Giant BTS game at Nuke-Con this weekend!

[mrloucifer]

For those of you who are in the Omaha, Nebraska area (or could be) this weekend, I will be running a giant Beyond the Supernatural game at the Nuke-Con gaming convention in honor of it's 25th anniversary. I will also be attending as a returning special guest writer.

My game will be played out in three chapters; one chapter will be be played Friday and Saturday evening with the 3rd chapter taking place on Sunday afternoon. Each chapter will have an impact on the following chapters which means I'll be adding notes and changes after each chapter. This way even if you didn't attend a previous chapter, you'll be informed on the events that have led up to the current adventure.

I reserved one of the meeting rooms in the middle of the convention area so I can run my games in the dark. Small light sources will be provided and music and sound effects will accompany the games. I also have at least 20 pregens to choose from. My games are also part of the Extra Life charity event going on that weekend.

I've not run a giant adventure like this before, but I'm excited to try.

[gaby]

Hope you give info about your game here.

[Glistam]

Sounds awesome! Good luck!

[zyanitevp]

Sounds awesome! Good luck!

Seconded! Let us know how it goes!

[mrloucifer]

I hope to get a full progress report on how it all went down on the main page (as well as the Facebook page) for the House of BTS soon. I'll try to make it point to add a note here about it.

[auyl]

Looking forward to the detailed report. From the things I've seen from you before, I'm sure it was a good time!

[mrloucifer]

Sorry about not sending this sooner. It got lost somewhere in my to-do list...

This post is way overdue I know, but when the cat’s away all the restless spirits, monsters, spooks, and various horrors will play. It takes time rounding them all back up and locking them away again. Your Host has returned from a weekend of being a special guest at the Nuke-Con gaming convention in Omaha, Nebraska. I can say without a doubt that it was one of the best convention experiences I’ve ever had. Period!
Some of the highlights of my weekend:
-All three chapters of “The Call of the Wild Hunt” went very well - For those of you who don’t know what I’m referring to, it was the Nuke-Con’s 25th anniversary this year, as well as my returning as a special guest and all of my games were “Extra Life” charity events. So I decided to go all out this year by designing one giant BTS adventure to be played throughout the weekend (one chapter each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday).
I knew early on that this would be a big undertaking, and a LOT could go wrong with such an undertaking. So I planned and planned and wrote and wrote a LOT of details to cover all the main points of what might happen during this grand adventure. Multiple endings, multiple locations, multiple NPC’s, modular events to put dangers, encounters and obstacles in and pull out as needed and more were all added to my adventure.
As expected, the players still had ideas and directions I hadn’t remotely considered, but I planned to be flexible to make the back story and information work with whatever direction they went with. But in the end it all made sense and the group picked up on the clues and cues consistently and got the full story. Oddly enough, they got more of the story than others have in my individual four hour con adventures. I think this might be due to the fact that I could let the story move at a slower pace and all the extra details helped them see the big picture better.
This is even more interesting when you consider that not everyone played every chapter. I had a few players who attended all three chapters while the rest made 2 out of 3. One player made the first and last chapter while others made chapters 2 and 3. But even so, everyone was able to keep up and interact with each other as the story went. I made good notes and introductions and recaps of each chapter to help get the important notes out to everyone, but there’s no guarantee that players will find significance in the notes as they weren’t part of the previous chapter.
In the end it all worked out well and we all had a grand time together. If writing such large adventures wasn’t such a time consuming task (time’s something I don’t have a lot of these days), I’d probably write giant adventures yearly. As it stands now, unless I get a glutton of free time and inspiration, I can’t say when I’ll design such a grand adventure next.
One final note: to me personally, the most rewarding moments of the adventure was everyone at the table clapping at the end of each chapter.

“In the Dark” goes to the next level – For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been running my BTS adventures in a board room over the last 4-5 years at the Nuke-Con and each year I’ve been working on what I call the “In the Dark” series. In short, I turn down the air to make it a bit chilly, I turn out the lights, the group uses various lighting equipment and I use sound effects and music throughout the game. Over the years I’ve added LED candles for players to use, an LED Brooklyn Lantern has been added to the center of the table (inspired by the “INSIDIOUS” movies), mini flashlights and mini-Led tripods and so on.
The whole idea is to capture a more horror like vibe while we play BTS, particularly during dark scenes (abandoned missile silos, underground caverns, condemned buildings, and cemeteries in the middle of the night for example). Up until this point I’ve only had one “In the Dark” event annually on Saturday as it’s a lot of set up and tear down work that’s become more and more of a chore each year.
But this year I worked it out the con staff where I got a key to the meeting room so I could lock it up when I wasn’t there, meaning that I could set it all up Friday and leave it there and come back to play later. This allowed me to do an entire weekend of “In the Dark” events. Since that was the case I decided to try adding better sounds and a TV monitor to bring up pictures and illustrations from my laptop as needed where in the past I’ve handed out printed sheets. This would work nicely as the players wouldn’t have to get so into looking and reading with their light sources and could simply look at the screen.
But as with anything, the more technical and the more elements you add, the more that can go wrong… and they did. While testing Friday morning at home everything went smooth, but the speakers crapped out Friday night, meaning I had no sound and music whatsoever. But the monitor worked out great. Saturday afternoon my wife brought in another set of speakers to use for Saturday’s and Sunday’s game and they worked out really well. But then the monitor decided to give me grief and wouldn’t work with me the rest of the weekend. I can’t say for sure if it was the HDMI cord, the monitor or the laptop that wasn’t cooperating as they’ve all functioned fine at home since then.
But despite the technical difficulties, the next level of my “In the Dark” aspect of the game still had moments. One of the new players really enjoyed the “In the Dark” experience on Friday night so much that he graciously went out the next morning and purchased some new colored lightbulbs and some glow sticks to experiment with the following night! After some experimentation I found that a black light bulb spotlighting from one direction with a green light coming from the other side made for a surreal and dark experience while still adding enough light to make it easier to read the character sheets. The meshing of two lights also made a cool blue-green to almost purplish hue in the center area of the table to contrast the colors on the ends. Next year I plan to get pictures of the table after its set up for playing.
Speaking of next year…

