sandcon – Page 2 – Sean Nittner

Actual Play – Ghost Court, Cape May County (9/5/2015)

GM: Jason Morninstar and others
Players: Others, living and dead
System: Ghost Court

Tagline: Ghost court is a game about ghosts, and people, and all the dumb ways that ghosts and people can’t get along.

Sean’s thoughts: This is the best LARP ever.

Why is it so good?

It only requires five people (judge, clerk, bailiff, plaintiff, and defendant) to be “playing” at any given time. That means the rest of the time we’re all audience, who can boo or cheer or moan or rattle chains, or just have drinks and talk to our friends.

Each trial is five minutes long, ensuring lots and lots of different shenanigans. And the shenanigans are so good. Jason has written up twenty cases, I believe all based off real life cases, and they are hilarious to behold and even more ridiculous to preside over!

You want this game to come out, and when it does, you want to play it with all of your friends. I know I do!

Actual Play – The Garden for a can opener (9/5/2015)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Kyra Sims, Keith Stetson, and Dev Purkayastha
System: Apocalypse World
Scenario: The Garden by Karen Twelves

The Apocalypse

The world ended two years ago, or at least it did for everyone besides Mama Ban.

Chemical weapons. A global civil war. It hit so quick, it didn’t matter where it started, the world was ash tray full of burnt out butts of civilization.

What’s left now are spore storms. If the spores get on you, and then get on everything, they just start eating away and never stop. Detergent, gasoline, bleach, they all work for a fashion, but the spores keep coming, keep eating away at every organic material they touch.

There were pockets of survivors, like the on on a long stretch of I-55. South of the Hungry Ones, west of The Fortress Brutal, as a lone Garden. Rumored to still have food because of some underground hydroponics lab, or vast hidden stores, or because it was delivered by the psychic maelstrom. Not many knew exactly how they still had them, but they did. Unlimited salad. And breadsticks. Always.

What came before

Before the fall was Banta, who everyone calls Mama Ban. She was manager of the Garden and still is. She wears combat boots and a clean floral dress. She runs the Garden and awaits the day things will be normal again. She holds onto that belief so strongly, many believe she is right.

Here head chef was T-bone, he made the best sauce in the land. But this isn’t T-bone’s story. T-bone was traded for Domino after the Brutalitiarians took them. Now we have Domino, and now they run the kitchen. Now they have to find a replacement for T-bone.

What we have now

Keeler works the door. He loves Mama Ban but doesn’t see any good way out of this. He keeps us safe and hates October, who just wants to break everything. She’s a regular, a regular pain in the ass.

Humphrey was an old chef but he was broken by the fall. Out of pity they keep in him in the kitchen as a dishwasher. A broken dishwasher as well. Hooch and Blues run the kitchen when Domino isn’t directing things. They a veterans. They miss T-bone but don’t speak of it. They are still a cook down, but no one seems to last.

Darby and Ghost work the front. Darby is still in shock. He takes everything literally, gets confused easily, and when in doubt, gets it wrong. Ghost is fine.

Dune, October, Jackson, and Sammy are regulars. Most of them are fine. They don’t cause much trouble. Most of the time.

Everyone outside is hungry.

The Big Day

The red phone that says CORP on it rang yesterday. Ronald Dexler, the Franchise Owner, not seen since before the Fall called. He’s coming to the Garden. Today.

A caravan pulled up. Two well armed women, Frost and Plum, mother and daughter, guarded it. They were on a pilgrimage along I-55 and needed to rest because the knew a spore storm was coming. They knew because a young one they called grace told them one was coming, and she had never been wrong before.

A day in the life

Mostly people were just people. Plum and Frost offered to guard the Garden in exchange for food. October wanted a job. Grace was a little weird but kept to herself. Meanwhile.

Mama Ban traded for other things as well. She took several oddments from the traveling cult, including, a much coveted can opener, for which Domino rewarded her with a can of sweetened condensed milk. She also had to deal with Plum setting up her giant fucking gun right in the middle of the restaurant.

Keeler keep trying to keep everything normal. No, October should not be working for us. No, Plum should not have a giant gun set up at a table. No, that giant dust cloud on the horizon does not bode well. Two fists full of bacon (despite new company policy) solved one of his problems. One out of three ain’t bad, right?

Domino’s hold on the kitchen never slipped, but it was challenged often. Someone had to replace T-bone, especially with all these hungry mouths.

Smoke on the horizon

At the end of our session, the franchise owner arrived, and with him a roaring mass of Brutalitarians, ready to take the garden.

