From: Laserlight <laserlight@q...>
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 23:22:35 -0500
Subject: [GZG] ECC-X AAR
Back from Dogsled ECC. There was snow on the ground in Lancaster but the streets has been screaped and I didn't have any trouble. Of course, I came from Virginia Beach; I gather some of the other routes had delays of an extra hour or so, and our crowd seemed a bit less crowded than usual. Friday night was Aaron Newman's game in The Matrix, with Agents, Hackers and Programs skulking around city streets, trying to locate their targets and take them out without attracting hostile attention. That was the briefing that *I* got, anyway. Given the number of vehicle highjackings, vehicle rammings, rocket explosions, and long bursts of wildly uncontrolled fire, it's possible other people didn't get the same briefing. I had a group of rogue programs, including the boss, two assistants, and two vampire soldiers. About halfway through the second turn--about the time that my two soldiers died, one from an exploding tanker truck and the other from a rocket launcher hit--I realized that subtle and clever play was not going to be a winning strategy. I quicklly wrote off any hope of achieving my victory conditions and tried to achieve an ignominious retreat. It didn't work. Martin's Hacker leader took a sword to my leader, hacking me quite easily. The only thing left for my two surviving assistants to do was to grovel at the police and beg for protection. Fortunately TomB was playing the police and didn't shoot me out of hand, although that may have been because he didn't want to get blood on his doughnut. The most amusing incident was the firefight held where both sides, and an innocent bystander, were all in the same police car. Friday night's late night gaming was Nuclear Dud. I don't think that was the actual title but it should have been. The Canadians gleefully destroyed each other, except for Doug who, through a series of mishaps, more or less managed to destroy himself. Mike Hudak and I, as the survivors, called for a mutual non-aggression pact around 3:00 am. Saturday morning was a Cine-FMA-Skirmish game, set in the Western town of Plaindealing and run by the Incomparable Stuart Murray. Each player got one main character, a sidekick and a group of followers--in my case, Rev Jedidiah Quesenberry, Deacon Jankins, and the Sunday School Teachers. The main character, instead of merely being "Regular 1" or "Veteran 2" and using that for everything, had separate characteristics for Shootin, Wrasslin', Figurin' (for reaction tests, spotting, etc), Orneryness (armor), and Health (number of wounds he could take). You could also pick a personal advantage (in my case, Persuasiveness) and a disadvantage (Foolishly Brave). The scenario called for the Townspeople, led by my preacher and TomB's sheriff, to try to keep the peace; the miners to protect the union paychest and released the unjustly-jailed union leader; the evil boss and his company men to steal the miners' paychest; and the hired desperadoes to kill, steal and terrorize. The scenario was much too interesting to give a full replay here, but some of the highlights were: the Sunday School teachers close assaults a gang of desperados an dragging them off to the church to repent; thugs tossing dynamite, or in one case dropping dynamite with loud and fatal results; the stagecoach careening wildly through the crowd, with people diving out of the way to escape; the Jilted Bride chasing after her Faithless Groom; and last but certainly not least, my telling the Man In Black (With A Terrible Secret) that the company boss knew that the MIB's name was Sue (how did he know? I'd told the boss, although I didn't mention that to the MIB) and then telling the MIB that "I don't think he boss hass told anyone else...yet...."--and the MIB went berserk and tried to kill the company boss to keep his secret from getting out (he tried to kill me first but the Lord was protecting me--I was hit three times but was too Ornery to be hurt). It was a fun and interesting game, with a really great idea on cinematic game mechanics. Saturday afternoon was Carnage con Queso, run by me. We didn't have as many players as I would have liked and the player-on-player combat was lacking, but Adrian, abetted by Doug Schavo, did manage to unseal the Temple of Shangri-Baa, which caused the image of an Elder God to appear--the image being a photo of Jon Tuffley from a couple fo ECC's ago; Indy had printed out the pic and offered it, and I'd applied it to the top of a mastaba (truncated step pyramid), which explains some of the quotes you'll see. The appearance of the Tuffley, plus some poking by players, led to the Opening of the Gate, the manifestation of Hastur-lambkin, and hundreds of sheep attacking and devouring most of the characters. Adrian's squad wasn't devoured, exactly, because his girls had all jumped into the sacrificial well in a vain but amusing attempt to placate Hastur-lambkin; he did manage to get R2D2 and C3PO off the board, though. Ben Izenberg, age 6, nearly won, but with a couple of last-second cards, Doug Schavo slipped past him and took first place. Kudos to John Lerchey, who provided Sheep Warning Decals as prizes (and I think also provided the Sunday morning bagels, yum!) Saturday night was Isengard's Plan B, in which Saruman's skiled, professional troops intecepted a rabble of whiny elves (they claim it was a bard singing) in the forest of Mirkwood. We attempted to rescue the Two Ring from the spiteful and ethnically-intolerant Galadriel. Elvish archery was surprisingly ineffective, but their close combat abilities were generally pretty good. Our right flank got off to a slow start as Uruk-Frock apparently chanted "Bud for the Bud God!", blowing four activation rolls with four 1's; fortunately he got a Yuengling and his theology and die rolls improved greatly. One orc regular on the far right took on five elvish veterans, and won (well, against four of them; he won the Orctorian Order, posthumously), and Joel's troll lumbered into the elvish ruins and managed, after a hard-fought melee, to take down the squad of elvish defenders. The elvish dice generally alternated between bad and horrible, and the orcish berserkers' abilitry to ignore suppresseion was generally agreed to be overpowered; however, despite these disadvantages, the battle was undecided Saturday late gaming was Carcassone (and watching Terminator from the other side of the room), which lasted till about 3am. I somehow maanged to regain functionality--"consciouslness" might be over-generous--in time to make it to Jerry's Full Sail game, set in 1810 off Portugal. Our valiant French raiders attempted to intercept the British convoy and capture Wellington's paychest. We managed the "intercept" part quite nicely, but the "capture" part was beyond us. Two of my three ships exploded, thanks largely to the shooting of Jon "Teske Field" Davis, whose dinghy outshot my battleship. Aaro Newman's American squadron did a creditable job of trying to swipe the paychest for himself, but at the end of the day, it looked like an English victory. Jerry is doing a god job making Full Sail into something which is reasonably realistic while still being fun and quick. Good job! Wonderful seeing the regulars again, and the Con Committee went to extra work arranging special 10th Anniversary shirts, mugs, minis (everyone got a Delafield battlecruiser, sculpted by Joel Frock), and presentations. Great job, fun time, and I'm looking forward to next year. And sleep....zzzz