THE EDGY, ELEGANT SOFITEL MEETS CELESTICON (SEPTEMBER 2011)

So when I heard that Celesticon was going to be at Sofitel Hotel I was immensely interested. It's an awesome hotel and a class act. There's an edgy elegance to the hotel with old echoes of Old Europe to it. If you doubt that just look at these pictures (more on my Facebook):

I wasn't sure if I would attend this con or Pacificon but as most of my gaming friends and the majority of good Gms migrated over to Celesticon it became an easy choice. The fact that the hotel was roughly ten minutes away from me made it even sweeter.

Turned out this was a great little con. I plan to attend next year and before I continue with this lengthy blog:

MY OVERALL GRADE: B plus to A minus (higher than Kubla and Dundracon for this year)

If you just want to skim you can check the bottom of each game for check highlights. Also, my comparison of this con to Pacificon is at the very bottom.

Onward . . . 

FRIDAY ---- before the evening game

After making sure the parking was really free I wandered into the front lobby and followed the noise of distant laughter (not slaughter) that led me to the front tables for the con. Signing up was fast and simple. I saw a lot of people I knew and as I was there around 1pm or so I think there were somewhere between 50-100 people lounging in that area. The dealer rooms were still setting up so out of curiousity I went upstairs to check the gaming rooms and was pleasanty surprised when I came to the Junior Executive Board Room:

 Yowza! I could get used to this place. In fact, I got so comfortable I ended up hanging out there and chatting with Morgan H., June, Mike G. and later Gil and Paul. Bryan H. dropped by for a bit, too, but he had to get going for sign ups. Paul was nice enough to share his fresh fruit “grab bowl” with me but I wanted a full meal so I drove down the road for 2 minutes and hit the shopping mall area. There's a Nob Hill style farmer's market that is a slightly less expensive Whole Foods. I picked up a couple of deli sandwiches which turned out to be very good. A shade under ten dollars for both sandwiches.

FRIDAY --- Gil T's DELTA GREEN COC game

Berlin 1945: With the city surrounded by the Red Army, a lone glider flies into the

flames and ruin, carrying a group of Allied agents, haunted veterans on a final

mission that will take them from this world at war to a land of dreams, where the

SS and their occult research division known as the Karotechia have built Project

HODDMÍMIR, the final gambit to escape their reckoning. Mature themes, adult

complexity.

Gil's game was in the session zero slot so you couldn't even use a priority slip to assure yourself of getting into the game. But fortunately I was able to move some things around and arrive around opening time. Morgan H. was there, too, as I had warned him that he couldn't use his priority slip so he got down to the con early, too.

It turned out that four of the six people in his game were regulars in the con circuit. The con regulars were myself, Morgan, Mike G. and a guy named Paul who had been in Gil's games previously. Incidentally, Morgan, Mike G. and I had all tried to get into this game at Khubla 2011 but failed and ended up in Jill S's fun HOWARD PROJECT game.

I typically go for the talkers but I rolled pretty bad so the talkers were gone by the time it was my turn so I decided to go with the combat dude (male version of Wambaugh) because you always need a combat guy to take the fall for the group later in the game. Somewhat surprisingly, I didn't die though a majority of the other players did bite it.

There were lots of fun props but my favorite was the one in which Morgan got this one in his secret orders:

Well, Gil made him sweat it out for about a minute (Morgan said he was trying to make it look like he was reading) before he gave him some real orders and then we got to see the blood splattered note which was a nice touch.

Without giving spoilers I'd say it was a fun adventure that focused upon the desperation and depravity in Berlin days before it fully would fall to the Allies. The Dreamlands was the most evocative part and being a fan of Norse Mythology I truly enjoyed several of the scenes, especially the unspoken words of Odin shortly after the death of his son.

 I'm also glad my gruff character possibly got to save a brainwashed Hitler Youth kid named Mikki who may have made it to Switzerland but that is another story and he needed the Meth, Dodge. Really.

I'm glad two “new” gamers got to play with us Gil Veterans and that there was “B” quality chemistry all around the table.

