ICON 2010, Saturday

Saturday got off to a poor start, as the coffee shop was closed, so we ended up decamping to a nearby Wimpy (having been led astray by my GPS, which promised more options at the location).

I signed up for the VTES tournament, and, while waiting for the tournament to start, got in my second partial VTES social. I was playing the !Brujah deck. which seemed to be doing OK, although we called the game before the table really shook itself into shape.

As I thought the deck was quite solid, I opted to play my HoS deck. This turned out to be a pure choice, and I probably would have done better with a more combat focused deck, as there wasn't that much combat defense around.

The first round was one of the odder games I've ever been involved in. I was bleeding Victor (Assamite BH toolbox), bleeding Jan (!Ventrue farm), bleeding Alex (HoS wall), with Victor starting, IIRC. My predator, Alex, brought out Agaitas, and was thus able to draw and use cards from my deck most successfully. Since Alex's deck was much more wallish than mine, he used this a lot to cycle into block fails and bleed to run me down. He also played a Anarch Troublemaker from my deck, which he should have been able to use to oust me, but forgot about it when he should have lunged. I almost had an awesome play, as I played a second Anatch Troublemaker to contest, but Victor Suddened it. It didn't matter, as Alex fell to a bounced bleed, and I fell to Jan shortly thereafter. Jan was able to whittle down Viktor gradually to take the sweep.

In the second game, I was bleeding Neville (!Ventrue anti-vote wall), bleeding Simon (Malk CEL/DEM combat), bleeding Jan, bleeding Josh (!Malk fast sneak bleed with Malkavian Games) (can't remember who started). I didn't draw enough bounce or intercept to deal with the very forward focused deck (I don't think it had a single reaction card), so was duly ousted first. I hadn't had a chance to bleed Neville before being ousted, so he was somewhat setup, and with a combination of Villeins, a well-timed Giant's Blood, some votes, Neville farmed up considerably, but eventually fell before the !Malks. Jan, who had minions Coma'ed by both Josh and Simon, eventually fell to Simon, but Simon couldn't quite hold on to stop Josh, although it was very close, as Josh almost decked himself on the last bleed.

The third game saw me bleeding Josh, bleeding Willem (Ventrue vote) bleeding Marnik (Tremere slave Gargoyles) bleeding Victor (I started, I think). Willem fell to the sneak bleed quite quickly, but I was able to put in a couple of solid hits on Josh's pool, and almost had him in range before he ousted Willem. At this point, with Josh on 6 pool, he lost a Malkavian Game, and, as he misannounced the effect, he thought he'd lost 6 instead of 4 pool. This, annoyingly, probably cost me a VP, as, had the effect been properly applied, I would have almost certainly had Josh the next turn, and would have hit the Gargoyle deck after an extra turn of being bled by the Malks, rather than with 12 pool, and would have probably been able to win that battle. Victor, who had been largely left alone to tool up, as everyone focused on the !Malks, was able to mop up the table.

Between the tournament and the start of the second LARP, I got in one more social game. I played my Nocturn deck, bleeding Neville (HoS), bleeding Gareth (Nergal power bleed), bleeding Vleis (Gangrel aggro-poke), bleeding Simon (!Salubri). The game had several amusing events - Neville played a Tension in the ranks early, so I wasn't in a position to recruit Nocturns, as the cost for them burning would have itched mightly. Gareth bled forward heavily, and Vleis had something of a bad game as a result. Simon was able to bring out a couple of smallish minions, and burnt one of the Gangrel early. At about this point, Gareth discarded a Majesty, announcing that he had too many in his hand. Simon, seeing that Gareth was about to oust the Gangrel, rushed cross table. It turned out that Garther considered two Majesty's in hand too many, and, having played the one combat card in the first rush, promptly had Nergal burnt by the !Salubri (which, given the old WoD mythos, seemed very appropriate). I got good use out of the DOM/OBT plan B gear of the Nocturn deck, and. with combat flying around cross table, was able to keep my head down and stealth bleed past Neville's defenses. Gareth, although he managed to oust the Gangrel, was running short on minions, and soon fell. Fortunately, I had enough S:CE in hand to survive a turn of rushes from the !Salubri, and, with bleed in hand, had little trouble finishing off Simon's deck.

The LARP kept the vampire theme going, as it was a Dracula LARP. I was cast as Renfield, who was fun to play. His goals were never particularly achievable, but I feel I managed a creditable level of creepy, and generally had a good time. I also managed to get killed twice - both times by Simon's character - which gave me a better than 100% record for dying in the weekend's LARPs.

