Go Play NW

I'm back from GO PLAY NW. Nick and I had a shit-ton of fun! I'm very, very glad I went. Let me give you the break down:

Sat Morning: Matt Gagen picked usup at 8am. Matt lives close to our mom's house, so Nick and I had decided to stay there on Friday night.  I was a little nervous about the car ride because I don't know Matt that well and I'm not good at holding conversations over long periods. But Matt turned out to be just as friendly and interesting as he always is, and we talked about games, game theory and comics all the way to Seattle. We arrived just as the morning session of gaming was ending, and after quickly signing up to play perfect in the afternoon slot, spent the luch hour checking into our dorm room, where I promptly nearly fell out the window.

Shameful thing #1, meeting McDonald: As we were checking in we ran into Christian and this other dude who turned out to be Joe McDonald. Joe said something like "Hi, we met at gencon last year, remember" to which I said "no". Teaching has taught me not to feel bad about not being able to ever remember anyone. If I can't remember 20 students after 2 terms of classes then I can't be expected to remember anyone ever. Anyway, Joe says "I see you signed up to play Perfect", to which I say "yes, are you playing it too?" To which he says something like "well it is my game". To which I'm sure he mentally added "you idiot".  So that was embarrassing.

Perfect: A half hour later I was sitting in front of Joe with Nick, Lucas and Lesley actually playing Perfect. Perfect was one of two games I actually came to play, and Joe really knocked it out of the park, prompting me to beg him to allow me to buy one of the beat up, dog eared demo copies he had with him. We each created a character and explored their obsessions over 2 scenes. This was really, really fantastic stuff, and each of us made a real effort to play it to the hilt. Nick incited riots and refused to back down from the Inspectors that stood against him. Lucas risked his life to recover a painting created by his own mother, killing an Inspector in the process. Lesley used art to subvert and corrupt citizens, only to be betrayed to the Inspectors by one of her own students. My own scenes involved homo eroticism, hiding in closets, passionate kissing, betrayal, the climbing of a balcony during a lightening storm and me standing up and shouting "you are a filthy, fitthy boy" in front of about 30 other gamers. These scenes were intimate and frustrating, and Joe did a fantastic job of facilitating them. Matt Gagen ended up playing Perfect the next day and really enjoyed it as well. I suspect one of us will be organizing a game very soon.

Dinner: Someone recommended Italian, so about 11 of us (including the entire Portland crew)  took off to eat. After walking several blocks we realized that none of us knew where the restaurant was. It turned out it was over a toy shop, and we ended up buying a bunch of crap while we waited for the Italian place to actualy open. I bought a box of those little things that explode when you throw them at people and a playmobile diver in a Jules Verne style diving suit (which I gave to Marah when we got back to town). 

Kin: This guy named Kirk was sitting next to me at dinner, and eventually I worked it out that he was the person who was working on Kin. That didn't help me much, because I didn't know much about the game beyond it's family drama premise. But Kirk seemed cool so I accepted his invitation to try his game during the evening session. We had a big group, and unfortuantley this  was the one game I played in where I forgot to write down everyones names. Kin is a game that allows you to play out family relationships and drama. Players start the game by forging emotional connections with other players. During scenes players give out black playing cards when they say or do something hurtful, and red playing cards when they act nice. We decided that we would play the 1950's Greek pantheon, living in souther California. I played Walter, the lecherous, aging Zeus figure who had just returned from a decade of  squandering the family fortune on cheap booze and hookers in Thailand. Kingston took the  role of Helen, Walter's wife and the true head of the family. Kingston managed to dominate every scene that helen was in, so I tried to do my best to keep up, and I think we ended up hogging the game a bit. Nick and Kirk played the rival sons, one a bastard loved by his father, the other a hard working over-achiever dispised by the whole family. We also had a teenage son dating a girl from the Mayan pantheon, a proto-goth daughter modeled after Nix, a creepy yet trusted uncle and another uncle who was secretly (well, not so secretly) in love whith Helen. Unfortunatly, there were enough of us that some of the characters just didn't have a chance to shine for more then a scene (but every single one of them did shine). The game came to a fantastic conclusion with Helen returning home after having gone missing from the hospital, finally confronting Walter and revealing to him that she had changed every woman he had ever loved into an animal. Great stuff!

Jungle Speed: And then I played some Jungle Speed. And actually won a game!

