ConDensed 2023

Once again covid has played havoc with my convention schedule, but having caught it a couple of weeks earlier this year, and with ConDensed being a week later, I was in a much better state for this year's convention. Lucky, since this time it was not a convenient drive from my house, but nearly three hours away. Fortunately, this time I had my husband with me.

This wasn't the original plan for ConDensed 2023. I'd hoped we'd be back at Billing Aquadrome. But there were already issues with the venue, and with the additional uncertainly of the place going into administration (not actually that unusual for the Aquadrome), I can see why we moved. The first attempt was another holiday park on the south coast, but not enough people booked to make it work. And so we moved to the Sea Cadets in Worthing, where we definitely did have enough people to make it work.

We arrived at the venue just in time for the opening brief, and then I introduced my husband to some friends, and then established nicknames due to all of them having the same first name. For the duration of the convention, my husband would be known as Mr Sue, a name he wears with pride.

Game 1: Eat the Reich

I'd seen the Kickstarter for Eat the Reich, and liked the aesthetic, but wasn't sure it was something I wanted to devote shelf space to. I was definitely up for giving it a try though, and soon five very different vampires crashed through the ceiling of a Parisian hotel and began our rampage across Paris in search of Hitler.

I liked the system. D6 dice pools, where 4-5 are success and 6 is critical success. The GM is also rolling, and you can use successes to counter the opponent's success. But you can also elect to take the hit and use your successes on something else, be that advancing your objectives, activating special abilities or drinking Nazi blood to increase your blood pool. Blood can be used to power other special abilities. There's an element of resource management involved, both with blood and with equipment. The latter gives you bonus dice on rolls, with the amount depending on circumstances, but have limited uses that have to be marked off. Fortunately there's no chance of running out of guns - at least there isn't if you're consistently killing Nazis.

And ultimately that's what the game's about. Killing Nazis until you've killed enough Nazis to get to Hitler, and then kill Hitler. Along the way we took on powerful opponents with scary technology and even worse magic. We visited iconic locations in 1940s Paris. We made creative use of our various vampire abilities. And we killed Hitler.

Everything that makes me not want to play vampires isn't here. The game has a clear aim and mechanics that support it. There's no angst, no politics, just a team of Nazi hunters doing their job and having some fun with it.

I don't know how well this would work for campaign play. It definitely feels like a game built for one-shots. But it's one hell of a one-shot.

Game 2: Cyberpunk Red

This was with the same GM as for Eat the Reich, and also the same GM as the Cyberpunk Red games I'd played at ConDucked. I picked up Selene the netrunner again and off we went to the Afterlife. Soon we were embroiled in another thrilling adventure featuring dubious corporate practices, gun fights and car chases. Once again, not having a medtech resulted in some interesting moments, although we did manage not to explode anyone.

Once again I am left thinking that I really need to run some more cyberpunk myself.

Game 3: Kult: Divinity Lost

Game slots at this ConDensed were rather different to what I'm used to. Instead of three 3-4 hours slots each day, there were two 6 hour slots (although effectively shorter as they overlapped meals, so there were long breaks while we all went out to the local takeaways.)

I took this as a good opportunity to run one of my longer Kult scenarios, The Farm. This typically takes me two sessions to run online, so I don't bring it out for conventions, but it's got some flexibility timewise and I reckoned I could fit it in.

Fortunately I had three players who all seemed to know what they were doing with Kult, as this scenario does require character creation at the start of the game. I gave them the brief - homeless people in modern day London - and they gave me a Criminal with a drug addiction and a shady past, a Doll who people just wouldn't leave alone, and a Broken dealing with mental health issues. A great bunch, and another new ending for this scenario.

Game 4: WEG Star Wars

I wasn't sure what I wanted to play on Sunday, given that the Rivers of London game had already filled up, but I had a look at the sheets when we arrived and figured I couldn't go too far wrong with Star Wars. I'd not played the West End Games version, beyond a single session back in 2003 or so about which I remember almost nothing, but it turned out to be simple enough to pick up.

We were humans, sent to support Boba Fett in an 'enemy of my enemy' kind of way, but got a bit sidetracked rescuing the survivors of a Tuskan raider attack and making friends with an astromech droid. This meant that by the time we made it to the final confrontation, most of the actual murdering was already done, but I did get to drive a scout walker for a bit, which was just as good.

I remain unchallenged in my opinion that Star Wars games are better when nobody's playing a Jedi.

Reflections

It was a small convention, but that suits me fine. Two slots a day instead of three made everything feel very relaxed, and also gave the option of some slightly longer games than usual. The venue was good - multiple rooms so we could spread out well. All in all, a very nice weekend, and I'd do it again.