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Dreamation 2010 - The Review

I got back from Dreamation and I have to say that I love all the double exposure cons. I do. They're were I got to meet a lot of people that I love and play a lot of new and exciting stuff.

Let me give you the highlights of what we ended up doing and then we'll talk more about the Con.

1. Playtest Geasa a couple of times.

There was one official slot of playtesting, which went really well. I think it's one of those games which is turning out to be a lot like Suitors. It didn't take a lot of tweaking to get the type of game that I wanted. Suitors went through three incarnations before it pretty much stayed as is. Geasa is looking like it's going to be just the first incarnation is going to do it. I might make one change, which is to give people stats of 4, 3, 3 and 2 rather than 4, 3, 2 and 2 but that hasn't seemed to be a problem.

The big problem is the amount of selection anxiety people seem to have. Because the game is showing that it really needs at least one person to take the lead, and make a strong decision. Otherwise people end up wondering what the hell they should be doing. Personally, I think with good examples in the book and more experience running the game at cons this can be mitigated. It seems to be a game that once one pass has happened people get it, and then they can get into it. The trick is going to get them going into it.

Our first game ended up being in the SF genre. This is interesting as the first one ended up with a Janitor who used to be a Nuclear Engineer but couldn't find a job doing that on the station. We had a Bartender who was looking for her long lost son. A ship Psychologist who was afraid of space and a Captain who wanted to get off the station while making life as miserable for the rest of the crew. It was pretty sweet.

The second one was a modern day setting, with a Priest, a Fisherman, an Assassin and a Town Drunk. It was a challenge to see the game try to deal with these disparate characters, and some of the Fae that were created were weird, but the game didn't suffer at all from it.


2. CyberGen LARP

We had about 30 people show up again for the CyberGeneration LARP. It was another bundle of chaos mixed up with some interesting stuff. We've finally got some sort of "plot" going, as in that one group has managed to get involved with the Eden Cabal. There was a suggestion that two things happen. The first is that there starts to be a little bit of plot. Nothing huge and railroading, but more let's have the rest of the world interact with the players because otherwise they end up all over the place and we spend our time running after them.

The second thing is that I'm going to be dumping most of the responsibility of running NAGA with the judges they have and focusing on the LARPs. The only time I had a slot go off was when I was unable to physically do it (like 1 hour after running a 5 hour LARP). This means that there will be two slots to come and play CyberGeneration during the day. Good time there.


3. Playing games with other people

So I got to check out a couple of games, which I don't normally get to do. One of them was The Fisherman's Wife by Julia Bond Ellingboe. I had a great time playing that game and enjoyed it's many austere qualities and the drama that exists between the two characters being tempted and either succumbing or rising to the occasion.

I got to see Brennan's How We Came To Live Here. I didn't get a chance to play, but I'm going to remedy that for Anime North. It looks really interesting, incredibly interesting actually. I want to go through the book and see what others think of it too.

I also got to play in a Zombie LARP. Not just any LARP. An Apocalyptic Zombie LARP. Which translates into me talking in a Southern accent for a while, bashing Zombies with a boffer wrench and make bad TV references all night. Seriously, amazing time. If you're in the area I recommend that you check out Dystopia Rising. Go play in their LARP or show up at DEX and play there.

All in all there were many good times to be had.

Dex Con

DexCon. What can I say about DexCon other than I love this place. It's where I get to see a lot of people I only get to see twice a year and hang out with them for several hours at a time.

The biggest thing I'm going to talk about here though is the CyberGen LARP that I run. Seriously, it's amazing amounts of fun. I don't know how this managed to get as big as it has over the past little bit but apparently people like it. We had 30 people doing stuff and the most I can remember about what happened was that things happened. I think there was a hospital break out. I think possibly a bus got tipped or something but ultimately it was awesome because the players made it so.

I might go into more detail later about Dex Con and the LARP but I just wanted to get that out there.

Dreamation 2009

So, I do two cons in the same area. This breaks a rule of conventioning, unless you live in the area doing cons in the same spot is usually a bad idea. This is why Origins is dying and Gen Con is flourishing. They are too close to each other in both location and time which means that the game companies are using Origins as the party place and Gen Con as the work place. It's not going to go well for Origins if they stay in the same spot and/or time, which is sad because I prefer Origins to Gen Con. Without question, but that's just me, your milage may vary.

I do Dreamation and DexCon, which are run by the same people in the same place, because I love these conventions. Seriously, I'd do them and Origins and the Toronto ones and be happy because they are just a fun time all around. From beginning to end, the people at Double Exposure do everything they can to make you feel welcome.

Anyway, the main reason why we're there is to run CyberGen. I bring Suitors, but the key thing is that everyone there has played Suitors three times over. They like it, but most of the people who bought it have already bought it. That's fine, I'm here to run some CyberGen. The cool thing is that the NAGA folk are here in force and we're starting to try to get more stuff to them in printed format, rather than the "this is all in my head" format that I usually do. We need to get others on this so that we can get other people to help us promote the game.

The second thing I'm there for is the LARP. Oh my god that LARP. It was awesome. We had a total of 23 people show up and three storylines going and I didn't really push a single thing. It was a case of everyone just running and doing their own thing. It was phenominal. I hope to keep this momentum going so that we can give everyone an update on the LARP.

The game ended with two people evolving, and a Rad starting a riot to give them cover to escape. It just reinforced this lesson that I've learned by doing all of five LARP events. This is a story for the players, not a story for me. I want them to run with their stories, and I may put down some elements that will try to rope the players into something, but if it doesn't then it's not the end of the world because if you give them sufficient motivation then they'll do it themselves.

We also got two interviews done at the con.

The first one is from Elizabeth Amber and can be found here.
The second is from the Bacon Ice Cream Crew and can be found here.