Which they did. Domino fought, and Keeler fought and Mama Ban Fought, and so did Plum and Frost, and Hooch and Blues, and October. A lot of them died.

Those that didn’t got on the vehicles the caravan came in on and fled the destruction.

“When you’re here, you’re family.” – The Garden’s motto.

“If you stay here, you’re dead.” – The truth.

Mama Ban’s dream was finally broken.

What Rocked

The game was, almost entirely about the relationships between the PCs, and in some cases between the PC-NPC-PC triangles. Until the end there just wasn’t that many high pressure things that had to be fixed. This was in part because the players were all rolling 10+ on most rolls (until the end, when a string of 4s really made things bad), but more than that, it was because the items at stake weren’t about violence and domination, they were about finding a home and understanding people. It was Sandcon, it was a small game, it was taking place next to the Sweedish government enforced speed dating larp. It was late and we had all been playing games all day. Lots of reasons, I’m sure, but the end result was a low key gang.

In fact, none of us were really excited about the violence in the end, and we condensed the result down to a couple of rolls. Mama Ban’s Leadership should have saved the garden, if she didn’t roll a 4. So it was lost, but had we the time there was more story to tell, and most of it about how Domino and Mama Ban and Keeler would live now.

What could have improved

My NPCs should have wanted more. When the cult arrived looking for shelter and food, I explicitly didn’t want to make them wierd. I mean, yeah they are weird because they have a child they named grace who can predict the storms and has them traveling on some pilgrimage to parts unknown. But they weren’t weird wierd. Basically, their practices were practical. Two armed women (mother and daughter) guarded the caravan, while the rest did what they could to contribute. They weren’t cannibals and they didn’t want the PCs to go naked into the storm or any crazy shit like that. Which, in retrospect is all fine, but they should have needed something. Lots of italics in this point. They should have wanted to move in, or to take some of the regulars with them, or to steal the garden’s good. Basic, but a threat.

On the other hand October had a really simple role, to take Keeler’s job. She just wanted to be the one with the power to tell people to fuck off or be seated as she wished. And she didn’t mind working and or fucking her way to the top (well, I guess to the middle really). Everyone was afraid of October, and rightfully so. Her motivation was simple, but her means were erratic and short sighted. She didn’t take no for an answer and she just kept poking at things till she got what she wanted. October wanted!

Actual Play – Big carrots and big problems (9/5/2015)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Liz Gorinsky, Shawn Roske, Jenn Martin, Strix Beltrán, and Ajit George
System: The Warren
World: abingdon meadow

Ohh.. the troubles of abingdon meadow. Not only have the golden years passed by the barlydown warren, but civil strife was also immanent. The junkers, a warren of rabbits that lived scattered through a junkyard had been plotting against them. They planned to unleash the hounds of death on their neighbors so they could claim their precious warren and it’s proximity to the Brooklyn farmer’s market that took place every week, where the humans would mysteriously appear across the hedge grove and unload a bounty of delights, seemingly for any brave rabbit to take. An emissary (under false pretenses?) Barley (Shawn) was now living in the warren.

Even withing Barleydale (sometimes Barleydown) their was tension. Ash (Strix) was the premiere rabbit, praised for her long body and incredible speed, but increasingly testing the patience of Wintergreen as avoided breeding and thus did not help the warren grow. Meanwhile Birch (Ajit) was a veteran who had the esteem of the common rabbit for his bravery and the bounty he brought the warren, but was never noticed by the powers that be. So Birch, with his compact body and missing ear, was relegated as a second class rabbit, despite his contributions to the warren.

There were more moderate rabbits, which still had stories of their own. Yarrow (Liz) with his long body and unusual blue tint in his fur was seen as both exotic and a potential threat. His father was unknown, presumably a passing rabbit in the night. The suspicious members of Barleydale (most of them) wondered if that too heralded some kind of invasion. Yarrow had spent times with the humans and understood many of their rituals. He was valued as the only human whisperer.

Amidst this sea of political tension and external threats was a single calm rabbit Foxglove (Jenn) who seem to bear and unearthly calm. One which buttercup admired to an almost fanatical level, and which Poppy thought was extremely dangerous: “Rabbit’s shouldn’t be calm. Calm equals dead. The first thing a rabbit should ever think is run!” Considering the litter she was about to birth, Foxglove’s calm would do the warren well!

And of course there was Cottontail, a newcomer to the warren, just eager to stir shit up!

The situation

Is it day or night or somewhere in the middle? Early morning

Why are you all so far away from the warren? Birch has just returned from a raid on the humans with the largest carrot any rabbit has ever seen. (Yarrow would know, it was a prize winning carrot!)

