Concrete Cow 25.5

While I'm part of the organising team for Concrete Cow, my job ends a day or two beforehand when I make the final updates to the schedule and close down the game submission form. On the day, all I had to do was show up and join in. Which I began with a trip to Leisure Games, since I'd been meaning to buy a copy of Outgunned, and there it was in the box. Perfect. I handed over my sign-up sheets and caught up with some old friends until it was time for the games to begin. We'd remembered from last time about the room divider, so there was a bit of table shifting and the sliding wall sections were pulled into place.

Game 1: Monster of the Week

K-Pop Demon Hunters seems to have done things to me (although to be fair my husband's enthusiasm for K-dramas has also been a factor) and with the movie having a certain amount of Buffy energy, I was pretty sure I could run it with Monster of the Week. Rather than Huntr/x themselves, I pitched a game where you play a junior band, relatively new to both the music and demon hunting business, based in Busan. Korea is around the same size as England, and to get from Seoul to Busan takes about six hours on the train (or more if there's a zombie outbreak.) So the juniors handle demon outbreaks that Huntr/x just can't get to in time.

The newest expansion for MOTW includes some new playbooks, some of which seemed like a great fit for this game. So in addition to the Chosen, Initiate and Divine from the original book, I offered the Celebrity, Changeling and Forged from the new book. All three new options, plus the Chosen, ended up in play.

They decided to be a girl band, so I offered a set of photos of one of my favourite K-pop bands, Dreamcatcher, to choose from. With a bit of help from Fantasy Name Generators, everyone picked a name, and the Ji-Socks were ready to perform. Rather than use the history section from the playbook, given that in most cases the history would be 'you went to an audition', I instead created some new moves based on roles within a band. And so the band comprised of the inspiring Leader, the gorgeous Visual, the intimidating Main Rapper and the golden voiced Main Vocalist. They also each decided on an insecurity, something that could cause problems on a failed roll.

And so the Ji-Socks set off to make a series of public appearances, with various levels of success, in between dealing with a demonic outbreak threatening Busan, saving countless lives and also scraping through with their reputation just about intact.

Normally I run an online playtest before taking a new scenario to a playtest, but couldn't fit it in this time. All the same, I was confident I knew MOTW well enough to make it happen. The band roles and the insecurities all worked out just as I was hoping and the players did a wonderful job creating their band members. I'm offering this again at future conventions and I'm really looking forward to running it again. Just one change: bring bulldog clips so people can attach their photo to their name card.

During this game we heard from the people running the community fridge in the same venue that they had way too much food and we were welcome to take some to save it from being thrown out. So we take a short break to see what was on offer. I came back with ciabatta rolls, ham, and custard doughnuts, which made an excellent lunch, and some mince pies. I certainly wasn't the only convention attendee somewhat baffled to see mince pies about to go out of date at the beginning of October.

Game 2: Girl By Moonlight

 I wasn't the only person running a K-Pop Demon Hunters inspired game at this con (and in fact the GM for this game had been in my morning game.) This time we were playing with Girl By Moonlight, a Forged in the Dark game about magical girls. Not being much of a fan of magical girl anime, I'd not looked at this one before, but it did seem like a logical fit for the movie.

This time we were playing Huntr/x, but an alternative version of the band in which there were four members instead of three. Like me, the GM had brought photos of real K-pop stars, this time four members of Twice. I picked Momo, the ballad singer, who certainly had some stuff going on.

We kicked off with a mission to rescue our manager Bobby who was being abducted by demons, interrupted somewhat by the sudden appearance of an incredibly attractive demon boy band. Inevitably things immediately started going wrong, with Bobby rescued but traumatised, and Sana suffering from demonic corruption from contact with the Saja Boys.

Like more FITD games, this one has a pretty rigid structure, and the next item on the list was Obligations. This turned out to be really fun, as Jihyo had to endure an epic signing and photography session, Sana was followed around by the camera team from The Only Way Is Seoul, and Momo had a truly disastrous time when the band had to take on the Saja Boys at the Korean equivalent of Ninja Warrior.

