ConTingency 2025

Once again January saw me and my husband taking a trip to Hunstanton. We were the first of our group to arrive, and parked outside our assigned lodge, only to discover we'd been given an upgrade!

The new lodge was bigger, and had WiFi and a dishwasher, as well as a table that can seat the six people that the lodge claims to be for. But it seems that I'm the victim of a strange and extremely specific curse. For the previous two conventions I was in the same lodge, and both times I had trouble with the toilet door, resulting in me getting stuck in the toilet for a bit. This time I was assigned a different lodge, which I'd previously visited and knew the toilet doors worked. But now we'd been moved...

Fortunately this lodge had two doors into the bathroom so we were able to leave via the other door before visiting reception to request a visit from maintenance. But really, three years in a row?

Tuesday features a talk in the afternoon, and this year it was CJ Romer talking about parapsychology and his career in ghost investigations. Entertaining as always, and further cementing my opinion that CJ is a Call of Cthulhu character who has somehow ended up in the real world.

After a couple of days relaxing it was time for the games to begin.

Wednesday

Foretold: In Its Shadow

The Dragonbane game I initially signed up for was cancelled due to GM illness so I jumped at the chance to play a story game with James Mullen.

We had a deck of cards and a list of prompts, and with that put together a story of hunting for an alien beast through the abandoned ruins of an industrial area. My character Flora, a xenobiologist, was the first to be entirely consumed by the beast's corruption, but it had already become increasingly obvious that in true Event Horizon style, none of us should have been allowed on this mission. I think we ended by destroying the planet. Good times.

After the game I nipped over to the neighbouring lodge as fellow Raspy Raven member Graham had been running a game of Matrons of Mystery and had offered to show me the props he'd made for it. There were actual printed cards for the suspects and clues! I'm really going to have to up my game.

When Worlds Collide

I had absolutely no idea what this was, and signed up because my husband did and I wanted to play a game together. Then he was ill and couldn't play. Still there were two other guys called Mark at the table so we were well covered there.

So it turned out it was a game about agents who could travel through dimensional rifts. Our team were prepped to go and recover a scientist who'd been trapped when the rift he arrived through went one way, then locate a new rift to bring us all back. Expecting to arrive on the bustling streets of New Amsterdam, we dressed as tourists, which rapidly turned out to have been a poor choice when we arrived to a bunch of biohazard signs.

The system was unfamiliar but pretty easy to get the hang of, rolling 3d6+skill against a target number with modifiers for professional skills. The character sheet was also colour coded, which was good for readability. While I can't see me running this, it's definitely something I'd play again at a convention.

Alien

I knew Alien was a popular game at previous cons so I took the Misfits and their road crew for another outing. A new record - all original PCs plus two replacements killed by the end.

I had a table right in the middle of the main room for this, and while I think I managed to be heard, I decided to relocate my other games to my lodge now that we had enough table and chairs for six people.

Thursday

Cthulhu Dark

I dived straight back in with The Temple of Artemis, my newest Jamesian ghost story using Cthulhu Dark. Once again four brave souls uncovered the secrets of Suttonham Abbey although I don't think it was any less haunted by the end given what happened to Williams.

This one is on the way to being publishable so watch this space, or rather the space on DriveThruRPG where I publish my games.

Sla Industries

My husband had recovered enough to play a game, so off we went to play SLA Industries. This time another player picked the purple cat sniper, so I went for the Frother, basically a crazed Glaswegian on combat drugs with a massive gun. We were on the trail of some stolen ammo, which we retrieved through a complicated series of events that included attempting to book a motel room, sending someone for pizza, and hiding the Stormer in a van, before we got to the required violence.

I'm starting to get the hang of SLA's system now, and while I'm still not sold on the backwards initiative system, I do at least understand how it works. Also it's nice to bring out the bag of d10s for a change. Two games in, and I'm keen to play more.

Black Code

I planned to take a break on Thursday evening, but when I saw a game of Black Code on the board, I decided to add myself to the waitlist, just in case. Just in case happened, and off I went to play.

I've got a reputation with Whitt (the author) and Mark (the GM) for playing weird bug people in their games, and I felt I was only cementing this reputation further when I was offered a choice of new pre-gens and immediately picked Itzy the tech in her spider themed bioframe. I decided she had some extra eyes, to fit with her fairly high Notice level, and hairy fingers, a phrase which seemed to cause some concern.

Off we went on a mission to recover a sacred relic stolen from the Temple, aided by mech frame Sherman's very useful ability to turn into a tank along with all the usual hacking, tracking, and cutting people up with a big sword that the rest of us were bringing to the party. Itzy proved just as much fun as Aedon the scorpion medic and I hope I'll get more chances to play her at future conventions. Black Code is one of my favourite cyberpunk games and maybe one day I'll even run it.

