Forty Year Old Fanboy Update#12

Woke up and rushed to meet with the gang only to discover that horror of horrors I had left my toothpaste back at Manila. The group was looking at playtesting a new game by jim and I definitely wanted to join that so I hurriedly bought terribly expensive toothpaste at the hotel gift shop and freshened up to meet with them.

The game was a blast. While still in its rough stages, the game definitely shows a lot of promise. Without saying too much, the game touches on the Western genre and adds a touch of the supernatural to it. We had our fare share of combat and drama and in the end, we all bid farewell to this unforgiving world.

Water.  I definitely reminded myself to stay hydrated. In each game session, I'd make sure I had at least one or two glasses of water to keep me fueled up, especially given how much talking a game demands.  I probably drink around eight glasses in one game session.  This was one of the things I loved about the convention, admittedly. There were numerous water drinking stations all around the convention areas, allowing you to make sure you stay well hydrated despite your hour long sessions.

So going back, after that, we swung by for a quick lunch before and played a few more sessions of Dice Crawl. (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/148522/dice-crawl)  We played at the lobby table and had a good number of sessions rolling dice and finding ways to gather the most points before someone ran out of dice or reached the dragon.

At around 2 p.m. I then had my Lacuna: The Birth of Mystery and the Girl from Blue City game to run.  There was a brief mix-up on what room was supposed to be used but I eventually found where I was supposed to go and saw the players waiting there.  Ben messaged in our Messenger Group that his game fizzled, so I invited him to play in mine. He instead played with jim for a session of The Black Monk (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/193523/Praxis-The-Black-Monk).   The game had four players, and two of them shared they have played Lacuna before.  I explained how my game was most likely very different from what they have played, and opened with the recruitment process with the players going through the application process of becoming a Mystery Agent.   The group dove into the Blue City, encountered the Fraulein and soon found themselves at the Racetrack in hopes of locating and extracting the Fisherman. While there, they meet up with Kira and discover the complications of being the sixth of five iterations of the same rescue attempt.  One player sacrifices himself and allows Fisherman to be extracted, while the three others narrowly escape the arrival of Spiders.

Good times.  The group was pretty happy with the game, and I think some of them even added me up on Facebook. It was a bit annoying that I had forgotten the key prop (the Lacuna pins I had back home) but we still had a great game, I'd like to think.

Later in the evening, I found a chance to finally buy the two Legendary Encounters games I've been wanting to plus the mahjong tile deluxe version Hanabi. Found a few smaller games that were worth grabbing as well. Sadly not that many RPG book options. Save for Pathfinder, Traveller, and D&D, there were some Dr Who DWAITAS books but I remembered Rocky planning to get them as a set so stopped myself. Then there was only this FATE corebook but I didn't really feel like spending $25 for it.

Then I bumped into Jim who insisted I play The Carcass: Exodus with him, which I definitely wanted to do. I completely regret not having the funds to back it on Kickstarter when it was there. I got to play the Butcher, who was basically the person who cooks for the colony. It was a choice of being a Provider (the person who handles the food) or a Cleaner (who gets rid of unwanted people) and so I chose the former. The story was pretty epic and I actually shed a few tears while playing both my character Chock, and one of the NPCs named Kelly. That game was pretty intense.

By the evening, I think I had sorta shut down and tried to get some writing done but it just seems hard to write without the net (which allows me to do any quick double checking or research) and so that was futile.  Ben and Dan were wondering where I had gone and I think I only noticed them come the next day.  I was tired, but man, I was psyched.

But looking back, I am starting to really regret not being more photo snappy. Admittedly, Rocky is incredible in doing that and I just never really got used to the idea of taking pictures as often as possible. :-( Sad now to have such a wall of text for a convention report.