www.gamingtavern.eu

[Guvnor]

Hi! We love to hear your feedback on Furnace, please post it here!
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neither god nor master

[Jane]

A surprising drop-off in the number of players for Saturday evening. Two games left with no players as a result. I know Elaine asked who was leaving after Sunday lunch - it might be worth also asking who's skipping Saturday night, next time.

But the first two sessions - wheeee! (bounce, bounce, bounce). No, I know that wasn't very coherent, but you get the idea.

[Dom]

Kudos to Mr Gow for a surreal, scary and awesome game of "The Irish Rover RPG"! Loving it!
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"We live in a nuclear powered universe. We're the oddballs by getting energy from burning carbon."
James Lovelock

[Baz King]

My con was really good actually, right up until I woke up Sunday morning with no voice at all. I've had a cold brewing for a while, but thought I could see it off with Guinness and painkillers. I was wrong.

Absolutely gutted to miss out on Hot War this morning, and as I write I can't see me being able to run my 4e game this afternoon. Bugger.

Still, yesterday's games went really well. 3:16 shows merit (although the Armoury room was very dark and quite cold). My 4e evening game went really well. I was (pleasantly) surprised to see 5 out of 6 players at the game were D&D veterans. Usually my games turn into a demo for newbies, but this time we were off and running. It was nice to get some good feedback on the game too, so thanks to all those who gave it a go.

From an organisation and venue point of view, I have no complaints at all. The 'run one, play one' system worked for me, and I didn't see anyone struggling to get a game.

I'm still hannging around on the Sunday, just for the vibes really. Well that and the fact that real life starts again tomorrow, and I want to put that off for as long as possible.

Cheers to all. And thanks.
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Role + play+ game
http://smartparty.wordpress.com/
http://rpgtreehouse.wordpress.com/

[dpmcalister]

[Mick Red]

Posted mine here http://www.ukroleplayers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=127&t=6527

[Dom]

Today was strange. Just ran Savage Worlds for nearly 4 hours with no combats?!!!!!!!
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"We live in a nuclear powered universe. We're the oddballs by getting energy from burning carbon."
James Lovelock

[NeilFord]

Had a game like that a week or so ago. All investigation.

Did the players enjoy themselves though?

- Neil.
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Dragonmeet Games Co-ordinator
www.dragonmeet.co.uk

[dr_mitch]

In no particular order...

(+) Catching up with people I haven't seen as frequently as I'd like- in some cases since last Furnace.

(+) Good games. I might comment in more detail later on, but one mention for now...I'm really pleased to say that I still absolutely love FATE/Spirit of the Century, and in the hands of the right GM it absolutely sings.

(+) I think I've got the hang now of running Con games. I was on a huge high after running both of mine.

(+) I appear to be rather prominent in the ConBook. I'd be lying if I said I had no feelings of vanity on that issue.

(+) The raffle was an absolutely cracking idea. No I'm not just saying that because I won something.

(+) Getting the missus involved.

(-) The Garrison is *not* disabled friendly- something I should have realised from previous visits, but maybe should be pointed out for newbies. But the lift being out of order (obviously no fault of the organisers) was a complete pisser for Marjory.

(-) Third year running I failed to get to play Cthulhu Rising (obviously meant mainly in jest- there were other great games on offer!) Maybe next time.

(+) The short video interviews are going to be fun.

(+) Wordplay is now in print!

(-) Now feel absolutely shattered and it's a big day at work tomorrow. I don't want to think about it yet.

That's all for now.
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Paul Mitchener

Maths Sensei

Author: Blood of the Gods (Wild Talents in Ancient Greece), Drowned Lands (in Adventures in Wordplay), Dragon City (in the OpenQuester).

[Dom]

[Kultist]

[ElaineM]

It was my fourth Furnace, and the first time I've been involved in the organisation, something that has probably given me several more grey hairs, but a hell of a lot of enjoyment.

PRE-FURNACE

I want to express my thanks to everyone who ran a game and filled the timetable slots so quickly. Even though we had some games drop due to real life circumstances, there were always people willing to step in with other games, for which I'm hugely grateful. Extra special thanks goes to the people who ran 3 (or more!) games - you are crazy, but also full of win

Thursday was a madcap mental whirlwind of printing signup sheets, table signs, surreptitiously swiping pens and sellotape from the office, and sorting out raffle prizes. Friday morning was sorting out the house before the guests arrived and putting everything in one place so I wouldn't forget it!

