NergalCon

For general discussions about WFRP
tadcan
Posts: 37
Joined: Mon Aug 05, 2019 11:56 am

Thanks for the kind words. The feedback has been positive and there was even two requests to run the event next year as well. There was some work to set up Discord, figuring the layout and how to structure the rooms online, to make the setup easy to understand. Having gone to many in person con's over the years I had presumed knowledge, but for a few people it was new to them. I'm glad that experienced GM's ran games and made the games run smoothly in the background. It made the process much smoother then I thought it might be. There was the usual connection issues with Roll20 and trying to GM with players/characters you can't see and keep track of everyone. Hopefully the world will have recovered enough so that Tobcon can also run next year.
Last edited by tadcan on Sun Sep 13, 2020 12:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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skerrigan
Posts: 132
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2019 5:31 pm
Location: UK
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I enjoyed this very much - the only issue we had is that Rangdo is a heretic who uses a Mac and worse, Safari. This non-conformist found Foundry VTT didn't work correctly for him. Didn't prove to be too much of an issue though. :D
Verdant Castellan of Bretonnia and Purveyor of the Perilous Realm Podcast
tadcan
Posts: 37
Joined: Mon Aug 05, 2019 11:56 am

Roll20 didn't load for a player using window explorer, so yeah there are plenty of heretics in the world! :D
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Toby Pilling
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed May 15, 2019 5:14 am

It's taken me a while to have the time to write up my experiences of Nergalcon, but here goes.

Communal Catastrophes by Dave - Fri 28th Aug (evening)

Having run an epic campaign in Bretonnia myself, it was great to explore Dave's creation, particularly as my own had hardly covered the politically volatile settlement where an experiment in people power was being tried. Our characters basically interacted with the environment with plot hooks thrown at us here and there and I found my wood elf mage quite interesting to play - I tried to make her a bit unworldly, not just a human with pointy ears. We didn't really reach a conclusion, though we ended the game after we'd completed one of the tasks that various NPCs were giving us. I found though that it didn't matter, as I was just enjoying exploring the place. One thing I did note was how combat really slowed the game down - making rolls online is much more time consuming. An interesting experience, though - great fun.

Trickster's Dice by Tad - Sat 29th Aug (afternoon)

We were set up in a kind of 'Sting' type operation, trying to outwit professional con-artists, in a scenario that, when it got going, was quite a blast. One of our group bided his time and murdered our patron (which was one of his objectives) to our collective shock and surprise, but then role-played his own shock really well, wandering around in a daze for most of the rest of the session. We had a satisfactory conclusion, but again I found that combat slowed things - in fact, any recourse to rolling dice does online. I wonder if, con games online may need to take this into account and minimise the rolling, in future. Having said that, I just hope we can get back to face-to-face gaming soon and that this does not become 'the new normal'. Anyway, it was a good, fun scenario once we got into our roles and mission.

Heretic! by Rob Rees - Sun 30th (evening)

Only Tad and I played in this unusual offering by Rob, which was one of his telltale narrative games. Luckily, the lack of players didn't matter too much and it was mostly a joint story-telling game, so Rob joined in too. Basically Rob and I were escorting a convicted witch to be burned in a holy cave and only found out if Tad (the convicted witch) was guilty right at the end - he determined his guilt secretly at the outset. We then role-played through a series of vignettes where our own doubts, duties and thoughts could surface. It
I do always love playing in Rob's games and this was another cracking one - suffice to say, Rob and I made the right call!

So there you have it. Many thanks to Tad for organising the event, the GMs for crafting their scenarios and the players for some great interaction. I would say "until next time!', but I kind of hope that we can bring back Tobcon next year, in which case there may not be another Nergalcon. This online gaming has been a real experience for me - a gaming lifeline amidst lockdown. The sooner we can all get round a table together though, the better!

'
tadcan
Posts: 37
Joined: Mon Aug 05, 2019 11:56 am

Dice rolls do slow down online games, my rule of thumb from a D+D campaign I was the GM for that was mixed between in person and online play is that online takes around a third longer because of Dice rolls, which is why adopting the 4 hour format of Tobcon helps compared to the more rushed 3 hour time slot that even in person means just fast forwarding through the game to finish on time. Only the gods of Chaos knows how I'll manage a three hour online slot for the upcoming Gaelcon online(presuming my game is accepted). With mostly new players, who I couldn't see, and for whom I know as a real name, online tag, the character name they have and their job, I just called everyone by there job, since that's how I thought of them during the writing process.

For Tricksters Dice I forgot to ask the players to describe their character, which led to some clarification for some players, and slowed things down at the start. esp since the characters weren't all being entirely open and honest. There was also some experiments with the making parts of the map dark which was didn't go that well and luckily another player was well versed in roll20 and was able to help solve some tech issues, that further slowed the game down. Overall the players went with the experience and unlike in the first two games when their nasty boss just got forgotten about during the game, the player got there revenge.

The Pyramids of Gold went well, helped by the large maps I'd made back in the day, which greatly speeded up the prep. With an investigation it can be hard to judge at what rate clues get given out, and in hindsight I probably should have given some out earlier, but it all came together in the end, with some refinements to the original story and the things they had to do to achieve victory more woven into the location, though it could do with some more tweaks. On the tech level I tried running it in Roll2o chat since seeing the player icon flash makes things a bit simpler, but we ended up having to go to discord since it started to act up.

On the topic of future events, one of the organisers suggested having another one in Jan, and since I'm presuming the one I normally wont be in person at the very least and maybe cancelled, I like the idea a con to look forward to in the middle of winter. So I'll be putting together some material soon.
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