Autumn Conclave - October 29th 2011

[greenstuff_gav]

no thoughts on Tickets (i r drivin'!) but on the... tempermental state of the Machine-Spirits i got nuffin; it's Server-Side but seems to be clearing up on its own...

[MarcoSkoll]

... Ugh. After all that saying I'm going to be there overnight, I've looked at my finances again, and the numbers just don't add up as they seemed to when I booked.

There's not enough people who'll be there "out of hours" (particularly as one of the people who might have been is very uncertain now), I've not got to worry about bringing the Jubilee, my sleep patterns are basically as good as they're going to get at the moment, and I'm not even entirely sure staying overnight will improve my sleep.

My hotel booking is completely refundable at this point, so unless I get an overwhelming response from people who really want me there on Friday evening and Sunday, I'm thinking of cancelling it and making the trip as normal.

[Van Helser]

Well, I'm pondering an early bed after today's efforts. My characters failed miserably at everything they tried to do today, but there's nothing new there!

Big thanks to David for organising the day's fun. We had an excellent turn out today, with plenty of new faces which is always encouraging! Roll on the Grand Tournament!

Ruaridh

[greenstuff_gav]

First!

echoing thanks to David for running the day; was sure he'd have had a breakdown during that last section!

having chatted to a load of people who'd wandered over to see inquisitor being played, i'm hoping for more signups

gonna need to rewrite both the scenarios i provided a bit and rework the Beastmaster ability!

[Holiad]

Definitely a fun day of gaming, and I found the final linked games a substantial improvement over previous attempts to put everyone's characters on one table, which has historically been something of a repetetive flaw in the events. Failing doesn't really matter too much, as long as you fail instyle. My own characters may have embarassingly finished their investigation knowing less about the corporal than when they started, but along the way they got to dismember a zombie, grapple a giant spider, and hold up a valkyrie with an inferno pistol, so their ultimate failure somewhat pales by comparison.

[MarcoSkoll]

Official turnout is 14 players and myself - not quite what we managed from the IGT this year, but damn good given a number of cancellations.

I'll post an attendee list when I'm more sane (in normal tradition, I didn't sleep beforehand, so I'm about 36 hours awake right now) as well as a more fluid report on the aftermath of the final scenario than what I delivered on the day.
You'll probably see some form of ranking too, but I'll probably refrain from posting anyone's actual scores.

As for the final scenario, and counting through some photos, the final weigh-in is:
- 4 tables
- 13 players* (three of whom took on some of the GMing duties)
- 30 Player-Characters
- 20 NPCs
- And a 54mm aircraft.
*We lost one right before the finale.

All in all, probably the biggest game of Inquisitor ever.