Mick, Toad and Pete turned up around 2ish on Friday afternoon, enthusing about passing by Centertainment (as Pete has previously noted, the Premier Entertainment Hotspot North of London), their faces long with disappointment as they realised we wouldn't be going there. Instead, I took them into town to Caffe Nova for drinks and cakes, where Mick shamelessly asked the waitress for her phone number. We headed off to the Garrison and got there for about 5pm, Pete checked in, and we made a beeline for the bar. Others turned up over the course of the night, drinks were quaffed, food was eaten, an impromptu but rousing game of Baron Munchausen was played ("To the Queen!"), and indeed, there was much carousing.

Saturday, the con officially kicked off, and Mick, Toad and I were in McDonalds for 8.30am, and in the Garrison not long after that. The lads rallied round to help us set up, and name badges, raffle tickets and con books were laid out as people starting coming in. Graham gave his usual welcoming speech, and I got the signup sheets up on the boards as promised 15 mins before the slot. I admit I squeed a little with glee as people started signing up.

GAMES

I was in Gaz's Savage Worlds Pirates game first thing, playing Old Pete in the company of the motley crew of the Prudence. Old Captain Tightpurse Harvey was off to see the Voudoun Priestess, which led us into a merry dance of fighting, swearing, arguing, and much killing of innocent men and creatures. Old Pete nearly died, but even given Gaz's love of TPKs, none of us actually did kick the bucket. Amazing! We slightly over-ran, which gave me just enough time to dash across the road to get something to eat, then the second lot of sign-up sheets were going up.

The Saturday afternoon slot had me running The Hoffman Conspiracy using White Wolf's Orpheus, a game I'd playtested a month ago. There were a fair few tweaks following the playtest. Sue threw me several curveballs - the plot was heavy on pharmaceutical misdeeds, and unbeknownst to me, Sue works in the same field. Cue questions about patents and drug registering - a bit frazzled by the end of it. Went decently well, though.

Saturday evening was Pete's Dogs in the Vineyard. I've wanted to play this game (and in one of Pete's games) for a while after hearing good things, so was looking forward to it. And wow, this game was intense. It was dark and cold and full on with the cleansing fires of the lord and the breaking of heretics on the rack and the torturing. Like a lot of indie games, it took me a while to get into the narrative element of it, but the introduction scenes at the start of the game help a lot in that respect. Mechanics wise, I'm still not sure if I totally get it, but from a purely roleplaying POV it was an awesome game.

Sunday morning, Monsters and Other Childish Things was up. I do love running this game (and seem to be getting a rep as a Monsters GM!), and the players didn't disappoint with their pictorial mongen. They came up with Mr Stix, Mistress Scylla, Otto, Mr Hand and Creeping Jesus. Summer camp was disrupted by Mr Monroe and his monster, Poo-thulhu (the Poo is for poodle, not anything scatological!), and the kids and monsters dispatched him with visceral glee.

Sunday afternoon things were rounded off with Scott's game, The Broken Bridge. I love me some Dead of Night, and like in a previous DoN game Scott ran at Conception, we were playing kids. There's not much more fun than getting into kid banter (hm, maybe that's why I like Monsters so much?), and when evil fairy tales got thrown into the mix we had a blast. A great game to finish up with.

OTHER STUFF / PROS + CONS

The Sunday afternoon raffle was a success. We made the mistake of putting raffle tickets into the name badge holders, not the most secure of places, but lost tickets were replaced and I hope no one missed out at a chance of winning as a result of that. Thanks to those people who donated some raffle prizes.

Chips and sandwiches were a bit problematic on Sunday afternoon. I know some people didn't get any the first time round. I hope the additional food brought up meant everyone ate - apologies if you didn't. We'll be making feedback to the Garrison as usual.

After acting as Games Tsar, I now know how Newt must have felt when he was putting up the signup sheets - it really was like being in the middle of a scrum! I had to slap a few wrists when people were so eager they tried to sign up by scribbling over my shoulder before I'd even finished taping up the sheets. Still, 4 years in, we haven't had any fatalities, black eyes or temper tantrums, and I don't think there was ever a slot where someone didn't get a game (despite my pre-con concerns!), so that's good.

