For those not in the know, I travelled to Wellington for a weekend of roleplaying at the annual KapCon convention. It was the first time I have managed to attend this event.
It was Glorious! I should mention that despite having been involved in and co-ordinating our local equivalent "Buckets of Dice" for several years I have never really been to any other cons beyond a trip to one of the OURS tournaments. Now I understand - walking away with the weekend buzz but without the sheer physical and mental exaustion which comes from running the damn things :)
(Serious respect to Luke, who ran this event, and his team)
I flew up late Friday afternoon (lost my scissors at the airport - doh!). Wellington is known as "the windy city", but it was beautifully sunny and calm that evening. I had a bit of trouble sorting out accomodation - although booked into a hostel with most of the others only my first name was recorded, the staff spent quite some time looking for my surname. After this I grabbed KFC for dinner and then was involved in a quick game of Puerto Rico (a good board game) before we trooped off to the Empire theatre to watch The Two Towers. The surroundings were impressive, but I enjoyed the movie less this time for some reason. Bed: 12:30am
Saturday - registration was at 8:30 and the venue was 20 minutes walk, plus breakfast etc. Rolled out of bed at 6:30 for a shower. The showers were wonderful - instant hot water and massive pressure. Got a sandwich and pie from the nearby StarMart, of which Wellington has far too many. After eating, resolved not to do that again.
Went by taxi to the venue sharing with Arnfrither, who had sprained her ankle within hours of arrival, and Dan. Was surprised to discover that the convention organiser had heard of me when I approached him about placing some flyers for this year's Buckets. He didn't immediatly shun me, so whatever he'd heard can't have been too bad :)
We submitted our preferences for the second round of games, then went into the first round. I was in "Gilman House", a Call of Cthulu scenario set in the early 90's. Most of us were "freshmen" at the Miskatonic university, just settling in to our student accomodation. I was "Jennifer", an 18 year old math prodigy who was on medication for anxiety attacks. A side effect of the medication was hallucinations, and for those familiar with the system I started with only 25 SAN. I had a lot of fun with this character, and I think this was the best game I played in.
My second game was Cycosis, where all the PCs were humanoid robots. I'm told the Cycosis system is free for download online, and I must take a closer look at it. We were playing through a converted D&D module. The game had promise, but was unfortunately ruined by one of the other players. I say player because I'm pretty sure his character wasn't written to be that antisocial. It ended up running on very long, most of the way through the hour-break between sessions, before we basically said "we pummel him 'til he ain't coming back (the PC having survived death twice that session) and skip town". This also meant that I didn't get dinner as planned before the third session.
Went into "Carnival" feeling pretty wrung out. It was a D&D3E game and the action started immediatly. We were 8th level characters attending a huge (and somewhat macabre) flying circus, held aloft by balloons and towed by leviathans (giant flying whales). As the closing act, the Ringmaster (the Jack) ordered the beasts to attack the crowd. Chaos ensued. My character (female half-elf mage, can't remember her name) called down a flame strike in the middle of the big top. In retrospect this may gave been somewhat of a mistake, as the ensuing fire almost certainly contributed to the balloons breaking free later on.
The other really memorable moment for that character was seeing the elf I loved, whom I had caught by the arm just as he was shaken off the edge by a sudden tilting of the platform, pull himself loose from my arm and plummet groundwards. Turns out the bastard could cast Fly, and he went after the Dwarf who was also plummeting. Fair enough guv. Lots of other fun stuff happened though, as we hijacked a leviathan before flying off rather than face the Jack and other nasties on another of the beasts and watching the circus crash into the mountainside from a safe distance.
That session (which almost counted as the best I played in) actually finished an hour early, which gave plenty of time for dinner. A fortunate ride was available into town (thanks Jarrod) and dinner was Burger King. Mmm, junk food. Then came the Live game. Based on Shakespeare's 12th Night it promised to be entertaining. I was not playing, but having nothing better to do volunteered my camera services, which were enthusiasticly accepted. My name tag read "Please ingnore the anachronism in the corner with the flashy thing", and I'm glad more people found it amusing than sad. The game seemend to run really well, and I took many photos, which I have yet to download to my computer but will soon. I have very little idea what actually happened in the game however.
Walked back to the hostel, chatted with people a bit, bed 12:30am.
Sunday the first session wasn't due to start until 10am, so I had enough sleep. Got up about 8 and went to a nearby All Day Breakfast place I had spotted the day before. Mmmm bacon and eggs and iced chocolate. Taxied to the venue as per the previous day.
First session - can't remember the title, something to do with fire, set just before the first book in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (haven't read them myself). teh system was a modification of d20 with elements of D&D3E and Star Wars. My character was a 950 year old monk, sworn to bodyguard one of the other PCs, a task at which I failed miserably almost twice. I won't say much more because the GM is local and might want to run it again some time ;) Next time though I imagine the torched village won't be named (however temporarily) Berndown.
Went into town for lunch with some people, didn't get back in time to hear what games were happening in the last session. Decided I'd flag it and hope for a board game or something.
Second session, can't remember the title but it was Star-Wars d20. Sometime during the clone wars. Our space-station crashed, a civilian casualty of the war. Ok, there was actually nothing we could do to stop that. I can't remeber much else really exciting about that game, although it might be worth noting that two of the other characters shot Senator Amidala.
(On stun, and not as much as they shot the guy who was holding her hostage).
Prizegiving occured between the last two sessions. I again volunteered my camera, this time to take a group shot of the prizewinners.
Spent a lot of the last session either watching other games or comparing notes with Luke. I had been surprised earlier to learn that KapCon is closer in attendance numbers to Buckets than I had thought (expecting many more people to be attending KapCon). It's always good to be able to get new, experienced viewpoints on these things, and I actually walked away with a higher opinion of our local event (not to be confused with a lower opinion of any other event, including KapCon, or a higher opinion of my personal contribution to Buckets).
I got away after tracking down people from assorted other parts of the country and unloading excess flyers on them for distribution. After search in vain for a decent chinese takeaway (apparently I treked right around the street they're all on without passing through it) I settled for McDonalds. A lot of McDonalds.
The expected "early" night didn't eventuate as the Otago group and some associated Wellingtonites turned up to the hostel and I spent several hours in comparing notes on the weekend, other pleasant conversation and watching the Settlers of Catan card game. Bed 3:30am. Checkout: before 10:00am Hours sleep: about 4
Monday: Leftover McD's for breakfast. Possibly not a good idea, in retrospect. Then spent a couple of hours shambling around Wellington CBD discovering nothing was open, particularly not the shops I wanted to visit, before meeting up with several of the others after a movie they's been to. Some more wandering, some lunch (which woke me up quite a bit), and some arcade games later enough time had been killed to head for the airport. I put my pencil case in the other bag this time. Played some cards with those on later flights before my boarding call.
Monday night: bed ~9:30pm. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Plastic mugs $200 (Air NZ)
Photo of Nick on one knee reciting a bad love poem - priceless
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