Then it was time for downtime, and an attempt to reduce some of the absolutely massive amount of stress we'd picked up during the mission and the obligations by connecting with each other. I say an attempt. Despite Jihyo and Momo spending some quality time in the dance studio together working on the new routine, and Momo taking Nayeon out to a bar for soju and kareoke, the band was still on the edge of falling apart when we were due to appear at the Idol Awards, with Sana set to perform with the Saja Boys instead of Huntr/x. It took a demonstration of just how band the rest of us were at rapping compared with her to snap her out of it and get her back on side.

Then it was time to take to the stage and throw everything we had into this performance. Incredibly, Sana's trick worked perfectly, deceiving the Saja Boys into a performance that strengthened the honmoon instead of breaking it, but now it all came down to one last song to seal the honmoon. Which almost went perfectly. Almost. And so the sequel to this alternative version of the movie will be The Search for Jihyo as the rest of the band have to venture into the demon realm to rescue her from the wrong side of the honmoon.

Comparing the two games was interesting. MOTW puts more focus on the monster hunting aspects. GBM has more about the connections between characters, encouraging emotional conversations. Overall I prefer MOTW, partly because I find standard PBTA as a system is not quite as prone to that situation where someone has come up with a brilliant idea, is doing the thing they're theoretically best at and has stacked up all available bonuses and the dice still say no. It's also less prone to the constant escalation of FITD, where every partial success leads to complications, injuries and stress. Partial success results are laid out in each move, with the partial result on moves like Investigate A Mystery being that you get fewer questions to ask rather than an immediate escalation, which from the GM side of the table I find puts a lot less pressure on me to constantly come up with ideas for complications.

I really did like the Obligations part of GBM though, and while I wouldn't want to use the same mission/obligation/downtime structure in my own games, incorporating some aspects of it in a more freeform way could be a good addition to my MOTW games. There's always room for new ideas in PBTA.

I'd planned on a trip to a local takeaway for dinner, but I still had a bag full of ham, ciabatta and doughnuts. It was certainly one of my cheaper trips to Concrete Cow.

Game 3: Age of Vikings

I'd planned to run Wraithound in the evening slot, but with a record number of evening games on offer, it didn't get sign-ups, so me and the other GM with no players jumped into other games. I'd been hoping to try out Age of Vikings for a while, and the game on offer was The Cursed Farm, a shorter demo game which should see us finished in plenty of time to get home at a reasonable time.

The system was BRP, so not far off Call of Cthulhu, although it seems it takes more inspiration from Runequest overall. One nice feature was the ability to pray to your favoured deities where appropriate and get a bonus to your next roll. Alas, despite Thor hearing my call, I still managed to shoot an arrow in entirely the wrong direction.

I played Hrund, nicknamed the Uninspired, and with plans to team up with Njall the Beardless to have serious words with whoever was handing out nicknames in our settlement. We headed off to the titular cursed farm to find out what had happened to Bjorg's redcurrants. There was overall less concern about what had happened to the kale. We did actually set the kale patch on fire at the end, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Overall this was a fun time. I'm not sold on the giant skill lists (Rivers of London remains my favourite version of BRP) and I'm not sure I make a particularly convincing Viking, but it's definitely one I'd be happy to play again.

With the game finishing early, I decided to stick around for a bit and chat with the convention's co-organisers. Despite all being at the MK-RPG club every week, we're all GMing different games so don't actually get much of a chance to talk, so it was really nice to catch up.

And so that was it for Concrete Cow 25.5. I've already seen a couple of other blog posts about the event - Groundhoggoth wrote about the Pico game he ran about wrestling bugs and Simon Burley wrote about his first trip back to Concrete Cow since before Covid.

Concrete Cow 26 is booked for 7th March 2026, and based on what I've found in the MK-RPG wiki archives it's our 20th anniversary! I'm looking forward to it already. 

Concrete Cow 25

I arrived in Wolverton at more or less the time I intended, paid my entry, and headed straight for the bring and buy, followed by Leisure Games. I'd been thinking of picking up some of the supplements for Masks: A New Generation and there was one of them in paperback so of course that had to come home with me. I somehow managed to resist the impressive amount of bargains on the bring and buy.

By the time I took this photo, very little remained

Game 1: The Wildsea

I used my GM golden ticket to get into my top pick of morning game. I'd seen The Wildsea around and knew how pretty it was but not a great deal else. I was also very happy to find myself at a table with five familiar faces - while it's great meeting new people at cons, it's also great to catch up with old friends.

