What I Learned from Forge Midwest, 2014

It was going to be one of THOSE kinds of conventions. The kind your parents warned you about. The kind that changes a gamer forever. The kind that you talk about in your sleep for years to come.

FRIDAY (pics)

1. Always pack two pairs of pants

I spilled Taj Indian food on jeans before arriving at the convention. I only packed the one pair this time -- never again.

2. Monsters rule

I got to help introduce others to a new board game (King of Tokyo).

3. Parallax

We started to create a very interesting sci-fi setting, facilitated by Jason Dettman (Microscope). I'm going to name the use of Microscope --> Kingdom --> most any other RPG and back again, as Parallax, as some of us began to follow the patterns through the rest of the convention.

4. It pays to be THE hotshot

Shootin' alien dinosaurs and makin' it look awesome! Not to mention pullin' your team out of failure and rubbin' it in every chance you get, especially with your mentor (Dave Fried's Souls of Steel Apocalypse World engine game playtest). I can't remember rolling so many high rolls in a game as a player ever. I guess it was karma for me to blow the important social rolls later.  ;-)


SATURDAY (pics)

5. Purple reign

What began as a dream for the 1%ers, ended in catastrophe. A nightmare island adrift with a few desperate survivors and a madman infected with a new vision for the rest of the world. This (Kingdom) was my favorite NEW RPG, with special thanks to Mark Delsing for facilitating and for Jason Dettman and Dylan Clayton for playing with me and my insane Father Lucious Fairchild.

6. Try something you think you won't like

Having never played any 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons, I sat down with friends to a mini's combat game (Willow Palecek's Exploding Kingdoms playtest). I chose a way cool character concept, the Meteor Soul, which had more index cards than I knew what to do with for a while, until things started to click during the third scenario. What a close race to the end, losing by only 3 points. I enjoyed the game if for nothing else than not having to roll to hit and feeling awesome all the time, and the third scenario was a very interesting contest. In comparison to no to-hit rolls, I was wondering if something similar (perhaps closer to AW's hit, cost, miss scheme) could/should be used for the Skill Rolls?

7. Apples to Apples can be fun…

If it's about media properties (Green Light, Megan and Eric) then apparently I am alright with it. In fact a handful of ideas may yet become game settings in the future. It's still in playtest. It's about pitching a relaunch of an old media property to some execs. If you like television shows or movies, you MUST try this game.

8. Be open to try something COMPLETELY new

I signed up for the Climb and instead got Tribunal, facilitated by Arnold Cassell (Tribunal LARP). That's right, I have been gaming for over 20 years and had never actually LARPed. Not until Tribunal. Before we began the game, we were led through some warm up exercises. I picked Raven and played down the talking and played up the watching, listening, and devil's advocate bits. I had to work hard to resist falling back into a kind of default gamer mode. I had to really try to be someone who wanted to get through this no matter what, alive. I didn't need to be sneaky or scheming because others had that well covered. I believe that everyone really enjoyed the experience and I was glad that I wasn't the only newbie to LARPS in the group. I had some really great in-character experiences and was quite impressed with how the game operated. Thanks to Arnold and all for making sure that we spent time discussing the game afterwards.

9. It's quiet until it's not

Pack extra ear plugs for both you and your friends.


SUNDAY (pics)

10. Passing for Human is never easy

"Speaking merely as a sapient dust collective politician-physician and member of the Gene Knights of Purity to you my good mutant, it ain't an adventure worth sharing unless it includes helping lesser beings to skull-crush a sorceress, awaken and kill the First Man, control-ring destroy a god with a deathbot, and replace your village with a flying fortress. It's a much better story than 'We could barely fight our way past some bandits with tree branches and had to run home with our swarm between our legs.'You know what I mean? Gimme another round, will ya?" ("Chronica Mutantis Mundi," GMed by Mike Holmes).

11. If you build it, Willow will run it

The crowd sourcing dungeon crawl was brilliant.

12. The new system with time slots for games pitched by GMs worked for me as a player.

Thanks to Willow, Tim, and everyone else!!!

It was one of the best game conventions. Here's to next year's Forge Midwest!

Best,
-David-