Highlights of the game (mostly detailed above) for me were:

• The trick played on Morgan H.;
• Watching Morgan miss roll after roll in the beginning;
• The many props (Gil is one of the Prop Kings and should be given a crown, I say!);
• Mikki;
• The fusion of Norse Mythology in the Dreamlands; and
• the details of desperation in the Nazi bunker, especially at the bar.
• Playing around the kick ass conference table!!!
• BAD: nothing comes to mind. I just wanted to freak Gil out a bit if he reads this part. Hey, Gil! LOL
• NEUTRAL (** BIT OF A SPOILER **): I think my character was better suited for staying behind but my only PC friend prompted me to enter The Dreamlands. I had a lot of fun there but I'm not sure if my character was supposed to stay behind or not or if it didn't matter.
  
  
  SATURDAY MORNING/AFTERNOON
  
  
  I got back home around 3am in the morning. There was no way I was going to do Dovi's 9am game for 8 hours and then my ten hour game, especially when I realized I had some paper errors and had to spend at least an hour or longer reprinting things. So I slept in very late and got up to prep and then it was off to do my game.
  
  
  SATURDAY EVENING --- MY CDA HERE BE DRAGONS game
  878 A.D.
  
  
  The Kingdom of Wessex.
  
  
  The dragon banners of King Alfred have defeated the Viking/Danish forces at
  Ethandun, making their leader, Guthrum the Unlucky, bend the knee and receive
  baptism as a sign of his goodwill. Wessex was fortunate to have won Ethandun
  as it was a close battle. If they had lost then Wessex likely would have turned
  into a Danish colony and Alfred‚s dream of a united England (which still didn‚t
  exist at the time) would have never been.
  
  
  During this peaceful time a group of fledgling investigators are given leave to go
  on holiday. One of the investigators has an invitation to a village wedding and
  he's gracious enough to invite the other investigators along. But holidays aren‚t
  always what they‚re expected to be and dark forces could be at work that make
  certain Alfred‚s dream of a united England never come to fruition.
  
  
  This is an introductory adventure for Cthulhu Dark Ages. Those unfamiliar with
  Cthulhu should consider it something of the opposite of Dungeons & Dragons.
  Think gritty investigators up against horrors that are usually defeated with
  cunning. Brawn will usually get you killed. This game contains mature themes.
  
  
  CHARACTERS: there will be 2 female characters and 4 male characters.
  Roughly 2 will be scholars; 2 will be fighting men; and 2 will be "Jack/Jills of all
  trades".
   

So I decided to run HBD one more time at a con because some people asked and I hoped it would be better than my mixed experience at Khubla.

In hindsight the Khubla game was more a disappointment than a bad game, especially after the Dundracon game. I'd say what could have been an “A minus” experience game for me was more of a “B minus to B” game but that's probably me just being hard on myself as a GM.

This time around I was lucky to have a group of not only strong roleplayers but people who got on famously at the table. I had Gil T, Mike G., Dovi A, Jason M and two of Dovi's friends who I met for the first time (Chris and Steve). 

There were some nice twists and surprises as a GM that I never had in previous games and I'd say everybody really dug into the meat of roleplaying their particular characters. Jason pulled a nice surprise on Chris and tried to get Dovi but got blocked by the black story chip. Mike G. almost died a couple of times and seemed shaken as a player that something like this could happen in Cthulhu which almost made Gil bust out laughing after we talked about the endgame as well as the fact that I had made combat a bit less arduous.

 I did rush things along early on to get the catalyst going right away (i.e. In some past games I don't reveal the catalyst part until 2 or more hours in but then you suffer the problem of rushing the finale) because I was paranoid from the Khubla game in which the group spent a bit too much time investigating various threads (I think there are 11 tree paths now). 


Additionally, unlike the Khubla group, i watched the clock vigilantly and stopped them when they almost left a major clue behind. I knew the finale was going to be two hours so one way or another the group would get there.

Truly an awesome experience and a great way to retire my game from the con circuit. I'm offering it one more time outside of the con to some people who missed it (Jason F., Basil, Saul, Ezra D) and thereafter I think it's likely I'll just box it away but you never know some day I may pull it out again. It will be the seventh time running the game if I end up doing it for said group.

In the meantime I'll be working on Part 2 of the Searcher series but I doubt I will offer it anytime before Khubla. For Dundracon and likely Khubla I'll be offering a Teen Age Horror/Slasher “B” movie game based on the DREAD RPG which uses no dice but instead a Jenga Tower.

 After running something dark and serious at cons for over a year I want to do something lighter and with lots of laughs.