I’ve already made plans for next year’s Nuke-Con: After talking to several of the players who’ve attended my con games in the past (and a variety of the attendees while I was at my guest table) , I’ve already got ideas for next year’s Nuke-Con…
-There’s enough interest at this point that I plan to hold an “In the Dark” panel discussion to show interested folks what I do and how I do it while using the rest of the time to brain storm for ideas to make it a better experience for everyone. I plan to do this in the same board room my BTS games take place in so I can show everyone in real time what I do and how I plan for it.
-While I love the TV when it worked, carrying it around was a clumsy and heavy experience and by next year I hope to have a small portable projector that I can plug into the laptop to aim whatever art or images I need at the wall behind me as needed.
-I intentionally keep the board room colder than normal to help keep the players awake as it gets hot in there (especially with a full table) and for the literal chills it can induce. But due to popular request I’ll raise it a few degrees and see how it goes next year.
-Like I said earlier I’m not sure that I’ll ever do a three chapter adventure again as that baby ate up a LOT of my time designing it. However, one of my players (John) had a suggestion of maybe doing a longer adventure on Saturday. This could mean meeting at the table around 1:00 and playing until 5:00 or so, break for dinner and return at 7:00 to finish it out. I think that’s doable.
Speaking of next year’s games…
I’ve already got plans for next year’s games in the works: For Friday evening I’m considering running either a newly designed four-hour BTS adventure or due to popular request I may actually run an introductory RIFTS game. It’s been well over a decade since I’ve run a RIFTS convention game, and one of my personal favorites was called “Moving Day”. This adventure involves the group being hired to help relocate the last of a small town of D-Bee’s due to the Coalition States moving into the area. It was a good way to introduce the various character types and giving each of them moments in the spotlight.
-Sunday will feature the return of “Amber Alert” due to its popularity and being such an ideal Beyond the Supernatural introductory adventure. By then I should have a few more modules added to tailor the experience around the players like I’ve been doing.

-As mentioned earlier my plans for Saturday at this time include designing a longer adventure to be played from early afternoon into night. I’ve even got the first spark of an idea for this adventure (working title is “Miles to Go”) after talking to one of the convention staff. I’ve commissioned a unique prop from said staffer for the adventure, and I’ve even written a teaser intro for it. I’ll end this post with the teaser to entice those who’d like to make the game next year...

“Robert Frost once wrote that ‘The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.’
“My name is John Weeks. That name probably means nothing to you. You would most likely know me by the name of ‘Jason Greene’, my pen name. I’m a writer.”
“In all honestly I’m a hack horror writer who got lucky with a few books and surfed through a few more on my popularity. Then I disappeared about five years ago. Most of you probably assumed that I realized what a hack I was and stopped writing to become a recluse somewhere.”
“In reality I’m trapped in nightmare world; a world where my unfinished stories and raw ideas have taken shape and reality. I don’t know how I got here, but I know it started with a novelty pen I bought. I had no idea of its power when I acquired it, but when I did I tried to destroy it. The pen fought back somehow and sent me here.”
“Now I’m lost in this place of nightmares that defy logic and explanation. A world where my sanity is waging a constant war with its inhabitants of my own making, and I’m starting to lose. Even worse, the nightmarish things have begun finding cracks in the foundation of this nightmare world and are squirming their way to earth. Thoughts and ideas once only in my head are now living, breathing horrors wandering free on earth. Eventually the cracks will crumble into holes and they’ll all escape, leaving me behind and trapped here forever.”
“But I’ve got a plan to stop them. I’ve got this one chance to plug the leak of nightmares before the dam bursts. To deal with them I’m doing what I know best; I’m writing a story. But to make this story work I can’t write it alone. It will take an unsuspecting cast to finish what I’ve started. They will need to go on an adventure in my place. They will have miles to go before they sleep, and they will need to encounter all the obstacles, events and dangers of the story. I can send hints and ideas to help guide them, but they will have to manage the adventure themselves, and hopefully end it the right way.”
“If we do this right, our collaboration will plug the leak of nightmares in this dark place of my imaginations come to life. If not, no one back home will be safe when the dam bursts. Not if… when.”

[zyanitevp]

Steven- Glad it went well, sorry about the technical difficulties.
Hope that you can get someone to film it next year!