WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, apart from being desperately ill the second afternoon slot and all of Saturday night, Go Play was definitely Wooooooooo-worthy.

So, we skipped the Friday Night Feast, as the Geek Husband What Rules wanted to take a shower after a long, stinky day at work.  On the way in we saw… oh, everybody!!!  I’m telling you, we have GOT to do a Hot Boys of Indie Gaming Calendar one of these days. 

We got there just in time for the first slot, and wound up playing a game in the new Capstone Comics series of games Ogre’s been wanting to run with Fate.  Essentially, he’s decided that he wants to do a gaming world with a comics-like continuity.  As he says, “Like Marvel and DC, only with actual continuity.”  So he ran “Black Rose and Silver Bullet” for me and Jordan.  I played the Black Rose, an Irish-American girl who had wanted to be a nun, but when she got to the convent, it had been razed by demons and the inhabitants slaughtered.  At that moment she swore to destroy evil.  She was joined in her quest by Mitch “Silver Bullet” Sullivan, the last Werewolf Hunter, who happens to be “just a little bit werewolf.”  They fought Don Muerte, the Vampire Crime Lord, to resanctify a village church.  AWESOME!

Saturday morning, I got there to play a game of Best Friends, run by Dawn Vogel.  She set the game in Hogwarts before the Harry Potter books.  A Slytherin bully had sealed the entrance to Hufflepuff tower with dark magic, and we had to figure out how to unseal it to impress the boy we all had crushes on.  There was definite backstabbing and manuevering.  I have to say, watching adult men play teenaged girls is really informative, and a little disturbing.  Three of us were Ravenclaw, two Slytherin and all members of a Dueling Club, which explained our friendships.   

We then had lunch with Ben Lehmann and Ryan Macklin at Thai Curry Simple.  I think they have replaced Hot Pho as my favorite Pad Thai supplier. 

After that I had intended to sit out a slot, because I was grumpy with what I now realize to be the onset of the ick.  No, I don’t think lunch made me sick.  I think I just had a bug.  But the folks running demos of the new game, Mars Colony, by Tim Koppang (Ben and Ping) needed one more to have enough people and I agreed to play.  I was partnered with Allan from Portland, and it was pretty fun.  I do have a couple critiques.  A.  The Fear Cards do nothing, ignore/lose them.  I know you like them, Tim, but as one of my favorite creative writing teachers once said, “If you have something in your story that is so cool, so awesome, so witty and smart that you can’t possibly envision cutting it out:  Cut it.  It’s not as cool as you think it is. ”  And she was right. 

B.  The other thing is that the savior being Desperate, or the other organizations having Contempt for her has no mechanical value that I could see, other than having Contempt or Desperation straight across the board ending the game.  I think at the very least the heroine’s Desperation should provide a penalty.  Apart from that and the frustration over the dice hating me, I liked it.  I think it can be a very important tool for political discussion by creating a remove from real world conversation. 

Next slot, in spite of being hella queasy, I soldiered through Joel  Shempert’s new game, the Dreaming Crucible with him and Kingston.  It was great!  It’s fun, with a simple mechanic that works well, and it can be played relatively quickly depending on how the Dark Faery (Antagonist) spends resources.  Essentially, it’s a game for three people.  You have a hero/heroine who is adolescent, the Dark Faery (Antagonist) and Light Faery (Ally).  The journey through Faery is a great analogy for maturing through adolescence, much like the movies Labyrinth, the Wizard of Oz, or The Bridge to Terebithia.  I really enjoyed it!  I bought a copy at Go Play. 

After that, I waited for The Geek Husband What Rules to finish his Don’t Rest Your Head game, and then he took me home so I could curl up on the couch with cats while he and Lukas went to a punk rock show where Destruction Island, Bottlenose Koffins, Cookie Mongoloid, The Phenomenauts, and The Damage Done were playing. 

Next morning we got up and just hung out through the first slot.  The Geek Husband What Rules played Dominion with a couple of other guys.  I knitted.  We spent some time talking about the Dresden Files Game from Evil Hat Games with Ryan Macklin.  The GHWR is pants-wettingly excited about this game, and was practically vibrating the entire conversation.

Second slot, I played more Capstone Comics with The Geek Husband What Rules and Ben Lehmann.  We played a 1950s era space opera comic, Cutter McGee, Space Ranger!  I played his Space Babe companion, C’rillon (Caroline).  It was a blast.  Ben played Cutter so spot on that we’d do a scene, I’d make the appropriate “Oh, Cutter!” comment then break character and say, “I hate your character so MUCH!”  We had to save the Peace Planet Thron from the Evil Emperor Zorbus.  His daughter Zorbina also has a crush on Cutter and it was just ridiculous.  Although we definitely had some subversive elements, such as C’rillon is the one who does the bulk of the fighting and piloting, because he kind of sucks at those things. 

Last slot I ran a partial game of 1001 Nights for Melissa and Jeremy.  Then I ran Dreaming Crucible for them.  Both games were largely successful.  I think we didn’t really have enough energy for 1001 Nights and the room was really noisy.  Dreaming Crucible went much better, and resulted in me yelling, “Yes!  Yes, fine!  It’s me!  I’m the reason there’s all this sex in the games we play!  Me! Me! Me!!”  Melissa played a 14 year old girl with an abusive uncle, and I played the Dark Faery Lael, who wanted to seduce, rape, kill and eat her (possibly not even in that order), and Jeremy played Barry Stiltskin, the Light Faery, who sounded a lot like the Rock Giants in the NeverEnding Story.  One of the highlights was the pixie construction crew repairing the damage from where Melissa’s character Bonita had run through the forest.  Jeremy and I feed off each other far too well. 

Earlier in the day a huge bunch of us went up to Boom Noodle for lunch, and Cupcake Royale for cupcakes and coffee.  Afterwards we went to the Elysian Brewery for dinner.  I sat with Lee, Melissa, Carl, Wilson and Joel.  Man, are we a rowdy bunch. So, The GHWR and I did not get home until midnight-ish.  My original plan had been to come in to work, get my new students settled and going, and then perhaps go home for a nap before our Marvel game tonight.  Then I got here and realized that two of the other three admins are gone today…  So, I’m staying and guzzling coffee like they’re going to nuke Columbia in the morning.