Furnace XX

Off to Furnace again, along with my husband who remembered to register this time. This was set to be the biggest Furnace yet, and excitingly for me, a few friends were coming for the first time, including one guy I'd never seen in person before, allowing me to confirm that he does in fact have legs.

Last year's outing to the Italian restaurant was seven people. This year, probably due to the increased numbers as well as greater awareness, there were seventeen of us. Which meant it was a bit of a long meal as they had so many people to serve (it's a small restaurant and we took up about half of it) but did make for good conversation. If we get numbers like this again next time though, it might be worth splitting the Friday meal across more than one venue.

Saturday kicked off earlier than usual, as breakfast was ending earlier so they could kick everyone out of the breakfast room and reset it as an additional gaming space. This room provided an additional eight tables, allowing for the biggest Furnace yet. It also meant a bigger area for All Rolled Up and Patriot Games to set up their stalls, and for the Bring and Buy table, all of which were very welcome.

The traditional opening speech was followed up by collecting the bag I'd pre-ordered, and also a commemorative dice tray. I decided not to use the bag during the weekend (foreseeing chaos with everyone having the same bag) but did use the extremely nice dice tray which is now a permanent resident in my gaming bag.

Game 1: Pendragon

The luck of the draw meant I hadn't got into any of my game picks in the morning session. Fortunately there was a space left in a Pendragon game, and since people had previously told me that they thought I'd like Pendragon, I decided to give it a go.

Well I do like Pendragon. The skill lists were a reasonable length, with a clear split between combat and everything else, much like Dragonbane. The traits meant I had a solid idea of how Dame Tamura was going to behave, and gave the option of making rolls to see if she was going to make poor choices as a result. Whether I'd actually want to play an entire Great Pendragon Campaign, I don't know, as I'm not sure how much doing knight things would appear long term, but I'd be willing to give it a try.

By the end of the session, Tamura had got lost in London, had mild religious disagreements, watched fellow knights vie for a lady's favour, and performed an emergency knighthood. Good times all round.

Game 2: Pinebox Middle School

So long term blog readers have probably noticed that I like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Pinebox Middle School is a slightly younger age range than Buffy but still firmly in that general area, so this was obviously a must-play.

I picked out the Athlete character, noticed a degree of resemblance to the Williams sisters, and accordingly named her Juno. Juno and friends set out on a camping trip with the local not-actually-scouts group, where things naturally went very wrong. Juno's athletic skills served her well in most situations, but things did get a little hairy towards the end when she was forced to play the flute, an upsetting experience for everyone involved.

Overall this had pretty similar vibes to Tales from the Loop, with the additional benefit of being Savage Worlds, where the dice just aren't as dickish as they tend to be in Year Zero Engine. Overall I have a slight preferences for the older teens in East Texas University (also based in Pinebox) but this is a great game nonetheless.

Game 3: Dragonbane

Time to take up the GM mantle and run a game. Having claimed one of the Jailhouse tables rather than a cell, I felt I should offer something where I could manage five players, and decided to try writing a Dragonbane adventure. Knowing I'd need miniatures, and somewhat inspired by an all duck game I played at a previous con, I decided on an all cat person game.

Prepping for this game, I discovered that while writing monsters for Dragonbane is pretty fun, I don't like making characters at all - at least, not the assigning skills part. And I'd signed up to provide five of them. But eventually I got them done, and Coco, Felix, Smoky, Marmalade and Stripes were ready to discover what catastrophe had befallen their home village of Meowington.

Running Dragonbane, particularly stuff I wrote myself, is still a weird experience for me because it's quite a long way away from the kind of thing I normally do. It's hard for me to judge how things actually went. Still, nobody looked bored or acted disengaged, so it clearly wasn't terrible. The biggest hiccup was when I couldn't remember the villain's motivation, which was really rather important to the story. Fortunately I remembered in time, but I should probably write that one down a little more clearly in future.

Nerves and insecurity aside, it was a lot of fun getting to bring out some of my collection of cat adventurer miniatures and make use of the Tom Cartos battle map books.

Game 4: SLA Industries

SLA is usually good for a laugh at a convention, and this was no exception. Offered the usual set of pregens, I decided to try something new and picked out the Neophron, a bird person with good social skills, making me the de facto party leader, although leader is a strong word for a party of SLA characters especially when there's a Stormer and a Frother in the group.

Our mission was simple: get a kebab. For which we needed money. For which we needed a job. For which we needed to replace the paper in the job printer so that it would print properly and we could read what the job was. And so began a sequence of bizarre events as we set out to clear a paper jam and ultimately get something to eat.