I was immediately smitten by the pre-gen characters the GM had provided. I resisted my natural urge to play the weird bug person, and passed the swarm of spiders in a skin suit to another player. I decided on Sagrave the Ektus - a towering cactus person with a talent for smashing things up. The rules themselves were fairly straightforward. A variation on Forged in the Dark, and one that seemed a little less hostile to the idea of players passing their rolls. Or perhaps that was partly the fact that the dice appeared to have taken a liking to us?

 What wasn't so friendly was the setting, when it came to figure out what to actually do with it. 'Bunch of weirdos on a ship' is always a solid premise for a game, but while games based on familiar franchises like Star Trek or Pirates of the Caribbean provide a familiar setting, this one is so weird it's hard to know where to take your ship.

The GM dealt with this by giving the characters some interesting motivations and relations, specifically having two characters married, and a third their child. We tried not to think too much about how exactly a human and a bag of spiders had a kid. Fortunately, Sagrave and his friend Hobel the mushroom person didn't know too much about animal biology anyway. Off we sailed, in search of the Amber Irons, where the human wife was going to find an ingredient to make a tea for treating amber blight.

The Wildsea crew

The end result was a game that really put me more in mind of Pasion de los Pasiones, as the human's ex wife showed up, causing trouble in her relationship with her spiders husband, which was a stressful situation for their son. Sagrave, who'd already failed at flirting with the harbor master, concluded that he needed some surrogate parental figures, and that in the absence of any actual suitable candidates, Sagrave and Hobel would have to do.

I suspect The Wildsea is one of those games that works better in a campaign where you've got time to actually learn to setting. All the same, we did have a good game thanks to an imaginative GM and a group of players absolutely willing to lean into the bizarre relationship drama. I fondly remember Hobel and Sagrave rather confusedly asking the spider bag husband if he wasn't already technically in a poly relationship given that there were quite a lot of him.

I picked up some lunch at Tesco, then brought out my sign-up sheet for the afternoon. There were quite a lot.

Ten games on offer!

Game 2: Monster of the Week

I took Valentine's Day for another outing, and another team of elderly monster hunters assembled: a Professional, an Expert, a Mundane and a Divine. So three regular humans and the angel Jeremiel headed for Asani's Greek restaurant to find out why her new barista was being inundated with romantic gifts.

This was great fun. The changes I made for the Revelation run continued to work well, and the group efficiently got to the bottom of things, a few passionate declarations of love notwithstanding.

Then it was time for takeaways and the raffle. This time the raffle prizes consisted almost entirely of things I already owned and things that I previously owned but had since sold. Obviously that means some people won some very cool stuff.

Game 3: Darkness of the Demimonde

 Having written a brand new DotD scenario for my campaign group a few weeks ago, I decided to give it another outing. Brides of Brixton is another investigative pulp horror scenario set in London, and I needed to make some tweaks to run it for a group of beginner characters rather than the slightly more experienced campaign group. Primarily reducing the DR of the primary antagonists.

This time the party consisted of a Detective, Gentry, Feyblood, Magician and Psychic, meaning that most things were solved by either solid investigation techniques of searching and interrogation or creative use of mystic powers. I managed to make good use of my random historical knowledge. Good times. 

Sunday

We've got a bit of a tradition now of a few of us meeting up on the Sunday for lunch and an activity. This time, with some people coming who'd never seen the notorious Concrete Cows before, there was really only one option.

The Concrete Cows

Even if you've seen photos, nothing truly prepares you for the sheer physical presence of these things.

The short walk there and back meant passing a field with some ponies in it. It was good to see that with five of them plus a suitably horse-sized d20, they were all set up for a nice game of D&D.

This one was probably the GM

This was followed by lunch at Yo Sushi and then dropping everyone back at the station.

Reflections

This is probably the best turn-out we've had at Concrete Cow since before Covid. We had loads of games on offer, and most of them filled up. Next time we'll have the main hall set up so we can deploy the divider and split it into two rooms when the games start, and can start looking at hiring additional space.

I love running games here.

Concrete Cow 24

The problem with volunteering to make the signs to direct people to the entrance is that you then have to arrive before the start in order to put the signs up. Accordingly I arrived 20 minutes early, a new record. Soon everyone else was arriving though, and we got down to some shopping at Leisure Games. I'd been thinking of picking up Dragonbane, and there it was.

