Tag: sci-fi

Far Space

March 5, 2020

Almost a year after my last big LARP experience (The Climb, played with basically the same group), we got together to try out a new project called Far Space by Christian Griffen. The print-on-demand website describes it thus:

This game is a Live Action Roleplay scenario based around escape-room-inspired problem solving challenges in which the fate of individual characters and the ship as a whole depends on the choices that the players make. 

Far Space game description

I was immediately intrigued by the bridge simulator/ship in crisis vibe of the game. I’m a huge fan of any game that really wrestles with life aboard a vessel, be it a submarine, spaceship, or airship so I knew this was something I wanted to try. I’m also a fan of escape room-style puzzles and resource management, so that was a bonus when I found out what gameplay was going to be like.

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Rider’s Last Rites

March 10, 2019

One of the great benefits of community, both online and in person, is they provide you with information about new games and opportunity to actually play them. By expanding my circle online I’m hearing about more projects than just word-of-mouth, and by diving deep into the one-off world I discussed last time my friends and I keep trying games. This weekend saw us trying out two new ones, one of which is Bully Pulpit’s The Climb (which I’ll get to next time) and Sidney Icarus’s Rider’s Last Rites.

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Midwest GameFest, Pt. 7 (Dread)

November 13, 2018

It’s become a tradition at local gaming conventions that my friend Matt runs his Dread game in the Sunday morning slot. It’s traditionally kind of dead the morning of the last day, what with everyone having been up so late the previous couple days. I got lucky this time and Daylight Saving came through just after our Soth game and blessed us with another hour of sleep.

The twist this year was Matt adapted a Dark Heresy adventure he ran a long time ago for Dread, building an atmosphere of danger and inevitability to our exploring a derelict warship and following on the heels of a dangerous daemon. It was a blended team of Inquisitors racing against the clock to retrieve an Imperial artifact and save this ship in On a Collision Course with Destiny.  more “Midwest GameFest, Pt. 7 (Dread)” …

KantCon 2018, Pt. 5 (Dread)

July 30, 2018

My last session was discussed here.

Horror is a very tricky thing at the game table. I’ve been wrestling with that mood since 2nd Edition Ravenloft. The players aren’t in the same situation as their characters. They have knowledge the PCs don’t and player characters by definition are better prepared to handle these situations than your usual horror protagonists. Plus, control over the environment to reinforce the unease, or descriptions that put you there, can too easily veer off into cheesy gimmicks that pull you out and insulate you from what’s happening. Horror, in my opinion, is best reinforced by a rules system that puts you there, ratchets up that tension and helplessness, and keeps things unpredictable. more “KantCon 2018, Pt. 5 (Dread)” …

KantCon 2018, Pt. 4 (Savage Worlds)

July 28, 2018

My previous sessions are discussed here.

When I pick sessions for a convention, I look for 1) a system I have never played, or 2) a system I like with an interesting hook for the session. If one of the players or GM is someone I know, all the better. In this case, Savage Worlds is my comfort food. A friend of mine turned me on to the system about 12 years ago and I have run campaigns in it ever since. It was a game changer for me, since it handled large combats smoothly and had some interesting takes on character creation, support characters contributing to combat, and an initiative system I fell in love with.

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