#gencononline — Public Fediverse posts

Well, shit. 😕

#ttrpg #GenConOnline #GenCon

I worry that as the world rebounds from COVID, the culture of online #TTRPG cons will fade away. There are still some strong exceptions, but it does feel sometimes as if the walls are closing in.

For now, though, #GenConOnline is still a worthwhile endeavour. FWIW, I can still play for an entire weekend for less than GameHole Con’s entry fee, and I can sate my need to play very nearly until I drop.

[10/10]

I take pains to avoid D&D and Pathfinder, and it’s getting harder to fill my schedule with scenarios both for systems I’m interested in, and I’ve not yet played. As sponsored GM programmes increasingly pivot towards attracting first-time players, the supply of new scenarios dwindles.

Between submitting my initial wishlist and playing my selections, I think five or six events cancelled. IME, that’s a strikingly high failure rate. I’m unsure what to think of this.

[9/10] #GenConOnline #TTRPG

This was my fourth #GenConOnline. Back in 2020, everyone was desperate to play, so games ran around the clock. These days, however, if you want anything close to a full Four Best Days in Gaming™️, you really do have to shift to EDT. It’s not so much a problem on the other side of the globe, but here in the Antipodes—14 hours ahead—it can be tricky.

[8/10] #TTRPG

The GM, too, de-emphasised the mechanics, instead choosing to concentrate on play experience. And he took pains to reassure the players that they don’t need to dive headlong into Glorantha’s vast lore to enjoy the game: the world can slowly reveal itself to you.

This made it far more enjoyable than the previous day’s RQG game. Not that the former GM was bad per se, but his technique changed little from the 1980s, whereas the latter’s had developed with the times.

[7/10] #GenConOnline #TTRPG

The sacred herd gets the best pasture; to complicate things further, that pasture’s in contested lands that are subject to an ancient feud.

I liked how this scenario foregrounded the importance of cattle to Orlanthi culture and economy, and reinforced that violence isn’t the only—or often best—solution to problems. It was simple, but highlighted key differences between RQG and other #TTRPG.

[6/10] #GenConOnline

You can scroll across a screen to see the others, but unless all the players are exceptionally engaged, they tend to remain hidden away from the GM’s view. Things like finicky pets/infants and traffic noise can keep an otherwise passive player up on the front screen. If you’ve ever wanted to see the face of player abandonment, it’s over on screen two. 😳

[4/10] #GenConOnline #TTRPG

It’s also exceptionally difficult to change screen names. You can specify a name during guest login, but once you’re in there, you can only change it by quitting and logging back in. Not ideal for #TTRPG.

My last game for #GenConOnline was “Cattle Raid” (RuneQuest). A couple of sakkars—sabretooth cats—have attacked the tribe’s sacred cattle. The tribe needs to sacrifice those cows for the gods’ favour in the coming year, so the sakkars need to be stopped.

[5/10]

The Keeper was quite good—my big takeaway, though, is how poor Microsoft Teams is as a play environment. (Granted, our Keeper had a licence through his work, but there are free alternatives that work better. For reference, I was using Teams’ web client.)

You can see your own camera thumbnail in the corner, but otherwise, there are only four participants visible on each screen: the last four whose microphones were active.

[3/10] #GenConOnline #TTRPG

Day 4 of #GenConOnline, and wrap-up.

First session was “The Old Carker Estate” for Down Darker Trails, Call of Cthulhu’s yee-haw Western variant. A Leland Stanford-type hires the PCs to investigate why some out-of-town tenants aren’t paying their rent.

[1/10] #TTRPG

The scenario wasn’t anything too special, but *was* exactly the kind of thing Cult of Chaos should run as a taster for CoC: it’s a great 1870s-flavoured showcase scenario for vanilla 7e. If I have a quibble, though, it didn’t foreground DDT’s Western-trope mechanics, at least that I could see.

[2/10] #GenConOnline #TTRPG

@ivory I also followed #GenConOnline and it was nice to see some clusters of conversation on that, too.

I really can’t wait to see what that becomes when it fully matures.

Now my #GenConOnline DM asking everyone for (different) skill checks for walking through a jungle. He's one of *those* guys.

#Spelljammer DM at #GenConOnline now asking every player for a skill check to help land the ship properly?!?

DM of my last #Spelljammer game of #GenConOnline just made me roll a Religion check to fly the ship?!?

