garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14168
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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 Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 1:40 am Post subject: Gencon 07 after action report... |
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Well, as has been my tradition, here is my report..
And i finally got the proper forum to post it in..
First off, we have my gming responsibilities. I was scheduled for 8 slots. 2 Runs each of Sparks 105A and 105B (my 2 parter that premiered at Gencon), as well as Sparks 103 which premiered at Origins. Of those 6 slots, 1 of the 105B’s did not go off, as well as one of the 103’s. I was also slated for both half’s of the interactive.
Thursday, 5pm. First running of 105A. Full table, mostly low sheet folks, though with some high sheeters. Initial part of module went well, with them fearing what they were ordered by the Rebel High Council to do, and when it came for the insertion (thanks Grimace for assisting me with this part) they all LOVED IT. Even the 2 pc’s who went wildly off course. I actually put in a spot ruling of if they went strapped into their gliders, failing the strength check before hitting the Repulsor field range of their gliders just meant they lost contact for a little time (therefore were off kilter and it made the first Repulsorlift operations check more difficult) BUT when they landed it would take a few rounds to get all the way unstrapped. If they went unstrapped, and they failed that str check, they would get one final emergency reaction check to see if they plummeted to their deaths (between me and the editor, we agreed the damage would be 10D).
Once on the ground, it took them a little prodding for information gathering, but when they got into it, were loving how I was splitting my time with each group. Though 2 did decide to follow up one of the “leads” (actually more of a red herring) on the other side of the planet, which is roughly near the end of the module, when 20 Stormtroopers of Vader’s Fist come a calling… Though 2 who went on their own got caught (they did not think of their actions, especially communicating back and fourth OPENLY about what they were doing or where they were going), while the others ran!!!! They loved how I described the VF troopers and their chase…
All in all a thourally enjoyed module, and 2 captures.
Sparks 105B Thursday 9pm. Only had 2 people for this table (2 of those who played last slot), but even with me asking if they wanted to do it now, or wait, they went with now… So I got ‘soft’ and halved all the baddies (other than for the end imperial mass base smacking!
Went through the intel they got last round, and actually got interesting in their interpretation of what they received… So they went to the final base of the 3 the rebels thought might be hit next.. When it came for them to find the ‘kid’ (who for note is the “thrust” of the mission the Imperials planned”) they went about it ok…. Then it came for the Imperial Royal Guard to show up as scripted to ‘capture the Emperor’s Prize (the kid) and they loved how I described the scene. Well since there were only 2 on the table, I went with 2 IRG.. One went after the Squib, who was moving away in the brush with the kid atop him, the other (a torgorian blade dancer) challenged the second IRG to one-on-one combat thinking they would honor his request.
With how I see Royal guard, I actually full on agreed with his assessment, and had the IRG ask him whether he wanted it to first knock down, or best of 5…
Well, 2 falls to 1 later, the PC bowed in defeat (he realized he was over classed) but paid great respect to his adversary, and left there for the parties ship. The other one (the squib) well… see below.
As per the module, If the girl gets one of the party on their own away from the others, she will use Control Mind to get them to take her back to the IRG’s ship…. And back to daddy (Palpaltine)…. HE loved how I described it, but was saddened that he did not catch on sooner.
Friday noon. Sparks 103. Full table of long standing players, so I had to do little hinting here. They went to the Pirates base no problem, and were more than willing to follow the pirates lead into what they were to do.
Got to the planet where the ‘mission was to go on at’ and almost got 2 players captured due to their possessing illegal weaponry, and forged paperwork…. BUT as per the lass in charge, she goes more with the fine (and confiscation of the offending weaponry before jail time, and that only if the person is being a butt head)… Neither player was that way.. so they just lost a cool toy or two and some cash.
Got to their informant, and went right into plotting to get the Moff’s cash… But due to one of the pcs wearing armor that practically guaranteed he would not take damage even from an AT-AT chin gun, it was almost a walk over of the moff’s guards…
Had I known that ahead of time, I would have included the armor in the ;offending’ list of stuff she grabbed!
