Revelation 2022

North Star 2020 was supposed to be my first ever Garrison convention.

Two years later, fully vaxxed and boosted and with a negative test logged on my phone, I finally made it to Sheffield for my first Garrison convention.  Revelation: an entire weekend of PBTA and FITD games.

Things were fairly quiet on Friday night, but fortunately the small group gathered in the bar recognised me as one of them.  Taking a look at the other clientele it became obvious why.  Everyone else was there for the 70s/80s/90s dance party night.

I'd lucked out by finding a room sharer who knew her way around the Garrison and was able to help me navigate its eldritch halls.  I'm still not entirely sure how the geometry of the place works, but well before the 10am start she'd got me into the guardhouse ready for our first game.

Game 1&2: Masks

Things kicked off with a game of Masks - or rather two parallel games of Masks with two GMs working together on a scenario that saw different worlds colliding.  On our table we had a happy, friendly group of junior heroes, slightly frustrated at being sent to make an appearance at a movie premier rather than proper hero stuff but otherwise upbeat and optimistic.  At the end of the first session, half our team found themselves snatched away into another, much darker universe, while two of their heroes landed in our world.  Nevertheless, optimism prevailed, and after some initial distrust we learned to work together with the two strangers until the villains were defeated and our own team were restored to us.

This was the first time I'd experienced a multi-table game, and the two GMs did a spectacular job with this, keeping things running in parallel, signaling to each other when significant events happened, and consulting each other during breaks to keep things on the same page.  The table swapping part worked brilliantly, with the shock of losing two teammates that the game had had us establish some close relationships with giving us some great roleplay hooks to work with.

The most challenging part for me was really beforehand, when we had to make characters, as the junior superhero genre is not one I know particularly well, and PBTA playbooks tend to be all about leaning into character archetypes.  Fortunately my husband is a big Teen Titans fan, and immediately understood the Doomed playbook I'd chosen, and was able to help me put my character together.  From there I could use the playbook to guide me in the actual roleplay.

Overall I really liked Masks.  While my taste in superhero media runs more to the MCU than Teen Titans, this is definitely something I can see me playing again.

Game 3: Bite Marks

I didn't originally sign up for Bite Marks, but since I wasn't assigned an evening game, when I was offered a space I decided I'd give it a go.  I didn't know much about the game beyond that it involved werewolves, but I was willing to find out.  After a quick glance through the playbooks, I went with the Cub, a new young werewolf still figuring out their place in the pack, which seemed like a good fit for the somewhat naive and confused portrayal I was likely to be giving.

Rather to my surprise, the scenario we were playing turned out to be set in 1930s Chicago and we were a gang of moonshiners.  We each randomly selected a secret, established relationships between characters, defined the pack's internal slang, and off we went.  I decided that my character had been a gangster's moll, who on encountering the pack's incredibly handsome fixer had decided she'd rather join these far more interesting gangsters.  The game proceeded in a blend of action, drama and Ealing comedy until we finally dealt with the many threats to the pack and a new Alpha took over.

This was a bit of an odd one.  While I absolutely enjoyed the game, I think it had more to do with the fun scenario, entertaining GM and enthusiastic other players than the game itself.  Bite Marks describes itself as a game of werewolf pack dynamics, and while we certainly had some of that in the game, the bits where we were doing werewolf gangster things were a lot more my kind of fun.  It has some great design features, particularly the bit where you define the pack slang, but ultimately I don't think this one's for me.

Game 4: Matrons of Mystery

I couldn't very well go to a PBTA convention and not run my own PBTA game, could I?  Four ladies of the Ramsbottom village library club temporarily put aside their books and card playing to go and solve a murder at the local convention hotel where the guest of honour at a roleplaying convention had been murdered.

The best part of running this game continues to be the delightful old lady characters the players come up with every time.  This time the game ended with not only the killer's arrest, but one of the old ladies now committed to being the group's DM as the library club took a slight change of direction.

Knowing that other people were bringing books to sell, I packed my small stock of printed copies of Matrons of Mystery and sold half of them over the course of the weekend.  It's great to know people are enjoying this game.

Game 5: Monster of the Week

I've been looking forward to trying out Monster of the Week for quite a while.  This time I was on solid ground, genre-wise, having watched a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Going through the playbooks I was soon able to identify most of the main cast.  The ones that weren't so immediately familiar I assume were more inspired by Supernatural, a show I've never seen, although thinking back later on I can see some Dresden Files influence in there as well.

By chance, the three players and GM of this game were the four junior heroes from the earlier Masks game, and sitting down together again almost felt like getting the band back together.  For my character I took inspiration for my tendency to accidentally set myself on fire in video games, and played a spellslinger specialising in fire magic with absolutely no cool.

I really liked how the playbooks not only embodied strong archetypes but absolutely give you the freedom to play them your own way.  My character's fire powers were pretty much in line with what Harry Dresden can do, but my character was entirely my own thing.  I also liked how the relationship questions served to set up a really strong friendship dynamic between the three characters - even more so than in Masks.

In short, this game was an absolute delight, and if I had to pick any game of the weekend to play another session of, it would be this one.

Reflections

With just over 20 people attending, this was a pretty tiny convention.  For my first experience of a Garrison convention, that was a good thing.  I got the chance to talk to most of the people there, not just the ones I was in games with.  It means that I'll already know a few people at future larger conventions.  It also meant I only had to get to grips with a limited part of the gaming space at the Garrison: the jailhouse and cells.  I'm told there's also a dungeon, and after walking around the place for a weekend, I can only assuming it exists in some kind of extra-dimensional space.

It was really nice to finally meet in person some of the people I've been getting to know over the last two years.  Here's hoping face to face gaming continues to be a viable option.  It was a wonderfully welcoming environment, and I'm really hoping to be able to get to North Star in person this year.