KublaCon 2013

         This was my third year of attending KublaCon after a long absence. I was on my own this year, and got to play in a bunch of games. The games I was in were:

• The Auction of Desires, Dreams and Damnation (Friday 6PM)
• Guns & Glamour Playtest (Saturday 9AM)
• A State of Flux (Saturday 11AM)
• Vikings and Skraelings: 1092 (Sunday 12AM)
• Race to San Francisco (Sunday 2PM)
• The Weight of the Galaxy (Sunday 6PM)

The Auction of Desires, Dreams and Damnation

This was a fun theater-style larp, set in the world of an urban fantasy series I was not familiar with. I played a hired assassin who had accidentally time-travelled from the Southern U.S. before the Civil War. I didn't have a lot of hooks other than one person who owed me money and an item I wanted in the auction, but I had a lot of bad attitude. I avoided the Southern accent, but otherwise had fun playing up the brash assassin convinced he was the toughest guy in the room. Some common plot devices to note:

• Guardians entities / forces whose authority incrementally wore down over the course of the time period, allowing for more mayhem later in the evening.
• A collection of unique items that had importance in various backgrounds. In this case they were the auction items.
• Currency to be collected and spent, in this case simple money to be spent in auction bids.
• Supernatural convergence powers including a possession.

Highlights for me were when some shadowy figures tried to steal items including Dr. Jekyll's perfected formula. I helped stop them, then immediately drank the formula. I took two contracts, the second on the first person who hired me. Unfortunately, the first turned out to be the toughest old lady in the world (secretly undead, as it turned out) - so I had to back down. In the end, I didn't get win my auction bid, but I sold my soul to a devil for more power to track down my targets.

Everyone who played was excellent. I liked being a bad guy, but I did feel bad about killing PCs - because that kicks them out of the game. I think this is a common problem in larps with violence, that you want there to be consequences, but it sucks to be kicked out of the game. I don't think there is a general solution, but it is something to ponder.

This used a version of the L.A.R.P.S. system used by a number of games in the area. It is a mostly straightforward system with three attributes on a coarse scale of 1-3. Resolution is by rock-paper-scissors, where a one-point stat advantage breaks ties, and a two-point advantage is an automatic win. I had 9 abilities, nicely printed up with their keywords and a 2-4 sentences of description on little slips of paper. That is definitely on the complex side to be sorting through in a one-off game. Also, unfortunately, the potion mechanically made me worse at fighting even though I was described as an eight-foot tall savage. I had massive brawn, but with decreased dexterity I was worse at landing a blow, and my punches still did less damage than my shooting, and I wasn't any tougher.

Guns & Glamour Playtest

This was my third playtest of this game, played first with the author at AmberCon NorthWest, then GMed at DunDraCon, and GMed again here. It is derived from Monsterhearts and Apocalypse World, with the main added dimension that people mix choice of a Fae bloodline and choice of a 1920s gangster archetype. For this run, we had two pairs of bloodlines in the line up. The players and their characters were:

• JC played Redcap Grifter Seamus Blaisdell, on the fringe between a card shark and a serial killer.
• Phil played the freelance Redcap Hitman Joe Nobody, who connected with clients through the dwarf bartender Mac.
• Liz played Pixie Rumrunner Ruby Callahan, who drove about in a
• Jennifer played the Pixie Flapper Michelle "Mickey" Flynn, who was going out with the boss Underhill.
• Zed playing Goblin Lieutenant Hagmar Carrion, working for the mysterious fae boss Underhill.
• Zach playing the Brownie Legbreaker Brisbane, brought into Underhill's employ after working for Capone.

We established that this was a Fae gang - that Underhill was a cryptic boss, and that they hung out at the 5th Street Bridge Club, which had its entrance actually under the bridge, making it natural for there to be troll bouncers. We established various NPCs. As GM, I noted that Hagmar was absolute in his loyalty to the boss, and Mickey was also clear that her heart belonged to daddy. For my moves, I threw in a bit of mystery - that there were three out-of-towners coming in, but the instructions were highly unclear. There were these out-of-towners to check on, and then figuring out what they were doing here. There was various side trouble as well, like Mickey's jealousy of other women that Underhill was seeing.

In my previous two games, we had club owners who were acting as the boss - while here I had a lieutenant and a legbreaker working for an NPC boss. That definitely changed the dynamics. Still, the action was a ton of fun, and everyone was good in their characters - and the dynamics of the pixie pair and redcap pair were cool. It turned out that Underhill as a Sidhe was gathering forces to re-establish a noble Seelie court, with privileged place given to trolls and pixies, while tossing out the independents and putting other fae in their place. (This echoed the racial theme of the last game, and I wasn't quite as satisfied with it, but it worked as a device well enough.) Most of them split up and skipped town, except for Mickey who made up with her boyfriend Underhill.

A State of Flux

This was a large larp structured around a near-future nanotech crisis, with the U.S. President and cabinet members as well as various business representatives, press, and observers. It had several conspiracies, and in the end turned out to have mystic elements as well as the sci-fi nanotech. It was structured into a few days, with short breaks representing night time where we were out-of-character. There was a fairly involved abstract currency of points that could be gained by powers or achieving goals, and could be banked at the end of certain days.

My character was secretly the head of the Guild - a collection of rich leaders seen by others as plutocrats, though my character was described as libertarian and secretly dedicated to the downfall of all governments. This was a position of responsibility, but a major part my effort was on keeping our activities secret - which I found less satisfying overall.

Vikings & Skraelings - 1092

Unfortunately, this game didn't get to run. There were 11 sign-ups on the sheet, but I had four players a little after noon, which wasn't enough to run the game. I waited until about 12:25, then cancelled it. As it turned out, four others came by recruited by a friend about five minutes later.

Race to San Francisco

This was a playtest of a new RPG system still in development, run by the author. I had picked up a copy of the first draft playtest system a few months earlier in a package with two other Old-West-themed games, together called Project Sagebrush.

There were pregenerated characters, and I played the tough ranch hand, good with horses and guns. There were five or six attributes and binary skills, fairly standard RPG mechanics using 2d6. An interesting feature was how hero points were represented. Each player got a wooden cylinder with bullet casings. To spending a hero point to modify your roll, you took out a casing and tossed it into the middle of the table. This resulting in a satisfyingly thematic pile of casings in the middle of the table as the action got more difficult.

The scenario was fair, but could have used more threatening and interesting aliens. Other feedback went to the GM/author.

The Weight Of The Galaxy

This was an intriguing larp set in a science fiction universe in the midst of a galactic crisis. One of the items that I thought worked very well was that people got to decide what their own alien appearance was - making for highly varied aliens. I played an ancient and powerful energy being with no manipulators, which I described as being a 7 foot tall column of red light. I was highly condescending towards material beings, and walked around with my arms under a suit jacket and with extremely stiff body language. In retrospect, this was perfectly suited toward being high status. I was trying to convince others that I was the only one suited to handle the vast energies involved in fixing the crisis. There was explicit time travel that was being investigated, but secretly there were also a number of supernatural agents who were putting together a number of artifacts, I think.

I tend to have trouble with genre mashing - throwing together sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and other elements. This one worked well, though, and I enjoyed playing a 7 foot column of light a lot.