I was very pleased to find out that I was going to have the same table in the RPG room for all four of my events. I was even more pleased to find out that it was the location I think of as the second best in the room. To be more specific, the non-RPGA roleplaying is all located in one big room, but there are two alcoves that are isolated from the rest of the room while still being connected to it. Being in one of those means that you don't have as much sonic competition as the other events, which is far more conducive to good roleplaying, and I had one of the alcoves to myself for the weekend. Very cool.
The other pleasant surprise was that my events were booked nearly solid, some of them with a couple of alternative players hoping to get in. I hadn't been drawing players as well as I used to for the last couple of DexCons, and I'd been worried that economic circumstances might keep a lot of players away (possibly making that problem even worse), but my concerns were entirely unfounded, at least for my own events. I offered more horror this year, which might have helped, or maybe my event descriptions were just more appealing than last year.
My first event was on Saturday afternoon, running my new scenario "Fear Itself" for In Nomine. I had been quite concerned about this one because I've been slipping on getting playtesting done lately, and this would be the first time I'd run this scenario for anyone. I had a full house of players, all of whom took to their pregenerated characters as though they'd written them themselves. I have to give the players credit for handling the characters so well, but I'll also be immodest enough to give myself credit for giving them good material to start with, if I do say so myself. The players did a lot of roleplaying in the beginning, resulting in the opening scene being much longer than intended, but I wasn't about to stop them while they were having a good time. I have to give them credit also for creative solutions to a problem that I'd expected them to solve simply by running away from it. Then I introduced the core problem of the story, and they started working on it, eventually finding their own way to a satisfactory end that I wasn't sure was actually there until we played this session.
One of the surprises for me was that I'd prepared a lot of scary stuff that I ultimately barely used. I'd done a fair amount of research on the commmon elements of nightmares, which I expected to use in a big way, and I think I only used one or two bits of it here. No matter, as I'm sure I'll use it later, in other scenarios if not future sessions of this one.
Several of the players asked me afterward where they might be able to find a copy of In Nomine, which is a Good Thing as far as I'm concerned, but I had to admit to them that SJG is producing new In Nomine material solely in PDF form these days.
My Saturday night session was running "A Dance of Pairs" for Sorcerer. I had seven people show up for six slots and had to turn someone away, but one of the players decided that his character didn't work for him and left, allowing the displaced player to return and play. I talked to the player who'd left later and established that there were no bad personal feelings between us; we just agreed to consider it creative differences and we'll leave it at that.
Again, there was a lot of strong roleplaying. I have to give particular credit to Kevin Meares here for his best performance ever in any of my games, and to his partner Lisa for matching it. There were some other good performances, too, but those two really stood out.
I'd run this scenario for PoliCon, and made some changes based on that session. The problem had been that one of the sorcerer/demon relationships was entirely too functional (the one Kevin and Lisa were playing), and while the changes did make things harder on them, they still got along a little too well. Several people brainstormed that issue with me after the session, and now I have some new ideas for further changes for next time. The other problem was that the third pair that hadn't been played at PoliCon turned out not to be as interesting as I'd hoped. Again, those same brainstorming processes left me with new ideas as to how to fix that, so I have some work to do on this Dance before MEPACon.
Sunday morning was my first Don't Rest Your Head convention session ("The Clock Strikes Thirteen"), and I have to admit that again, I didn't do my usual advance playtesting. Unfortunately, it really showed this time. The scenario was intended from the beginning to be an introduction for players unfamiliar with the system/setting, and it worked well enough on that level, but didn't have enough action. The four players were all experienced indie gamers and very direct about what was working for them and what wasn't, which I appreciated, though I was a little embarrassed. We took a break in the middle while I contemplated how I might add some zing and bring about a reasonably satisfying ending. I did add a few things, but have to admit that what ultimately happened is that the players took the initiative and particularly stepped up in the second half, doing some very cool things that resulted in an extremely satisfying ending, for two of the characters in a sort of "Gift of the Magi" way. By way of self-critique, my GMing didn't flat out stink and the players left feeling entertained, which is the whole point, but it wasn't my best performance (largely due to inadequate preparation) and I'm painfully aware of it.
I think all I really need to do to make this one work is to add a more action-oriented goal for the players once they reach the Mad City, and that should be enough for this particular scenario, but if I run DRYH again I'll definitely need to work out something more thematically functional from the start. I bought a copy of the supplement, "Don't Lose Your Mind", so it's likely that I will eventually do another one.
As usual, I ran one of the closing events of the con, bringing back "A Slice of Blackwoods" for GURPS. I had a full house and more on paper, but only had three players at the table, one of whom hadn't been among the registered. Such is the last slot on a Sunday.
I'm not really sure what the overall attendance was relative to prior years. It seemed to me as though it might have been down a bit, but I freely admit that I was voluntarily confined to an alcove for most of the convention and didn't see much beyond the RPG room. On a more positive note, I had a number of new faces in my games along with the familiar faces, which is a Very Good Thing. I personally had a great time, certainly better than the last year or two. I'll have more on the non-game aspects in further entries.
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