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KapCon 2004 - a Marsden report
Flew up to Wellington early Friday afternoon. Myself,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
codym and ajax_nz were on the same flight. codym had some difficulties at checkin which I'm sure he will elaborate on. The weather in Wellington was sunny with just enough wind to keep the heat pleasant. Checkin at the hostel was uneventful.
A quick tour of the bookshops resulted in only one acquisition (I was being good) - a copy of Danger International, one of the early "Modern Roleplaying" systems put out by HERO games. It is a little dated, but still contains lots of useful information for the genre (James Bond/Rambo/Mission Impossible/A-Team etc etc).
While most people went to the movies I retired to my room to read, before meeting up with some others for dinner. Board games followed until about midnight.
Saturday morning started properly with a cooked breakfast (bacon, eggs, toast, Iced chocolate) at the Mr Buns establishment. Arrived at the venue a little late, but not before the important stuff.
The first session I was in "The Island of Montedillo", a swashbuckling adventure using the 7th Sea system. I played Sebastian Delezon De Soldano, a young nobleman with the wish for adventure. The game started in a bar brawl - after the members of the party were arrested we were pressed into service as troubleshooters to find the King - who had been kidnapped. Very traditional beginning but well executed. So we accompanied the royal galleon to deliver the "ransom", defeated the midget pirate captain and his crew, captured their ship and sailed to the cursed Island where the evil ex-inquisitor behind the plot had his keep. Carved our way through a small army of skeleton pirates, some live pirates, rescued the king, defeated the cursed zombie inquisitor. All good fun.
The exploding dice didn't favour the GM, with the PCs racking up some incredible scores. My personal best was 60 off a (10 sided) roll 6, keep 4.
My second game was "Humans vs Monsters: Diplomancy", a mini-live scenario overseen by Idiot. I was a neutral party (dwarf) who was partially facilitating peace talks between the goblins and trolls on one side and the humans on the other, while trying not to be screwed by both sides. I didn't actually do much, but the game was enjoyable.
Third session was Aurora, a hard sci-fi scenario/system demo. I enjoyed it so much I actually bought the system (it's on CD, if anyone local would like to have a look at it I'll happily lend it out). See http://www.auroragames.com/. We had to discretly retrieve the "mummified" (gold plated - metallic based lifeform) corpse of a long-dead emporer from a crashed spaceship which had reappeard after 300 years lost in space. Our cover was that we were "insurance assessors".
The body had already been retrieved by locals, set up as a statue and was considered a good-luck charm (little kids would rub it). Rather than cause a scene (once we found it) we successfully replaced it with a duplicate. The whole story is much more convuluted and near the end included abducting the cop who interrupted us, drugging him while we made our escape, letting him be conscious enough to "overhear" us complaining about how his interruption had caused us to fail, then leaving him unconcious in an alley with a bus ticket home and an empty bottle of whiskey.
The LARP was "Class of 94". I wasn't playing of course, so I ran around with my camera. There was a lot happening including; lizardpeople looking for a host to grow their child in, (alien) cheerleaders creating pod people, the zombie football team, mafia, a guy who happened to be a werewolf, a guy who happened to be a vampire, a guy who thought he was a vampire, the Metropolitan Slayer (ala Buffy), the Charmed girls, a variety of religous nuts, Gil Bates announcing the release of MegaHard Doorways XXP and at the end attempting to summon a demon through the Hellmouth (for which the special effects were spectacular! A lot of work went into setting up this one).
Got back to the hostel and collapsed into bed about 12:30am. Arose about 8am and checked out before returning to Mr Buns for breakfast (ommlette, toast, Iced chocolate). To the venue in plenty of time.
Session 4 - Kindergarten in the World of Darkness (parody). A 3 year old Ventrue (in a 3-piece suit) (me), werewolf, fay, and hyperintelligent mundane (the fifth player didn't turn up or there would have been a mage as well). There were other kids around as well. It was a nighttime kindy. I had objectives of control the playground, find some of my special "red juice" and be "good" for some value of "good". I achieved them all, after good became rescuing the kindy teacher who was kidnapped by witchhunters (bad men!). In the process I found some of the "red juice" in the storage room (normally well of limits) - turned out to be my 8th-gen sire's blood. The mundane also drank some of it and so got ghouled.
codym was the werewolf, lemurkat was the fay, I'm sure they'll tell their own tales.
Session 5 - Last man standing. An uninspiring scenario about London gangsters thrust into a 7-way hunt between aliens. The rest of the city population seemed to have vanished so with no leads on how to track the hunters, or the "people" who set up the hunt we resorted to breaking into a military installation, nicking large amounts of firepower, then holing up and blasting the other hunters when they showed up. Worked a charm - I think two of the five characters got very slightly injured.
My character was supposed to be the violent and feared guy in charge - this was pretty much ignored by the others. I'm not sure if that was me, or their characters.
Didn't play in session 6 because it ran too close to when our (myself andcodym) flight was due to leave. Also I wasn't sure I was up to it. Next year I will stay until the Monday. Chatted with the organiser and the gaming suppliers who had a stand there (and bought some stuff). Was attacked by adrexia with a huge sword and sustained minor injury (there was blood, not very much).
Headed for dinner, collected luggage and then to the airport.
There was a magnificent rainbow stretching over Wellington as we left (the sun was just setting). By the time we were aboard the plane it was dark (I finally get a window seat - and it's at night), and we got a magnificent view of the lights of the city as we left. The trip was a little rough, more so as we came into Christchurch. Cruising in over the center of the city, low enough to see the road markings and the cars, lights everywhere, while being buffeted from side to side was quite a buzz.
Came home, deleted a large amount of spam from my mailbox, went to bed.