Icon 2010, Friday

So, in the company of Simon, Adrianna, Mike & Beth, I went up to ICON. I flew up with Simon and Adrianna on Thursday evening, and, with some "not quite following the GPS" navigation (which included a loop around the block in a series of confusing one-way streets, where we may have ended up going the wrong way down one), we made it to the F1 hotel and met up with Mike and Beth.

Friday got off to a bright and early start. Early successes were finding a decent coffee shop for breakfast near ICON, and a source of wasabi coated peas.

I duly signed up for two role-playing modules. We were informed that two modules, one of which I had been considering playing in, had been canceled due to "severe technical weaknesses".

Before role playing started, I got in most of a quick social game with two Pretoria players and Simon. I was playing my Unnamed bleed deck. The game was interesting, as, with the unnamed bleeding, I ended up with a surprisingly large amount of pool without actually doing that much damage. I also had my Enkil Cog DI'd and my Metro Underground Suddened, which left me feeling a bit picked on.

The first role-playing module was more than a bit dire. The group I was in took some time to find the actual character descriptions, which were cunningly hidden as a couple of lines amongst walls of stats and system descriptions. The module itself wasn't much better, as it was equally sparse and lacked essential elements such as a basic plot. Our GM, Naas, took us seriously off script to add some structure - it ended up playing more as a Call of Cthulu module, but ended up being reasonably enjoyable.

The afternoon module was probably less dire, although it was a close call. The character sheets were more fleshed out, but the module was again lacking in basic plot and the characters lacked any motivation for acting in the way the module writer clearly intended. This weak setup also made it almost impossible to do any sort of real horror, and my group played it a bit for laughs, so it was quite entertaining, but not, I suspect, the module the author had intended.

Given the poor quality of the modules on show on Friday (the second afternoon module was apparently also a bit dire), the quality of the scotched modules was a source of some speculation.

Between the modules and the evening LARP, we went to the Edenvale Spur. They were having a very busy night, so this resulted in a quick dinner dash becoming a leisurely, frustrating dinner dash, and us getting back a bit late for the LARP.

The LARP was quite fun. The plot involved nearly every applicable daytime soap cliche, and several that weren't strictly applicable, but were thrown in anyway. My character came quite close to achieving his objectives, largely by presenting a completely false face of reasonable sensibleness, before dying from an unfortunate series of events - it started with poisoning and went a little odd from there, to end in a case of spontaneous human combustion.

Dragonfire 2007 summary

Overall, I throughly enjoyed this Dragonfire. unfortunately, no mugs (although this may be corrected in due course).

Thursday was the Vampire tournament, which was quite fun. I played my Osebo close combat deck. As expected, it didn't do that well, although it did gain me one victory point. The weaknesses in terms of bleed speed and such are obvious, and I suffered some strange draws, but enough bits worked tat I had fun, and successfully ousting someone is always a good thing.

Friday, I had the reasonably unexpected LARP, which I've already blogged about. Having now played in a LARP, I'd approach the next one from a slightly less theatrical perspective, and pay a bit more attention to the gaming aspects.


Saturday was spent recovering from the LARP, so I skipped everything, but on Sunday I participated in both modules. The first ran very long for the group I was involved in, but was rather fun. The second was tighter, and also fun. Overall, good to get some role-playing in (I really need to find some sort of convenient RP group nearby).

So, generally good fun, although the unfilled mug issue does remain.

LARP'ed

So, I played in Simon and Adrianna's LARP, the Grove of Fallen Leaves. It was all very last minute - I agreed to play a little more than 24 hours beforehand, due to a player pulling out.

The first obstacle was actually making it to the LARP. This shouldn't have been an obstacle, except that I had to take my bike in to get the choke cable repaired, and they did not let me know that my bike would not be ready until quite late. However, by use of the less than optimal Cape Town train system, I was able to make it across (relying on Simon and Adrianna's hospitality to work around the lack of trains back until the next day).

The LARP was fun. My theatrical background was probably a it of a disadvantage, since I was more likely to play the character, rather than the game situation, although, given the way the game went down, I'm not sure i there was much I could have done differently to change things.

The LARP suffered from hitting a critical level of mistrust, and, despite trying to play a conciliatory role, the rest of the players were more interested in mistrusting each other than actually resolving anything, which was somewhat frustrating.

Still, overall, I had good fun, which is about the best one can expect out of this sort of thing.