The GM was playing a little fast and loose with the system, which I appreciated as it gave me a chance to get more to grips with the basics of how it works, without having to worry about oddities like the reverse declaration initiative system. Also a welcome opportunity to pull out my bag of d10s. He also had the feats printed out on cards, which was a more convenient way to read them than all being printed on one sheet.

This was probably the highlight of the convention for me. Funny, gory, well GMed and with an enthusiastic group of players.

Before the final slot we had the raffle. Thanks to Chaosium sponsoring basically every convention I've been to this year, most of the prizes were Chaosium books and I walked away with a brand new copy of BRP.

Game 5: Monster of the Week

A second outing for my K-Pop Demon Hunters inspired game. With only three players this time, it was the Celebrity, Changeling and Forged who set out to protect Busan from demons. Based on what happened last time, I provided bulldog clips to attach the photos to the name cards, although I'm wondering if separate standees for the cards might also be a good idea. It may come down to how much lamination I can face doing.

With only one player being familiar with the movie, I had to work a little harder to bring the setting details, not helped by my tendency to forget that we were in Busan, not Seoul, and I don't think overall that it was as good as the game at Concrete Cow. But it still works as an adventure and it's going in my regular convention rotation for a while. As I learn more about Korean mythology, it may even get a sequel.

And that was that. Furnace remains an absolute delight. I got to catch up with old friends and meet some lovely new people across all the games. I really hope our first timers will join the rest of us again next year.

Furnace XIX

Once again it was touch and go whether I would make it to Furnace. Two weeks earlier I'd picked up a very nasty cold, and then on the Monday before I had covid and flu vaccines which knocked me out for a couple of days. But by Friday morning I was feeling well enough to make the drive.

In theory it takes a little over two hours to drive to the Garrison. In practice it seems to be getting longer and longer. This time I allowed three hours to get me there by 6pm as planned and still ended up arriving half an hour late. Fortunately dinner was booked for quite a bit later than that. A group of seven of us went out to a nearby Italian restaurant for a bit of pre-convention socialising. By the time we got back it was 11pm and we pretty much all went straight to bed.

Saturday began with breakfast at the Garrison, and then a trip to the car to retrieve the bring and buy bag which I'd been too tired to bring in the night before. Games are heavy. I had a quick browse of other people's books and then headed to the cells for my first game.

Game 1: Star Trek Adventures

Lower Decks is amongst my favourite Star Trek, so seeing a STA game in that setting, I had to sign up. I quickly found the character based on D'Vana Tendi and claimed her as my own. Along with Marcus (engineering), Jack (medical) and Seleya (command) we began our mission: to make sure the group of diplomats visiting the ship were not alerted to any of the usual nonsense that goes on in Lower Decks.

I began by making some adjustments to the alarm system, so that in the event that an alarm went off, instead of the klaxon there would be a sudden burst of Orien space shanties. Which didn't quite happen, as I'd got the wrong data chip and when something strange happened with the transporters, we got a sudden burst of Klingon acid punk. Seleya demonstrated great diplomatic ability by convincing the diplomats that it was in fact a welcoming fanfare.

Then of course we had to find the surprise tagalongs from the transporter, involving the traditional crawl through the Jeffries tubes, an attempt to communicate with a Tamarian, and creative use of the transporter beam. I could picture every scene. Wonderful stuff.

Game 2: Liminal

After a number of attempts to get to play the scenario The Edge of Reality, I finally got lucky here (or rather used my GM pick to get in.) I picked up a rather dubious antiques dealer/werewolf and we got to work looking into a mysterious death accompanied by some suspiciously helpful horoscopes. The scenario involved a little more sci-fi than the average game of Liminal, and was a thoroughly good time.

Then it was down to the bar for dinner. The hotel had utterly confused us by actually changing the menu for the first time in years. I went for the confit chicken breast with chorizo, potatoes, wilted spinach and saffron mayonnaise, and was rather impressed. Having eaten everything to my taste on the previous menu a number of times before, it was great to have something new.

Game 3: Liminal

I was in the GM seat for the evening game, running my newest Liminal scenario, Blood, Sweat and Tears. This one started out as part of a campaign I ran, and didn't go too well as I wrote it for a crew with a necromancer and then the necromancer's player was ill and couldn't make it. I've now substantially reworked it (to the point where events happen in almost reverse order) and it now runs a lot smoother and is no longer necromancer dependent. I'd run the new version twice before, and now had it polished into a version that's close to being publishable.

One fun part of running this one is that it's set in a very small area and incorporates significant amounts of local history. To the point where I could tell the players to feel free to google any named locations - anything they found was most likely true.

I also came up with a new set of pre-gens for this one - a touring band who alternate playing gigs and solving mysteries. The players did a great job embracing the unusual crew, and by 11pm the mystery was solved and they were ready to get to the next gig.

