accomplishedMay 20th, 2018
After a long night in bed, I finally fell asleep around 3:00 am, and woke up several times thereafter, finally sleeping for about three hours after 6:00 am. My shoulder was hurting quite badly and my left leg ached something fierce. Got out of bed after 9:00 am and took care of the morning ablutions. Had a decent breakfast of an omelette with mushrooms, onions, and cheese, and then went downstairs to do a bit of the packing for the day’s game, Torg Eternity. This game promised to be a real challenge, as I was running the scenario from GenCon that was also an Infiniverse adventure that would affect the game world with its outcome. No pressure, right? :) I repacked the personal tote bag, since I wasn't going to need to take the insulin with me, as I hoped to be home before the shot this evening, and then went upstairs and got some of the food snacks for the afternoon prepped and ready. I then headed into the shower, and the hot water and steam seemed to help me somewhat.
spross arrived around 11:45 am, and after sorting out the food in the cooler from yesterday and adding a couple of fresh snack items, he helped me finish packing what I needed for the Torg Eternity game. He had a vested interest in it, since he was going to play in it today! I made sure I had my stubs for the CanGames booth stuff that I (hoped) was selling. SteveR and I packed the car up, and headed downtown to the convention venue. We didn’t stop for lunch today, as we planned to have some “proper” pizza for lunch at the convention. We arrived at the Rideau Curling Club around 12:15 pm, and the Goddess favoured us once again as we were able to find a parking space directly across from the convention venue. Once inside the Rideau Curling Club, SteveR dropped his stuff and some of mine down in the lockers, and then headed over to the pizzeria that Jean-Yves had recommended the night before, while I settled down for a sit and a bit of a wait. I went to see if I could cash in from the stuff I’d sold at the CanGames booth, and was told I’d have to go to the booth itself in the Marketplace to handle this and speak with Jeff Black. It took me several tries to find him there, as he was wandering the Marketplace, and I was in for a shock. It turned out that I’d only sold one item of all the items I’d brought in, the copy of Hillfolk and its two supplements as well as the cards and crystal tokens that went along with it. To say I was a bit pissed off is an understatement, but I took it with good grace. I donated all the items that were left to CanGames, except the Flashing Blades materials that I reclaimed. Headed out of the curling sheet area, and got a text message from SteveR saying that the place we’d been favouring didn’t open until 4:00 pm, so he was going to get us the food at Pizza Pizza instead. This was already close to 1:15 pm, and I started to panic about the game and whether I’d have time to eat and set things up at the table. SteveR returned about 1:20 pm with the food, a couple of mushroom, green pepper and pepperoni small pizzas, and we sat down to eat at the table next to mine. I finished eating and polished off a bottle of water and a yogurt, and then started setting up the game table in earnest.
When I checked the sign-up sheet for the game, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Charlotte (the girl from Friday night’s game of Torg Eternity) had signed up to play in this one as well. I had a full table of six for this important game of the system. I finished setting up the table with the various cards and chips, and took out the player characters for the players. By this time, everyone had arrived for the game, so we got started. I first told them about the change in scenario, that it was one that could have a profound influence on the Infiniverse, and that there were some conditions imposed by the company, including photos of the players at play and their full names for inclusion as playtesters in the book(let). The players all agreed to this, and so we moved on. The adventure that I ran on Sunday afternoon is called “The Burden of Glory” and concerns a group of Storm Knights who are sent to destroy a stela but find themselves wrestling with the question of what might be more important than destroying one. Instead of four or five pre-generated characters, I handed out to the players the group of 16 characters, two from each Cosm that came with the GM Screen, and told them to pick the characters that they wanted. While they did that, I went and retrieved the sign-up sheet and took roll call. The six players at the table included Bruce, Daniel, Paul-Andre (who has played in quite a few of my games the last couple of years), Roddy Turner, SteveR, and Charlotte. Once they had gone through the characters, Bruce chose to play the Cyberwitch (Cyberpapacy), Daniel chose the Monster Hunter (Orrorsh), Paul-Andre played the Masked Crusader (Nile Empire), Roddy snatched up the Relic Raider (Orrorsh), SteveR took the Resistance Fighter with psionics (Tharkold) and Charlotte played the Edeinos Optant (Living Land). It was an interesting and colourful mix of player characters, and promised a good afternoon’s worth of play.