Game 1: Monster of the Week

I kicked things off with my own scenario, Who Ate All The Pies? Each time I run this it gets a little more polish, and this one was fantastic, with the three players all playing off each other, and culminating in a scene involving a gas station hot dog and a nerf gun that will take some beating. Between that and some very bloody horror, this is a really fun scenario to run, and I think it's got a few more outings in it.

Game 2: Watford Paranormal

There were a lot of fantastic options for afternoon games, and it was a tough choice, but in the end I used my golden ticket to get into Watford Paranormal, a game based on the TV show Wellington Paranormal, and using a cut down version of Public Access.

We quickly assembled our team of dubiously qualified police officers. My own PC Sweets was joined by PC Darling, CSO Turner, and Dex the PRIC. We set out to investigate a variety of vegetable related crimes, in which Sweets and Turner both managed to vault over a fence in the style of Nicholas Angel from Hot Fuzz, and Darling and Dex arrested a very aggressive onion.

Eventually we saved the world from an alien invasion, using a troupe of dancing carrots and an impromptu concert on TikTok. It all seemed to make sense at the time.

Then it was time for takeaways, and the raffle, in which my ticket was pulled first, meaning I got away with a copy of Heart.

Game 3: Escape from Dino Island

I wanted to run something relatively quick and uncomplicated in the evening, so it was time to bring out the toy dinosaurs and run a game of Escape from Dino Island. The group chose to be a group of criminals on a score, with the Kid character being the son of the Don who they all worked for. And so began another exciting journey across Dino Island, discovering and occasionally killing dinosaurs with radio collars and bar codes along the way, until they completed their mission by getting hold of some triceratops horns for the Don, made it to the radio tower, and sent a message that got picked up by International Rescue who immediately deployed Thunderbird 2. But first they had to escape the team of ninjas sent by a rival crime family, resulting in the team's engineer getting turned into three dinosaurs, the rescue of a paleontologist, and the discovery that the genetically engineered quetzalcoatlus really liked popcorn.

Post-Con

The intention was to do another Sunday get-together, but with many people unavailable, it became a much smaller outing. Nevertheless, we had a lovely visit to the National Film and Sci-Fi Museum followed by lunch at Pho.

Reflections

Just a really nice day's gaming. The only downside is that I didn't get to talk as much as I would have liked with some of the people there, due to some games running a bit long. I came home exhausted but happy.

Concrete Cow 23.5

It's always good to be back at Concrete Cow. I put out my sign up sheet, chatted with friends, bought a copy of Masks: A New Generation from Leisure Games and generally prepared for a good day.

Game 1: Monster of the Week

You can't write a scenario called Concrete Cows and not run it at Concrete Cow. This was a repeat of my Men In Black inspired game from North Star but thanks to having four players this time and a different selection of playbooks, it had a different feel.

It was also a good reminder that while character creation and establishing relationships does take some time, it's also an enjoyable part of the game. This time we had the experienced agent, the rookie, the alien and the conspiracy theorist, and the conspiracy theorist deciding that the alien was actually her father gave their relationship a whole different dynamic.

The dice also stepped up to provide the comedy side of this comedy-horror-scifi adventure, with the alien's wildly misfiring teleportation powers making the simple act of leaving a lake into the funniest part of the game.

While I've played a lot of Monster of the Week (see Wicker Valley) I'm still pretty new to running it, but I felt pretty comfortable with it this time and I'm looking forward to more.

Game 2: The Cthulhu Hack

The Raspy Raven discord often has games running in seasons, and Heist Season was a particularly unusual one. We all started off with the same blurb about a group of people in a room who'd just completed a heist, and wrote adventures for a variety of systems. This game was one of them, originally written for Those Dark Places but redone using The Cthulhu Hack.

This scifi horror take on the premise had us all waking up in a room on a spaceship with a body and a bad case of amnesia, and only got weirder from there. Unlike my previous game of The Cthulhu Hack we were at least vaguely competent at some rolls, although of course this did us no good in the end. The system is easy to pick up and having picked up a bunch of adventures with the kickstarter, I might try running this myself.

Around this point we discovered that the venue had double booked us in the evening slot, and some kind of Hindu religious festival was taking place in the main hall. Fortunately we still had the meeting rooms, so we all piled into the largest one for the raffle. There I picked up Mythos World, a PBTA take on Call of Cthulhu, which should make interesting reading.

