(re-posting this here)
The con kicked off with some very exiting news as it was announced by Edwin Voskamp that he is aquiring the rights to Amber Diceless and will be working to get new products available.
Slot 1: "Brave New Krypton"
This was the third time I ran BNK and the craziest of the three times. BNK is a superhero game where players could play almost any hero or villain from DC or Marvel comics. In previous games we've had the characters not only have to deal with the main threat (of Kryptonian rulers of Earth) but having to stop the Dark Phoenix from manifesting or mad scientists from building a device that would turn Earth's sun red (and probably kill the planet). This year, added craziness came as well. The characters were Rogue, John Constantine, Zatanna, Catwoman and Hawkwoman. Zatanna's magic was on the fritz and because of this, there was much exitement whenever she spoke backwords. There was the arrival of a man-sized chicken named Boo when she went to summon a chicken to sacrifice so Constantine could summon a prince of Hell for some answers. Yeah, powerful demons are John's Wikipedia. Even more powerful and scary was the meteor shower she summoned when she cast a spell to create kryptonite. She got it, but the magical influence also brought Krypton's dead god Rao back and the heroes got to face a pissed off sungod. Catwoman, took a really dangerous (and cool) route to get information from the Kryptonians by allowing herself to get captured and interrogated by General Zod so she could seduce him. (I have to admit I saw this coming....) Rogue ended up stealing Mary Marvel's powers after Mary was possessed by Eclipso and used the magical strength of Shazam to help in the fight against Rao. Hawkwoman hit things...with a heavy mace... a lot.
The biggest suprise of the game was the NPC demon Baytor and the love he received from the players. Baytor is a demon who tended bar at Noonan's bar. With no eyes or nose and just a mouth that comes out of his neck, he had a very limited vocabulary: "I am Baytor!" He was such a hit with the players that I had him make cameos in the next two games I ran.
Slot Two: Gargoyles and Grails in the Dreaming City
In the years since the Sidhe inhabitants of Murias opened the gates of the great city to mortals, the city has grown in ways that they could never have imagined. Modern technology and ancient magics coexist in the Dreaming City and it has become a haven for all sorts of mythical creatures. Frozen in stone for decades by a powerful spell, the latest additions to the city have been seen soaring over the skies of Murias. They are winged gargoyles from a time when superstition and the sword ruled and if they don't adapt to the new world quickly, they will never be able to keep the oath they made centuries ago: to protect the grail. They will need allies who understand the city....
I went in to this slot feeling under the weather and it only got worse as it went along as the sinus headache that plagued me at the beginning became a headache so bad I could barely think at the end. Despite that, I seemed to have pulled off a successful game from speaking to the players, although I can't even remember it that well. I do remember that I felt I was having a problem giving players equal levels of camera-time and that the game ended with a confrontation between the PCs and the demon pretending to be Merlin and that poor Lancelot got killed in the process. I also remember that the players found it hilarious when they found out that the very creepy sorceror Sydarko had aquired the frozen in stone gargoyles in an estate sale. I remember working in Baytor as the proprietor of "Baytor's Magical Emporium." Oh yeah, and the characters found out that Wolfram and Hart has an office in Murias. Is anyone suprised? I also learned that I don't ever want to make Simone angry.
Slot Three: High School and other Horrors of the Dreaming City
Of the four great Tuatha de Danaan cities, only Murias remains. The great walls of Murias have kept the city safe time and again from the nightmares that destroyed the other cities and Murias has grown in to a great Metropolis with all of the comforts of the modern world. Now, something strange is happening to the students of Murias Public #3 and you've been asked to help the authorities discover what it is. The brave men and women who have fought unfathomable horrors to keep the city safe are about to face their biggest challenge yet: High School.
Luckilly, I managed to get a nap in between the slots and some painkillers in my system. It was also a much smaller group for the High School gang, which helped. I still don't remember it as well as I usually remember the games I run. There were missing and murdered kids and Tsuki of the Murias Police SWAT team was sent undercover to Murias Public #6 to investigate. (Tsuki looks high school age, so he wouldn't require the usual glamours used by undercover works, so he was loaned out to the "21 Elm Street" team. The two other players played Tristan, the son of a Nephilim (fallen angel) and Terra, a young witch with an affinity for plants. Unaware of the dangers lurking about them, Terra and her roommates decided to throw a party. Tristan had hints that something bad would happen at the party and attended to watch out for his classmates as well as possibly hook up with a girl he had a crush on. Well, he missed out on the girl he wanted but hooked up with Autumn, "The Demon Slayer." Tsuki also showed up bringing Chow Mein from his favorite chinese restaurant, General Li's. Several continuing NPCs showed up at the party, including a cameo by Baytor, who was trying to use his best pick up line on the women, "I am...Baytor." (In his best attempt at a sexy voice.)
OK some of the details at this point are fuzzy in my swiss-cheese memory, but by the end of the game, the PCs were fighting off hordes of demons, snatching back the souls of the dead kids from the ether and resurrecting them to return to life...and high school.
Slot Four: Strawberry Jam in the Hundred Acre Woods
cochese's Amber/Pooh game was the only game I knew going in that I had to be in. The last one I played in, The Courts of Tigger, was a blast. This one was no different. Cochese is extremely good at pulling off humor and fun voices in games and these games bring out a lot of fun antics from players. As far as I know this was the only game that inspired art to be created at the con as there was a drawing of Pooh-lander Pooh holding the head of Kirgan-Pooh with stuffing falling out of the neck, holding his wooden sword high. Kirgan-Pooh was the second most disturbing version of Pooh I've seen in a roleplaying game.
Slot Five: The 4400
This was kind of an experiment for me and judging from the amount of e-mails that my co-GM and I are getting asking if we'll continue the game next year, I guess it struck a spark. My co-GM, Amber seems interested in continuing with it. I'm not as sure. There's definately more that can be done as we just barely scratched the surface of exploring all the story possibilities we had given the backgrounds players gave us for their characters.
Slot Six: Morpheus Calling
Well this game has worked better for me in the past, I believe, but still manages to be a blast every time I run it. According to one player, it was very Sparklypoo, which I take as a great compliment. Three out of the five characters I recieved for this game were from sources I wasn't terribly familiar with, so I did my best to read up on the sources in prep for the game. It seemed to pay off as the player of Cally of Blake's Seven told me he thought it was very cool that I had Cally attacked by another telepath (which I did because I read online that she had a lot of problems with that during the series). The character whose source I was very familiar with was Ash from Evil Dead, so I had a lot of fun with his character. This was the silliest of the times I've run it as I was in a very silly mood after the very serious game of 4400.
Slot Seven: Spontaneous Roleplay Fun!
It was Spontaneous! It was Roleplaying! It was fun!!!
Wrap-up Party
The best part of the con was hanging out with really cool gamer folks and this was the last chance for me to do so. There was also Ambercon NW's own "Obie Awards," a silly award ceremony organized by Clan Lightfoot. That little demonic bugger who kept appearing in my games won me an Obie award for "Oustanding Performance by an Item, Creature or Shadow in a Supporting Role."
Overall: As much as I love ACUS, if I could only afford one or the other, ACNW would be my con year after year. The location rocks. The people are awesome and both times I have attended I played a whole weekend without a single dud game. Hell, I was half-dead for my Dreaming City games and they still fired off thanks to some really cool players. I'll be doing everything I can to attend next year. There are too many cool people that I usually only see there and I want to be there even if I have to stay in the hostel to do so.