We never really sorted out the quotage board. It was forgotten about initially, then I didn't really put it in the most prominent place. Would people have used it? I open the question to the floor.

I was exhausted by the end of it, and didn't stay long after the last game. As usual, I really enjoyed myself, though. I look forward to hearing more feedback!
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Furnace Games Tsar

[Tim Gray]

Had a great and friendly time as always. Good to catch up with the usual suspects and put more faces to names.

Arrived Friday evening and was mostly concerned with food and disowning the Munchausenketeers. Managed to get some chatting in.

Sat morning jumped into Darran's Heroquest game of orphans in the ruins of Pavis. We all did a reasonable job of finding our inner children for bespectacled middle-aged geeks.

Burned Sat afternoon to finish preparing for my Jaws of the Six Serpents game in the evening, but it paid off - the whole thing went pretty well, with some good moments. I particularly remember Scott attacking his pirate archenemy with his burning trousers, toppling them both into the water to try to drown him, then Toad spending a Fortune point to say that the pirate couldn't swim! Not to discriminate against the others, with feats of strength and gung-ho necromancy - thanks to you all. I also have some pointers for tweaking it if I run it again.

Sun morning I was in Pete's Mouse Guard game. MG, of course, has been winning piles of awards recently, and I was also keen to see a version of the Burning Wheel system that might be digestible. It proved to be an interesting blend of trad basics and a big indie layer about how you interact with the game and each other, set up to generate dramatic moments. Particularly memorable were Neil's character development for the young recruit, and the bit where our patrol leader turned to the dark side, but we don't talk about that. We ran out of time to have another round of stuff happening, and we all wanted more. Points to Pete for Excellent Melodramatic Prowling Technique.

In the final slot I joined Paul's Wild Talents game of ancient Greek superheroes. Not that I'm normally interested in that sort of thing. I was a bard type with entrancing singing and a bit of a temper. We faced epic challenges to secure Golden Fleece II for Athens - hooray! Many good moments, but surely the best feature was having three Grays in the game!

I also managed to collar a few people to get feedback on the working draft of my Albion rpg, so that was really useful. Might post further about that elsewhere as it progresses.

It all seemed to break up quicker than the last two years, so I was soon on a train back to the jungles and waterfalls of Nottingham. (Possibly slightly tired and delusional.)

Many thanks to the organisers for all their hard work. (You're going to have to do it again, you know!)

[Maglore]

Excellent - sadly we were only there for the Saturday but it was a great day. Thank you to Tom and all the people who organised and ran the games, in particular:

Thanks to Toad for his Inspectres game - I will be buying the PDF soon.

Thanks to Mr Gow for the fan boys wet dream of Sharpe and Hornblower at the same time. We had a great table of players which helped no end.

Thanks to Baz for a great game of 4th Ed I play a lot and our group always seems to struggle against the rules when it comes to role playing.

Can't wait for next year - will make sure we are available for the whole weekend.

[mattprowse]

As a first-time visitor to Furnace (and having not conned for many, many years) I had a really great time, and would like to express thanks to all the people involved in making it possible.

Especially to my GM's - Pete for Musketeer Spirit of the Century, Glyn for The Hound chasing Call of Cthulhu, Andrew for Memories and Madness of Byronic Elves and finally Pete again for Flash Gordon SotC in the fabled Armory (which was snug and warm despite the terror stories I'd been told).

Thanks as well to all the players. Musketeers we did the King proud! Cthulhu investigators I'd like to have engaged with you more, Elves I shall think of you all next time I'm shived or shiv someone else and finally Flash, Barin and Vultan - Death to Ming!

My only real negative is on the scrum for sign-ups - there must be a better way? (But I understand it's going to be difficult) Maybe pre tape the forms onto a bit of flip-chart paper before entering the scrum and get a couple of people to put them up at the same time? Make it fun by getting the room to do a 10 to 0 countdown? But thank you for running the gauntlet that you did.

My only gentle request for some of my fellow players - Clean up after yourselves =-)

Matt