How did the hunters get between you and the warren? The hounds Leslie and Cadby had broken out of junkyard (thanks Birch, for stirring up that hornet’s nest before the junkers we ready to use them) and were giving chase. They HATED rabbits. Hated them so much!

What other animal shares your hiding spot? A baby fox, dropped by it’s mother who was also fleeing the sounds of the dogs.

Yikes!

The Play is the thing

In a panic, so many things happened. Ash, bravely ran across the gravel road into the farmer market in order to lead Cadby off in a merry chase.

Leslie however, was tearing and gnashing at the hedges, and was about to push through. Birch whipped up the fox kit in his mouth and threw it to Leslie, to distract her. There was some serious rabbit debate over this. Yarrow being sure the fox kit could be raised by the rabbits and grow up to be their friend. Birch confident that once big enough it would be their predator. Plus, better it than them!

When Leslie did break free (that debate used up the precious time they had) another sacrifice was thrown before her, this time Barley! The other rabbits ran to the abandoned fox den and hid until Leslie had given up the chase.

Meanwhile Ash, with Cadby on his tail, raced through the farmers market, knocking over the award winning apple pie and causing all sorts of commotion, when he was finally caught. Two mighty timbers that stood just lest than rabbit length apart, seemed like just the place to jump through to lose Cadby, but when the did not budge, Ash was caught by a very confused human apple pie judge. He fought and he fought and he wiggled and just slipped out, but not before Cadby had nipped and his rear paw, maiming ash, who would never be as swift again.

Barley too was scarred by Leslie, before racing off back to the warren, saved only by the junkyard “armor” that he wore. Metal foil that the dogs hated the taste of!

Political upheavel

As the rabbits returned in different order, different stories were told. That Birch has brought the trouble. That Barley and the junkers had betrayed Barleydown. That Ash had been caught by the humans. That junkyard armor was needed to protect the rabbits. That Barleydown needed to join the Junkers to survive.

So many dissenting voices made the decision difficult, but after hearing them all except Birch’s (he was told to mind his place), Wintergreen orderd Ash, Barley, and Yarrow on an expedition to the Junkers to find out the truth of these claims!

…and that’s how the first Barleydale and Junker official meeting would occur.

What rocked

Because Ajit was in the game, I knew he would eat up social disparities and political inequality. We got to play with the themes of injustice, but in a much less cemented fashion. Yes, Wintergreen represented the long body political elite, but Birch had many supporters, and it was within the power of our rabbits to overthrow the current system. It wasn’t uprooted completely, but the seeds of unrest and change were clearly sown. The danger of course, would be watching for those eager just to take power them selves (fucking Cottontail). Holding onto the patriarchy lightly made it a fun challenge, without it being overwhelming dogma to cudgel the rabbits with.

Wow. we’ve never had potentially warring warrens before. And to use dogs as your weapon. Evil Barley, just evil.

Ajit and Strix are writing the Balignapalli playset for the Kickstarter campaign, so it was great to not only play the game, but break out what parts were intrinsic to The Warren and what parts were specific to abingdon meadow.

What could have improved

I should have thought of other names for the hound. I took Leslie and Cadby from the playset, but I think we should have had Butchie and Alice instead.

I got a dismissive head shaking from Jason when I told him about Ash, struggling to break free of the human’s grip. By the Morningstar standards Ash was a goner.

I find myself really resistant to resist panic as a move. Even though it fits perfectly with the setting, I really don’t like players having to roll twice to do something. First to resist panic, and then to attempt it. I have the same issue in Apocalypse World, when someone is required to act under fire in order to try something else. In AW this is often ameliorated by the fact that all they have to do is act under fire to achieve their goal. For instance, in a very literal sense, if you’re trying to run from cover into a building but that fuckhead drummer has a rifle trained on you, you’ve got to act under fire to get there without him taking a piece out of you. But in the warren, If Leslie is rooting around in the hedge grove you’re hiding in, you’ve first got to resist panic before you can even attempt to bolt. Completely makes sense within the fiction, I just don’t like making players roll twice for things.

Actual Play – The Great Afterparty (9/4/2015)

GM: Jason Morningstar and Sarah Lynne Bowman
Players: Sandcon
System: The Great Afterparty from Larps from the Factory

As the icebreaker, warm up to Sandcon (a small house con on the beach), Jason and Sarah started us off with The Great Afterparty. A meta larp about larpers who just finished a larp. Oh goodness.