Cheap: I was dead tired at this point, but Nick and I had promised Joe we would play Cheap with him. I didn't know what Cheap was, and I wanted to go to slep, but Joe ended up talking me into it. Here's the thing... I don't think I'm allowed to tell you about cheap. I certainly can't tell you the rules. I don't really think anyone but Joe could actually run it. It's as much performance art as roleplaying. It is amazing. Here's what I can tell you. It was me, Nick, John Kim and Ryan Macklin. There was a loaded cap gun, a top hat, beads, a cane (Ryan's), 3 couches and a table. There was a weeping cowboy, a lobstrosity and a readhead with fake tits. I was a cheetah. John was stuck in a glass elevator. Ryan headbutted people for not being metal enough. Nick stole the top hat. At one point John tricked Joe into giving up the game. At one point I made Joe give me his pants. After the fact, I'mm not sure how much of this happened as part of the game, and how much of it just happened. I had nightmares about the experience all night long.

Shameful thing #2, the popper things: Half way through cheep I had a chance to kill the narrator. It didn't work, and I half way expect that the only way to actually do it is to kill Joe himself. But at the time I had a really great idea. I had bought those little explosive popper things at the toy store. You remember that? From the beginning of the story? I thought I could throw them at Joe, and it would scare him and then maybe he would let me go to sleep. I can't remember if I had his pants at this point or not. So I snuck into my bag as John was trying  to stitch up the cowboys gums and palmed two of the little explosive things. When my turn came I narrated a bit about how I could create explosive decompressions (which made sense at the time), then threw the  things at Joe. And they bounced off without exploding.

Later: I slept, and had nightmares.

The next day: We missed breakfast and got to the hall just in time to run Sea Dracula. I had borrowed Jackson's pocket knife the night before to cut out the cards, and nick had bought a rubber girrafe, so we were ready to play. It was the two of us, Mike Sugarbaker, Ryan Macklin and Joe Mcdonald. I was pretty nervous about this because i like all three of these guys, and the only real purpose of Sea Dracula is to humiliate people. I made sure I cleared off enough floor space for the dancing, and I went around to the other groups in the room and warned them that we might be a little noisy (we ended up chasing the Dogs in the Vinyard group out of the room). We had borrowed a set of color pencils from Kirk, so we started off with everyone coloring up  character. next came the Investigation phase, with each player describing how their animal lawyer planted clues and manufactered witnesses. So far so good. It was finally time for the court scene, and Ryan started off by jumping up on the table and throwing his hat across the room while giving his opening statement. Ryan then called Joe to the stand. Before he could testify Joe had to read the Sea Dracula oath. He got about two words into it before he busted up laughing. It took him awhile to actually choke out the lines. I can't remember Ryan's examination of the witness, or Joe's testimony. What I do remember is that somebody raised an objection, and Ryan was forced to dance. I can't remember what dance he did, but it involved him leaping over a table and running across the room, eventually slamming into a wall. I thought that was pretty cool, so I joined him for a second round, rewarding him with an extra lawyer point. The court scene continued, with each of us performing a differnt dance. Mike did a really brave pole dance, Joe removed his pants a second time for his lap dance, I did my best with both the Robot and break dancing, Ryan Tangoed and Nick did the cha cha.
There was also a boss fight and a party. The jury voted in an unpredictable manner, and I believe Ryan ended up winning the game. Total injuries sustained included 1 rug burn, 1 bruised chest, o1 stubbed toe, 1strained back (possibly two), 1 cut finger and one twisted shoulder. Valuable feedback was offered after the game. Thanks everyone!

Lunch: Lunch gave me gas.

Panty Explosion: The other game I came to play was Panty Explosion. Yes, I know I can play PE whenever I want (which is not actually true), but I specifically wanted to play with Wilhelm. I met Wilhelm at Gamestorm earlier this year where he bought a copy of PE and played in a game of Classroom Deatmatch. That game ended up being psychoticlly over the top, and I knew Wilhelm had wanted a more low key game. Kirk joined us for a small, intimate game of PE, where we played a group of girls who had met and become friends over summer vacation in a small sea side town. I'll post a full report later, but this was a wonderfully satisfying game, full of relationship building, freindship and low key horror. We kept the supernatural to a minimum and instead explored our characters friendship through the agendas we chose; "wanting to forge a friendship that would last beyond the summer" (Kirk), "wanting to assert herself and become a stronger, more assured person" (me) and "wanting to resolve the ongonig fighting between her parents" (Wilhelm). We ended up with a small, intemant game that was very, very pleasing. Thanks for playing, guys. I hope you had as much fun as I did.

The escape: We decided that we needed to leave early. The four of us (we gave Jackson a ride to Olympia) piled into Matt's car  and headed south. On the way jackson revealed that he had a spare copy of Prince Valiant, which I promptly bought from him before Matt could. We got lost, missed Olympia altogether, bought enormous iced chai teas (while I flirted with  the shop girl who didn't flinch at all when I gave her my Panty Explosion card)and ended up back tracking a bit. Nick fell asleep on the way back.


All in all, good trip. Thanks for driving, Matt!