Game 3: Darkness of the Demimonde

I wanted something flexible on numbers for the evening slot so decided to continue playtesting my scenario, Lights Out In Limehouse. I got five players in the end, and once again we learned that while difficult, angel summoning is not completely outside the remit of a starting magician with sufficient assistance. A fun game where I got to introduce more people to this charming system.

Post-Con

With a few people having stayed overnight, we decided to meet up for lunch on the Sunday. The Harvester provided a very average meal, but the meetup itself was fun and an opportunity to talk more to people I hadn't seen much at the convention itself. Something worth repeating, although at a different restaurant.

Reflections

Numbers were low, and I wonder if we'll ever get back to the pre-covid peak, but it didn't seem to matter. There was a great selection of games, to the point where I struggled to decide what to use my golden ticket on, and plenty of room to spread out (at least until the evening). Regardless of size, it's still one of my favourite conventions.

Concrete Cow 23

Having missed Concrete Cow 22.5 due to catching covid the week before, I was very keen to get back to it. I've somehow been recruited into helping with the organisation, but since my main role is keeping the website and social media up to date, I was able to leave setup in other hands and just show up at the start. I did arrive more or less on time for once though, and was able to park at the Old Bath House rather than having to search further afield. So overall a fairly relaxing start. Plus when I got inside I immediately found the two friends from Discord I've been looking forward to meeting for a long time - since the previous Concrete Cow, in fact, when it was supposed to happen.

Game 1: Call of Cthulhu

With my GM's golden ticket I knew I had a decent chance of getting into whatever I wanted in the morning. Two games of Call of Cthulhu were on the schedule, one with Matt Sanderson and one with Paul Fricker. Ultimately I decided on Paul's game for the pragmatic reason that I see Matt at other conventions but rarely run into Paul.

The scenario The Dreaming Ward saw us choosing characters who were about to enter a sleep study, for which they would be paid the fairly respectable (for 1926) sum of $5 per day. Then we had to decide what we were having nightmares about. My character's home town was Derry, which certainly gave me some inspiration. Then we all got to experience the rather unique form of therapy being offered in Dr Thorne's facility.

By chance my character managed to only lose one point of sanity in the whole scenario and was overall dealing a lot better with her sleep problems by the end. My only criticism of this one is that it was a bit of a rush fitting it into a 3.5 hour session - we could easily have played for another hour.

Game 2: Kult: Divinity Lost

I'd planned to run A Walk In The Park at the previous Concrete Cow, and since I particularly love the handouts I've made for this one, it felt like a good idea to bring this one out again. Once again there were enough fellow horror fans for a full party and I got to take another four hikers into my Kult version of a nice walk in the Peak District. For those who know, the handouts landed as well as always.

I'm going to be taking a break from this scenario for a bit, as I've run it a lot and I have new stuff in the works, so it was great to send it off on such a high note.

Game 3: Cthulhu Dark

My Jamesian scenario A Winter Haunting tends to be on the shorter side, generally coming in at just under three hours offline, so I thought this was a good choice for an evening game. And conveniently, there were just the number of players left to fill both evening games.

I remain entirely convinced that Cthulhu Dark, despite being written for a slightly different type of horror, is the best system for Jamesian horror. This scenario is a bunch of fun to run, and it's great not having to worry about bringing another set of character sheets - although I do bring my box of tiny skulls as a fun and tactile way of tracking fear levels.

Post-Con

Concrete Cow takes its name from the actual concrete cows less than two miles from the venue, so in the morning I met up with one of my fellow con-goers to pay them a visit.

They're really something. Particularly this small one at the back who seems to end up photobombing photos of the other cows, and is clearly ready to throw down at any moment.

Then we paid a visit to the National Film and Sci-Fi Museum where we ran into quite a few other con-goers. Photography isn't permitted in most of the museum, but there are a few designated selfie spots, so I decided to try out the Iron Throne.

Reflections

I was a little worried about numbers, given the rail strike that I knew had prevented several people from attended. I needn't have been; numbers were entirely reasonable and we had a good number of games happening in both morning and afternoon slots, plus enough people staying for the evening slot to have two games. I got to catch up with a few old friends while making new ones - and that and the gaming is what it's all about.