Game 4: Cthulhu Dark

Sunday morning I was GMing again, this time with my newest Jamesian horror scenario, The Temple of Artemis. Originally written for a game season on the Raspy Raven discord, this one had also had two previous runs and is coming close to its final form. Which meant I was scribbling notes on my notes as we went, and the whole thing needs a thorough rewrite to match the game I actually run.

Once again the players did a great job embodying the characters as Miss Williams took them to visit the creepy old mansion she'd just inherited and unsurprisingly discovered supernatural goings on in between some very substantial Edwardian meals. All survived with their minds intact, although it was a close thing, particularly for Miss Renfrew, and they all had to play a lot of golf to recover their nerves.

I didn't have a game booked for slot 5, having been unlucky in the raffle, and while I did offer to run a game for gameless people, not enough were interested to make it viable. And in any case, I was still pretty tired. So I stuck around for the raffle, just in case I won anything (I didn't) and then headed home.

Another lovely weekend at the Garrison. Here's hoping none of us caught covid this time!

Furnace XVII

Things were a bit touch and go on the run up to Furnace.  Two weeks beforehand I managed to pick up a nasty case of flu.  With the week before the convention seeing attendees dropping like flies with covid, flu and other illnesses I was wondering if I was actually going to be able to go.  But by Friday my health had improved considerably, and with the NHS website saying that flu is infectious for 3-7 days after symptoms appear, I was confident that I wasn't going to inflict it on anyone else if I showed up.

Game 1: Apocalypse World

Things kicked off on Saturday morning with a game of Apocalypse World.  Given that it was the same GM as my first game of Apocalypse World, I was tempted to play Pity again, and when said GM also suggested it, my mind was made up.  I made one change, switching out the brainer ear plugs for a pain projector, as the ear plugs are a passive item and therefore a bit more boring than the more active ones, especially in a one shot.

The rest of the players consisted of two PBTA veterans and one guy playing for the very first time.  We soon established that the town of Stagnant Waters was being visited by a mobile fight club housed in a luxury yacht on wheels being towed by a big rig.  After that things got weirder.

The more I play Apocalypse World, the more I like the idea of playing in a campaign.  Preferably with at least some of the same people.

Game 2: They Came From Beyond The Grave

The prospect of playing the characters in a 1970s B-movie was too good to pass up.  The Haunting of Abbeyham Priory is a quickstart adventure for this system, with a delightful set of pre-gen characters, each with a character portrait showing them suitably dressed for the setting.  The five of us piled into the Austin Allegro, and in a cloud of cigarette smoke and patchouli, started our investigation into the haunted priory, where we encountered many strange and horrifying things, although perhaps nothing was more terrible than the 1970s instant coffee.

I'm not totally sold on the system, it being a little too much like Vampire for my liking (understandable since it's from Onyx Path).  It did have some great features though, and I particularly liked the rewrite system, where we had a pool of points we could spend for rerolls ("What? My character would never mess up such a simple task that badly!  We're rewriting that bit.") and a number of other special effects ("We're going to get to the secret lair via this tunnel that was built for the previous movie that used this set.")

All round a good laugh, and definitely something I'd play again at conventions.

Game 3: Kult

Game 3 should have been a game of Delta Green, but with the GM succumbing to illness shortly before the convention I stepped in with a replacement.  There were four players besides myself, and I had a bunch of four player Kult games prepped.  Although with one player making alternative plans, and another also falling ill, I ended up with only two players.

I went with Called to Account, as I had it prepped ready for another convention, and also I was fairly sure I could run it with only two people.  And it ended up being a very different experience to previous runs, not only because there were two characters absent, but also because of the way the players chose to portray the characters.  End result: no PVP, and an ending that wasn't exactly happy, but certainly worked out a lot better for the PCs than things normally do with this one.

Game 5: Liminal

Having survived contact with three different campaign groups, I decided it was about time Sins of the Father became a convention scenario.  Once again I'd lost a player due to illness, but found a replacement in one of the people who'd lost their GM for that slot.

Four members of the Northampton branch of P Division set out to solve a murder and prevent the river spirit from flooding the town.  I'd done one practice run online with these pre-gens and made some minor tweaks to backstories that seemed to make things a little smoother this time.  Each game is a learning experience, and this game will continue getting polished over the next few conventions.

Game 6: Liminal

It's October, so time to break out the Halloween specials.  For me, that means my adventure Mischief Night.  I used the same set of pre-gens as for the previous game, but with flu having prevented me from running an online playtest, I had no idea how it would go with these characters.  The answer turned out to be pretty damn funny, with the players finding some uniquely creative solutions to some of the problems placed in their way.

This scenario is a little less polished than the previous one, but based on this run I'm happy to keep pitching it at conventions.  And the pre-gens are working out well, with some very creative takes once they get into the hands of the players.

