Continuum report
Jul. 23rd, 2012 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janewilliams20 While I can still just about remember what I did.
I'd promised myself that I would take it easy this year - only just done my first full (nearly!) week back at work after over 2 months off sick, so I'd need to allow for getting tired easily. So, minimise prep. activities, think of myself as a consumer not a producer, chill.... yeah, right. The pre-Continuum to-do list posted Wednesday night shows how well that went.
I went to bed Thursday night with a half-finished song, and some draft notes for a story. I'd got the Boat Race prep mostly done ("do I have all the handouts and things in the bag? yes, I do"). I woke up in the night with Ideas on how to sort the sing out, scribbled them down and went back to sleep.
Friday morning, typed them up, did a bit of polishing, and sent words and music off to Nick by various means. The story was still in draft, and blocked. Packed the armies, did the printouts for the D101 game I was running, noted that big chunks of the scenario seemed to be missing. As a result of an incautious mention of HOTT, loaded every Gloranthan army I've got into the car, and all the terrain, and some playing surfaces. That saved sorting out precisely which figures I wanted for the Boat Race, anyway! Also two drums, a set of bagpipes, and a practice chanter. Oh, and some costuming bits people wanted to borrow... what was this "take it easy" thing again?
Weightwatcher diet and memories of the food last time prompted also loading enough food and cooking equipment to be able to self-cater everything but breakfast. Bread, sandwich fillings, three readi-meals, salad and veg, and assorted tools to be able to make use of this. Also the scales, so I could weigh out and point anything from the canteen.
Lunch happened at home, then drove across the new Bedford bypass and up the M1. Heavy traffic, but no real problems, and everything very smooth on arrival. I was too late to join in an afternoon game (as expected), was hosting the Storytelling in the evening, and running a game myself Saturday morning, so no need to book anything. Chatted, chilled, worked out required timings with Oliver and the people who both wanted to hear him and get to a free-form thereafter, returned to room to cook dinner and finish that story. Which I did, 15 min before the Storytelling was due to start - no chance of getting it printed, but like most tellers there, I took the netbook and read it from screen.
As posted at the time, it went well. I'd got the story I opened with, another one I'd found lurking that had never gone public, and some older things printed out, but in fact what with time limits and other people having stories too, only the new one got used. Oliver's tale, "the Lady of Alone", gave me the same feeling from the first time I'd read it, that I wanted to write that series of events from Kallyr's PoV. Yes, she and Griselda do get to meet, briefly.
Friday night, I went to bed before midnight, setting the alarm for 7:30 rather than my usual 6:00. I did not need it to wake up.
Saturday, chatted about the scenario I was about to run with Newt, worked out what to do with the bits I was going to have to "wing". Got four players out of the possible 6, went and ran it - it had been written for a mix of HQ1 and HQ2 (meaning half the stats were missing), but since I always wing stats anyway, no problem. A mix of knowledge levels of both system and background, but again no problem - we went rules-lite, and the players who knew both better than others (and in some cases better than me - I am not a Lunar, much less a Dara Happan) - helped the rest. They caught on to the basic "secret" behind the plot in a few minutes, and then happily ignored the points-scoring it implied in favour of roleplaying. Me happy, them happy, major NPCs fairly unhappy, which is as it should be. No huge dramatic "oh, wow, what a brilliant idea!" moments until towards the end, and I won't say what that was so as to avoid spoilers.
Saturday afternoon games had gone up while I was running the morning one, and the one I'd really had my eye on (RQ2) had filled within about 10 min of the sigh-up sheet going up. I found a space in a game of Toon run by Dr. Moose, and spent a fun afternoon being a small Shetland Pony with an obsession with speed, on a motorbike ("I am not a My Little Pony, and anyone who calls me cute is gonna DIE!").
Saturday night, I'd considered booking into another game, then remembered the "take it easy" rule, and pulled out. Roleplaying 20:00 to midnight would have been too much, a nice short simple game of Rumble in the Rubble was more like it. Four hours later, the Doblian Dogeaters and the Thunder Delta slingers had taken out quite a lot of trolls, and had several members of the unit still alive, and I was just about asleep at the table.
Great game, wonderful figures, and painting and terrain up to the standard we expect from Gregory. Did not do the post-battle drinking session, staggered to bed and collapsed.