Here’s the teaser intro (you can find all of the materials here):

Mist over Goblin Peak, a larp set in Kabus Negara

The two countries Miramarmora and Grankendorf have been at war for as long as anyone can remember. In Goblin Peak Pass, where the long fighting was the bloodiest, an initiative for peace negotiations has finally been made. The negotiation will take place in the small village of Goblin Peak Hamlet, where the inn The Drooling Donkey lies. The evil wizard Kharbuja, more often called Lord Darkmist, has agreed to sit down at the negotiation table with the young and inexperienced Princess Libellule. But at what price..?

This happened in the game:

There was a trial
There was an attack from the outside that led to cooperation between the two sides
Someone was sacrificed
There was a great ritual
There was a secret ritual that only a few got to attend
Lord Darkmist demanded Princess Libellule in exchange for a ceasefire
There was a clash between the two sides which lead to a diplomatic crisis
Someone betrayed the princess
The food was delayed because the darned whole lamb was never fully cooked
There was a council meeting
Someone’s character was killed while the player was sleeping

Characters

Roles were handed out with the “lead” roles being given to new players who hadn’t made it to Sandcon before. Karen was Kharbuja, the evil wizard, aka Lord Darkmistm and I was Krakh the orc, not to be confused with Kraaakh the orc or Khraaaaaaakh the orc. Heee.

We brought a few props but because of the flight, didn’t have room for much. I had a cap, which I thought would go a long way towards making Krakh stand out as the smart orc. Karen was given a cape and serpent scepter and I was handed a very nice boffer sword. Suddenly we were quite the part.

Secret motivations

As with any good larp, we had secrets, oh so many secrets. Mine where:

You only came to recruit people to the MUCH cooler larp you’re organizing.
Someone broke your expensive, borrowed ritual chalice.

I could list them all (and you can find them on the link) but I suggest not looking at as it is much for fun to discover these petty, all to close to home, foibles in play.

The Play is the Thing

Sarah and Jason had us all close our eyes. They read the teaser (above) and then when we opened our eyes, thanked us for playing and told us to come see them if we had any compliments or wanted to tell then what we liked best about the con. Now it was a party, enjoy!

Ha, what an intro. I started off first thing asking in a loud whiny voice “Hey, who took my mom’s chalice and broke it?” It was on!

Through play we saw that some players had been ostracized, cliques had formed, unhealthy relationships were prevalent, and the whole larp was a sham too cover Jason’s cocaine habit. The generals’ position was being sold out from under her, the thief was kicked out for doing drugs (ironic), and we were strongly divided between which larp to play next: A Star Wars larp (nobody tell Disney), An Alien/Sci-Fi/Fantasy larp, or my clearly superior Dragonquest over Evermoore, where everyone could start as 6th level dragons in their choice of chromatic or metallic breeds. No bias at all on my part here 🙂

We ended with a near revolt (everyone wanted to tear down Jason) and then a quick “Thanks for playing!” at the end. It was almost too sudden, and few of us had trouble getting “out of character”. So meta.

A few picks from the start of the game

(Taken by Kira Magrann)

What Rocked

The larp pretty much ran itself. The tropes of dysfunctional larp groups are so pervasive than all the drama unfolded with ease. It helped that there was a gratuitous amount of rumormonger, exaggeration, and outright lying.

Jason did a fantastic job of bearing all the hate that was being lobbed at him. When he heard rumor that he was a coke addict he picked it right up and ran with it. Of course that was the reason he was trying to sell all the six month packages with extra skill points thrown in! He was a brilliant foil.

Talking to Ajit about Navine’s low self esteem and abuse was really rough actually. We were pretending to be larpers who were no longer in character, and yet we were clearly all in character, and yet, what he was talking about was something that really upsets me. There was a point where I just wanted to say “let’s leave man, this place is no good for you”, but that wasn’t in the spirit of the event. Some real feels here.

So many conspiracies here hatched, secret meetings held, plans made, and with all that I still never found out who broke my mom’s chalice! Good times.

Jenn the secret vampire was so good. She never got figured out. Even after the game!

What could have improved

As an icebreaker event this was great for getting everyone to talk to each other, but it didn’t actually help us get to know each other as people. We had name tags and I think it would have been best for us to be playing a post-larp version of ourselves in the game. So I would be Krakh the Orc played by Sean Nittner. It happened some, but mostly we just went by our “in game” names so I think some introduction opportunities were missed. Even that would be tricky though, since we were still adopting a persona.

There is a spoiler that I just figured out reading the larp what I wish I had caught onto in game. Suffice to say, my advice to you fellow gamers is that since the “larp” is over at the start of the game, ask everyone their character backgrounds. There are some easter eggs in there!

