More importantly, it’s National Black Cat Day in the UK, but neither I nor Nightvale is there.
Between fan noise and two nights of games ending early, I was much more alive this morning than at this point last year, which is good because I had to pack up and then run a game in the first slot of the day.
Ran: Perils and Princesses. In a turn of events that was only surprising because I did not know he came to BBC, one of my players was the designer of Princess World, but fortunately I am not prone to fangirling. He played Clik-Clok the daughter of the Tin Woodsman, so that was cute. This time I got things moving along well enough, but somehow the antagonists were not creepy enough, and the princesses almost let them get away with it, but someone remembered they had a dodgy mushroom in their inventory and used it to contact their fairy godmother who only appears in dreams and visions and ask for better instructions. The day was saved! They used the same solution as the second test group, so that was reassuring in some way.
Played: A magical girl search of terrible things to fight in Wandering Crows. Along with a half-merperson deathly afraid of water and a necromancer who could only bear to raise animals, she wandered a world recovering from fifty years of war and deprivation. We were hired to escort a box of paprika to a partially-underwater city than had been deprived for two generations, which involved keeping loud-mouthed cops from starting a paprika riot and fighting through gangsters (our merperson Squid literally barfed a lizard gangster to death), but turned out to be only half the job. The priest of the temple we were delivering to needed the paprika for a specific ritual in a specific, dangerous place to save the city, and we had the choice of going through paprika thieves or necromancers to get there. We chose necromancers, which our necromancer defeated by laying their zombies to rest instead of having a massive undead battle. As a reward for maintaining the life-support system of the city, we got information about our personal quests, a huge favor from the important temple, etc, but most importantly, the ancient dinosaur priest threw off his robe and flexed for us. (No, really, rainbow feathers!) Wandering Crows is a card-based that’s intended to be simple and portable, but it’s also a little abstract for me. I would prefer what you write on your character sheet to be more than flavor text. I should send a comment to the designer.
And that was it for Big Bad Con 2024! I did not play all lesbians all the time this year, but close enough, and I only played games I’d never played before. The games I ran went much better than last time I ran two years ago, because I was ruthless about railroading. Will I run Perils and Princesses again next year? Maybe! But maybe something I like more will come along.
I managed to resist buying any dice in the dealer’s room, despite the many beautiful colors on offer, because I do not need more dice. I did buy a bunch of games in hardcopy (Ryuutama, which I might already own but couldn’t find at home; Follow, ditto; For the Queen; CBR+PNK; The Lost and the Jammed; Sapphic Space Pirates, Rebels of the Outlaw Waste because the PDF doesn’t have the stickers for character advancement; Cloud Empress and some adventures) and a small plush squid with eldritch sigils (their name is Devil Squid and they are Baby Lizard’s friend).
Criminal Cat Onion’s human was allegedly at the con, but I did not manage to meet her.
I just made the train home, and my cats were there and I fell over dead.
Written: VACATION