Grandmother Spider - Season One Conclusion

Last night we played the last session of the Grandmother Spider campaign, using Fluid rules. To be honest, I thought it would be better than it was, though there seems to be some interest among the players in continuing, which suggests that at least some of them enjoyed it.

I have to agree with one of the players who said that the ending actually felt anticlimactic, though I'd have to say it was big enough for a proper ending. It probably felt that way because, while the family at the core of the campaign ended up reunited and essentially victorious by taking unexpected action, they were also betrayed and lost their ship at the very end. It's cool in that there would be a definite place to go with Season Two (try to recover the ship!), which I hadn't been expecting. It might be worth doing, but I definitely need a break.

Why do I need a break from a setting I love and my own system? Because I've been running Firefly-based material at home for too long now and just need a change.

We've now played enough Fluid (thanks, guys!) that it has stabilized, and its strengths and weaknesses are apparent. On the plus side, it's as open and as simple as I wanted it to be. Players love the open and easy character creation, and definitely have control over the story in ways that I don't think they would have in most RPGs. For example, one of the players chose not to have a conflict when I was threatening the player characters with having a Bad Thing happen to the group, allowing it to happen instead of fighting it. I was actually too surprised at that moment to remember to reward him, but it was exactly the sort of thing I've wanted to see players do. On the negative side, the players have to bring ideas of their own to the table, or very little happens and any GM prepared material is used up very quickly. I think it's time for me to experiment with Fluid with some different people to see what happens.

The next campaign on the home front will be an In Nomine campaign primarily using a jazzed up version of the closest city as our setting. I've never gotten tired of In Nomine, and I'm really looking forward to this. We started making characters after the Grandmother Spider session, and Jason has hit it out of the park again, character-wise, playing a Kyriotate of Jordi that spends most of the time as a little old lady and her many cats. The other characters have a lot of potential too, but that one just jumped up at me right away.

And coming up this weekend, I'll have DexCon in New Jersey. I'm just going Saturday/Sunday rather than my usual Friday-Sunday excursion because I couldn't get the time off from work. I'm a little concerned about my level of preparation, but I usually feel that way to some degree, and I have almost a week to get reacquainted with the material I'd written months ago, so I'm sure I'll be fine. I'm more worried about con attendance than anything else, since a lot of people are cutting back on spending and not going to a con would be a way to do that. I'll find out when I get there.