Gerulf takes a step back and casts Wither Limb. Gerulf's knife arm desiccates and shrivels before his very eyes.

Gerty rushes towards the circle of Novices and, out of desperation, strangles one of them. As she moves on to the next, one of Die Toten step up, slashing her gravely.

Oberst Loeb commands the mortar team to stand down and marches into the fray. Albrecht Lohmann spots his equal and they begin trading pistol shots.

The Norn Dreamers successfully convince one of the mortar team to shoot another, killing him. Yu fells one of the Norn, its partner turns on him.

With the Black Sun infantry suffering huge losses, the Fraternity of the Inner Light moves on to the Novices, convincing them that the words they are chanting make no sense, and they are left stuttering and confused.

Gerulf sidesteps another gout of black flame from the Canon, and responds handily with his good arm.

Astrid Urner, seeing a couple of the Novices drop out of the chant, steps in and picks up where they left off. Unfortunately, it's not enough to stop the two-pronged attack of the whispering Fraternity and a strangling Gerty.

The ritual is stopped with mere seconds to spare – the sound of thunder in reverse as the tear between worlds seals.

Reinhardt Weissler, wakes from the chant, sees that he's outnumbered and defeated, and pops out of existence, his Book of Eibon dropping into the snow.

Was There a Plan B?

There's a lot of 'ifs' here, but if the ritual did go off as planned and Yog-Shoggoth was released into the waking world, Astrid Urner has a spell to send it back. IF Gerty hadn't gone off on the old gal and IF they had come to an understanding, Astrid may have been able to see the errors of her ways and cast the spell – IF the rest of the team could keep Yog-Shoggoth off of her while she was casting, IF they didn't lose their sanity first.

There's some joke about trying to get the genie back into the bottle that applies here...

Epilogue

Oberst Maximillian Loeb
Oberst Loeb arrests Albrecht Lohmann and Astrid Urner for committing treason against the German Fatherland. The remaining Black Sun members are executed on site and dumped into the Arctic Ocean. Maximillian still does not believe that the occult exists.

Gertrude (Gerty) Hoffman
Gerty continues her study of all things archaeozoological, adding the study of the occult to the mix. She regularly visits Astrid Urner in prison to further that goal.

Gerulf Fuß
Gerulf regains full use of his arm. He goes into retirement for a second time. For the last time.

Dr. Klaus Heidelberg
With the assistance of the Fraternity of the Inner Light, Dr. Heidelberg captures a Norn and made it permanently dream. He continues studying its brain tissue for as long as it will survive.

Yu Wong
Yu, realizing there are better teachers than what the Ahnenerbe can provide, convinces the four members of the Fraternity of the Inner Light to take him under their wing.

Astrid Urner
Astrid receives visits from Gertrude Hoffman almost daily. Although they still carry animosity towards each other, she sees a kindred spirit.

Albrecht Lohmann
Rots in a German prison.

The Exarch, Reinhardt Weissler

Nobody has seen Weissler since the events on Jan Maynen. There are a number of rumors that he returned to the Dreamlands and Nyarlathotep has resumed whispering in his ear. There are an equal number of rumors that Nyarlathotep has consumed him.

Coda

Gerulf walks up to the railing of the ship during the trip back to France, Weissler's Book of Eibon under his good arm. The first moonlight in eight days glints off the water. Without a thought, he tosses the book over the railing and walks away. As he turns, a single slick tentacle, slips out of the water, slides around the book, and pulls it to the depths.