Concrete Cow 22

It's two years since I was last at Concrete Cow.  All a bit nerve wracking.  Conventions where you sign up on the day used to be my normal, but that's all changed in the last two years.  I'm used to knowing in advance what I'm going to be playing.  I decided the best way to mitigate that was to offer games in all three slots.  If they filled, then I'd know what I was playing.  If they didn't, it was back to surprises.

Arrival was a bit hairy.  I had to get up early enough not just to get ready, but also to take a covid test and wait 15 minutes to confirm I didn't have the 'rona before I left the house.  Accordingly I ended up leaving somewhat later than planned.  Then when I drove to my usual car park I discovered it was now hosting a covid testing site.  Fortunately there was still just enough car park left for me to find a space and jog back to the Old Bath House.  Then the door I normally go in by was closed, so I had to remember where the other door is.  But finally I was inside, and able to get my sign up sheet on the table with time to spare.

Game 1: Liminal

My Liminal scenario Bad Blood is set minutes away from the Old Bath House, so I decided this one had to be run at Concrete Cow.  I got five players signed up, and off we went.

I was mildly concerned about timings.  Bad Blood normally takes about four hours to run, and this was only a three and a half hour slot.  However, somehow things do seem to run faster offline than online, and despite occasional off topic conversations as a bunch of people who'd not had much physical company in the last two years took the opportunity to catch up, it all seemed to work.  It turns out Bad Blood is actually one of my more flexible scenarios, timing-wise.

Part of the reduced run time may just be handouts.  Normally I'd include a few Google Maps links and Streetview images to let people immerse themselves in the setting, but with the actual setting being right outside the window, I didn't bother, and just included the one handout that's plot-relevant.

With the gradual return of in-person conventions and limited time slots, timing is definitely something I need to be aware of, so it's good to know I got it right this time.

Game 2: Kult

The second slot was a four hour slot, so I decided this was the time to pitch a game of Kult.  Called to Account is pretty reliably four hours long.  My hope was that things running faster offline would counteract the additional time at the start spent choosing and reading characters, which normally happens prior to the game when I'm running Kult online.  I'm glad to say it did.

I had a great group of players for this one.  Kult really shines when people lean into their characters, particularly the disadvantages, and having players keen to spot the roll triggers and attempt to Keep It Together without being asked is always fun.  There was great interaction between the characters, and a final outcome that was a first for this scenario.

It was a bit worrying pitching Kult, as it's certainly not for everyone, and I was wondering what I would do if I didn't get the full four players I wanted.  As it turned out, not a problem.  Plenty of horror fans keen to play!

I used my new character sheets for this game, built in LibreOffice so they're fully customisable in that or Word.  The goal is to have all the information you're going to constantly need in play - attributes, conditions, stability - on one sheet, so you only have to refer to the rest for details of the advantages and disadvantages.  It also meant that once they were in document pouches with a copy of the moves sheet, the bits that need to be kept secret from other players were all hidden.  I handed out the sheets in the pouches, and asked people to pick based on the front sheets and not open them up until they'd chosen.  A practical way of transferring my normal online approach to the tabletop.

It was gradually getting darker throughout the game.  I didn't notice at the time, but I feel it added to the atmosphere as the scenario gradually ramps up the tension and horror over time.  It was quite a shock when we got to the end and someone turned the lights on!

Game 3: Matrons of Mystery

The evening slot is technically three and a half hours, but I figured numbers would be a lot lower and also people wouldn't mind a shorter game, so this was the best slot for Matrons of Mystery that can easily run under three hours offline, and is also doable with only two players if necessary.

In the end I had three players, pretty much my ideal number, and we dived into Dicing with Death.  Mavid, Enid and Margaret performed a thorough investigation of the murder of Scott Sallow, despite allergy attacks, enforced spa treatments and a very thorough education on genre emulation in game development.  They finally managed to catch the killer just in time to stop them staging the death of another suspect to frame them for their horrible crime!

This ended up being the only evening game that ran, so I'm very glad to have been able to offer some fun in this slot.

Reflections

While I've done two other in-person conventions since the pandemic, this is the first time I've run games other than Matrons of Mystery.  It's good to know I've still got the knack.

I did wonder if I'd made the right choice pitching games in all three slots.  There were a number of other games listed on the website that I would really like to have played.  But with covid preventing some people showing up, the other games that interested me didn't run.  My games all ran, and I'm very happy with how they went, so ultimately I made the right choice.