Sunday morning, up in time for breakfast (just), and thence to Dr Moose's Spirituality and Roleplaying seminar - there were a lot of us skipping games we'd have enjoyed to get to that. Then back to the main hall to bring out HOTT armies, and sit around discussing them with people, checking out what figures I had and what my to-do list looked like while they were all visible at once, chatting about the previous night's game with the author, and eventually putting the armies away and getting Duck Point out, while eating lunch. I'd made sandwiches, but the canteen salad looked so nice that I had that instead.
Sunday afternoon, and the Great Duck Point Boat Race. I ma told that this is now a "classic". It is? Well, if you say so. The report started to get long - I'll do a separate post. Let's just say that the players left the game trying to accost everyone they met and tell them all about it, so I think they enjoyed it, and as a result of Miniature Envy, I now have four more Mad Knight troll figures, representing the troll racing team.
Cleared the place up so as to be able to eat dinner - the canteen were doing roast, so I had a treat. Quite points-friendly, really. Armies boxes back in the car, bagpipes out of the car, and back to the room for some chilling and napping. Accidentally missed Newt's talk, but the alarm went off at 22:45 as planned, in time for the SIngalong at 23:00.
Except, it seemed, that the Singalong wasn't where it was advertised as being, and I was told later that the time had been changed as well (huh? making it later without notice works, making it earlier without notice does not!), and it says something about the quality of the soundproofing at the venue that I found it quite hard to track them down purely by sound. Still, I and pipes got there, though it meant the potential player had no rehearsal time, and songs were sung. Or at least, noises were made. My new one sort of worked, though I still find it hard to believe how many people didn't know "Land of my Fathers", and then since they couldn't hear the backing music (memo to self, next time, take some decent speakers along) got the basic rhythm Horribly Wrong.
We then got threatened with Pink Floyd, so I grabbed everything and ran. There was further chatting, and I was in bed by 02:00 - just
Looking back, I missed a few seminars and demos I'd have liked to have got to (maps, sword demos), but in all cases, got a lot of the same info by chatting to the relevant people over meals. Can't do everything, after all.
.So, during that weekend, I've been Lunars in three events, Sundomer in one, non-Gloranthan in one, and Sartarite only for a few songs. There's something wrong here.
I'd promised myself that I would take it easy this year - only just done my first full (nearly!) week back at work after over 2 months off sick, so I'd need to allow for getting tired easily. So, minimise prep. activities, think of myself as a consumer not a producer, chill.... yeah, right. The pre-Continuum to-do list posted Wednesday night shows how well that went.
I went to bed Thursday night with a half-finished song, and some draft notes for a story. I'd got the Boat Race prep mostly done ("do I have all the handouts and things in the bag? yes, I do"). I woke up in the night with Ideas on how to sort the sing out, scribbled them down and went back to sleep.
Friday morning, typed them up, did a bit of polishing, and sent words and music off to Nick by various means. The story was still in draft, and blocked. Packed the armies, did the printouts for the D101 game I was running, noted that big chunks of the scenario seemed to be missing. As a result of an incautious mention of HOTT, loaded every Gloranthan army I've got into the car, and all the terrain, and some playing surfaces. That saved sorting out precisely which figures I wanted for the Boat Race, anyway! Also two drums, a set of bagpipes, and a practice chanter. Oh, and some costuming bits people wanted to borrow... what was this "take it easy" thing again?
Weightwatcher diet and memories of the food last time prompted also loading enough food and cooking equipment to be able to self-cater everything but breakfast. Bread, sandwich fillings, three readi-meals, salad and veg, and assorted tools to be able to make use of this. Also the scales, so I could weigh out and point anything from the canteen.
Lunch happened at home, then drove across the new Bedford bypass and up the M1. Heavy traffic, but no real problems, and everything very smooth on arrival. I was too late to join in an afternoon game (as expected), was hosting the Storytelling in the evening, and running a game myself Saturday morning, so no need to book anything. Chatted, chilled, worked out required timings with Oliver and the people who both wanted to hear him and get to a free-form thereafter, returned to room to cook dinner and finish that story. Which I did, 15 min before the Storytelling was due to start - no chance of getting it printed, but like most tellers there, I took the netbook and read it from screen.
