![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
North Star Con 2019
13/5/19 16:17 The second North Star Con was even better fun than the first. Cool games and a nice, friendly bunch of people to play them with.
SATURDAY GAMES
The first game I played was The LEGO Way Home (Traveller), run by Richard. We were a bunch of Lego minifigs on an Imperial Scoutship, stuck in the middle of nowhere because my forgetful character had lost the jump tapes. Shenanigans ensued as we (mostly incompetently) tried to find the tapes, deal with a Sith Lord, and argued what to do about a black hole, a black monolith and a crashed DeLorian. It was delightfully silly.
Slot 2 was my first ever game of Genesys Android. I'd been put off buying this because of the need for funky dice. However, it is a nice system, and the mechanic where you can hand any advantages you've rolled onto the next player as bonus dice is a cool one. The GM was John Ossoway and the scenario (Frozen Assets) was a cyberpunk investigation into the death of an investment banker and where millions of missing credits have gone. Lots of nice twists and turns, which kept our suspicions shifting from suspect to suspect. I'd certainly be up for playing more of this system and setting.
The evening slot was Beyond Neptune (Ghost Ship), run by Dr Mitch, about the uploaded consciousnesses of dead people being used to run a spaceship on a 40 year voyage to investigate an anomaly in the Kuiper Belt. Dr Mitch kept apologising for the slow pace of the game, but I felt it was perfectly paced for a bunch of tired people who wanted to debate various actions and various game mechanics (how many dice from our pool to spend on task X or task Y). Intriguing plot, nice mechanics of using character memories for re-rolls and 'damage' being your character becoming less and less connected to humanity and your past. A good choice for a con game.
SUNDAY GAMES
In the morning I ran Doctor Who, using my UNIT Cold War Afghanistan scenario. This time Sir Humphrey Appleby and Sarah Jane Smith were the crack diplomatic team who dealt with Soviets, the CIA, alien technology and trying to prevent World War Three.
The afternoon was a playtest of 3rd edition Blue Planet, run by Dom. The scenario (Trouble in Paradise) will be included in the re-boot of Blue Planet. The system is similar to BP 2nd ed (roll 1 or more d10 and try to get under a target number), but had a re-roll mechanic and a lot of contacts/social stuff which I don't remember from 2nd ed, plus Fate-style descriptive tags which came into play during combat. There are also 'Tracks' - your connection to family, organisations, etc. However, since the pre-gens are all starter characters, those were all set to zero and had no in-game effect.
The scenario was entertaining, though I think we ended up being slightly more murderous than the Russian Mafia thugs we were up against. Dom kept things moving along nicely when we bogged down in debate about the next part of our Cunning Plan. After the game we suggested that it would be useful to have what your Initiative roll is written on the character sheet, suggested that some of the skill trees were clear and useful, while others were a bit vague as to what the hell you could use them for (e.g. Warrant Officer), and seemed more like character background than actual skills. I was also puzzled there was no social stat, since Psyche seems to be more about Willpower than the usual charisma or social status type stats.
Since I own all of Blue Planet 1st ed and 2nd ed, I will no doubt also buy 3rd ed! :-)
SATURDAY GAMES
The first game I played was The LEGO Way Home (Traveller), run by Richard. We were a bunch of Lego minifigs on an Imperial Scoutship, stuck in the middle of nowhere because my forgetful character had lost the jump tapes. Shenanigans ensued as we (mostly incompetently) tried to find the tapes, deal with a Sith Lord, and argued what to do about a black hole, a black monolith and a crashed DeLorian. It was delightfully silly.
Slot 2 was my first ever game of Genesys Android. I'd been put off buying this because of the need for funky dice. However, it is a nice system, and the mechanic where you can hand any advantages you've rolled onto the next player as bonus dice is a cool one. The GM was John Ossoway and the scenario (Frozen Assets) was a cyberpunk investigation into the death of an investment banker and where millions of missing credits have gone. Lots of nice twists and turns, which kept our suspicions shifting from suspect to suspect. I'd certainly be up for playing more of this system and setting.
The evening slot was Beyond Neptune (Ghost Ship), run by Dr Mitch, about the uploaded consciousnesses of dead people being used to run a spaceship on a 40 year voyage to investigate an anomaly in the Kuiper Belt. Dr Mitch kept apologising for the slow pace of the game, but I felt it was perfectly paced for a bunch of tired people who wanted to debate various actions and various game mechanics (how many dice from our pool to spend on task X or task Y). Intriguing plot, nice mechanics of using character memories for re-rolls and 'damage' being your character becoming less and less connected to humanity and your past. A good choice for a con game.
SUNDAY GAMES
In the morning I ran Doctor Who, using my UNIT Cold War Afghanistan scenario. This time Sir Humphrey Appleby and Sarah Jane Smith were the crack diplomatic team who dealt with Soviets, the CIA, alien technology and trying to prevent World War Three.
The afternoon was a playtest of 3rd edition Blue Planet, run by Dom. The scenario (Trouble in Paradise) will be included in the re-boot of Blue Planet. The system is similar to BP 2nd ed (roll 1 or more d10 and try to get under a target number), but had a re-roll mechanic and a lot of contacts/social stuff which I don't remember from 2nd ed, plus Fate-style descriptive tags which came into play during combat. There are also 'Tracks' - your connection to family, organisations, etc. However, since the pre-gens are all starter characters, those were all set to zero and had no in-game effect.
The scenario was entertaining, though I think we ended up being slightly more murderous than the Russian Mafia thugs we were up against. Dom kept things moving along nicely when we bogged down in debate about the next part of our Cunning Plan. After the game we suggested that it would be useful to have what your Initiative roll is written on the character sheet, suggested that some of the skill trees were clear and useful, while others were a bit vague as to what the hell you could use them for (e.g. Warrant Officer), and seemed more like character background than actual skills. I was also puzzled there was no social stat, since Psyche seems to be more about Willpower than the usual charisma or social status type stats.
Since I own all of Blue Planet 1st ed and 2nd ed, I will no doubt also buy 3rd ed! :-)
Tags:
