Gaming Adventures

Gen Con Gaming Schedule!

Alright alright alright….

Misdirected Awesome Games has all of our gaming sessions online!

Here are our Into the Nexus games based off the Cortex Plus system. The world was destroyed through a gross misuse of magic. Our players will have to make their way through an alternate 80’s Earth that has been forever altered by magic, betrayal, and Aya

Into the Nexus: A Hybris Theory

https://www.gencon.com/events/84092

Into the Nexus: Very Huge Saga

https://www.gencon.com/events/84102

Making their debut with Misdirected Awesome games is Flashpoint. A thrilling science fiction space horror d20 game.

For the past century, the modern civilizations of the Milky Way Galaxy have been slowly losing solar system after after system to a mysterious, all-consuming, and seemingly invincible race of beings known only as the Nhilus. In desperation, many races have consolidated their strength to their home systems to brace for the inevitable.

Flashpoint Part 1 of 2: “Evacuate Earth”

https://www.gencon.com/events/84448

Flashpoint Part 2 of 2: “Jump to Wayward Station”

https://www.gencon.com/events/84453

Flashpoint: Infinite – Survival of the Fittest

https://www.gencon.com/events/91715

And of course our time honored classic Pathfinder Into the Nexus adventures Based off the books The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

Slave Ship Revolt

https://www.gencon.com/events/84081

Darkmore Beseiged (Already Sold Out but we will accept generics if we have no shows)

https://www.gencon.com/events/84082

Looking forward to a great Gen con this year and hope to see you all there!

June 7, 2016 0

Assets, Complications, and Triggers… oh my!

Gen Con games are accepted and will go live on Sunday.

Print book is progressing nicely and I will have intro copies ready for sale at the convention.

I have been working on signature assets and triggers for each of the Archetypes. I have quite a bit of the artwork done for each of them including the cover page.

Looking forward to doing both the new Cortex+ games and the Original Pathfinder version.

I have added new missions and puzzles to the Darkmore Besieged adventure so it should be an interesting time for returning players.

Looking forward to seeing new players and returning ones.

83 days left to go!

May 11, 2016 0

Unsocial Media and the Letting go of the familiar D20

Last Saturday I ran my first Into the Nexus game using the Cortex+ system. It was kind of nerve wracking. I have been working on this game for so long in the familiar D20 system that I was worried it wouldn’t go well or that my players wouldn’t be able to enjoy themselves as much. My fears were unfounded. It was a great night of gaming. I made some notes and will have to make some adjustments but I think this system will really work for the game. We had craziness abound and the the complication/opportunity mechanic adds some real depth and unpredictability to the story without it being as random and unruly as the D20 mechanics could be. Being able to add a D8 complication of Warrant for Arrest to each players dice pool is much cleaner than just having tons more encounters and fights that just take up the gameplay.

I think my favorite part of the Cortex+ conversion has been the Talents. No longer bound to tons of unnecessary math that feats and skills of D20 can yield, I was able to add some really fun and entertaining Talents for each of the Archetypes and some good generic ones that anyone can use. I was able to crank out 10 pages of Talents in about 3 hours and my players really enjoyed using them in game play.

One issue, and I hesitate to use the word “downside” , but it is kind of sad for me is that the dice pool mechanic does not lend itself to larger groups. I need to set a cap on players and I’m not used to having to do that. It will take some getting used to but I feel I will get a more robust game experience if I don’t have more that 6 players. This will cause me to make some adjustments for the Con but I have some great GM’s that help me so I don’t think it will cause too many problems.

I ran a very small test mission after character creation and it went longer than expected but I fell that was due to too many players and some people still figuring out how to use the dice pool mechanic. I will adjust accordingly for the next session and see if the flow improves.

Lastly.

Monica Valentinelli, author of the Firefly RPG, wrote in her blog about taking the month of September off of social media (Facebook and Twitter) to focus on her creative works. I have been letting that idea rattle around in my head the last few days and I feel it is a really good idea. I am not a huge Twitter user but I do sometimes get lost in the mindlessness of Facebook. I feel my time would be better spent doing…almost anything. Facebook has devolved into a bunch of angry whining and protestations (without actually doing anything about it). I am guilty of it myself and have been finding myself more and more angry about something someone posted. Angry to the point of it ruining my day because of the shear stupidity of it.