I was the only player to show to “The Adventure of the Sword Tournament” for Pendragon. I was curious to see what’s new in 6e, but I mostly wanted to catch up with the GM. I got a good, long chat out of it, so hardly a loss.

Two more games await tomorrow.

[7/7] #GenConOnline #TTRPG

Unfortunately, my other two games were a wash. Chalk it up to late-con fatigue.

Only one other player showed for Dungeon Crawl Classics’ “People of the Pit.” I didn’t relish shouldering four levelled PCs through a six-hour game on little sleep, so I passed.

[6/7] #GenConOnline #TTRPG

Had our GM trusted Roll20 to do the math—or the players to enter an opponent’s POW score—then our new players may not’ve baulked at the spellcasting process; it looked harder than it was. Given magic’s utter ubiquity in Glorantha, I think they missed an important part of the RQ experience.

[5/7] #GenConOnline #TTRPG

Speaking to today’s game, though, I don’t find the Resistance Table’s mental arithmetic difficult—I used it often running older editions of CoC—but just watching our GM idiosyncratically muddle through it aloud as my character cast a spell itself resembled an incantation or a game of Three-Card Monte. It was… arcane… abstruse.

[4/7] #GenConOnline #TTRPG

Ultimately, though, I’ve never felt BRP was a great fit. Other iterations have moved on, but RQG cleaves to an older, less refined flavour of BRP. It’s fiddly. It’s clunky. It’s not at all mythic. Given the Cult of Chaos’ renewed focus on attracting new players, that’s not good: it hardly bespeaks ease of use.

I think RQG’s a good *third* BRP iteration to pick up, but not the first. IMO, it should be explicitly called out as Advanced.

[3/7] #GenConOnline #TTRPG

Directly thereafter was “The Broken Tower” for Runequest. The PCs set out to avenge a murder and recover a stolen cattle herd.

I find RQ problematic. I love Glorantha and I love its Iron-Age vibe. (Yes, I *know* it’s *supposed* to be Bronze-Age, but the Orlanthi feel Iron-Age Irish to me. I’m weird like that.)

[2/7] #GenConOnline #TTRPG

And on the third day of #GenConOnline…

Always a pleasure to play with @Jwmuk behind the screen, and “The Wreck”—for Trail of Cthulhu—was no exception. (It’s in Arkham Detective Tales, if you’re interested, and another of @Mytholder’s creations.)

Again, no spoilers, but it hearkens back to a couple of Lovecraft’s better-known stories and begins with a nice nautical horror vignette. I wouldn’t say it’s a standout scenario, but it had nostalgia going for it, and was fun to boot.

[1/7] #TTRPG

I tried printing a map of the #ForgottenRealms to help my wife visualize all the travel her #AdventurersLeague character is doing, but it turns out there are no good printable maps of the Realms. #GenConOnline

A belated summary of day 2 of #GenConOnline:

1. @Mytholder's adventure "The Strange Case of Ernest Wheeden " for Trail of Cthulhu. No spoilers, but never pull a corpse into the light for a better look. Oops. 😬

2. "Losing Face" for Swords of the Serpentine by @KevinKulp. An unconscious woman in a gondola—sans face—leads the PCs to uncover an insidious plot. I love this game.

3. "Servants of the Lake" for Call of Cthulhu. We found the hard way that pushing Drive rolls is risky business.

#TTRPG

Next was a 4-hour slot of The Yellow King. The GM emailed a 13-page tech manual ahead of time, but we still spent the first half-hour dicking about, mostly failing to troubleshoot his software setup. I spent the next hour completely ignored, and the rest of the session wringing out ~12 minutes of screen time as he barked exposition. (And one player managed even less!) The GM just began the climactic combat as I left at session’s end.

[2/3] #GenConOnline #TTRPG

Day 1 of #GenConOnline done.

I was set to play Night’s Black Agents first up, but the GM had a medical emergency. Fair enough.

[1/3] #TTRPG

Last was 3 hours of Dragon Warriors. I’ve played it a couple of times before, and whilst I find combat a bit clunky, and the scenario wasn’t anything special, the other players were determined not to take it seriously. In the end, it was light and enjoyable, and I regret not being awake enough to make the most of it. (I finished at 11am, my time.)

I ended on a high note, but I hope tomorrow’s more promising.

[3/3] #GenConOnline #TTRPG