So the highlights for me were:

• Giving a lot of extra time to the finale (I haven't done that since the playtest when it was only a five hour game);
• Having an “A” experience as this was my last time offering it up at a con;
• What Jason did to Chris (even though Dovi reversed it with his story chip);
• The overall awesome roleplaying by the group as a whole
• Dovi telling me I was able to keep Chris awake longer than expected as he had narcolepsy
• Laughing crazily with Mike G
• Gil narrating he died
• Dovi and Jason going at it (as usual, apparently)
• The results of the deadly first fight
• Being told the ten hour game didn't drag by multiple players
  NEUTRAL: there were some other paths the players were exploring but it would have required another hour or two and I didn't want to push the group past the listed 3am. Matt S. would be proud of me! Woot!
  
  
  
  
  SUNDAY MORNING --- Mike G's DIASPORA game
  
  
A distant planet now 22 light years away beckons to you, but your ship is dying
and you still have 110 years left in your journey. You could ask your sister ship
for help, but you know they won't jeopardize their mission to save you, your crew,
or your friends and family in cold sleep. What choices will you make? Who dies,
who is saved, and who will make the ultimate sacrifice?
I had seen DIASPORA at con games but not being much of a Sci Fi guy it was never my first choice but Mike's description made me change my mind.

DIASPORA is an RPG in which you are a traveling colony looking for an “Earth like” planet to colonize. You play part of the skeleton crew seeking out a planet (the rest of you are in stasis because energy is limited on the ship) and typically obstacles appear in getting to the planet or the different groups on the ships decide their faction is going to rule over the other groups.

You can have social combat (which is diagrammed well enough for extended play) and there's a straightforward combat method, too. I suspect most introductory games use both forms of combat. The physical combat was acceptable but I really liked the chart for social combat. You can use a die for each group arguing and move them back and forth if you want to be “mathematical” in showing which side has got the lead. More free flowing types of gamers will probably ignore the chart and just use an extended test method for long social combats. All said, I'm always a fan of when social combat actually gets a mechanic to it which entails more than the boring one time opposed D20 roll.


Character creation was your typical Fate method. In this instant I decided to go against type and let Brian H. play the leader which meant I had to redo a lot of my skills as they were for social combat and I didn't want to step on the toes of the leader. So I played more a combat guy who was the head of security.


Without giving spoilers to the story (Mike G. might run it again) my favorite parts were:


• Learning how to call on the aspects of others. I don't recall getting to do that in great detail in the other games I played.
• The social combat was interesting. You can actually do an extended test on the graph chart rather than the boring argue for ten minutes and resolve it with one opposed roll.
• Watching Bryan H. as the leader was fun as he took on his “Hardass” persona and started ordering us around. That was a treat to run as I've only seen Brian act that way when he was trying to dissuade people from being in his SW game.
• Some good humor at the table between players.
• BAD: the wife of one of the players kept walking in and talking to her hubby from the door and then coming over while we were playing. Kind of rude when we're trying to create an immersive atmosphere. Next time show some manners and take it outside, please.
  
  
I had a game right at the end time and we went a bit over so I had to take off and miss the finale while we were in the middle of it. I decided later that I would die, become a martyr and therefore steal a bit of the thunder from Bryan's character and the others. Heh. That's right. They could never quite get out of my martyr shadow. Guilt, guilt, guilt! I died for you, Bryan, or so the twisted PR tales will say on my behalf.


SUNDAY EVENING --- Morgan Jenkin's DRESDEN FILES game
But not all is sunny and beautiful in this college town: mysterious deaths,
disappearances, vigilante religious groups, increased sightings in predatory
animals, and previously undocumented gravitational disruptions at the Mystery
Spot are just to name a few of the newer disturbances. Not to mention all of the
drunken debauchery that is unavoidable in a college town, or the issues that can
develop in a highly influenced Summer Court city. Can your group sift through all
of the impediments before the unthinkable happens? Can you solve the case
before time runs out? Can you stay focused and work well with others or will your
ignorance get the better of you? 

 ***MINOR SPOILERS BELOW ****

It turned out I was the only person who registered and got into the game who showed up. The others were all crashing but it was fine as DF is a very popular RPG right now. Five other people crashed including three that I already knew through the con circuit.

The GM did absolutely awesome characters. At one point she acted out some minor character late for the meeting. She actually pretended she was poking her head through a door and nervously came to sit down and introduced herself. I wish that character had returned but she never did come back. I think that happened a few times with a few characters. I wanted to see more of them but they just faded away or we ran out of time.

