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Written by Paul Mara
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Jun 17, 2005 at 10:54 AM |
This was my first time at Vaticon. I arrived out at the UCD Student
Center at roughly 10:30 on Saturday morning. The first noticeable
aspects of the venue (apart from the swarming staff which you find at
every con) were the couches and the free coffee machines! Free coffee
plus Paul eating Chocolate made for hyper Cthulhu yearning, almost a
kind of craving, during the afternoon when the effects kicked in!
Saturday
I was tired when I arrived, the fruits of drinking dodgy Guinness in
the City Centre the night before so I didn’t sign up for one of the
morning games. Instead, I signed up for Cthulhu in the afternoon
and wandered into the great hall of gaming to provide misty-eyed
staring at the games going on.
SPANC
First I spotted Sorcha (of Dominicon in Maynooth fame) sitting at a
round table in the middle of a card game. I immediately thought
Frag and went over to have a chuckle at the antics going on in the
game, maybe even steal a card or two and put them into another players
hand for a laugh. I found the game wasn’t Frag though. It was
SPANC (Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls). What a game, it was
like watching poker game with nudey cards crossed with listening to a
GM describe a strip joint his PC group had just walked into. As
far as I know the SPANC’ing went on all weekend and was very popular.
Settlers
I was enticed by the very (long absented) sight of Settlers of Catan to
take part in the nationals in the morning. I knew I had Cthulhu
coming up in the afternoon and that I’d have to drop out but just
seeing the sheep and the thoughts of getting wood (or brick you filthy
minded gutter trash) roped me in. I played in 2 games. I
got swindled outta my points at the very end of the first when my
longest road got thieved (no less). The second game went better
where I ended up in joint second (with all the rest of the players as
far as I remember).
Cthulhu
Onto the Cthulhu game. The game was GM’d by Colm Lundberg and was
a cracker from the very beginning (now when I say beginning, I mean
from reading the description on the Vaticon flyer). Colm had this
one worked out very well and the players really got into
character. The basic outline of the story is that we were a group
of thieves (half crossed with mercenaries) and that we were about to
raid an old rich guys house for a very substantial score. This
game really brought to mind the old saying “Be careful what you wish
for” but then again, that’s one of the foundation stones I’ve noticed
in most of the Cthulhu games I’ve been in. Nice one Mr Lundberg
10/10, thanks for the migraine.
I didn’t go on to the Pub Quiz as I had a birthday (or 2 or 3) to
attend. I signed up for Sundays Dungeons & Dragons (morning)
and Riddle of Steel (afternoon, I had meant to sign up for earthdawn
but I think it got cancelled which is good because riddle of steel
turned out to be really good) before leaving though.
Sunday
Arriving on Sunday, I found myself a bit peckish and went on a food run
with Gar. Gar has an excellent van (no, seriously, I’ve always
been a bit partial to vans/pick-up trucks)! Anyway, there’s a
Esso just down the Clonskeagh road which do some nice rolls so that
sorted us (and a few other people) out. We got back just in time
for the morning RPG sessions which did indeed please me verily.
D&D
Dungeons & Dragons "Le Valee des Loupes" was my first game of the
day. GM’d by Brian Wilson, the story was good. Grouped
together by the “Prince” because of our various skills, our party was
charged with investigating attacks on the folk of a local towns
land. I played the Wizard Sister (nun as I called her) in the
party which was fun as the last few characters I have played in games
had little to no (what could you call them…) mind powers. The
game progressed difficultly and we didn’t get a lot of the campaign
done. Brian didn’t look very happy at the end and mentioned
difficult GM notes (it wasn’t his scenario) yet I think the interaction
of players recovered some of the damage.
Riddle of Steel
The break between D&D and Riddle of Steel was short. Only 4
people had signed up for it. This game was excellent. GM’d
by JD, the game began at the School of Swordmaster Rostov who had at
one time or another trained each of the PCs. It was his funeral
and we didn’t know who had killed him. This scenario really did
push the boundaries of gaming as I knew them. I had never come
out of a once-off feeling so much like I had been part of an EPIC
campaign. I later found out JD was one of the VIPs for the con
and I think I know why. Excellent game JD (even with 2 players
who didn’t really look like they wanted to be there) and a really good
introduction to riddle of steel. I hope you decide to run it at
other cons. It was really cool.
All in all I was very happy with Vaticon. The combat system in
riddle of steel was great to learn and showed great potential for
insult sword fighting. Cthulhu provided a good head-wrecking and
playing Settlers again was real fun. Well done to all the staff.
P.S. Does anyone know if Dave, the con director, survived the night with his bottle of scotch?
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Comment by admin on 2005-06-21 08:52:35
Very informative Article
:grin
10/10 |
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Last Updated ( Jun 20, 2005 at 11:40 AM )
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