Reflections

My first in-person Furnace, although after Revelation and North Star there was no real question whether I was committed to the Garrison conventions.  I'm finding that I really value the Friday evening in the bar, as a time to catch up with people I might not otherwise see much during a packed schedule.  Well worth taking the time off work to allow me to get there early.

Covid and everything else permitting, I hope to get to all four Garrison conventions next year.

Furnace XV

I was supposed to be playing one of my favourite LARPs at the weekend, so hadn't planned to attend Furnace this year.  But when registration opened, back in June, I signed up anyway because who knew what things were going to be like by October?  Good choice, past me.

Game 1

Saturday kicked off with a game of Punkapocalyptic, a game that I have learned to pronounce since my first time playing.  We played the scenario 'Bad Luck in Luckyland,' a rather less bodily fluid focused adventure, but even more absurd.  A simple cooking contest kicked off a chain of events that included constructing a Disney themed mecha, frolicking like woodland sprites and the accidental creation of a mutant buffet.

Describing the game to a friend afterwards, he said it reminded him of Borderlands, and that's not a bad comparison.  While the content is very different, there's a similar feel in the game's irreverant tone.  I don't know if Punkapocalyptic is intended to be a comedy game, but it's absolutely the funniest thing I've played this year.  Of course a lot of that was due to the GM's brilliant scenario and the way my fellow players embraced it.

And talking of fellow players, not only was I not the only woman at the (virtual) table, but for the first time at a convention, I was at a table where the women outnumbered the men!  What a great way to start the weekend.

Game 2

Saturday evening's game was Vaesen, with the scenario 'A Wicked Secret'.  Fria Ligan have done an amazing job with this adventure, with a bunch of handouts that bring the setting to life and a mystery that seemed obvious on the face of it but turned increasingly complex as we delved further into it and kept the surprises coming until the end.

Five of us headed into the Swedish forests to solve this mystery.  As in Mutant: Year Zero, we all had a bit of text to describe our relationship with each other character, plus our own opinions on the subject of vaesen, which resulted in some spicy conflict.  My only regret is that we didn't have more time to roleplay that aspect of the game - we already overran by nearly two hours without things ever feeling slow, and could easily have taken another hour on our traumas, relationships and dark secrets.

Vaesen is a bit like Call of Cthulhu, in that not only can you play it with little to no knowledge of the setting, it can actually be a better experience to play it that way.  This is a bit of a challenge for someone like me, who aims to be both player and GM.  I'll just have to hold off reading certain bits of the book until I'm actively planning to use them.

A key part of the setting that did shine through though was the conflicts brought about by the increasing industrialisation of northern Europe during the 19th century.  Not only does it drive the whole setting, but it ran through the game right down to a very personal level.  My initial impression of Vaesen when I first saw the game on Kickstarter was that it was something like a 19th century Liminal, but after a couple of games, the best comparison I can find is Princess Mononoke.

This game gave me a new insight into the world of Vaesen and I really hope to play more.

Game 3

A rare opportunity for me to play Liminal, with a London based scenario using some of the Pax Londinium content - including pre-gen characters from the Worshipful Company of Investigators.  I picked Mika, the urban explorer, which reminded me of one thing I love about Liminal - you can play a character with no supernatural abilities at all, and still feel just as valuable to the group as anyone else.

A tense investigation followed, full of poor decisions and good natured ribbing but ultimately ending in success.  It was fascinating to see someone else's take on the setting.  So far most of the scenarios I've run were either my own or written by Paul Mitchener, and the only time I've played before was also with Paul Mitchener.  In this game the GM leaned a lot more into the Neverwhere side of Liminal London, making for a very different experience.

Game 4

Unfortunately one player had to drop out of my afternoon game of Liminal, but a quick advert on Twitter soon netted me a replacement.

I can't even remember how many times I've run Mother Said I Never Should now, but the players still manage to find ways to surprise me.  The scenario is set up so that there a number of pieces of information for the players to find, but it's up to them how they go about finding them, and this time a player took an approach that nobody has tried before.

This adventure is getting one more outing at Grogmeet until it gets (temporarily) retired in favour of the new stuff I'm working on.

Reflections

I'm glad to say nobody in the games I was in made any attempt to use the Roll20 AV (although I'm told one of the other groups actually got it to work!)  We used Discord or Google Meet for each game, and apart from one of my Liminal players having some internet wobbles, it all went very smoothly.

By the time social gatherings are safe enough for conventions to resume at the Garrison, I'll probably be LARPing again, so might not make it to an in-person Furnace for a while.  But it's going to be a tough choice.  A lovely group of people that I'm really looking forward to meeting in person.