I'd rather like to hear more feedback on the multi-table finale format. I know it's somewhat radical and it was rather rough and ready this time (note for future, let tables run at their own pace), but I know I utterly enjoyed running it.
I (or someone else) will probably use it again at some point, so having ideas of how to improve would be invaluable.

~~~~~

Anyway, two presents while I start recovering:

All 180 resource cards, many of which ultimately didn't get used. Some are making a second appearance from the Spring 2010 pack, but over half are new.

They've each got two different numbers, as the files were done alphabetically by faction, the cards were numbered randomly. And yes, I do know that files #126 & 127 have the same picture. It happens when you're doing it late at night.

Most are free use if you'd like to develop them up, but do ask first, because a few are developed characters of my own I've put in there as in-jokes. Or they're actually me.

The faction objectives. Corrected now so they actually match the cards.

I'll upload a clever little chart of these later - it's hard to see in writing. The thing is, each resource category was needed by three of the six factions. So, there's no category lots of factions need and which nobody would trade as a result.

[Kaled]

The multiple table format worked well with two small criticisms. Firstly, ideally you needed another GM for the main table to free you up to move between tables as the main game was a bit stop start as you had to keep answering questions from other tables or going over to the other tables to see what was happening or to tell them things. Secondly, and this is a bit of a personal one, but I didn't feel like I had much chance to achieve my objective. Maybe I just didn't see or understand what I should be doing, but it felt like the other warbands could decisively win by getting her off the table, whereas I could only win by preventing them and hoping that events on another table didn't allow another faction to win instead.

That said, the last game was really good with an Inquisitior and a spider-summoning heretic both attempting to kidnap the Corporal for their own ends, and my Tau desperately trying to persuade the Corporal and Sororitas to not only not kill them, but to trust the xenos and not the Inquisition - not an easy task as at first I felt like I had nothing to bargain with until I remembered that my resource cards included a prophetic tome on the Corporal, a cardinal and a highly regarded member of the Ilithyian military which I could exploit to give me some leverage. And then a horde of Chaos troops turned up, closely followed by a Valkyrie rigged with explosives and an orbital laser was fired at our position! Very cool!

One other minor criticism I heard from a few people was that it seemed like there were too many categories of cards. I haven't checked he zip file to see how common each type of card is, but I had quite a few cards pass through my hand during the day and didn't see a lot of the categories - and it sounded like other people had the same experience which was frustrating in attempting to get sets.

[Molotov]

Congratulations on another successful event!

I'm intrigued to hear more about the final game, especially because it directly plays into the forthcoming INQvitational. Somewhat based on Kaled's Carthaxian Succession, I'm keen to run a card-based contacts system as well as providing something suitably climactic for the final game.

After talking to Kaled (and Andy Hoare) I've had some thoughts about trying to make the final game climactic, but the cards are something interesting, given that I don't want to effectively be running a trading card game alongside the actual games of Inquisitor. It needs to be something simple enough to be easily understood, whilst complicated enough to add depth and three-dimensionality to the events.

Thanks for uploading your cards - I'll read through these with some interest!

[Kaled]

I had a few more thoughts that I just typed up and lost so here's the short version. Not really a comment on Marco's event, but I'd like to see a campaign where the faction has more effect than just the type of cards you need to collect. I guess that would mean the factions had to be 'balanced' in some way so choosing a faction doesn't affect you chance of winning. (I don't know if in yesterday's event choosing a faction really affected the players chance of winning?) I'd like to do an event where players in a faction are at least loosely allied and are all working for the same end rather than just out for themselves and can ally in games if they so choose. So maybe different factions would be trying to collect different resources (or deny them to others).

One of the other event organisers had a whistle which seemed a great idea for attracting everyone's attention - Marco had the same issue that I think anyone who's organised one of these events will attest to - i.e. organising players is a bit like herding cats!

Molotov - I suggest you could use the same system Marco and Van Helser used where there are different types of cards and players try to both collect as many cards as possible but also try to get sets. That system is simple enough, but if you want to make things simpler just have them all the same and players just need to collect as many as possible. The last game is the bit that really needs work. For the succession, maybe you could just have all but the main table trying to somehow transmit their votes to the main table, or somehow manipulate the votes that reach the main table. The top three players would be on the main table and their job is to submit their own votes to the polling servitor as well as delivering votes sent by the other tables. That way everyone gets to contribute to the outcome but aren't all on one table.

Other than the few minor points I've already brought up (and a few timing troubles including the fact that it took ages to get lunch), yesterday went really well - and was maybe the event I've enjoyed most. Partly that was because I was really happy with the characters I brought (other than a few things I want to tweak) as they gave me a lot of gameplay options with the Water Caste ableto talk his way out of trouble and the Fire Caste being a pretty formidable combatant (the Air Caste didn't do a lot though), but was also down to the thought Marco had put into the scenarios, background and mechanics for the campaign. And it was great to see so many new faces there too.

[MarcoSkoll]

Firstly, ideally you needed another GM for the main table.

I don't disagree. Not just from the aspect of the final game but given the scale of the work involved in general, I think I'd prefer to run a co-GMed event next time.

Secondly, and this is a bit of a personal one, but I didn't feel like I had much chance to achieve my objective.

It was naturally going to be a little tricky for Xenos, but you actually came within a hair's breadth of it because of your intelligent use of the resources you had found during the day. Convincing the Corporal that you had the support of major individuals, and a big book that predicted her future was the kind of move it needed.

It was really the shortened timeslot that was a problem here, as it cost us a turn or two before I needed the big ending to start and break it all up.

One other minor criticism I heard from a few people was that it seemed like there were too many categories of cards.

There were 18 categories, which was a deliberate multiple of the number of factions. I got a little carried away with ideas, and yes, in truth, it probably should have been 12.

I don't know if in yesterday's event choosing a faction really affected the players chance of winning?

I'd need to check exactly which cards made it into play relative to which factions needed them, but all cards were designed to be needed by three of the six factions, so there wasn't any inherent bias.

[Necris]

I'd like to see a campaign where the faction has more effect than just the type of cards you need to collect. I guess that would mean the factions had to be 'balanced' in some way so choosing a faction doesn't affect you chance of winning. (I don't know if in yesterday's event choosing a faction really affected the players chance of winning?) I'd like to do an event where players in a faction are at least loosely allied and are all working for the same end rather than just out for themselves and can ally in games if they so choose. So maybe different factions would be trying to collect different resources (or deny them to others).

Funny you should mention this Dave

My plans for the Summer Conclave are picking up on this very comment

[MarcoSkoll]

One aftermath writeup, as promised.

Once again, Zophar manages to increase his notoriety. Bonus points for being the only character I've ever dealt with who managed to destroy TWO tables simultaneously.

Also, some photos. Not a huge number, and quality is a tad mix-and-match. I'm getting close to sorting a "Warhammer World" setting for my camera, but a bit more work is still needed.

@Molotov:
As far as the finale game, the basic principle was that of four linked tables - one central table which I oversaw; and three side tables where the objectives could affect play on the main table. One of the players from each of these side tables was given the job of keeping track of turn order and such, so I didn't have to keep track of everything all at once.

There's not a huge amount to it beyond that. It's not that hard - write several games that can interact with each other, make sure you have some reasonable briefings to hand out to players so you don't have to brief them all individually or keep reminding them of the special rules.

That said, I do recommend collectively briefing everyone on the basic setting of each individual table, else people won't get the full picture and it won't feel like the one huge game it's supposed to be.
Maybe next time I'll add more feedback, allowing the central table to have effects on the other games, but I think that would have been pushing it a little much for an as-of-then untried system.

Also, you'll probably have to explain this INQvitational thing to me at some point, because I still have some 28mm models I started for when PrecinctOmega's Dark Heresy was supposed to be a day out, and I'm trying to find an excuse to finish/use them.

[Kaled]

Marco - are you going to also post your write up on Carthax? I've started typing up some notes from the day and will work on them some more over lunch. My plan is to try to build a narrative out of the cards I held at the end of the day and what happened during the games. Just need to decide how they survived the orbital strike and if they know anything about the fate of the Corporal that they could use as leverage in future encounters...

[MarcoSkoll]

It will be part of what eventually gets submitted to Carthax.

However, I'm looking to complete a fuller write up than that for the Wiki, so anybody who wants to ping me a summary from the games I wasn't running (or indeed, the full story from the other finale tables!) would be very much appreciated.

[Van Helser]

Here's my photos from the day.  Not many, but thought I'd share nonetheless.  There are a couple that are even dice and character sheet free, which may do for adding some colour to the wiki write up.

I'll draft a wee summary of my final game Marco and send it your way.

Ruaridh