Ropecon 2014: Friday (by Lauri)

This years Ropecon was got pretty close to turn into a total booze fest (again) when the game I had been waiting for did not show up in the signing tables… This happened last year and I went on a bender for the heck of it but luckily the GM was just running late. As the Friday went by I got to take a lot of pictures play two games and wander around the premises. It was a great way to start the weekend!

The Game Where We Were a Dragon

We got to choose from a few sheets. They all had the same information but the image was different.

We got to choose from a few sheets. They all had the same information but the image was different.

I think it is not surprising that Aki forgot to talk about the first game we played. It was one of the competition scenarios that was supposed to be ran under one hour. We actually managed to do that but only by the will of GM once I told him I had an actual game that I did not want to miss.

The game we played was Lohikäärmeen valinta (Dragon’s choice) by Matias Kivikangas. It was a story about a dragon that slept a lot and did some stuff to transform his surroundings to his liking.

Now I’m not saying that the adventure itself was bad (it took the second place in the competition after all) but it was my least favourite for the weekend. For an adventure that was supposed to be an introduction for roleplaying the game was really indie. There were three players and we all played a part of the same dragon. I was greed (Aki was Pride and another player played Hunger). We did not get to roll any dice and even though we certainly had some influence to the story it was more about the GM reading stuff that happened from his papers (and there were ALOT of papers for a game that should be run under one hour).

This was the starting point of the con and the GM did not have had much time to prep or experience to run a game like this. But to be fair I have no idea how this got into the second place. Maybe it was because you got to play a dragon? If the writer had added some steampunk, vampires and werewolves into the mix I doubt that Aki would have had any chance to win.

The most interesting part of the game was the ending where we had wiped out all humanity from the face of the Earth, ruled a magical green jungle as a god and were worshipped by anthropomorphic hippos.

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The Knight of the Round Table

This was the game that I had been waiting for. I have a soft spot for knightly games (and not in a homoerotic sense). So I was really pleased that I got to take part in this game. Even though there were other players…

As a comment for the GM (who actually did a good jump after riding on a bus from Oulu to Helsinki without air conditioning) I told that she should have been more harsh judge of what knights to accept. But now that I think of it I can actually understand the group and justify the mission.

King Arthur summoned a group of knights to a small chamber to send them on a secret mission – to retrieve a sword from a grave of a fallen knight. My knight was a cousin to King Arthur and he was shocked to be sent on this kind of quest. And more shocked when he learnt that he was going on the quest with a irish pagan, middle-eastern cultist, a con-artist and a shivering landowner. And all of them were knights.

The events that followed could have been spoiled with countless references to the Monthy Python’s Holy Grail but we managed to avert that trap. Probably because we were kindly asked to stay more quite by our neighbouring table – we backed our things and ended the game outside.

Our “knights” rode to a distant land, got into negotiation with sea spirits (that refused to treat my knight with honour) and ended up throwing a child into the ocean to lift the curse on the sword (in someone defence we were quite certain she was a half-mermaid and were asked to return her to the sea).

Once we returned to Camelot Arthur asked us what the quest had cost for us. I told him that I had lost my soul and honour and left Camelot to search for the Grail. In the following epilogue phase I told that my knight did not find the Grail and did in a duel with the pagan from his fellowship.

It was a good game but I think it would have been much better with at least one other knightly character. The world was supposed to be alike Arthur’s vision of the world but there was whores and devil worshipping right from the beginning. I had a good time though and liked the GM’s style enough to remember her name for next year.

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