This was my eigth straight year going to AmberCon NorthWest (ACNW), my favorite American convention. This year there was again an increase in number of people - including a number of newcomers. My full list of events were:
GM John Kim
Thursday - 7pm to midnight
This was an experiment of mine to run a game where Amber was re-imagined with a Carribean background, and Amberite powers were possession and mystic connection like Voudoun. Pattern was connectedness - and Pattern users could send Pattern tendrils to "ride" a person in Shadow. Logrus was divisiveness - and its users could walk along certain lines. Trumps would let one project themself to another environment. Amberites are thus loa to those in Shadow.
GM Zephy McKanna
Friday - 9am to 1pm
This was an unusual game played sort of as a competitive Amber game, where the PCs were all staff at an software firm in an unusual reality. There was a bit of surrealism in it, mixed with both Amber style intrigue and the usual evils of office work. The players and their characters were:
We eventually discovered that it was a strange Amber-ish reality.
GM Felicity Shoulders
Friday - 2pm to 6:30pm
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GM Ben Bernard
Friday - 8pm to midnight
My first straight game using the Dread system was used the background of the humorous sci-fi dystopia game Paranoia. This was a hostage drama, which also is different than the horror movie origin of Dread but arguably closer. We played out the hostage situation in a hi-rise building, with some escaping from the hostage and desperately trying to escape from the armed perpetrators.
The Dread system relies on a Jenga tower, where actions you take require pulling out bricks from the tower, and if it collapses, the character dies. This is very tension-building, but it also is disconnected from the fictional action.
GM Ben Lehman, Julian Morley, Yi-Mei Chng
Saturday - 9am to 4:30pm
A long and big larp, where the Amberites in an old alternate timeline fought off an assault by Chaos. (....)
Character creation was done in three rounds, where we had to allocate points between different options.
GM Mickey Schulz
Saturday - 7pm to midnight
A playtest of Mickey Schulz's game of fae creatures exiled to live in 1920s Chicago. The players and their characters for this game were:
GM John Kim
Sunday - 10am to 4:30pm
This was a freeform diceless game of space marines. I didn't have a system planned, but thanks to excellent players and improvisation, it was very fun and powerful. We used index cards out on the table of different colors for PCs, NPCs, missions, and scenes. Players contributed different NPCs and scenes. The players and their characters were:
NPCs and their player-contributed descriptors included:
The first mission was "Recapture boom town, working through canyons with naval support. Hi-tech mercenaries, SWEEP AND CLEAR." The scenes were "Romantic night before" and "What they call church".
The second mission was "Marine presence on transport ship when you're attacked. BOARDING ACTION." The scenes were "When Mendez gets spaced", "The Duel", "You can't take it with you", "Bitching in the cafeteria", "The Friendly Fire death", and "Who the FNG got killed".
This was a great game, especially with the close relationships, and the players really got into the scenes that they and others suggested.
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