Little Wars 2018

Yesterday the Team and I went along to Little Wars, a regular Melbourne wargaming convention held annually.  We 'hosted' Nunawading 2020 - a cyberpunk inspired reason to smash together Bladerunner-esque terrain, create some teams that fit in a cyber/anime setting and play a few games*.

*Oh, and maybe make a sneaky flea market purchase or two 😉

The day was pretty low pressure and just good fun.  We set the table up and it was definitely my mate Ross's neon billboard that stole the show - it had everybody talking and thinking about how to take the concept even further in the future.  The table looked great and had lots of nooks, crannys and levels for varied gameplay.  We played a few games with casuals, chatted about this-and-that amongst ourselves, struck up 'shop' conversations with everyone else and did a bit of trash-and-treasure, flea market-style shopping - there were lots of bargains to be found!

Much of the scatter terrain was built by Ross - matchbox-type cars and whatnot.
It looked a treat.  And what about that glowing billboard - it scrolled through
junky messages throughout the day.

On the day we ended up primarily using quite vanilla Pulp Alley rules.  I can appreciate their appeal, especially when focusing on a hero-driven, objective-based narrative.  The manner in which the challenge/fate cards work coupled with the leader's resilience and dice matching... I found I was less than certain how to interpret the rules and felt my game-play suffered for it. If there's an opportunity to play some more Pulpy Pulp Alley in the future, I'll definitely give it a shot.

Those elevated walkways were made by Brendan - they were a great bit of
precision engineering (inclusive of stairs and all) and with the poster +
graffiti, they made a huge difference to the table.

What we didn't have was any real hacking elements - our cyber-ness was the more augmentation-side of things this time around.  I read some hacking rules (Cyber Alley, which is a fan made expansion) and they looked interesting, but for a casual, drop-in game, they weren't going to work for us, so we left them be.

So where to from here?  Lesson's learned?

On the day I did improv a game using Rogue Planet's basic rules (Skill Checks, Energy Points, Actions + Counteractions and consistent stat-lines.  And no measured moves) and the players 'got it' quite quickly and enjoyed themselves.  I've taught a few players now so I think there's something to it and may continue to draft some more Rogue Hacker or Cyber Planet rules on the side.  I've got some ideas about how hacking/programming could be included that are a bit different...

In the background are my Network 21 Enforcers +
a single Xerox Negotiation Suit eyeing up a drone whilst in
the foreground Ross's Shadowrunners close in.

When it comes to con games, some 'rules' that seem to make sense (now that I've been to what... 4 or 5 ever? = expert):

• Have the game playing.  People playing creates interest.  Interest = more players.
• Minimal between Turn wait-time.   3+ minutes between actively doing something feels like a lifetime.  Players wanna play.
• Rulebooks bad.  Cheatsheet good.  Ideally, most of the rules can be applied on the fly without even looking at books etc.
• Fun = fewer chits and markers.  Having to track things basically sux.  If you lose track of the turn sequence, well that really can suck.