So last weekend I went off to Conception, a local roleplaying convention held at Naish Farm Holiday Village in Highcliffe. I had made fleeting visits to peruse the stalls the previous two years, but this was the first time I had been with the intention of actually playing. Having been asked if I wanted to share a lodge on-site, by a group of friends I knew from my time at the University of Bath, I had jumped at the offer.
Despite living the closest to the site I was the last of our group to arrive on Wednesday evening, just in time for the start of the pub quiz. Our team (whose name was wholly inappropriate to repeat here), faired moderately, finishing in mid-table mediocrity. By the time I had arrived most of Thursday's games had been already been filled but I managed to get myself into slots for Savage Worlds Sci-Fi, Modern Day Cthulhu and Traveller scenarios.
Up bright and early on Thursday morning I headed to the muster with a little trepidation, this was the first time in eleven years that I was going to roleplay with an entirely unknown group of people and the first time I had ever played at a convention. First up was the Savage World game, in which we were playing intergalactic criminals on the run from the law. It was quite a nice ease into the whole convention roleplaying experience, a fairly standard kind of plot and not too serious in tone. In the afternoon session I played an Icy Reception, a Call of Cthulhu scenario based on the premise of 4 scientists and 2 helicopter pilots heading to a remote research base. I am a big fan of Cthulhu, its probably my favourite roleplaying game and I was very much looking forward to this scenario. It didn't disappoint and was full of suspense and mystery, ramping up the conflict between the characters until the big reveal of the "monster" and then the desperate race for survival. As this scenario overran by half hour I decided to bail on the Traveller game and instead made a trip to Sainsbury's for some much needed food supplies.
On Friday morning I played S.L.A Industries, a cyberpunk game set in a dystopian future where you are the agents of the shady mega-corporation in the games title. The scenario was heavily based around the latest Dredd film, with the player characters suppressing a gang fight inside a massive tower-block and stumbling across a greater conspiracy of mutants and rival corporations. The GM for this game was excellent, producing wonderfully dark and evocative descriptions of not just the setting but the characters' actions as well. After heading back to the lodge for some lunch, I, and 3 of the guys I was staying with, were booked into a WWII Cthulhu game. Sadly it didn't really match expectations, with very little connection to the Cthulhu Mythos and being basically a WWII special ops scenario it ended up being a little dull. The final game of Friday was Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which like S.L.A. Industries I had never played before. This didn't matter as we weren't even given character sheets, which I personally found a bit odd. It was an OK game but it suffered a bit from a mismatch in the type of game that I like andthat which the rest of the players clearly enjoyed. I'm not a fan of jokey roleplay and unfortunately this slot was awash with it.
Things didn't get better on Saturday morning with Dark Heresy (I think it must be something about games set in GWs worlds), which again was full of running gags and jokes. As a fan of the dark brooding horror of the 40K universe an action comedy game wasn't my cup of tea and jarred quite a bit with how I envisage the setting. After lunch, in a last minute change of plan I decided to drop out of a Serenity game and play Traveller instead. Traveller is another game that I had never played before and unlike WHFRP and S.L.A Industries I didn't really have much idea about the games setting, aside from the fact it is sci-fi. It turned out we were playing dog-men in space. I'm generally not a massive fan of anthropomorphic animals in fantasy or sci-fi settings but this worked quite well especially in terms of mechanics around pack organisation. I started off playing the group leader, which was a bit of a roleplaying challenge as I had no idea about the game and ended up being supplanted as alpha dog by one of the other characters. I really enjoyed the dynamics of pack loyalty and competition created in the group and though I'm not sure I'd run Traveller myself these themes are something I'd definitely like to explore. I didn't roleplay on Saturday evening instead we played the board-game War on Terror back at our lodge. The game is a bit like Risk but with more UN weapons inspections, pre-emptive strikes and a horribly sweaty balaclava with the word EVIL sewn across its forehead!
Sunday morning, after packing up my stuff to make a quick escape, I head over to play in another Cthulhu scenario. This one was set in the First World War with the players characters being members of the Royal Flying Corp. After four hours of crashing bi-planes, characters going slowly insane and numerous uses of the words "chocks away old chap", some noble self sacrifice ended my time at this years Conception.
It is hard to pin down the best game of the weekend the modern day Cthulhu, WWI Cthulhu, S.L.A Industries and Traveller were all excellent. I'm sad I failed to play any of the many Firefly/Serenity games that were run or manage to get into a Cyberpunk 2020 game. Overall it was a great (long) weekend and I'm looking forward to next years convention, I may even try and make it to Indiecon or Consequences which both run at the same venue later in the year.
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