Back from TBR and all is well.

The Con was good (I'm sure there'll be lots about it shortly as the others start drifting home) and the drive was uneventful if hectic.  What should be a 3 hour drive consistently takes 4 because it always bogs down around the Tapp and I-95 into New Haven on the way there, and then I-95 & I-91/New Haven all the way to the Jersey border on the way home.  And not always at the same time of day.  Next year I will need to find an alt route.  Or something.

Trading Spaces went pretty well for Deb and I in Slot one, though the end result is that we're going to take the current outline for the sequel and toss it because we went harrowing off into unplanned for places.  Amber has quotes and hopefully she'll be a dear and share them.  Amber took a lot of quotes and we were in a lot of games together, so I'm really counting on her to share because, since she did, I didn't.

Slot 2 was Paul's More Than You Think You Are Noblis lite game for which I dusted off Raven just because it was Flora and I felt like blowing things up.  Wow.  I couldn't have chosen better.  How do you make a bitter, angry sociopath happy?  You make her some sort of avatar of Guns and Rebellion.  Granted, she never agreed to the position (duh) but once she started to get the gist of it I had the unique experience of playing her happy.  She was wreaking havoc until they brought her back to Amber to join the pow-wow and read the fine print.  She decided that was all nothing to worry about and went singing Zippity-Do-Da through the castle halls and scaring Random on her way subjugate Flora (and then her day was really made).

M.Curry's experiment was next:  Mountain of the Sorcerer-King for which I was too early by being on time. Us darn morning people.  We kibitzed over the rules we had, handed out chips for Trust, quibbled over Items and Abilities and then learned our Fates.  These caused some consternation and I decided I had to find a way around mine.  What the hell do you do with 'Desperate Love' when you can't use a fellow PC and there are no minions?  I'd set my background up to play a mother (real stretch there) and realized I'd written the loop hole I could dive through right there.  Very cool and I didn't have to betray anyone.  That didn't stop me from eventually beheading Kevin's character, but that's a whole separate story.  Over all we enjoyed ourselves and found the system interesting.  It did get a bit awkward in places, but we figured out how to deal with the situations as they arose and continued on. Hopefully notes were taken on that and the playtest was helpful.

MONSTERS! was my Slot 4 game and since it followed tryslora's dinner, I waddled in all fat and happy.  I am always seriously impressed by what she can do in a hotel kitchen with limited supplies.  Kudos.  The game was equally good.  Meera was all organized with fancy handouts and everything and most of us had to hustle to get ourselves together, named and introduced.  Tabitha was reinvented as a 'crazy cat lady' and for-real FortuneTeller and while we were going through our setup and first moves I, at least, started to think one thing might be going on and quickly had to revise my assumptions.  I then spent most of the game thinking I might get eaten at any moment.  It was tremendously exciting and I got to stuff Amber's TavernKeeper into a rain barrel to "cleanse" her.  Once again, Amber has pages of quotes she simply must share.  Brian the DeanofUniversity's advice on how to keep a vampire in a prison cell is not to be missed. :-)

ACD rounded out our Con experience this morning.  I'd discovered in Sorcerer King that I had a brother I didn't know about and by the end he and Rhi were actually having a conversation.  At least, as much of a conversation as can be had with someone who sacrificed a great deal --including her verbal skills-- and has no idea who she is.  Poor Gabe was left trying to wrap his head around the fact that this was, in fact, Rhi.  Not sure what all the others were up (except for Cadmus) though the over dinner jousting provided quite a few quotes.  tryslora's gonna have an awful lot of threads after this and sometime this week I'll get the notes typed up.

Cheers! and I hope everyone had a good weekend.