It was a great weekend.
Flew up to Wellington early Friday afternoon. Myself,
codym and ajax_nz were on the same flight. codym had some difficulties at checkin which I'm sure he will elaborate on. The weather in Wellington was sunny with just enough wind to keep the heat pleasant. Checkin at the hostel was uneventful.A quick tour of the bookshops resulted in only one acquisition (I was being good) - a copy of Danger International, one of the early "Modern Roleplaying" systems put out by HERO games. It is a little dated, but still contains lots of useful information for the genre (James Bond/Rambo/Mission Impossible/A-Team etc etc).
While most people went to the movies I retired to my room to read, before meeting up with some others for dinner. Board games followed until about midnight.
Saturday morning started properly with a cooked breakfast (bacon, eggs, toast, Iced chocolate) at the Mr Buns establishment. Arrived at the venue a little late, but not before the important stuff.
The first session I was in "The Island of Montedillo", a swashbuckling adventure using the 7th Sea system. I played Sebastian Delezon De Soldano, a young nobleman with the wish for adventure. The game started in a bar brawl - after the members of the party were arrested we were pressed into service as troubleshooters to find the King - who had been kidnapped. Very traditional beginning but well executed. So we accompanied the royal galleon to deliver the "ransom", defeated the midget pirate captain and his crew, captured their ship and sailed to the cursed Island where the evil ex-inquisitor behind the plot had his keep. Carved our way through a small army of skeleton pirates, some live pirates, rescued the king, defeated the cursed zombie inquisitor. All good fun.
The exploding dice didn't favour the GM, with the PCs racking up some incredible scores. My personal best was 60 off a (10 sided) roll 6, keep 4.
My second game was "Humans vs Monsters: Diplomancy", a mini-live scenario overseen by Idiot. I was a neutral party (dwarf) who was partially facilitating peace talks between the goblins and trolls on one side and the humans on the other, while trying not to be screwed by both sides. I didn't actually do much, but the game was enjoyable.
Third session was Aurora, a hard sci-fi scenario/system demo. I enjoyed it so much I actually bought the system (it's on CD, if anyone local would like to have a look at it I'll happily lend it out). See http://www.auroragames.com/. We had to discretly retrieve the "mummified" (gold plated - metallic based lifeform) corpse of a long-dead emporer from a crashed spaceship which had reappeard after 300 years lost in space. Our cover was that we were "insurance assessors".
The body had already been retrieved by locals, set up as a statue and was considered a good-luck charm (little kids would rub it). Rather than cause a scene (once we found it) we successfully replaced it with a duplicate. The whole story is much more convuluted and near the end included abducting the cop who interrupted us, drugging him while we made our escape, letting him be conscious enough to "overhear" us complaining about how his interruption had caused us to fail, then leaving him unconcious in an alley with a bus ticket home and an empty bottle of whiskey.
The LARP was "Class of 94". I wasn't playing of course, so I ran around with my camera. There was a lot happening including; lizardpeople looking for a host to grow their child in, (alien) cheerleaders creating pod people, the zombie football team, mafia, a guy who happened to be a werewolf, a guy who happened to be a vampire, a guy who thought he was a vampire, the Metropolitan Slayer (ala Buffy), the Charmed girls, a variety of religous nuts, Gil Bates announcing the release of MegaHard Doorways XXP and at the end attempting to summon a demon through the Hellmouth (for which the special effects were spectacular! A lot of work went into setting up this one).
Got back to the hostel and collapsed into bed about 12:30am. Arose about 8am and checked out before returning to Mr Buns for breakfast (ommlette, toast, Iced chocolate). To the venue in plenty of time.
Session 4 - Kindergarten in the World of Darkness (parody). A 3 year old Ventrue (in a 3-piece suit) (me), werewolf, fay, and hyperintelligent mundane (the fifth player didn't turn up or there would have been a mage as well). There were other kids around as well. It was a nighttime kindy. I had objectives of control the playground, find some of my special "red juice" and be "good" for some value of "good". I achieved them all, after good became rescuing the kindy teacher who was kidnapped by witchhunters (bad men!). In the process I found some of the "red juice" in the storage room (normally well of limits) - turned out to be my 8th-gen sire's blood. The mundane also drank some of it and so got ghouled.
codym was the werewolf, lemurkat was the fay, I'm sure they'll tell their own tales.Session 5 - Last man standing. An uninspiring scenario about London gangsters thrust into a 7-way hunt between aliens. The rest of the city population seemed to have vanished so with no leads on how to track the hunters, or the "people" who set up the hunt we resorted to breaking into a military installation, nicking large amounts of firepower, then holing up and blasting the other hunters when they showed up. Worked a charm - I think two of the five characters got very slightly injured.
My character was supposed to be the violent and feared guy in charge - this was pretty much ignored by the others. I'm not sure if that was me, or their characters.
Didn't play in session 6 because it ran too close to when our (myself and
codym) flight was due to leave. Also I wasn't sure I was up to it. Next year I will stay until the Monday. Chatted with the organiser and the gaming suppliers who had a stand there (and bought some stuff). Was attacked by adrexia with a huge sword and sustained minor injury (there was blood, not very much).Headed for dinner, collected luggage and then to the airport.
There was a magnificent rainbow stretching over Wellington as we left (the sun was just setting). By the time we were aboard the plane it was dark (I finally get a window seat - and it's at night), and we got a magnificent view of the lights of the city as we left. The trip was a little rough, more so as we came into Christchurch. Cruising in over the center of the city, low enough to see the road markings and the cars, lights everywhere, while being buffeted from side to side was quite a buzz.
Came home, deleted a large amount of spam from my mailbox, went to bed.
It was a great weekend.
