Dragonmeet 2014 Review - The changing face of gaming?

A bit late in the day, but here never the less here's my review of Dragonmeet 2014.

My christmas wish list for Dragonmeet 2014 like the best laid plans of mice and men... went to hell in a handbasket, meaning I didn't get to play half as many games as I would like, but did get to experience:

Castellan (Steve Jackson Games) - A 2 player abstract area control game, which is a bit pricey, but the gorgeous plastic castle pieces make it total eye candy on top of what is a solid fun game.  I also witnessed their Mars Attacks Dice Game which looked like a lot of fun for all ages.  I hope SJG make iOS/Android implementations of both these games soon as they are a lot of fun and more people need to play them.

Always / Never / Now is Will Hindmarch's hack of the one shot Lady Blackbird game by John Harper, set in a non-specific cyberpunk future.  It's got a very simple rules light system which rewards cinematic play and is perfect for a convention session.  Our awesome GM (a member of the London Indie RPG group) taught us the system basics and we were up and running very quickly, hacking, cracking and generally blowing things up in a style which John Woo and Michael Bay can only dream off.  It was hands down the most fun I've had at a con in years.

Drooling over the Sons of Anarchy boardgame at the 247 Toys stand, I played a few rounds of the UK edition of the Firefly boardgame (The one with the extra "Artful Dodger" ship).  It's definitely a long game with plenty of complexity and variety and whilst not as impressive as their demo tabletop (See photo) it will still end up on my BGG wishlist.

Firefly The Boardgame (UK Edition) includes 5th player ship "The Artful Dodger"

Chessex brought their usual truckload of dice (and a big jug to scoop them up with).

I love dice but they sometimes don't love me, they key...
...change them regularly and discipline the naughty ones

Small indie publishers were in evidence all over the show, along with a crop of new micro armour sci-fi miniature wargames fresh from their dropships like Firestorm Planetfall.

Smallcu.be travelled across the channel from belgium to show off their beautiful crokinole boards (I'll own one one day)

YAY Games UK put on a fine show with their fabulously grisly Frankenstein's Bodies game funded via Kickstarter and Chief Creative Andrew Harman was suitably kitted out in his blood stained butcher's apron.

Oakbound Games were showing off their War of the Worlds homage Tripods! in which players try to escape the Martian invasion of London and avoid the encroaching "Red Weed" which begins to cover the board.

Money is always in short supply and so my purchases were limited to a copy of Housing Crisis by Rack & Pinion Games, a tiny 2 player micro game about placing tenants in different sized housing developments.  It was reminiscent of some of my first games from the 70s/80s which also came in small zip-lock bags and I fell in love.

Housing Crisis Rack and Pinion Games, This much fun in a little bag is usually illegal!!

A couple of friends bought some of the award winning and wonderful All Rolled Up dice bags, a beauty to behold especially with the little hand grenade toggles. 

Free swag was minimal (Curse you global recession!) but I did get a promo Munchkin silver coin and "Official cheesy promotional bookmark of power!" from the SJG demo table.  Thumbing through the very glossy Dragonmeet programme you will also find "The Star Fish" a creature for use in Modiphius's WW2 Achtung! Cthulhu setting and "Ornery Octal" a magic item for Cubicle 7s The Laundry RPG.

Overall it was an enjoyable day but there were a few organisational snags, namely:

• Travel around the trade hall and more importantly between trade hall and gaming rooms felt more of a struggle than usual with what seemed like narrower aisles.  Attendance also seemed higher than at previous years events but this might have just been my perception as the venue felt smaller and more cramped than previous years.  (Organiser Chris Birch has confirmed that attendance was 1600 twice that of previous years)
• Locating the bring and buy stall and signup boards so close to the entrance/reception may have been a logistical necessity but it caused a bottleneck for people trying to get into/out of the trade hall all day long.
• Whilst I applaud the sentiment behind the charitable pre-booking of game seats, in reality it just meant lots of game sheets going up on the board were all pre-booked before the show opened its doors.  With seats in such short supply anyway, I'm not sure how much extra this raised for CLIC Sergeant and Vision Rescue, it didn't paint a very inclusive or open picture which is something that I've always liked about Dragonmeet.  Perhaps next year just take a £1 of the ticket price as a donation for these worthy causes and go back to the old system of first come first served, or at least limit the number of pre-bookings per game to 50%.
• Cloakroom facility was a neat idea which I wish I had used as the venue got hotter and hotter requiring frequent trips outdoors to cool off.
• A lack of game information in the days leading up to the event makes it harder to plan your day and you end up missing the seminars you want to attend.
• I didn't see any cosplayers, were they put off by the cold weather?  This may have been a blessing in disguise as they really need their own display space so people can fully appreciate the hard work that they put into their outfits, and space was at most definitely at a premium this year. 

