GASPCon Day 2

Daily Blog Challenge post number 12. I got home from the con last night and was ready to give my report, but the internet was being flaky at the house, so I had to hold off until this morning.



Saturday 9-1: Hackmaster Basic - The Town of Knarr's Rest
I played a session of Hackmaster Basic at Origins this year and had a blast. It's a great hybrid of old school feel, with very detailed combat mechanics. It's sort of like if they took every alternate rule for combat out there and mashed them together. It's clear the guys behind this game have some sort of innate love for number crunching and data management. Sometimes it seems like it could get a bit unwieldy, but it does have some sort of appeal for me. Anyway, the party was off to an abandoned stronghold near the the Town of Knarr's rest to save some children from from goblins and bugbears. Pretty standard fantasy stuff, but it worked. The DM, Johh, aka Evernevermore on the GASP board, went pretty light with the rules, because he was managing about 8 around the table and most of us weren't totally comfortable with even the basics. Good times.

Saturday 2-6: Savage Worlds - Scraptown Run
Savage Worlds is designed for "Fast, Furious, Fun" game play. I'm glad I'm glad I finally got to jump and play. The adventure, again, GMed by John Evernevermore, used the post-apocalypse Earth from the video game series Fallout. I haven't played Fallout, but it was pretty easy to pick up on the setting. The group playing was great: it was Dave, Jonathan, a friend a Dave's who I met this summer at Origins, a couple of Jonathan's buddies, Guy and Tim, and two other guys that ended up being friends of friends. Kind of crazy coincidence, there. Anyway, we played extra fast and furious, which seems to be John's preferred GMing style, and it was certainly a lot of fun. Essentially the scenario was set up that we needed to get from point A to point B and back, but the John left it open enough that we had had a ton of options right from the start. I was playing a doctor/field medic, who I played as a bit of a wimp. I made sure to stick tight to my "10-4 good buddy truck driver with the big gun".

Saturday 7-11: Lamentations of the Flame Princess - Death Frost Doom Last minute sub.
More OSR madness. Again, John was the DM, and Dave was in the game. Essentially, we spent all day Saturday together. The original DM had to back out so, John volunteered his services. He didn't quite like the pacing of Death Frost Doom for a con game, so he suggested something he developed. Everyone was okay with the sub, so we went with it. The game played like old school D&D mixed with Call of Cthulhu in my opinion. It was dark investigative horror with swords and sorcery. The concept was great and the play was fun. By mid-way, I have to admit I was feeling some RPG fatigue, and I'm assuming some of the other folks around the table were feeling similar. There were a lot of people at the table and it got pretty distracting at times. John kept it all together though, and in the end, we were able to complete the adventure. I can't wait to try this game out with my regular crew.

Swag:
I picked up LotFP - The People of Pembrooktenshire. I almost didn't pick it up, as it's intended as a supplement to the adventure No Dignity in Death, which I don't have. It's a collection of 137 NPCs from the town featured in the module. I figured last minute to pick it, since I figure I'll track a copy of the adventure down eventually.