[Carnage 2009] Revolution!

Jockeying for support and influence in the shadow of oncoming social unrest.

Saturday morning of Carnage, I ran a demo of Revolution!, a Euro-style bidding game. This was the first time I took the game out in public, previously having played it only with friends. The basis of the game is players try to gather support — also known as accrue victory points — by bribing, blackmailing or intimidating different individuals in a town about to be swept up in a revolution.

Players use these three techniques of persuasion in the form of tokens with which they secretly bid to influence the townsfolk. Behind a screen, they place tokens on different people’s squares. Some personalities can only be influenced by certain forms of persuasion; the General can’t be forced and the Innkeeper can’t be blackmailed, for example. Everyone reveals their tokens and the player who bid the highest on a given personality gains whatever benefits they offer. Usually that’s a combination of support points, tokens to use in the next round of bidding and the placement of influence cubes in one of the sections of the board. Two, the Spy and the Apothecary, allow players to manipulate influence cubes already placed on the board by either replacing them with one of their own or switching positions of already placed cubes.

[Carnage 2009] GURPS Ghostbusters: The Lurker in the Limelight

They ain't afraid of no ghosts -- just the client's credit card being declined.

Friday night at Carnage was my moment of truth. This Ghostbusters game was the one in which I invested the most thought and energy over the last six months of con preparation. It’s also the one that most inspired me. Usually I beat my head against the wall in coming up with adventure details, but everything just flowed with this one. I even had the time and opportunity to run a playtest session in September. Even with all that preparation, though, I felt most nervous because I felt like this was the one that could go most badly. In retrospect, it was a lock in every regard except the possibility of players who didn’t get the mood and concept, but that was rather remote.

Delayed Greetings from Lake Morey

Early morning mist hovers over the surface of Lake Morey.

After four days away at Carnage, I’m back home and online. I’ll write plenty more about my convention experience after I recover, but for now here are some scatter-shot memories:

• I made myself hoarse by the end of the Saturday afternoon slot. There’s no way to GM a game session without a lot of talking, so I spent a lot of time Saturday night with throat lozenges tucked in my cheek. Later that evening, I learned Trout River’s Rainbow Red is a sovereign cure for sore throats.
• Players will think of the most unexpected solutions, like coercing the ghost of a medical student to insert the needle for an IV cocktail of saline and holy water. It didn’t actually happen, alas, but it was an ingenious notion.
• There’s con crud and there’s what hit Carnage this year. By the end of Sunday, most of the remaining attendees were coughing or napping on any available soft surface. I’m waiting to see if I contracted something or am just over-tired and hoarse.
• It’s easy to mistake a blimp for a giant marijuana joint.
• A local author, Lisa Comstock, promoted her BrimTier Chronicles in the dealer’s room Saturday. That was an unexpected treat.
• Dominion had to be the belle of the con, given the number of times it played, on schedule and off, and the lively Saturday night tournament.
• This was the first year that declaring “Civilian!” when turning a corner in the halls became a wise tactic during the intermittent Nerf Wars sessions.

All Aboard for Nothing But Carnage

My assembled gaming kit for the weekend. I tie-dyed the dice bag myself.

Sometime early yesterday afternoon, the stalwart Stella Blue, AKA my aged Chevy Malibu, merged with the southbound traffic of Interstate 89, heading for the Lake Morey Resort in Fairlee, VT. For you see, every year since 2003, about this time in late fall, Lake Morey has played host to Carnage, Vermont’s longest running game convention. After eight or so months of thought and planning, it’s finally time to hit the ground running for Carnage 12.

I’ve been attending since 2006, when at the last minute a friend asked, “Hey, do you want to go to this convention called Carnage?” Every year, I’ve steadily become more and more involved, running stuff on my own or as a Man in Black.

Behind the jump is my dance card for the weekend. Whether you want to play something I’m running or not, don’t be shy of saying hey if you happen past.

Can’t wait to wake up unconscionably early Saturday morning and admire the morning mist drifting over Lake Morey!

I’m Glowing a Little Bit

This afternoon, I checked in with the schedule managers for Carnage. More than half the games I’m running are filled up with preregistrants. That’s a personal best for me. I really didn’t think that would happen with Highway to Niflheim, but even that one is topped out at six players. It’s a little intimidating.

I was about to type I’ve never run a roleplaying adventure for that many people, but then I remembered last year’s horror scenario Band on the Run. It was kind of a chaotic kerfuffle with players abandoning the plot for their own devices — which I rolled with, natch — and the general lunacy may have put a young girl off roleplaying completely, but most of the players said they enjoyed themselves.

This year, my goal is to roll as flexibly as before, but exert a stronger force melding their actions with events somewhat resembling a plot.