I don’t need that in my life. I am a curmudgeon to begin with. I don’t that particular fire fueled. So, For the month of September I will not access Twitter at all and my Facebook will only be used for my game page and game related posts. I have unfollowed all of my friends and groups so my newsfeed is blank. I was going to deactivate the account to just have my wife change my password and not give it to me until a friend of mine reminded me that we only talk on Facebook Messenger. So I will keep the account active for that purpose and Nexus related material. My friends have my phone number, they know how to find me. I don’t need to spend my days yelling at gun nuts and people who take that toupee’d Presidential candidate seriously. My hope is that this will let me focus my time and needs on more creative pursuits.

My game needs to be finished…and that Commodore 64 won’t be modding itself.

Ta for now.

August 31, 2015 0

Gen Con 2015 – Debriefing

Back from Gen Con and fully decompressed. This year was an odd year for my Nexus games. It was the first year I ran with the Death Gate stuff removed and using all my own creations. It felt odd to not say “Based on the works of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman”. Better or worse, these were all my own doing.

Night 1

Slave Ship

This year we had fire. Last year no fire magickas. No fire meant no real action for almost 3 hours. This year, 8th person to act set the control ropes on fire.

No one tried to put them out.

No one.

Turn 4 they broke, sending the ship on an uncontrolled course that caused 19 people to reflex every single turn. It just got worse from there. Long story short (too late) After woken Ancients, Exploding water casks, All the barrel roles, Flipped ships, resurrected magickas, a slave who had a panic attack every time they saw ice, and they saw it a lot, about 50% of the crew survived. It was a great event of fun and chaos.

Night Two.

Darkmore

Here I would normally give a synopsis of the all the craziness but I can’t. We split into two groups and mine was the tame one. Too many Pathfinder purists who didn’t get the system. Not their fault at all just not what they expected so they didn’t know how to change what they knew. The final battle while fun was mired with complaining and further statements of just not getting it. Now this is on me, my game is about chaos and balance and the fight between the two. This seemingly random environment causes havoc with game players who need a constant number to hit and a constant way to get there. My best friend hates my system because his magic doesn’t work all the time and he thinks it should.

While good gaming sessions make me feel good and I’m always happy when they go well, a “not as good” session teaches me so much more. I’ve come to realize that my strength is as a storyteller. A spinner of yarns as it were. So while a d20 system can cater to the story, it isn’t the main focus of d20. The interactions are. How many +1’s and skill bonuses can I add to my roll. While this is good for hack, slash, and burn game play. I think Nexus is not about that.

So…. I have begun researching alternate systems. I was doing game demos for Margaret Weis this weekend as well and while showing people the Cortex+ system in Firefly I was able to see how it could be used with my magic system (Let’s be honest, it is the reason that most people play). I know Cortex Plus pretty well and think it might be my best option. I also played my first Fate based game this weekend and I enjoyed it, though it doesn’t cater to my magic like Cortex+ can. Cam Banks is making a game which is a combination of the two and is open source and I would love to see how I might be able to use that.

Exciting developments in the game I started in 1993 as a way to play Death Gate in 2nd edition D&D.

Stay Tuned

August 5, 2015 0

The Heralds. Bringers of Balance

The Herald’s, being a secret and closed organization (All things that yield positive results), refuse to discuss their origins. Legend has it, however, that they were founded by a group of human monks who worshiped the Magicka’s ability to Bring Forth the Possibilities. They believed that these Magicka were deities who could bring Balance to the world.

All that changed after Perfection.

The remnants of those monks banded together with their faith reformed and redefined. They knew what brought True Balance

Death. (Queue dramatic eyebrows)

We were all Balanced, all equal, in death. Only males are allowed to enter the order, as women bring life and therefore upset the Balance.

Over the years, the Heralds have changed from the worshipers of the
True Balance

to the bringers of it.

July 22, 2015 0

Bring on the Carpel Tunnel.

Downside of making your own game.

No character generator.

I have 50 players at Gencon this year. 50 character sheets that must be filled out by hand. I love doing it but there will be hand cramps by the end of the day.

July 17, 2015 0

Gencon 2015 games are active.

This year will be two games

Slave ship Revolt

and Darkmore Besieged

The first is a tried and true game that pits players again themselves and NPC’s. Players will all be level 1 with very limited resources and will have to escape the ship before it reaches port or forever be enslaved or….uh… dead, or encased in a huge wooden ball. (Dealers choice really)

The second will be a massive undertaking.