As for the "Changing Face of Gaming" you can see some more photos from the show and attendees tell me "What it means to be a gamer" in this short video.

Dragonmeet 2014 - A Very British Con

This Saturday (6th December) is Dragonmeet 2014, it's certainly London's biggest RPG convention and one of the highlights of my year.

A few things have changed with the shift in organiser to Modiphius and this year promises to be a much bigger event at a new venue.

Saturday 6th December - 10am to Midnight

IBIS HOTEL EARLS COURT &
ILEC CONVENTION CENTRE
LONDON SW6 1UD

This year I'm aiming to play as many games as I can, in particular I'll be

• Finding out what all the fuss is about with D&D 5e.
• Seeing if I can find a game of DREAD to play
• Playing some boardgames especially Pandemic Contagion
• Trying not to add to the budget deficit...

I'll also be snapping pictures / doing very short interviews for the blog.  In particular I'll be trying to capture the changing face of tabletop gamers for a blog article.  If anyone is attending and would like to take part please feel free to contact me via the comments below or by sending me a google+ message to +Roleplay-Geek

Dragonmeet 2011 - Con Report

Dragonmeet 2011 was held yesterday, as usual, at Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall in the heart London's upscale Knightsbridge.  It's a good venue and is close to the traditional exhibition centre that is London's Olympi and Earl's Court venue's.  Sadly in recent times the Tube Network has suffered from engineering works at this time of year and this year was no exception.  That said there was a good turnout with around 1,000 gamers queing up outside efore the doors opened at 10am.

LAYOUT

The venue lends itself to an RPG convention as it offers multiple small halls and meeting rooms where gaming can be broken up into collections of tables thereby keeping the volume levels down so you don't have to strain to hear or be heard.

The ground floor foyer was predominately reserved for boardgames with just one trade stand, the rest being contained in the large auditorium.  The upper and lower foyers and their respective halls being reserved for games tables covering a wide assortment of RPG, Board and Card games.

The game sign-up table, located in the ground floor foyer was the usual chaotic scrum but I managed to get my name down on the game of Toon I wanted to play.  Attending this con over a number of years has taught me to read the game announcements beforehand and to have at least one backup option should your main choice be full by the time you get to the sheet.


TOON

I fondly remember the large full colour ads for this Steve Jackson produced game of cartoon mayhem, which graced the pages of White Dwarf in the mid 80s and it had always sounded interesting so I was quite keen to give it a go.

We were playing the supertoons variant and our characters were appropriately named "Defenders of Toonsville" comprising of myself as THE WEIRDO (a purple alien made of rubber), RABBOT GIRL a robot rabbit girl with an OCD for tidying, MAGIC-I-AM a stage magician with a big bag of glitter, S.C.A.T.MAN A bebop jazz fanatic with an NSFW name and last but not least the scourge of toonsville's criminals, WONDER WABBIT.

The first scene called for our caped cartoon crusaders to find and defeat the evil villain known only as THE DE-ANIMATOR who's dastardly plan was to use goons equipped with de-animator guns to blast the citizens of toonsville, robbing them of colour and turning them into mindless zombies.  The goons had arrived in an egg shaped spaceship which we managed to pilot back to his gothic castle in the desert where I used a plot point to "pull the plug" on The De-animator's plan quite literally by pulling the plug out of the vat containing the black ink which made up his body.

The game system was simple and easy to pick up lending itself to con or one-night game play rather than any serious campaign play.  I found it both fun and intriguing to play as you really have to keep up with the action in the scene or your next action won't contribute to the zany plot.  For example in one scene my character, THE WEIRDO, teleported into a corridor where a light was rapidly approaching with a clickety clack sound (clearly a train), as I had the shape change ability I changed my mouth into a tunnel entrance and promptly ate the train.  Later in the final scene when I was been grasped in one hand by a now giant sized De-animator with no means of fighting back, I opened my mouth and let out the train, punching him in the eye.

