Okay, so we're still between 'stories written by me' stuff at the moment as we're in the process of sorting out what we'll be playing next. I've presented the group with a handful of options that we're going to discuss in more depth, all of them either Fate or PbtA, and I'll keep you updated on that. There may or may not be a Starfinder session this week (with a following post) depending on scheduling stuff, but I felt like posting something in the meantime. Couldn't tell ya why, just an itch.
But that said, it does give me a good opportunity to do a long-overdue post about Gencon.
Aside from my Aeon write-up, I haven't talked much about Gencon. Admittedly, it's partially because I just put it off, got distracted with getting writing done while doing the RPGaDay posts, and after a while I figured it was too late and nobody would care. But it's eaten at me just enough that I figure I may as well go ahead and get it out of the way.
That said, it's not like most of my convention experiences in general are terribly exciting. At furry conventions, I might go to a couple of panels (usually writing-related), get a couple of commissions, and spend money on stuff. At Gencon, a couple of games get thrown into that mix. I only ran one game and played a couple of games this year, as I felt like taking it a little easier this year.
(I considered playing in a Legend of the Five Rings tournament, but I made some obnoxious mistakes in the planning stage for the con and didn't get a deck together. I'd brought my box of cards and was thinking of netdecking something just so I could play, but I underestimated how tired I'd be as the time approached to do it.)
So, okay, games. I'm gonna keep these pretty simple because it's been a while and I didn't exactly take enough notes for a play-by-play.
Deviant: The Renegades
Sean and I played in a playtest game of Deviant: The Renegades, an upcoming Chronicles of Darkness game about characters who've been transformed into something not-quite-human by some conspiracy or other and are on the run from said conspiracy while trying to avenge themselves against it and protect what matters to them. Think something like Dark Angel or Eleven and her fellow test subjects from Stranger Things, or Mike Peterson/Deathlok on Agents of SHIELD.
Our characters were a group of experimental super-soldiers who said "screw this" and took off after having been completely and utterly screwed up in the process. Our commanding officer had a computer in his head that needed its batteries replaced every day or so, we had a guy with a physically swollen head (so much so he couldn't pass for human without certain coverings) who could blank the memories of people around him, a woman who was extremely flexible after having been infused with octopus DNA but didn't heal at the normal rate, a guy who could eat anything but his teeth were now made of some alien metal, a guy who'd been turned into an ersatz werewolf, and I played the team's sniper, who had really weird luck.
We'd been contacted by an internet conspiracy nut, implied to be part of Network Zero, who had intel suggesting that the people who'd ruined our lives had recently set up shop in a Department of Agriculture facility as a cover for further experiments. Officially we were just to go in, get evidence, and get it to him, but there was an unspoken understanding that we'd likely get a little more directly involved.
We managed to steal a truck that was delivering a shipment of wheat for testing (really just to help maintain the conspiracy's cover, as they were just destroying the wheat), used that to get up to the gate, and when our attempts to con our way in didn't work all hell broke loose. Shooting, explosions. The woman with the superhuman flexibility managed to infiltrate the base through the pipes while the rest of us went in the front door, and found the doctor and the colonel who'd put us through the process and ended them while also stopping another batch of experiments. And we did in fact swipe their computer hard drives with all the data we were officially going after in any case.
As we escaped with the new test subjects to get them to a hospital (having stopped the process before they were transformed), we saw our 'conspiracy nut' contact coming in with the FBI to investigate the scene -- he's not Network Zero, he was Task Force VALKYRIE. But our memory-wiper guy did go out and hand over the hard drives at the pre-arranged dropoff, and we faded back into the shadows, A-Team style.
That's one game down.
Genesys: Android
The other was a game in the Genesys system from Fantasy Flight Games, in the Android setting (the setting used for their recent, sadly-recently-canceled iteration of the Netrunner card game), as sort of a playtest for an upcoming setting book for Genesys. For those of you with the Genesys core book, they've got a little bit of info about the setting in the 'sample settings' chapter. For those of you who aren't familiar, Android is a cyberpunk setting, largely centered around the city of New Angeles, a metropolis built up around the base of the space elevator known as the Beanstalk. (Pretty much any of the Cyberpunk 2077 trailers or footage on Youtube will give you an idea of the sort of setting we're talking about, though Android doesn't go as heavy on the weirder cybernetics)
In case you're wondering, no, we didn't play androids. (between you and me, 'Android' is kind of a stupid name for a setting that doesn't even have proper androids -- they're called 'bioroids' and they're kinda like Data on ST:TNG)
It's kind of hard to describe the group, as there wasn't much of a coherent theme except that we all knew each other and sometimes got involved in shady dealings. I played a bounty hunter, and we also had a PI, a street doc, and a construction worker. (Someone took pictures of the character sheets for those characters and the pre-gens that didn't get played, and you can find those here if you're curious.) So while we're all drinking in our favorite dive bar, a lowlife of our acquaintance stumbles in, acts really shady, stashes a data disc on the PI. He ducks out and we see someone come in looking for him. Knowing something's up, we follow them all outside and deal with a bunch of Los Scorpiones gang members, looking for the disc, and they kill the lowlife before we deal with a couple of them and bring in the authorities.
So we do some digging to find out what's on the disc, finding that it's swiped off of a Weyland Consortium computer -- they're the ones who run the Beanstalk. We have to break into an arcology where they run things with the Beanstalk, and we find out what it is -- it's basically a code that will let someone bypass certain scanners and customs checks, letting people move contraband up and down the space elevator undetected. Rather than deal with Los Scorpiones, who have a reputation for being unstable and difficult to deal with, we reach out to their rivals, a much more... organized crime syndicate, 14K. (Go here and jump down to the 'Turf Wars' section, and that'll give you a more detailed primer on the two organizations) We stash the disc at the bar and meet representatives of 14K for some tense negotiations where we eventually come to a reasonable amount of money, and implications of future beneficial associations with the triad.
As we leave the meeting, we discover we've got Los Scorpiones goons following us, and we split up to throw off the tail. I head back to the bar to get the disc, and we met 14K in a public square for the handoff. Los Scorpiones show up and despite the public place pick a fight, and we have to fight them off to complete the deal. But complete it we do, and there's a payday and a possible future with one of New Angeles' most powerful organized crime groups...
Beyond that, I picked up some of the Pathfinder 2nd Edition playtest stuff, a bunch of stuff for the L5R LCG at the Fantasy Flight booth, and I also got the 'Beginner Game' box set for the upcoming L5R RPG as well. I also actually picked up the Genesys book and a set of the dice as well -- the Android game was my first exposure to the system, but I was impressed enough with it that I made a beeline for the dealer's room (which was about to close) and picked it up. I also picked up some dice for myself, and some for a couple of my players back home.
Not much else to say about the weekend, off the top of my head -- got lucky, housing-wise, and managed to snag an in-block room connected to the convention center. That was nice, especially given that last year I was a bit of a walk away. My only real complaint was that I didn't get a good opportunity to talk to anyone I knew who was there other than Sean, but that's just what happens when things get real busy.
Not sure what else to mention, but if anyone's got any questions about this year's Gencon I'll answer 'em as best I can.
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