Arcanacon XVI - Sweet 16

Arcanacon (ar-can-a-con or arc-an-arc-an or just Arc) was weirdly muted this year. A fairly sharp drop off in numbers made it feel a little bit abandoned on the Thursday, but numbers moved back up to what felt like a respectible number of people by Friday and Saturday. The above photo is during the prize giving, and covers about two thirds of the crowd. Weirdness was rampant - I don't remember seeing a single game cancelled at the last moment, and it doesn't get any odder than that.

Arc also brought home the fact that the hobby is reaching its 20th year around now, and those young rebels who started playing in the 1980's are now sprogging. Numerous times I heard the phrase BabyCon.

Mission Implausible II - the Musical
Quite possibly the loudest game at the Con, and certainly one of the most popular was Mission Implausible II. A sequal to the fabulously appointed Mission Implausible, written by Paul Northway, it featured, amongst other things a conga line, its own merchandise, magic tricks at the prize giving and enforced song and dance sessions. (Sean tries to not make eye contact while Gail giggles a lot.)

A Hope in Hell
Well, the blurb was from Sandman, the name was from Sandman and the picture on the Arc website was from sandman. But apparently, the GM put in two blurbs (?) and the con misunderstood and printed the wrong one. Go figure. Nonetheless, as the Angel Ariel, I got to strike down the paranoia players and GMs who were just on the first foothills of their 72 hour mountain of natural high. Unheard of, I actually got to play with Liz, as well as Ken and Kyle, with Ben as our GM.

Rite of Passage
GMed by the inestimable Josh, I had a ball playing this Werewolf scenario. Lupus characters rock sometimes, especially when looking for bacon birds. I have a few problems playing werewolf at conventions, mostly because of the amount of customising it takes to be comfortable with the background and the different concepts that different GMs use or regard as more important. However, with a good team and new 10-sided dice, all was good.

I still haven't the faintest idea what was going on.

Some pissing about
As I was GMing for Rob as well as playing, I left my schedule fairly open, with some time to piss about, because otherwise I would not rest the entire time and then the next week of work would be nightmarish. So considerable time was spent lounging around the regoroom, pissing about with the camera or reading.

Forever Autumn
Forever autumn started off on the Friday, playing with Liz, Pete, Ian and Ken. It got off to a great start, with Gary and Janice GMing. Lots of bouncing around the room to begin with, trying not to be molested and then wiping gooey bits of molesters off me. Long rides, strange omens and desperate attempts to save family members from deception and witchhunters.

However, as the game rolled on, it started to come apart at the seams. I was too involved to be objective about what the problem was, but I wasn't happy with the GMing of the next couple of sessions. The second session was a little lost, but the third was abombinable. *sigh*

And Did Those Feet
Wheeeeee. I volunteered to GM some of these sessions for Rob and ended up doing four rather than my preferred two. After each of them though, I was happy I had taken that group - they were all cool and no two groups were the same.
Character Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4
Alex Fleeing naked from the evil, torn limb from limb Chanting lyrics from 80s songs, survived Found other Certeyeuxs, saved. Run over by other PCs, squashed like bug
Margot Thought she was safe, squashed like a bug Saved by Alex With Alex Squashed like bug while digging in snow
Edgar Tried to take advantage of the naked Alex factor, squashed like bug Saved by Alex Found out what was going on, ran to save everyone, squashed like bug Hit by frisbee'd car door, last words were "Oxforrrrrrd"
Helen Fled into the swamps, lost two toes and her sanity Saved by Alex Sprayed all over room and Margot and Alex Walked into maw of Mythos thing by accident

More Pissing about

Prizegiving
  • Getting organised
  • The bionic Colin
  • Rik wins a giant Rod Bate doll
  • Sara and Richard throwing things to Leah
  • MicMac wins the rigged box o shit prize
  • Django telling us when he can be seen in his underwear
  • Fraser Looming
  • Total eclipse of the GM
  • My, isn't it ...er... pink
  • The irrefutable John Deague
  • Ken wins a prize for grenade tennis
  • Liz wins a prize for sodding song of harmony
  • Mark, taken with a Kirlian Lens. Can you see the evil aura.
  • Anecdoting! In my own home!
  • Murp Mobs Prize Giving

    • Cam has some photos too