Sparks 105A second running Friday 5pm. Well had another full table, and for the most part, all liked the insertion, but one long standing player (who also has a outspoken hate for me and my games) kept on trying to denigrate me for having it be something not everyone is skilled in as their insertion.. EVEN though not one of the others had that same heartache.
Well, one thing led to another and one of the players got caught after being WAYYYYYY off course, and landing near a 5 man grouping of imperial recruits.. when it looked like he was going for a gun, I had them react in kind and shot him (stun only) so he got captured…
Nearly the rest of the mission got scrubbed as 1 one butthead did everything he could to force me to make it easy for him to ‘free’ their captured comrade, even with my trying to make it obvious that it would be darn near impossible to do so. He even flat out (afterward) said I should have come out bluntly and said so, rather than do it how I did…
At the end, due to time, I had the rest just leave the planet (not bothering with the VF troopers, though seeing how they were getting I feared if I DID spring them they would have all stayed and eventually got caught or killed.
After the end of the slot, that butt head got so frustrated with how I did things (even though the player caught had no problems with it) he flat out threatened me with tossing my butt off the 3rd floor balcony…. Needless to say my staring his @$$ down and not giving in to his theatrics made him back off on that part. Unfortunately as he is one of our council heads, I cannot avoid dealing with him.
Friday 9pm. Not sure why, but I had no tickets sold for this event, and only 1 player showed up with generics, but he was a total newbie to star wars gaming. So I politely informed him that I could not run the module with just him, and if he wanted to, we had 3 other events running in that time slot. He accepted and went to one of those..
Saturday – the Interactive. First half was the mass mission, where I was in charge of the heavy combat ground team. I had masses of imperial troops (though all base book, so little chance of ever hitting any of the pcs unless I got extremely lucky) and 4 AT-AT’s and 8 chicken walkers. Well from the get go when the walkers showed up, the pcs ignored the troopers in favor of grouping their fire into the walkers legs to neutralize them.. taking 1 down every other round…. Then they turned their fire to the AT-AT’s…. Being each pc got a ‘red shirt rebel’ as a NPC they could run, and if I ever got a killing blow it was to be taken from those RSR’s first… I made the most of it, and you should have seen the laughter and hilarity on their faces each time they had to hand over the sheet of the RSR to me for crumpling/ripping. But after a little time they were out… That’s when I got the ok to have the walkers open up fully on them. But after 2 rounds of fire, it was obvious even without the scaling penalty, they were not going to be hitting the PC’s I had them just shift targets to taking out the buildings they were standing on…
Squeels of pain and horror showed all around the place as the pcs realized what I was doig so they started booking from where they were… 2 of them using jet packs to fly to the necks of the AT-AT’s to place explosives the others just getting the heck out of Dodge. Though even then the AT-AT’s resisted the damage well, and only got scorched, rather than damaged….
Afterwards, one of the PC’s came to me and felt it would have been more cinematic had the damage taken at least one down, even with the dice saying no damage got threw, but other than that, had NO bad comments…
Interactive – second half, which is where players get to perform personal initiates, whether that is to bounty hunt, gather supplies, go free friends etc…… As one of 7 judges awaiting around for someone with a PI to run, I got almost overlooked, though I had one player come to me for running a Droid repair shop (for parts pick-up)…
So I used that free time to get with players one on one, to see what they honestly felt about my Gming style… Other than the basics of not fudging, and playing baddies smartly, most actually said they enjoy playing under me… One though did say he not only likes my style but is that way himself, but many of our players prefer the cinematic (full on fudging so a challenge is easy to overcome) way of doing things, which is why he rarely GMs for our group… so I might have to look into whether I will have to do the same thing. Where I stick with the group as a whole, keeping on running/playing, or just stay with them for playing…
Sunday 8Am. Second running of Sparks 103. Well had 2 players show up for this, both newbies and as per the module it was meant for higher sheet players… So I had to cancel it on them, and sent them to one of our other tables.
All in all, other than the 1 butthead threat incident, and the overall Event fracas, a great con.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk! |
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