Return to the Tomb of the Lich Lord

And news of older games becoming available again keeps on coming. Atlas Games confirms they have the new printing of the Dungeoneer set Tomb of the Lich Lord in their warehouse. While not a core set for Dungeoneer, as they are intended to be all played independently, it was the first and works as a solid introduction to game play. And one I lack at the moment.

Since I’m running a session of Dungeoneer at Carnage, this is good because it will expand our options. We could play Tomb and Call of the Lich Lord, an epic level set, in sequence for a longer game. Or mix Tomb together with Vault of the Fiends for a bigger dungeon to explore — and I’m curious to find out how mixing sets changes the usefulness of keyword-specific effects and overall feel of a given set’s theme.

One other variation I would like to try at Carnage, assuming the players are interested, is Overworld / Underworld. Heroes begin exploring a wilderness region, as in Realm of the Ice Witch and then must find the entrance to the dungeon in order to delve for further glory. You end up building two separate maps, one for the wilderness and one for the dungeon, so it is probably space intensive.

Carnage 12 Preregistration Book Available for Download

Cover of the Carnage 12 preregistration book.

Good news, everyone! The preregistration for Carnage 12, the pluckiest little game convention in all of Vermont, has uploaded their book for public perusal. You’ll find links right on the front page.

The uploading of the book means that hard copies are probably going to the post office today, so if you’re already on Carnage’s mailing list, keep your eyes on the box by the road.

Everyone else, and those who can’t wait for the United States Postal Service, get that PDF and check out what’s happening this year the weekend of November 6th through the 8th at the Lake Morey Resort.

Lake Morey Resort Sells Out for Carnage

It came across the Northern New England Gamers mailing list the other day: Lake Morey is sold out for Carnage 12 this November. In confirming this, convention board member Dr. Nik went on to say, “Game submissions are up and so is attendance!” So they’ve got that going for them, which is nice.

Fortunately for those of you who waited too long, Dr. Nik also mentioned Carnage is looking into making arrangements with nearby hotels and bed & breakfasts. You’ll find the list in full behind the jump, or you can read the message yourself on NNEG — registration is required to access the list’s archives.

Making Sense of All the Little Ideas

I’ve been thinking about this Lurker in the Limelight adventure for more than just a month now — since April, probably — and making little nibbles of progress without the kind of solid strides forward in extending the concept to a broad framework that give me the confidence to believe I know where this thing is headed. Fortunately, this past Thursday I had just the revelation I was looking for that kicked off a major session of writing and adventure structuring.

The trouble was the antagonist really didn’t fit the location of the action. One just happened to place itself in the other and there was no interesting connection between the two. And the whole premise for this adventure grew out of “Hey, it would be neat to set a Ghostbusters scenario in a theatre.” The theatre practically is a character. It should have a meaningful connection to the agent precipitating the action. So making dinner this past evening, it finally hit me what to change to make it all work. And boy, does it work.

From that little change, I got pages of notes and ordered ideas that have been tromping around my head for months, as well as developed new thoughts and details to flesh it all out. Most of that is thanks to two techniques, both of which I picked up from Unisystem games, however tangentially.

Carnage 12 Needs GMs

Carnage's 2009 logo, in keeping with the non-theme "Nothing But Carnage."

Extra, extra!

The second call is going out across the internet — via outlets like Green Mountain Roleplayers, Northern New England Gamers, Unity Games and more — that Carnage, Vermont’s longest-running game convention, is still looking for GMs to run board games and roleplaying games.

Dr. Nik, the roleplaying game field marshal, writes, in part:

GAME MASTERS! Our Success Depends On You! This year, for Nothin’ But Carnage, we ask all of you, past, present and future, to channel the inner gm and run a game at Carnage 12. We’ve missed a lot of you, dust an old game off and bring it back, develop that idea, or learn that new board game you picked up. We want you to be a part and help continue to make carnage great. For those of you who have yet to experience running a game at carnage, please take an opportunity to come to Carnage 12 and bring a game or 2 to share. Carnage offers complimentary registration to play in any other games if you run in 2 slots, and we try to extend the love and honor that you deserve. Step on over and run a game in the Lovecraftian Resort of Lake Morey!

Meanwhile, Rod Sheldon seeks still more board game mavens to show off their own skills at teaching and moderating board games. There’s an updated version of the board game wish list on a news post on Northeast Wars’ site, taking into account games they’ve already booked.

Nothing But Carnage runs November 6th – 8th in Fairlee, VT at the Lake Morey Resort. The hotel, while large, fills quickly thanks to early bird reservations, so you may need to inquire with the Carnage staff about overflow accommodations.

Game masters looking to run something should get their events in by August 5th. That’s the final deadline to be included in the pre-convention book mailing, which is pretty key for getting advance notice about your game out to the playing masses.