As posted at the time, it went well. I'd got the story I opened with, another one I'd found lurking that had never gone public, and some older things printed out, but in fact what with time limits and other people having stories too, only the new one got used. Oliver's tale, "the Lady of Alone", gave me the same feeling from the first time I'd read it, that I wanted to write that series of events from Kallyr's PoV. Yes, she and Griselda do get to meet, briefly.
Friday night, I went to bed before midnight, setting the alarm for 7:30 rather than my usual 6:00. I did not need it to wake up.
Saturday, chatted about the scenario I was about to run with Newt, worked out what to do with the bits I was going to have to "wing". Got four players out of the possible 6, went and ran it - it had been written for a mix of HQ1 and HQ2 (meaning half the stats were missing), but since I always wing stats anyway, no problem. A mix of knowledge levels of both system and background, but again no problem - we went rules-lite, and the players who knew both better than others (and in some cases better than me - I am not a Lunar, much less a Dara Happan) - helped the rest. They caught on to the basic "secret" behind the plot in a few minutes, and then happily ignored the points-scoring it implied in favour of roleplaying. Me happy, them happy, major NPCs fairly unhappy, which is as it should be. No huge dramatic "oh, wow, what a brilliant idea!" moments until towards the end, and I won't say what that was so as to avoid spoilers.
Saturday afternoon games had gone up while I was running the morning one, and the one I'd really had my eye on (RQ2) had filled within about 10 min of the sigh-up sheet going up. I found a space in a game of Toon run by Dr. Moose, and spent a fun afternoon being a small Shetland Pony with an obsession with speed, on a motorbike ("I am not a My Little Pony, and anyone who calls me cute is gonna DIE!").
Saturday night, I'd considered booking into another game, then remembered the "take it easy" rule, and pulled out. Roleplaying 20:00 to midnight would have been too much, a nice short simple game of Rumble in the Rubble was more like it. Four hours later, the Doblian Dogeaters and the Thunder Delta slingers had taken out quite a lot of trolls, and had several members of the unit still alive, and I was just about asleep at the table.
Great game, wonderful figures, and painting and terrain up to the standard we expect from Gregory. Did not do the post-battle drinking session, staggered to bed and collapsed.Sunday morning, up in time for breakfast (just), and thence to Dr Moose's Spirituality and Roleplaying seminar - there were a lot of us skipping games we'd have enjoyed to get to that. Then back to the main hall to bring out HOTT armies, and sit around discussing them with people, checking out what figures I had and what my to-do list looked like while they were all visible at once, chatting about the previous night's game with the author, and eventually putting the armies away and getting Duck Point out, while eating lunch. I'd made sandwiches, but the canteen salad looked so nice that I had that instead.
Sunday afternoon, and the Great Duck Point Boat Race. I ma told that this is now a "classic". It is? Well, if you say so. The report started to get long - I'll do a separate post. Let's just say that the players left the game trying to accost everyone they met and tell them all about it, so I think they enjoyed it, and as a result of Miniature Envy, I now have four more Mad Knight troll figures, representing the troll racing team.
Cleared the place up so as to be able to eat dinner - the canteen were doing roast, so I had a treat. Quite points-friendly, really. Armies boxes back in the car, bagpipes out of the car, and back to the room for some chilling and napping. Accidentally missed Newt's talk, but the alarm went off at 22:45 as planned, in time for the SIngalong at 23:00.
Except, it seemed, that the Singalong wasn't where it was advertised as being, and I was told later that the time had been changed as well (huh? making it later without notice works, making it earlier without notice does not!), and it says something about the quality of the soundproofing at the venue that I found it quite hard to track them down purely by sound. Still, I and pipes got there, though it meant the potential player had no rehearsal time, and songs were sung. Or at least, noises were made. My new one sort of worked, though I still find it hard to believe how many people didn't know "Land of my Fathers", and then since they couldn't hear the backing music (memo to self, next time, take some decent speakers along) got the basic rhythm Horribly Wrong.
We then got threatened with Pink Floyd, so I grabbed everything and ran. There was further chatting, and I was in bed by 02:00 - just
Looking back, I missed a few seminars and demos I'd have liked to have got to (maps, sword demos), but in all cases, got a lot of the same info by chatting to the relevant people over meals. Can't do everything, after all.
.So, during that weekend, I've been Lunars in three events, Sundomer in one, non-Gloranthan in one, and Sartarite only for a few songs. There's something wrong here.