Friday

Matrons of Mystery

Another Matrons game not run by me! This was the same GM I played with last year, who remember my character Rosemary and her giant bunny Pierre. But I decided to do something new this time, and created Audrey Wells, widow of Steve Wells, a rock star who died of attempting to act like Ozzy Osbourne while not being Ozzy Osbourne. Audrey's hobby was now folk music, although she maintained her vintage punk style.

The game was initially pitched as us being the village sewing circle, but when the GM gave us the option to choose, we decided we were going to be a band instead, quickly named Earl Grey Rock, possibly the loudest thing in the village of Soggy Bottom On The Marsh.

Soon we were digging into the intrigues of theatre production when our breakfast with the cast was interrupted by the discovering of the death of the financier behind it all. Between secret passages, whispered conversation and wild speculation we eventually got to the bottom of it, and hopefully assisted a young man in embarking on a new career in the theatre.

I decided to actually take a break for the afternoon and went to browse the wares at All Rolled Up, coming back with some coasters, a bundle of zines, and a very lovely hand made dice bag from the tombola.

Regency Cthulhu

An atmospheric tale of five sisters (and a stable boy) left alone on Christmas Eve while strange activities were going on outside and everyone had a secret to keep. Somehow we all got through it alive, although there was a general feeling that none of us intended to still live in that house by the following Christmas.

Unusually for a game run by CJ, this one was comparatively normal, and involved actually getting on with the plot rather than engaging in extensive Regency nonsense. Well, mostly.

Saturday

Liminal

I decided to take my newest scenario, Blood, Sweat and Tears, for another outing. I originally had a table booked in the hall for this, but given that we now had a sufficiently large table in the lodge I decided to relocate.

This was an unusually efficient group, getting from place to place on a bare minimum of clues - which is encouraging as it means I've successfully designed an adventure with multiple paths to the solution.

East Texas University

I was considering another break, but when I saw ETU I had to give it a go. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, beyond Savage Worlds, but it turned out to be basically Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a dash of Scooby Doo.

I picked up Priscilla the goth witch and went off to a Christmas dinner that rapidly turned into a fight with the cutlery. And it wasn't long after that that we were breaking into an antique shop to steal taxidermy and things only got stranger from there.

I had a brilliant time with this one, tempered only by the fact that it appears to be damn near impossible to get hold of ETU in print these days. Does anyone happen to know if Pinnacle have any future plans for this line?

Plüsch, Power & Plunder

I'd seen this run at past conventions, but this was my first time getting into one of Chris Dieck's legendary plush games. I played Trevor, a cuddly tree frog with exceptional bouncing skills who also knew how to read.

We decided we were the cuddly toys in the Happy Stars daycare, which looked after the children of actors and film crew while they were on set. We spent our days avoiding being played with as much as possible, hanging out with our human friend Jeff, tormenting the security guard and avoiding detergent addiction, until we were forced into action by an invasion of plushies who were alive, but not properly alive! Fortunately movie nights with Jeff helped us make some sense of this.

The most notable incident in the whole game was probably when we needed to drive a car to get somewhere in a hurry. Trevor was assigned to steering, making sure to bounce at the proper times to turn the wheel. While navigation was a little shaky, the actual driving went remarkably well, and while we were technically not able to use the car again afterwards, it was a solid result for a team of six assorted cuddly toys. Trevor played his part in saving the day by doing some reading so that Great Cthulhu could do some magic and end the problem. Well, mostly. Call it a net improvement. Again, a solid result for a team of six assorted cuddly toys.

Sadly this game is even less available that East Texas University, being both very old and from Germany, but really the system isn't the important part here. What matters is that I got to play a cuddly frog.

Sunday

Rivers of London

I had just enough energy left for one more game, so it was off to Hunstanton for the residents of the Folly, to look into a matter of a haunted doll's house. Which turned out to be even more haunted than it appeared at first glance. Sadly what Morgan Omar had learned from watching The Wizard of Oz proved not to be correct, but we nevertheless got everyone out safely.

And then it was off to the carvery for lunch, where the Yorkshire puddings were excellent and really that's what matters, followed by the raffle, and then doing absolutely nothing for the rest of the day.

Reflections

Once again, a brilliant convention. Games and GMs both ranged from good to excellent. I got to try out four new games as well as playing some old favourites. We sold the majority of the items we put in the Bring and Buy, so once again there is space on my shelves ready for the incoming kickstarters.

I didn't pace myself as well this year as I did in 2024, and need to show a little more restraint early in the week if I want to keep going at the end. Nevertheless I managed to play 12 out of 14 slots, which is pretty good going.

With so many friends there, the hard part is actually catching up with everyone. Some people I didn't manage to speak to until Sunday or Monday morning. Must try harder next time. Really the only problem with ConTingency is that it isn't long enough. Roll on next year!