I started off the game session by explaining the rules to the players, including the Drama Deck, Destiny Deck, and Cosm Deck mechanics and how the cards were played, as well as the use of Possibilities. SteveR and Charlotte were the only players with Torg Eternity game experience, but the others picked up the gist of things very quickly, though the use of the Bonus Chart in determining task success took them about 20 minutes of actual play to begin with to get used to. The players had a really good afternoon of gaming with the scenario, and the cards and possibilities flowed like wine all afternoon. Daniel did a good job playing the Monster Hunter (I know the players gave their characters names, but I don’t seem to have written them down and can’t remember them for the life of me), and loved his character’s unique abilities. Paul-Andre played up the Nile Empire elements of his character, the Masked Crusader, and Charlotte got into her role as the Edeinos Optant, and rather enjoyed the miracles that her character possessed, making good use of them several times. SteveR did a good job with the Tharkoldu Resistance Fighter, and he used his psionics to great effect twice, the first time helping to move a felled tree so as to act as a bridge over a raging river and the second time to save the life of the Edeinos Optant when she chose a reckless, but perfectly in character, means of crossing the same river. Bruce played the Cyberwitch very well, but didn’t really have a chance to use his magic, though the cyberweapons of the character proved useful. Roddy did his good job as usual with the Relic Raider, and really shone in the second half of the adventure.
The players handled the game situations that came up in this scenario, and did a good job finding solutions to the various circumstances that came up. The business with crossing the raging river (which was mentioned earlier) is a good example of this, as was the bit where they rescued a trapped edeinos from a tar pit. The revelations for the Infiniverse that occurred during the adventure had SteveR gasping with surprise, and the others came to appreciate what happened by the end of the adventure.
When we wrapped up the adventure, the players told me that they had a great time with the game system, and three of them said they were going to buy Torg Eternity so as to have it for themselves and run a game or three of it. They all liked the mechanics, especially the three decks of cards, loving the Cosm cards for their giving a great feel to the experience of being in the relevant Cosm’s World Laws and Axioms. (Btw, only one character, the Cyberwitch, disconnected during the game, when she was using her GodMeeter in the Living Land, but she was able to re-connect relatively quickly.) After the game ended, I chatted with several of the players while starting to pack the gaming stuff up with the able assistance of SteveR. We talked about various aspects of the game system and mechanics, and a bit more about several of the Cosms that intrigued the players.
After the gamers left, SteveR took the gaming materials out to the car while I sat back with some cheese, a bottle of yogurt and some bottled water. Then I filled in the sign-up sheet with the top three player rankings, and took that to the Game Registration desk. SteveR returned and we sat around and waited for the CanGames closing ceremony to begin and end, and while I didn’t doze off or anything like that, I was seriously annoyed because of the loud conversation going on at the next table, and couldn’t hear most of what was said. It was relativly short, no more than twenty (20) minutes long. SteveR and I were pretty tired and hungry, so it was time to bid CanGames 2018 adieu.
By this time it was well after 7:20 pm and SteveR and I were pretty hungry, so decided it was time to bid the convention adieu for this year. I walked around for about 10 minutes saying goodbye to certain people that I knew, but it was a done deal for the year. Steve and I headed over to my favourite Chinese restaurant for supper, Brother Wu. We took the rather long route for various reasons (notably that I had to wait 2 hours to take the antibiotic after the yogurt) and got there a bit later than I expected to. The meal at Brother Wu's was excellent, as we had some Mustard Greens with Pork soup, Hunan Dumplings, Moo-She Chicken with Pancakes, and Sizzling Beef with a small bowl of rice between us. A truly nice meal, washed down throughout with Chinese tea. We talked very little over the food, since I was feeling peckish, though he did tell me how the Star Trek Adventures scenario had gone.
From the restaurant, SteveR drove me back to my place. Once there, he helped me unload the car with the gaming stuff, and then he headed for home. It was around 10:00 pm or so, I think, and I sat back, relaxed, and had some yogurt and a cup of peppermint tea, which helped so much. I was feeling pretty tired, achy all over and thought I was developing a sore throat (though I attributed that to the speaking so much during the day). Turns out, I was just starting out with con crud. :( I stayed up until I had to take my insulin injection for the night, and just had a cup of hot chocolate before crawling into bed and reading for about half an hour. Then, blessed sleep.
And there you have it - my three-post report on CanGames 2018, and the rpgs I ran at the convention. Overall, I had a really good convention, and had a blast running the games I did at the convention. I was only hampered by my left shoulder and arm all weekend and by the diabetic lesion on my leg. More exhausting for me than usual, though. (I may write an impressions of the con post as well, but we'll see, since I didn't really see all that much of the convention.)
Hope folks enjoyed these reports on the convention. :) Comments, thoughts, and questions are welcome. :)