SummerCon Experiences

 The TTRPG in Korea Discord group had another online con this weekend. 

 On Friday evening, I played in a Shadowdark game, set in I6 Ravenloft. This was my first experience with Shadwodark, but of course I know Ravenloft pretty well. This game was really fun. I was playing an elf wizard who had the "ranger" background. And I had both magic missile and acid arrow on my spell list. So with the DM's permission, I had an energy bow like Hank from the D&D cartoon that I fired my spells from. 

We explored the castle, managed to find the history book and sun sword, just before the GM's timer ran out and Strahd appeared. We were down in the crypts. The sun sword did so much damage that Strahd died in two rounds. Of course, our fighter was charmed by Strahd, but with advantage on rolls from our Seer and Cleric, and a dispel magic from me, the fighter broke the charm and put down Strahd. And just before the time limit for the session, too! 

Saturday morning, I ran a Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins Ruby game. I had two players, so they each got to run 2 PCs. They also had money to hire plenty of hirelings, so they took advantage of that. They were searching an ancient elven tomb for treasure, encountering lots of traps, some bugs, some undead. They avoided the gelatinous cube. They avoided some traps, fell into a few, and solved several puzzles/challenges to get the treasure at the end. Only one halfling man-at-arms died. 

Saturday afternoon, I was a player in a game of Free League's Alien RPG. The GM had asked us all who our favorite characters were (besides Ripley or Jonesy), or at least who we'd like to play. I was Hudson from Aliens. Riley was Kane from Alien. Oz was Hermit from Alien Earth, and W1ng was Rusten Quinn from Alien vs Predator. This was also my first time playing FL's Alien game. 

Hudson was the only one to die, getting firebombed by Kane while the alien was dragging him away.  

It was really fun, but while the general task resolution mechanic is solid, the whole stress/freakout/losing control/panic system seemed a bit clunky and kinda slowed down the game. 

I think I mentioned that my Saturday evening workshop on exploration-focued play was canceled from lack of interest. When I canceled, there was a DCC game at that time in need of players so I said I would play. But yesterday morning, my wife got upset that I was going to be gaming all day on the computer and ignoring the family. So I bowed out of that game. Luckily, others had also joined, so the game went on without me. 

Finally, this afternoon (Sunday), I was a player in a Mothership game. This was maybe my fourth or fifth time to play Mothership, and I have to say I really like this game. It's got the similar vibe to Alien, of course. And while the general mechanic (percentage checks) is fine, Alien's die pool system is maybe a bit more fun. But the stress/freakout mechanics in Mothership are a lot simpler than Alien, at least from my experience as a player only. 

We were up against a cold, uncaring computer AI, who wanted to eliminate us to complete the ship's mission. I was playing an android, and towards the end of the session, the AI took over my body. Scott (the GM for this game) fed me some lines here and there and let me continue on as the corrupted android, while the players thought they'd reset me but weren't quite sure. It was pretty fun, but in the end the AI made my android body end its existence. So it goes. 

The final Sunday evening session is going on right now, but obviously I'm not in any of those games. It was a pretty fun con, but I had lots of technical issues this time, so I may take a back seat next WinterCon. Playing face-to-face is more fun anyway.