This is probably the smallest Concrete Cow I've attended.  Part of that is that numbers are down across the board thanks to covid, but also the fact it didn't go virtual over lockdown might mean it's dropped off a lot of people's radar.  I think the autumn event is going to need much stronger advertising if we're going to get the numbers back.  Concrete Cow is pretty special to me as my first (and for a while only) convention and I really want it to succeed.

All the same, with the current situation I had no complaints about a small event.  Combined with the organisers requesting that everyone have proof of vaccination and a negative test, it felt a lot safer than some of the larger events I've avoided going to.

I've missed this.  It's good to be back.

Concrete Cow 20

With the possibility of future game conventions being cancelled this year, I was determined to make the most of Concrete Cow while I had the chance.

Game 1

With a golden ticket for offering a game in the afternoon slot, I got to go first in the morning sign-up.  I picked Graham Sargeant's Dead of Night game, Normal for Norfolk, having missed out on playing it on a previous occasion.

Dead of Night is a game based on B-movies and slasher horror.  Characters have stats in Dead of Night, but the really important (for which read fun) thing on the character sheet is your bad habit, which enables you to get survival points back.

Accordingly we made a group of disfunctional students and sent them off on holiday together.  For my character's bad habit I chose a tendency to act without thinking.  I thought it would both be entertaining and a way to ensure that I didn't spend too much time thinking about what to do.  This is the kind of game that's more fun if you make bad decisions.

By the end of the game we were all somehow still alive, but none of us got out unscathed.  Excellent fun, and really had the feel of being in a low budget horror movie.  I would definitely recommend this game for one-shots.  With its super-fast character creation, you can be up and running in a few minutes, and I felt free to make those bad decisions without worrying about my character's survival.

I successfully made my int check to use the microwave in the kitchen, and reheated some leftovers for lunch.  Then it was time for afternoon sign-up.  With only four player slots and a game I already knew there was interest in, I wasn't surprised when mine filled up first.

Game 2

Another outing for Liminal and the Fang Gang, an adventure I've run at least five times before but which never stops being fun.  Samir, David, Tony and Alison set out to rid London of vampires.

I love the way this scenario gives me all the key points I need to run it, but at the same time leaves enough space for me to improvise around when the players come up with new ideas.  I've got a few things nailed down; the first group who played it definitely wanted to know the location of the house they were looking for, and so each future game has included content from Google Maps and Streetview, plus a handy floorplan from Rightmove.  But other than that things are pretty flexible, and things go differently every time.

Re-running this scenario multiple times has not only been a lot of fun, I'm pretty sure it's making me a better GM.

And as for whether the players enjoyed it? Two of them went straight to the Leisure Games stall afterwards to buy the book, so I'm calling that a win.

I don't always stick around for the evening session at Concrete Cow, but with the possibility of a lot of conventions having to cancel this year, I was determined to get everything I could out of this one.  I grabbed a sandwich from Tesco, had a lovely chat with some of the other attendees, and awaited evening sign-up.

Game 3

I've been carefully not reading the adventure Hope's Last Day in the Alien core book, so when I saw someone was running it I was pretty keen to sign up, and was lucky enough to get a space.

Hope's Last Day is a fun introduction to Alien's cinematic mode, with plenty of horrible things happening, and a GM willing to bang on the table any time the xenomorphs were making similar noises in game, keeping tension high throughout.

Amongst the four other players was someone who I'd previously played the Chariot of the Gods scenario with.  In that game I was responsible for the deaths of both his characters.  I picked a character at random, and looked at their agenda.  Oh no.  By the end of the game I had killed another of his characters.  He is never going to trust me again.

Reflections

Numbers were low at the previous Concrete Cow.  This time things seemed a lot healthier, even with a few people not attending due to Coronavirus.

Little things can really add to a convention.  Name badges are supplied, and they're proper name badge stickers rather than just sticky labels, so they actually stick to your clothes.  Free tea and coffee in the kitchen (with a donation plate) was very welcome.  Hand sanitiser was also supplied, and I gratefully made use of it.

As usual, not many women, but enough that I did get to play in a game where I wasn't the only female player.  We'll get there!

Three awesome games for £5 and the price of a Tesco sandwich.  If that turns out to be my last game convention for a while, at least it was something I'll remember fondly for a long time.