Play: Gamestorm 2010

I spent the last weekend in March across the river for Gamestorm 12. This was the third time that I've attended, and also the most rewarding. In previous years, it was easy to feel a little adrift - I didn't know anyone else at the con or register ahead of time, and as a result, I spent a lot of time looking for pickup boardgames or sitting in on panels. That was a lot of fun when I came upon something I was interested in, of course, but it also translated into a great deal of downtime and aimlessness. This year, I made much more of an effort to plan out my weekend and register for games ahead of time, and I also knew a few more folks in attendance, which made a big difference.

I wasn't sure what time I'd be getting in on Friday night, so I'd planned on playing things by ear. After saying hello to a few friends and playing a couple games of Roll Through the Ages, I joined a group in the boardgames area for the rest of the evening, where I was able to learn Amun-Re and Notre Dame. Both were titles I'd been curious about for a while, so I was happy to finally try them out.

Unfortunately, Saturday morning's game of Tulip Society was canceled, and so I found myself wandering around for a while before that evening's Burning Empires session, the "Fires Over Omac" scenario. I was playing with a couple of folks I'd played with before, and I had a lot of fun, but I can see how it really requires multiple sessions to make a fair assessment of BE. So much of what I like about the Burning Wheel system in general and Burning Empires in particular - things like the scene economy, maneuvers, and Firefight mechanics - are things that benefit from the kind of investment that it would be hard to create in a one-shot or convention game. I'd anticipated that might be the case, though, and really enjoyed seeing that stuff in action, even if it might not have been under the best of circumstances.

After we finished, Michael P. drafted Hans and I into trying out Fuck Youth, from the Norwegian Style anthology. I own the book, but I've never had a chance to play anything from it. It was definitely a change of gears after our Burning Empires game; the three of us sat on the floor in a quiet corner of the room, which seemed like an appropriate setting for what turned out to be a quiet game. I don't say that disparagingly - both mechanically and tonally, Fuck Youth is almost ethereal, drawing mostly on the players' memories and cues provided by the scene cards. After a long day, it felt really good to dive into an unfettered storytelling experience. I'm really happy that I was able to play this, and next year, I'd like to end every night with with something similar.

On Sunday morning, I joined an Apocalypse World game that Vincent Baker was running, which was a treat. It was just a taste - I think we only played a little over two hours, including character generation - but I had a wonderful time. Joel, who also played, posted a bit about his experience on his weblog. AW had kind of flown under my radar, despite how much playtesters posting online seem to be enjoying it. I mean, I was sure I would like it, but now that I've actually played, I'm really excited about it. A group of us have been talking about getting a regular game together, which I'd be thrilled about, but we haven't played a second session yet, so things are still at the fingers-crossed stage.

After a couple games of Lost Cities, Michael R. and I finished out our weekend with an AXE COP-themed Danger Patrol hack that Brendan had put together. You can see this AP report for all the details, but suffice to say that we were laughing pretty much nonstop from beginning to end. As Brendan points out, the pleasure of playing a fusion of DP and Axe Cop is in how quickly the players find themselves surrendering to unfettered, uninhibited imaginative play, without even realizing it's happening. It was terrific.

All in all, it was a great weekend. There were plenty of games that I was sorry to have missed - among them Heart of Ashes, Spectre of the Beast, "Where Are Your Keys?" and especially the convention finale Sea Dracula game, which you can see below - but I came home exhausted and happy, just as I'd hoped I would.