| From: | Bull <chaos@*****.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | GC98 Earthdawn Tourney Memoirs (was Re: Adventures) |
| Date: | Fri, 21 Aug 1998 22:46:53 -0400 |
>> yeah...this from the guy who typed a 50 page tome for the earthdawn
>> tourney at gencon...and then expected us to read it!
>
>ROFLOL...hey..That was what the briefing was for ;P
>Anyway..It was complete and left nothing that needed to be guessed at
>by the Judges :) The print was big too :P
>
True... Very true... But still, a most excellent adventure...
Of course, In my opinion, a tournament game should be very structured... :]
But you did a great job writing it up... Good enough that I managed to
stumble into GMing the ED Tournament without actually knowing the rules
(long story as to why and how this happened).
I'll give you guys a synopsis of MY first round tourney game in a second
(Granite could probably give you the full story... My memory gets fairly
fuzzy past the second round storyline).
>Oh and welcome to the list :)
>Everyone meet one of the other FASA GC Judges ....
>
Which one? I seem to have missed the initial post... Jeff, by chance? I
know he had asked me to send him the SRN Subby instructions...
Anyways, now for:
HOW I SURVIVED EARTHDAWN AT GEN CON 98 :]
OK, as I mentioned, due to a bunch of MAJOR complications the month prior
to Gen Con, I ended up assigned to run ROund 1 of the ED Tourney. Other
than reading through the main rules book the week before GC, and a couple
of short games that I played in about 4 years ago, I was going into this
tournament blind. Needless to say, I was more than a bit panicked.
Of course it gets worse...
I got to my Hotel in Milwaukee after Midnight (About 12:30, I think) on
Wednesday Night. THe 1st round of the tourney was at Noon on Thursday. I
spent three hours that night going over the Earthdawn Adventure, and
fortunately, there was very little combat involved, and was Heavy on the
RP. I was Saved! I was hoping to bluff my way through this...
One of Loki's players, Rookie, was there as well. He wasn;t playing in the
tourney, and was familiar with the rules since Loki's been running ED for
the last couple months. Rookie volunteered to ride shotgun and help out.
Rookie, you were a huge help in the end, man! Thanks! :]
Anyways, I get to the table after about 4 hours of sleep, and the group I
get sits down... I hand out little name tents that the players can set up
and write their Real Name and Character's name on so that everyone else has
an easier time remembering who's who. At the end of the table sits a
woman, and her name card reads "Sherri Prosperi".
I'm praying it's a coincidence. But then Lou Prosperi himself walks up and
chats quietly with her a second while everyone is settling in. I'm now
running a Tournament game for Earthdawn, with the Wife of the head of the
Earthdawn Line (Lou is the ED DLOH, in case you didn;t know, or at least
was before FASA decided to licnse the game out... No one knows if Lou will
end up doing ED with whoever ends up producing ED), and I don't know how to
run the game! Could things get worse?
Yup.
Sitting across the table is a guy named Drew (Can;t think of his last name
off hand). I find out shortly after the game starts that Drew runs the
Earthdawn RPGA network... At this point, I cuss under my breath a lot and
go back, figuring I'm about to run the worst game of my life.
Guess what? I was wrong... IMO, It was one of my better game sessions,
despite serious lack of rules knowledge...
That team went on to win the ED tournament, and 4 members of that team also
were on the winning Shadowrun team as well (Drew and Sherri both didn;t
play the SR game). They beat out Team Jolt in the last round of both
tournaments (For those of you who were on the GC97 SR List Team, I was very
happy by that turn of events... What can I say, I'm petty :)).
They were a fantastic group to play with, that's for sure...
They even came up and gave me a Beanie Baby Racoon right before the "Awards
Ceremony" and the announcements of the winners of the tourneys...
OK, Racoon Story Time :]
The basic premise of the 1st round of the tourney was that the PC's are
hired to stop a band of slavers that's been ravaging the country side...
Pretty simple, but it gets more fun.
During the first night, the Players decide to stay in the town that hired
them. They set up watches. Now, the adventure was written so that there
are a couple times when perception tests are important. To cover that, we
were told to have the players making regular perception tests. So during
the night the Thief rolls an ungodly high Perception test on his watch
(They actually set up watches just outside the Inn), So I have him hear a
noise in the brush at the edge of town... he goes to investigate, makes a
bunch od stealth rolls, and manages to startle a Racoon that was rummaging
through some garbage thrown outside town.
Well, throughout the course of the adventure, the racoon made appearances
whenever the Thief made a decent Perception test... But no one else in the
party had seen it. EVerytime the thief pointed it out, it ran off before
anyone else saw it. :]
At the end of the adventure (The PC's track down the Slave Caravan, only to
find it being destroyed by Lofwyr. Lofwyr then charges the PC's with
finding out where the Slavers are coming from, because they work for his
brother, and Lofwyr wants to stop him.), the PC's track down a group of
slavers that escaped Lofwyr, and after a fight between the PC's and a group
of Slavers that Rookie ran, the players were still affected by some kind of
frenzy/berserk spell. The thief looks around and says he wants to find the
Racoon so he can "Get it!". He then rolls a 2 on his perception test,
failing miserably. However, the rest of the group then sees the Racoon
sitting in a tree watching the Thief...
They got a chuckle and had a great time... But the fun didn;t stop there...
Loki ran this group on Day 2, and he continued using the Racoon... At one
point the mage cast a "Quicken Pace" Spell, and the racoon got into the
area of the spell, so it was affected as well...
That night they made camp, and while they were eating, they kept hearing a
"Whoosh! Thump! Whoosh! Thump!" When they went to investigate, it was
the Racoon trying to jump into a tree branch to sleep, but it was moving so
fast it kept overshooting it's mark. :]
There was also a really humorous scene where the PC's confronted a Windling
NPC (Played by Tony Glinka) that stole all their gear. :] Tony can tell
you about that better than I, though...
Third night the PC's all end up on a boat, and Granite is GMing. He
manages to convince the PC's that they just ATE the Racoon for dinner! The
Thief runs onto the deck and starts puking, and the players actually Boo'ed
Granite for this! But he let them off the hook at the end of the game by
having the Racoon reappear and tug on the thief's leg... Made them
happy... :]
Overall, it was a blast, and it really surprised me when I showed up with
the other judges for the awards presentations and the players came up and
said "Bull, we have something for you" :] But it was also a lot of fun :]
Anyways, that's enough out of me... The tourney's were a blast :]
Bull
--
Bull -- The Best Ork Decker You Never Met
chaos@*****.com ===== bull22@***********.com
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/3604
=======================================================
= =
= Order is Illusion! Chaos is Bliss! Got any Fours? =
= =
=======================================================
"Can the Gummi Worms really live in peace with the Marshmallow Chicks?"
-- Pinky, "Pinky and the Brain"