I suspect that this is quite challenging to GM as you have to be very flexible and receptive to your players ideas.  I liked that the GM (John Wilson) gauged the success of any particular idea by the volume of laughter around the table and awarded plot points accordingly.  These Plot Points are pretty crucial to the game system as they allow you to produce items, re-roll dice and generally influence the plot and result in some very funny situations.  I shall definitely be playing Toon again and it makes a welcome change from the traditional Sci-Fi and Fantasy RPGs I normally GM and play.

CASTLES and CRUSADES

Having run my first C&C campaign for over 30 sessions now, I thought it was high time I played in a game partly to see if my GMing of it was up to scratch and partly to play an FRPG I was familiar with in a con setting.  Unfortunately I arrived at the table last so had the Hobson's Choice of pre-generated characters, a 1st level wizard.  I hardly ever play wizards so this was going to be challenging.  The scenario was GM'd by Gareth Larter (who also happens to be the Dragomeet Webmaster) and I was pleasantly surprised that he had also chosen to abandon the (IMHO) overly restrictive Vancian magic system in favour of a spell slot style system.

The Beacon at Enon Tor was a dungeon crawl in and around a large tower on a cliff-side promontory which acted as both a lighthouse and a wizards laboratory.  The concerned townsfolk had hired the party to find out why the fog horn had been blaring for two straight days (long after the fog had lifted) and then had suddenly stopped.

I have always felt that I made a poor tactical player, and an even worse wizard.  However, in this game I ended up playing extremely tactically, particularly in the use of a simple hold portal spell to prevent the escape of an orc and to get the drop on a bugbear.  Perhaps my recent campaign sessions watching my own players struggle in tactical play has had an effect on me, I don't know, but I really enjoyed the game as a consequence.  The rest of the players also enjoyed themselves and at least one descended into the dealers hall to try to pick up a copy of the PHB.

THE INDUSTRY IN RECESSION?

Sadly this year there were no goodie bags stuffed with freebies and all the trade stands seemed to have shrunk somewhat in the volume and variety of games they brought to sell.  Perhaps this is sign that the industry is in recession or more likely that it's customers disposable income is shrinking and dealers are responding to this.

Unfortunately my game schedule meant that I was unable to attend many of the peripheral events such as the Discussion Panels from the attending industry celebreties such as Ian Livingstone or the aftershow auction.  Nor did I manage to take any photos this year, however Big Lee has put up a few of his photos on Big Lee's Miniature Adventures which give you a taste of the atmosphere and scale of this event and I recommend that everyone who is a London based gamer should aim to visit next year.

Dragonmeet 2010

This post comes to you live from Dragonmeet 2010.

10:00 - And it's the usual mad dash to the sign-ups table for the morning session.

10:30 - Playing Dead of Night, and being DM'd by one of it's authors Scott Dorward.

13:15 - Just finished Dead of Night, an excellent horror scenario set in an abandoned church in 1920's Islington, London.  I loved the "Tension" mechanic, a sort of timer which advances when PCs spend survival points to affect the plot, I can see this being used in my SBA games.  We all had a lot of fun, great job Scott.  Now off to buy C&C at the trade stands.

14:00 - Sadly no luck picking up C&C will have to look online.  Spot of lunch required.  Missed out on sign-ups for afternoon RPG session.

Leo Marshall

15:00 - Back gaming in the main hall.  Playing Le Cardo with it's author Leo Marshall, a fun little crossword card game with lots of replay factor.  Enjoyed it so much I had to buy it.  Thanks Leo.

15:30 - Playing Pitch-car in the foyer

16:00 - Goodbye Dragonmeet see you next year.

+++ VIDEO UPDATE +++

Here's a short clip of the Trade Hall full of gamers.

Dragonmeet 2010

Anyone going to Dragonmeet 2010 this year?  I know I am and will definitely blogging about my favourite UK Con on here.  Maybe I'll even meet a few fellow bloggers on the day (look on the con message board), maybe I'll blog at the con.

For those of you who don't know Dragonmeet 2010 takes place on Saturday 27th November at Kensington Town Hall, doors open at 10:00am.

Whilst I'm there I'll also be:

• looking to pick up copies of D&D Essentials map tiles The Dungeon and The City after seeing Thaseus C's wonderful unboxing video on his blog "This is My Game".
  
  
• playing a few con games (lots of choice for morning and afternoon RPG game sessions are scheduled)
  
  
• supporting the traders by buying Castles & Crusades rulebooks to use as the system for my upcoming The Lands of Dual campaign