Monsters at Dragonmeet 2008

[Evilgaz]

Twisted Oliver



Which slot do you want to run in: __ Morning
Number of players: _____________ 8 - (4 Kids, 4 Monsters)
System: ______________________ Monsters and Other Childish Things
Scenario name: ________________ Twisted Oliver
Referee: ______________________ Evilgaz

Description:
Rupert, Alice, Tom and Fay all live in the same house. A work house. Its not very nice, but then they've each got a best friend. They're special. It means the rest of the kids won't speak to them much, so they have to hang out together. But it's worth it. Mostly.

Whisper, Render, Splinters and Yarn Ball each have a best friend too. A kid they love and cherish. They might also like peeling someone's flesh back and sucking out the fat, but you know, that's just when they're bored or left on their own for too long.

Twisted Oliver is a game of Monsters and Other Childish Things set in Victorian era London for four snot-nosed orphan kids and their respective unspeakable horrors from non-Euclidean space. Or somewhere. Characters are pre-generated, so you can leave the crayons at home, but bring as many d10s as you've got and try not to get into Trouble. "Spare the rod, ruin the child" as Mr Bumble likes to say.

[Shane Ivey]

Excellent.

[ElaineM]

Also:

Number of players: _____________ 6
System: _____________________ Monsters and Other Childish Things: Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor
Scenario name: _______________ Truant Terrors
Referee: _____________________ Elaine

Description:
School's no fun for kids. All that work when there's so many other exciting things to be doing? It's especially not fun for Dotty, Karl, Howard, Josie, Edward and Pricilla. They're different. They're creepy. And they live in Candlewick Manor with all the other unloved kids. Ideal targets for being picked on.

So when a school trip is organised to go visit Candlewick Park and Zoo, and the creepy kids are already getting the taunts about how they should be the exhibits before they even leave school premises, it's time to bail. Candlewick is their oyster - but it's not just the Manor that holds Dreadful Secrets.

Truant Terrors is a Monsters and Other Childish Things game using the Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor supplement. Pre-generated characters - just bring as many d10s as you can wrap your tentacles around.

[ElaineM]

Fantastic time was had at Dragonmeet today.

Played in Evilgaz's Monsters game in the morning (which I'll leave him to tell all about!) and ran a Candlewick game myself in the afternoon. Things learnt from the afternoon game:

1. Fainting will get you out of school trips.
2. The locks on school tuck shop doors are useless.
3. If you're going to go exploring in coal cellars, the floorboards, which have held the weight of piles of coal for many years, will inevitably give way beneath your feet at the first creak.
4. Giving popping candy to giant worms then offering them fizzy drinks on top is a very bad idea.
5. But pouring it into a teacher's gas tank is a much better idea.
6. Talk of exploding cats and zombie cows have EVERY place in a Monsters game, even if you never encounter them. But it would definitely be fun if you did.
7. Possessed cars mock the the laws of physics.
8. They're also quite partial to a bit of moonshine.
9. Sand and saltwater play havoc with fur.

Also, you have to be quick if you want to get a copy of the game at a convention. One of my players was out of luck after my game - the book had already been sold after Evilgaz's morning session.

Shane, great to meet you - thanks to you, Ben and Robert for the thank you! Hope you enjoyed DM too

[Evilgaz]

I barely had time to get in the door and sprint round the trade hall for a once over before I had to pitch up downstairs and start running a game. Scary.

I'd relabelled as Mad Gaz apparently, because I was running a game for eight players. The session did feel a bit wobbly at times, like a shopping trolley with a mind of its own, but largely it was fun and a success I think - hey it sold out the entire stock of Monsters! (Yeah, yeah, Elaine, 1 copy, but its more than you sold... )

Splitting out the Monsters and Kids into seperate characters actually really worked. I still needed to give the players a bit more encouragement to have monster fights. A couple of the Monsters in particular were big sissys (is that a word?), but with some external proding from a dubious old gentleman and a sneaky snake we still managed a few rucks!

I simply can't remember or relate (for reasons of this being a family show) most of what happened, but it was a good laugh, as this photoprobably demonstrates...

The kids ended up leaving the workhouse to make a living off sailors down by the docks. So that's alright then.

Anyway, good fun all round. Thanks to the generous Mr Mansperger, who did me a couple of sketches of Monsters for the game, which were highly appreciated and got the appropriate interest from the new players. Kewl.

Things to remember:
8 is ambitious even for me and 6 should be a limit
Mosnters and Kids split actually makes for a good con game
Running games at cons, sells games
Kids can insult each other to damage monsters (kept forgetting to say in Monster fights)
Players need encouragment to beat each other up
Girls can be really, really wrong.

Looking forward to running some more at Conception in January!

And I've got some writing to be doing too...

Gaz

[Shane Ivey]

It was terrific meeting you two at Dragonmeet! I said "thanks" back at the con for running such excellent games, but it's worth saying again. Thank you!

Gaz, I was glad you got to join the Wild Talents game, even though we didn't have any time to just chat thanks to the game going longer than expected.

Six players is about all I can handle, too, even if you do split them up with half playing kids and half playing monsters. And getting the monster players to be suitably monstrous is an interesting challenge. In some games, the players just get it, and go nuts. In other games, the players are so used to the whole "We are player characters, we must all get along as a perfect team" mentality that it takes some prodding to convince them to make mischief. If you can find ways to make an active monster's Favorite Thing conflict directly with a passive monster's kid's Relationships, that's usually a step in the right direction.