The investigation had the potential to be really interesting, too, and was based on one of the later Jim Butcher books about Harry Dresden. Once we got the leylines going and alternate worlds and what not I got really interested.

The problem?

We didn't finish. We were just beginning to rush at solving this issue when time ran out and this was a ten hour game.

I think the big issue was that we spent four hours creating part of the characters (a few of our players really really struggled here) and then we had a meeting to justify why we were going to work together. The latter would probably have been okay as it introduced a bunch of characters who would likely show up later but I think that if she had all the characters ready to go or just let people choose an aspect on the fly she would have had three extra hours and she would have finished the entire adventure. 

Word on the con circuit is that she's new but I think she's got a lot of potential. If we had finished it would have been a better experience for me.

Also, I think she should have created a side bit thing for the puma girl character. The guy playing her wanted to go out and have a fight and I think she could have done that really fast in five minutes and have made the guy happy. I think that guy didn't want to investigate much and wanted to show off his cool powers more but I may be wrong there.

There were some other minor things that are more quibbles but she's a GM I'd definitely try out again, especially if her pacing gets better.

 Highlights of the game for me:

• Playing a grumpy old man who got to pick on the “younger” players and sliding in humor whenever I could. That seemed to make the GM and others laugh.
• The revealing of the Leylines to the investigation
• Some great props. I hope she laminates that Santa Cruz map because one spill and it's ruined.
• BAD: too much time creating characters. Three hours was way too long even for a ten hour game. It would have been fine for a campaign game, I suspect, and I wonder if this started as a campaign.
• NEUTRAL: give puma boy his fun for a few minutes as he felt disjointed from the entire investigation at times though he did “wake up” once we knew about the leylines.
• NEUTRAL: justifying why we would be together as a group though the introduction of NPCs made it worthwhile yet the problem is that most of them didn't show up in the game thereafter.
• MINOR BAD: being told to roll a few times and making it but then being told I didn't find anything. I think it's easier to just tell me I don't find anything as my rolls weren't going to ruin or give anything away but I might be wrong there. I get that sometimes you want a PC to roll but I would have done it behind the screen as it always kind of sucks to make a hard roll and then be told by the GM that you didn't find anything.
• SIZE: there's the possibility people could have split up leading to a lot of different groups. I think five or less as originally stated in the booklet would have better suited the investigation.
• NEUTRAL: unless you read the Dresden File series the solution to the finale may have been really tough.

MONDAY --- pick up game/FIASCO (WWII variation)/Dovi A's game

When I awoke around high noon (I had been going on little sleep since the evening before the con) I had 16 texts of people trying to coordinate games with me or ask where the hell I was? As I slept the Mac Network was down.

Mike G's pickup game was full but Dovi and Bryan H. had a FIASCO games in the work. When I asked Bryan if I should skip a shower and just come down his text reply was: “Ya, ya”. So I did and that's gamer commitment and yes I put on deoderant and cologne. When I got into the open gaming room it was mostly sparse so Dovi, Bryan, myself and a guy named Bob (who Bryan knew) had secured a corner table. 


We chatted for a bit about our con experience and Bryan mentioned that I should have a lieutenant or two who could be contacted in case I wasn't around as a lot of people were apparently trying to get a hold of one another but could only get the info through me. I agreed so Bryan H. is one of the lieutenants by default. Congratulations, Bryan. Heh.

This FIASCO variation focused on a group of Americans in a WWII sub who were a combination of navy and civilians. A list of elements let us roll or pick to decide all the pieces we would put into the tale for acts one and two with act three being more of a wrap up of the tale.

The nice thing about this game is that it works well even if you aren't feeling creative and you can easily do a game with four people in three hours or so. Now, how does it help the non creative or those who just aren't feeling it? You can either design the scene and bring others into it (who will contribute to the scene) or you can just say you want to “frame it” meaning you give a general idea and let the others craft it. In some cases you can say you have no clue and just put it out there for group feedback.

But it's really most interesting when everybody is using their creative juices to add details to their own scenes and those of others.

In this instance we decided that we were trapped in the bay of the island and that the Nazis had planes and destroyers trying to take us out. We had left the island and acquired relics from “non-Euclidean” ruins but realized we had to go back as depth charges were being dropped upon us. Then we decided that my southern boy and a northern boy (played by Bob) would be competing lieutenants. We also added that another player (Dovi) and I would be competing for the love of somebody. At first we thought of the captain or a movie star but we finally got the great idea that it would be a female cultist played by Bryan!  

