Current mood:

creative

Drusni's AmberCon review
Now that I have had a week's worth of time to reflect...


Normally I get sick right after the con, with the pre-con stress keeping me in relatively good health before the con. Not so this year. I came down with a cold at 5 PM on Wednesday as soon as I left work, and fought it and the resulting laryngitis throughout the whole con. The worst was on Thursday night, when I had no voice but did have a game to run. Thankfully 3 (very strong!) drinks made me forget all my pain in my throat, and I was able to get through it.

Slot 1: Inheritance
It went alright. There was one character that just didn't fit, and I couldn't figure out what he wanted as motivation to get him with the others. Unfortunately for Jeff, it meant that he didn't enjoy himself much either. :( The others seemed to have enough fun, but it wasn't as great as I'd hoped. Oh well, sometimes the gaming goddess just doesn't smile your way.

Slot 2: One Night in Heerat
Another game that was just alright. Too much artificial manuevering to get us to be a group, and without an NPC to pull us together (i.e. Martin) we wandered around lost. I had the unfortunate point where my character could either go along with the group (and completely against her motivations and everything that she was) or I could play the character as I wrote her, and write myself out of the group/plot at the same time. I chose the latter. To my mind, that shouldn't be a choice I should have to make in the game for a good GM. Maybe some issue as JT had in my game the night before.

Slot 3: Sins of the Father 2: You did What?!
A continuing series that I enjoy a lot. Hard to tell whether it is the GM (Steve Acton) or the players, but I think it's a combination. Lots of angsty good plot for me, as a partly-reconciled daughter of Deirdre. I got to embarrass Rafe, the young price who complete a sentence in front of princesses (played by Linda D), flirt with Malek, who is my appropriately angsty cousin (son of Eric, played by Rob H), and annoy and rant at the red-headed cousin Gwen (played by Lee B). Great fun. We missed a few of the characters from the year before, but hopefully they'll return for part 3.

Slot 4: Walpurgis Night
The funniest horror game I've ever been in. Some very creepy scenes rounded out by a hilarious portrayal of a 'prince' who had more in common with Willie the Janitor of the Simpsons than anything (played by Mark McK). Very well done.

Slot 5: Mars Ascending
The last time we plan on running this game, and it was in some ways the best. The players completely schismed early on, the passengers revolted against the crew (and lost, but just barely), there were PC deaths. Whew! Now we get to figure out what to do next year... I think it will be set in our Firefly-like world again, because it's very cool.

Slot 6: Equalizer
First time trying Ginger S and Michael C as GMs, and I like them. The game was fun on the whole, I got to play with people I didn't know for a change, and I was very amused by certain scenes (like the other PCs deciding to do the opposite of whatever my character advocated in coming up with an attack). I also admired a technique they use, of a 'talking stick' which is passed from player to player instead of everyone yelling out what they want to do. I may use this technique in the future, it's a good way to keep one player from hogging the GM, and for the GM to avoid being overwhelmed in combat situations.

Slot 7: Checkmate
The last of the Metari series. This game went alright, I think that 4 out of the 6 players really enjoyed themselves. One did mostly, but then cut out early (and rudely, at that). The sixth really never got into it. On hindsight, this game should have been a campaign, not a con game. It's just too hard for me as a GM to keep the characters updated with everything they've done so any player can pick them up and play. By this game - the 4th in the series - it was just overload to anyone who hadn't been in previous ones. I felt a big wave of relief when it was done. I won't be finishing the rest of it for ACNW though, sadly for those folks who played in the first game of the series last con. I don't think I'll be coming back to ACNW this year (for financial reasons) and by the time next year comes around I expect I'll *really* want to move on to other things.


And that was the con for me. On the whole pretty enjoyable. A couple flops on my part as GM, unfortunately. I think I've learned from them though, and am eager to do more GMing now. Which is good, because I have a few players egging me to do a campaign. ;-) So far it's looking like it will be set in the 1800s Carribean... bloody pirates!