Well my personal mini-review of Scotscon would be - a great time had by all (as far as I could see). This despite Graeme losing his two Gloratha freeforms when his laptop crashed on the Friday morning!
Lots of helpful gophers (made up by Graeme's "Watt Gamers" HeroQuest party) made everyone welcome and got bribed with lots of free drinks during the icebreaker treasure hunt. And given the Gloranth Grouse sub title of the Con I'm surprised more people didn't do as Nick did and turn up with a liter of the "Famous" kind (Famous Grouse being a top-selling Scotch whisky for those in foreign climes).
Saturday - freeform day for me. Playing Sandy Petersen in Sandy Petersen's own game was suitably surreal for me. And as Sandy suggested when he gave me the character pask, I did get "nearly" everyone hating me - just that god damn Tsathagoa in the end. How can such an evil elder god be such a nice bloke!! Much, much fun had - even including tweaking the nose of Hastur the Unspeakable because I thought he was still a cute and cuddly cartoon pussy cat. (Don't ask, just play the game if you get the chance)
Later that evening I played in "Carry on Up Camp David" as a last minute stand in as the Chief of Staff at the White House and then proceeded to have a very public nervous breakdown brought on mainly by the owner of our FLGS, who also happened to be the President of the United States. Again can't give away too much of the plot but an absolutelty superb, "it runs itself" freeform. Hopefully we will talk Donald into bringing this back to Edinburgh for Conpulsion next year. (Donald, Liam annd I are on the case!)
Then (of course) more beer, whisky and getting to bed before Nick fell asleep in the lounge.
Sunday - Trollball. Very small scale (only five players per team I believe) and its hard work leading the cheers for both teams. Thank you to whoever suggested "The refereee's a zombie" which saw me get Booted more often than any of the actual players!!.
That afternoon, played in John's superb "Beak no Evil" (goddam, stinkin Lunar baboons!) where at the denouement, in a fit of HeroQuest power gaming I managed to augment myself with every trait on the page (with the exception of "Detested by Nick Bwooke"), stand in front of the cackling baddy and say "Stand and delliber". And in true, durulz fashion, fumble!!!! Great scenario John - I bought it at the auction and now have to figure out what to do with it!! (Although sitting reading it with tears running down my face was the first thing).
Have to say it was a bit off putting trying to do a tabletop game with Nick rutting with four other blokes in the back ground!
A successful-ish auction for the con I believe. I know I spent too much but there was no way I was going to let a first edition Griffin Mountain go for twenty quid. It's a sin. Should have put my hand down a bit sooner when the price went up though!
The Grouse (Graeme's baby) was enlightening. My favourite was "the Hero Wars rulebook is a Mythos Text" (please write this up somewhere!!) but more power to Tim for stoking up audience reaction with "D20 Glorantha is a good thing". Which I had wanted to do, so stupidly suggested to Graeme and Claire that I would do "Gloranatha fans are too bloody precious about Glorantha!" (Same thing really but I did also get to ask "so what's everyone's beef with the four worlds model, it's only a game!")
Storytelling, my first time at this and pitched in with a couple myself (one of which I tried to make Gloranthan). My favourite was Guy's "Why the wolf is grey", which he was obviously making up as he went along. (Then again he did tell us that). Although Liam's "The story of the boy who would become the man called Gordon" at the unofficial story telling later probably got the biggest reaction of the con.
Monday - missed breakfast and had a stinking hangover and took folks into my native Edinburgh (hope to see more of you here at some point) and went to see "indigineous pagan artifacts" at the Museum of Scotland before seeing them off in respective taxis, trains etc.
All in all a very good thing this con. Graeme seems to have a gleam in his eye which seems to imply that 2005 is already pencilled in in his mental filofax. That and he seems to have some mistaken opnion that I can contribute soemthing to a con fundraiser scenario book. (If anyone is in Edinburgh next Wednesday by the way - we'll be in the Holyrood Tavern at 7.30!)
And, nearly forgot, the western Mythis maps are sooooo purty!!!
So a big thank you to Grame, Claire and everyone else for supplying such an entertaining weekend. Hope to see you all again soon.
mike
8-)
xxx
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