I handed Bryan a card of how he should play the female cultist and how she should appear and he obliged me on his blog:

Shannon required that I play her as:

1. Super hot.

2. Very sensual and charming.

3. Says all the right things.

I did my best. How was it Shannon? Lol

Pretty damn good, Bryan. Well played. Bryan's character probably brought the tentacled green thing out of the ocean and later at the sacrifical ruins where Dovi's character's brother lay strapped and ready to be sacrificed.

We all had tragic endings albeit humorous at times. Bryan decided he was captured by the Nazis but was pregnant with a Cthulhu style baby that drove him/her insane and only led to problems for the Third Reich. Dovi lost part of an army and tried to take care of his brother but never fully recovered. Bob ended up joining the future Delta Green but was later reviewed by the board and shot by a firing squad or was that Dovi who got shot? I forget that part. 

 And my guy? Well, he had been going gradually insane ever since he slept with the cultist girl so his granddaddy's flintlock and saber became his choice weapons and he started to act like he was in the American Civil War. At the ritual he staggered off towards a Nazi artillery bunker that was being assaulted on the shore by U.S. Marines. He saw himself leading a charge “that wouldn't fail like Pickett's Charge” and so he rallied the troops. 


From his view he was leading companies upon companies and bombs were flying but in reality it was just some guy shouting to himself and at one point the Confederate Flag was dropped and he picked it up to rally the troops but it was really just a stick. And when he led the charge up in his mind thousands were following him but in reality it was just some lizard baking in the sun and looking at him.

By the time he got up to the hill the Americans had already taken it and somebody who knew him from the academy rushed to help but my guy stabbed him through to the hilt with his cavalry saber.

That put my guy in the asylum for ten years and they thought they cured him but in reality the madness had just been dormant. As soon as he was out he was walking down Times Square in NYC but in reality he saw himself walking down a long boulevard of the Old South as a parade welcomed him back for winning the Civil War and General Lee and President Davis were at the end awaiting to bestow him with accolades and flowers from virginal southern belles fell all around him . . . but the truth was he was walking down the street mumbling to himself as the people moved out of the way from another homeless bum.

Afterwards I got to go out in back along the waters and take some shots. Here are a few:

MONDAY --- AFTER FIASCO

Monday was nice and leisurely. The con staff held a raffle in the midafternoon and some 20-30 people got free prizes. It seemed that most of the RPGers I spoke to had fun and were planning to return. A couple seemed to feel it was the same as Pacificon so I'm guessing they might go back to it.

Most of my friends were taking off at that point but I wanted to linger because I love that con feeling and don't want to lose it so I have a tendency to hold on until the very end.

Anyway, at that point I made my way to the bar to link up with Kris M, Lisa, two of their friends and two gaming acquaintences, Dino and Pete.

There was a lot of talk about the con but the big news was that the con more than made its target number of 300 reaching almost 500 attendees for its first con so that was awesome to hear. There was talk of shooting for a target number of 1,000 for 2012 and I'm behind that.

Kenneth Hite dropped by later and I got to pick his brain about the industry especially in regards to why RPGs do not sell as many units as they did back in the day. It was pretty much agreed by all that video games and the like had stolen a lot of the gamers and there was also talk of the foreign market. I'm still of the opinion that the Chinese middle class are an untapped potential market but American game designers are still trying to figure out how to reach them and if it's even worth it.

The restaurant manager gave us all a round of free drinks and I accepted a Pinot Noir which gave me a light buzz. Yeah, I'm a lightweight. It was sometime after 10pm that we all retired and I had a nice ten minute drive back and a wonderful con experience. As several people have said we're all fortunate to be surrounded by a creative and enthusiastic community that wants everyone to have a good time and doesn't take the gaming too seriously. Well, most of the time. Heh.

Monday highlights for me were:

• Hearing that Sean N. and others would be putting up all the seminars up online.
• Getting to hang with Kenneth Hite
• Hearing that Celesticon did well enough to go another year and then some!
• Playing a deranged Southern officer
• Getting to game with Dovi at the con (since I missed his game)
• Watching Bryan play a super hot, super smart and super smooth female cultist. What a biiiaaaaaaaaaaaaatttch! LOL
• Hearing about next year
• The raffle (even though I didn't win Jack! Oh, hey Jack Young. LOL)
• How could I say no to Pinot Noir?
• Changing my mind about the Fiasco game for the better
• Not changing my mind about Fate. Har!