Actual Play – Out of Dodge (9/4/2015)

Players: John Stavropoulos, Kira Magrann, Karen Twelves, and Sean Nittner
System: Out of Dodge

Ever been in a car with three other people and wonder what game you could play for an hour? Wonder no more. Bully Pulpit’s Out of Dodge is a larp for four players in a car (or just sitting with four seats in a 2 x 2 grid facing the same direction). It’s $4 and a thing of beauty. Buy it. Buy it now.

No really, you should get this game.

Okay, sales pitch over.

Prep

Karen and I were going to Sandcon and though I prepped for a lot of tabletop games, but forgot to prep this one. Luckily John had a printer, scissors, a dish towel and a few envelopes. We were set!

The play is the thing

Out of Dodge is a larp about four criminals driving away from a score that’s gone bad. One of them (Toad) has been shot and isn’t doing well. Here’s the score:

Oh my goodness did that ever go wrong. Shots were fired, mostly into Toad there, and the four of you got away with a bag containing less loot than you’d planned. A lot less. Now you are on the road, running for your lives and counting your blessings. You have your health (Toad does not have that), you have your friends (not friends), and you each have a still-warm piece tucked into your pants. You have eleven treasures to split four ways and that is not going to be pretty. Things are not looking up.

Getting out of New York involved lots of turns, on ramps, exits, and merges. We waited until we hit a relatively long stretch of road (I think I-95S but John could confirm) to start the game. As the driver John played Mole. Since he couldn’t read while driving (safety first!) I read his character sheet to him. One of the instructions indicated pulling over and changing drivers. Since John was borrowing the car from his dad, we decided not to use that particular option, but otherwise he was set. Toad had to be someone in the back seat, and Karen offered to play that role (poor Toad). Kira took Rat, so I was Badger. These names reminded me of a Pauly Shore skit where he was ranking creatures and showing that The Weasel was better than a troll. (The specific ranking, if I remember it correctly was “badger, hermit, mole, weasel, troll”). Anyway…

Play continued with Toad moaning that she was dying, Rat angry and suspicious, Mole on target, and Badger trying to look on the bright side. As each of us said certain key words eventually we all unlocked our secrets and came to a fitting conclusion where the car went off the road and everyone died except Badger (Hi!) who walked away from the wreckage, as he had apparently walked away from five previous groups. We did not actually crash the car (safety first!) but rather narrated our actions such as “I’m putting my gun to your temple and telling you to pull over” and “I’m driving the car off the road and over that ravine.”

Good times had by all.

Badger - Toad - Rat - Mole — Badger – Toad – Rat – Mole

What rocked

Toad. Toad, I love you (true in and out of game). Toad spent a while complaining that she was dying until, eventually she just stopped talking. The three of us continued our arguing for a while until finally one of us asked Toad what she though. “Toad? Toad, are you alright buddy?” Oh no, Toad was dead. Poor Toad.

Mole. Mole was so on target. We’re not going to a hospital, they’ll be looking for us there. We’re not stopping, the police aren’t far behind us. We’re not pulling over to let you shoot me and drive away with the loot…. well, that one was just obvious. Also as Mole, John kept adding other delicious details like “When you look at Toad, you see the killing blow wasn’t actually the bullets, but a knife wound in the back, you all know I carry a knife.” So good.

Rat. Kira you were such a good angry Rat. She didn’t trust anyone and rightfully so. Badger seemed like a nice guy, but he had walked away from five other groups, leaving them all either dead or behind bars. And his ex Ramona said that he always did this kind of thing. Rat caused all the secrets to unravel and discovered that Mole had set us all up to fall. So good!

At one point I leaned over and whispered in John’s ear “You will die on this car ride. You’re marked for death.” He had no idea if I was speaking in or out of character. I loved it.

What could have improved

John was driving and so he couldn’t read his sheet. There was a few times when his call-and-response words were said but he didn’t have the sheet in front of him so he didn’t respond in with his specific action. That wasn’t a problem though, we still got into plenty of trouble and had a very satisfying end.

I had been a big Mole supporter from the start. Mole was going to get us out of this alive (or at least three of us alive) and mole knew what he was doing. Then it turned out that Mole slept with my wife Ramona and that’s why she left me? I wasn’t really sure how to play that one. Badger was a nice guy, all good spirits, and then suddenly betrayed? Also, Mole was his only ally to fend of Rat’s suspicion (Sorry Toad, you were dead by then), so I had to keep him on my side. How to play a cheerful person, suddenly betrayed, but still needing your betrayer’s support? I wasn’t exactly sure. I said I forgave him for that and then later pulled a gun on him. I guess that works, but it didn’t feel as “real” as most of our other interactions.