After a trouble free journey, (with many thanks to Susan for driving) and a swift half in the Cricketers Pub, I settled down for my first game of the weekend.
Cy-Borg : Johnny Bubonic
I think I prefer the various spin off Borg-like games to the original, especially Pirate Borg and Cy-Borg as they combine simple rules with a lot of setting specific flavour in the form of different character archetypes and random tables. In this scenario, our rag tag crew of heavily indebted hackers, nanomancers and corp killers were tasked with extracting an upstart punk star called Johnny Bubonic from the middle of a gig because reasons. They were paying us, so we didn’t ask too many questions. Unusually for this sort of setup, we actually spent a considerable amount of time scoping the venue and planning the heist, and it all went fine until a fumble meant that the flashbangs went off in the middle of the crowd with hilarious consequences. We recovered the situation with some judicious sniping, a knife fight with some irate kitchen staff and a pre-stolen getaway van on standby. Thanks to Sue Savage for running!
I wasn’t gaming on Friday night, so there was the usual delight of seeing much loved familiar faces at the Pug before a stealth curry organised by Orlanth Rex taking some of the admin hassle away from Matt. Yum. I was stuffed and called it a night after that.
MERP : Far Harad Ahoy!
Saturday’s game was a session of the famously convoluted Middle Earth Role Playing game, expertly GM’d by all round lovely guy Dave Patterson. The rules involve a D100 roll, adding in an offensive bonus, looking up the result on a table cross referencing weapon and armour type, then (more often than not) rolling on another table for a fumble or critical with a variety of entertaining outcomes - simple! We each had a couple of the tables to check results on and got into the swing of things quite quickly, making short work of the baddies. A particularly satisfying series of rolls saw my camel kicking a sand dragon in the face before a hobbit finished the job by shooting an arrow through both its ears. Sorry Dave!
AD&D : Temple of the Sea Demon
I’d not played AD&D for well over forty years but fortunately GM Mitch Hyde reminded us of the rules in all of their Gygaxian splendor. We planned a series of raids into the titular temple with military precision, fighting cultists and demons and escaping with enough treasure to pay for my unfortunately deceased halfling thief to be resurrected. Great old school nostalgic fun, including miniatures and Games Workshop dungeon floor plans!
Saturday night saw me and Susan enjoying our now traditional large G&T and noodles at Wagamamas and comparing war stories of our games so far, before I headed up to the White Horse for more beer and conversation with lovely people. I fear that we are all getting old though, and my voice was very croaky by the end of the night.
Tales of The Old West : The Devil Sent Me to Laredo
The final game of the weekend was one of my favourites of recent years, with Andy Horton presenting us with a classic spaghetti western style setup of a town where life seemed just too good, a mysterious Spanish mission, and an armoured train with a villainous governor and his white hatted goons. Much heroic gunplay and some lucky escapes for my disillusioned preacher turned gunslinger, and a great showdown at the end.
Roll on next year!