HOW DID CELESTICON COMPARE TO PACIFICON?

Some of my gaming friends invariably have asked me how this con compares to Pacificon/Conquest. Here's my take:

I've never been happy with Pacificon's services, especially in the way they judge wargames and the people they let run them. Several years back I went and had that problem and two years ago I returned after a long hiatus and had the exact same problem. Yeah, they've got some big customer service issues but I doubt they care much or they would have fixed it a long time ago.

That said, a lot of my GM friends attended Pacificon and ran games that were easier to get into as the majority of attendees seem to be wargamers and board gamers. It's not unusual to have an RPG that's empty or can't run because it lacks for players. Last year I had to enact a buddy system in which a group of us would be in the games of each other just to have enough people. The flip side to this is that you get into your first or second choice RPGs most of the time but then if you're just an RPGer there are situations in which there are few RPGs or no RPGs that interest you for an entire time slot.

So, overall I could have been content just doing RPGs at Pacificon and while I don't bear them any ill will I do think they need to clean up on their act or they're going to lose more people. The fact that Pacificon seems to pay lip service to feedback is a huge negative to me. I doubt I'll miss that attitude.

By comparison the staff and hotel were awesome at Celesticon. I would have liked to have seen more RPGers in general but I think that's something that will get fixed as it grows. There were some RPG Gms who got no players or almost nobody but part of that might be related to their mixed reputation in the con circuit and/or the fact that they're running unpopular Old School games or running a homebrew system that people don't want to take a chance with (especially when the online details are sparse). Regardless, the popular games and the popular Gms had more than enough people signing up so it worked out fine overall.

If you're an RPGer I say go to Celesticon or in the very least put Sunday aside and step away from Pacificon (or whatever con you are at) and show your badge to get in for free and then decide. If you're a hardcore wargamer then I think Pacificon has the lead. If you want a more intimate feel and a more attentive staff then definitely come to this convention.

The hotel is way better than that at Pacificon (and costs less) and any of the other con hotels I have attended. Food and such were pricey but I hear they're going to bring it down a bit now that they're going to create an ongoing relationship with Celesticon. For myself food was rarely an issue as I bring my own food so as to not miss part of the game though I did like that cafe in the hotel.

SHORT LIST PROS

• Free parking
• $89/night rate is a steal for rooms that are typically $160/night and up.
• Small enough that you can get into your top three RPGs (assuming there are enough in the slot)
• Nice raffle prize on Monday
• A long list of quality RPG Gms attended it this year
• Kenneth Hite fans get to speak to him a lot more than at the big cons
• Awesome board room for oh so private games
• Speedy registration. Almost no lines.
• Staff at the hotel and con actually address your concerns without paying you lip service.
• Accessible restaurants and eateries within 2-5 minutes
• The hotel is the best looking of all the RPG cons
• Did you see the picture of the kick ass Junior Executive Board Room? What are you waiting for, playas? LOL

SHORT LIST CONS

• Some might feel it's too small; not enough games or speakers
• Some might be intimidated by the high level elegance of this location
• Some Gms won't like sharing the suite with another game (but you can always ask for the private room if you need it)
• Food is more expensive than at other con hotels (but I heard they're working to putting the costs down for next year)

IN CLOSING

My main concern and high quality problem is that as I get busier I won't be able to attend all of the cons (it all depends if I decide to work full time later in the year or not).

But barring something specific for Labor Day that I can't avoid I'd say Celesticon is in my top half because it's so close and intimate and small enough in that you can get into an RPG if you look hard enough. Don't mistake me about all the cons in the Bay Area. In many ways they're like my children and I love (and get irritated) them all so I usually keep coming back. And, yes, that even includes Pacificon.

Next up is Big Bad Con and yours truly is going to be in the competition for the title. Don't ask how this is happening. I don't even like FATE but I figure this hindrance is the only way the other competitors are going to have a chance of beating me! How's that for trash talking, Sean N.? LOL I told Dovi A I'd check out his Fate STAR WARS game but I have to say Fate isn't working for me so I'll probably avoid that game mechanic in the future . . . unless Dovi runs a super awesome game. No pressure, bro. LOL

All said I intend for my game to be kick ass so get ready to bring your “A” game to my table or you might get left behind.