10 hours long! 3 DM’s running mini missions with me running the DM’s. You then all join back up for a huge castle onslaught. There will be Espionage, Artifact seeking, soldier slaughtering, Loyalty turning, Jailbreaking and Dragon stealing. All before you actually start the siege! Did I mention your final foe is a shoot fireballs first ask questions second kind of person?

This year will have a special treat. All players will receive an official character profile from the upcoming book and artwork print with their ticket purchase.

If you have any questions about the games you can message me on Facebook or here

Thanks

Hope to see you there

May 11, 2015 0

Dragon ships

Model for the Slave Ship Revolt.

Used a version of at last years GenCon but it wasn’t complete.

Looking forward to using it with my players this year.

April 24, 2015 0

Musings of a Gen Con Gaming Man.

#GenCon 2014 has come and gone. The best four days in gaming flew by me way too fast. I had a lot of fun and learned some things about my game Into the Nexus that had not come up yet.

First the Nexus games. Thursday’s game was the Slave Ship Revolt. We started of rough due to the fact that Gen con put our twenty person group in the middle of the gaming hall. I was going to have to scream everything and that would be fun for no one. I had help this year from four friends who worked with Gen con people to get me into a better room. After we picked up everything and moved we were able to get the game going. This years revolt…ers? were the slowest I’ve had to actually start the escape. They are also the fastest to crash the ship. The last two years I have added plot twists to the players playing the crew so that they don’t get too bored playing the same old characters. One of the crew members this year was smuggling a person (River Tam Style) and in his infinite wisdom he decided to wake her up to help him. She did, by enthralling him. She was able to help get the ship landed but by then the captain had died (killed by a ronin who sacrificed himself) and her thrall had died. She and one of the remaining crew landed the ship and she went to wake more of her race. The remaining crew/slaves escaped to a rebel facility where they were all told they were now rebels, like it or not.

Stats:

6 Hours. 19 Players. 15 slaves. 4 crew. – 3 casualties. 1 Escape on a magical broom.

Friday night went a different direction. We started with 15 players and broke them into three groups. Each group was given six missions that they were allowed to pick three to complete. Each mission had a pro and a con for the final event. If they failed a mission or skipped it, the con happened. The three they chose were, Reveal the Spy, Release/ Capture the Dragon, and Spring the Baron. Now 10 of these players came from the same gaming group. They were efficient, direct, and got the job done. They tackled each of their missions in a professional manner and they got results. They had killed/incapacitated 8 guards, released 3 dragons, and saved the Baron. My group (The Spy) did well, but they didn’t know each other. They argued and they went in different directions. I was able to corral them in but it took longer and I had to fudge the game in order for them to even come close to finishing their mission. After four hours all of the side missions were complete and we were going to begin. I let them have thirty minutes to plan their attack while my team set up the defenses. This group made a mockery of my team. My baroness was incapacitated in minutes. Her adviser was relegated to protection duties while they just kept coming at them. Even the dragon disciple with his dragon buddies only was able to do anything after most of the fighting had been done. The reason being that 15 players all working perfectly together are a hurricane force in one turn. After initiative was over they had done tons of damage and after another round they had the game pretty much in their control. After the third round it was all over. The Baroness had been killed (Highlander style) and the remaining Big Bads were captured or converted.

Stats:

9 hours. 20 players. 16 rebels, 4 bad guys (20 or so troops), 1 casualty, and 2 people who were made into dragon’s familiars.

So now we get to the part of our story where our hero learns a valuable lesson. What did I learn from all of this?

I need to have a tempering agent on my magic system. Something other than “Rolling a 1 will kill you” I had only one 1 rolled all night. It was pretty tame.

I need to work on a better story line. Two reasons for this. One, good players tear apart your plot holes and they tear them apart fast. Two, players get bored waiting. One of my game runners said I should work on making my games more exciting because they were boring as hell. Now while I think he was just giving me a hard time I did notice a good deal of waiting and bored looks as people weren’t getting a chance to roll dice and kick ass. There needs to be more to do for everyone than just wait to swing. As I work on it this year I will try and fix these elements and make the game play more engaging. I do know that without my four friends helping me run both games, they would have been a huge hot mess. I am thankful they devoted so much time and effort into helping me.

Side note.

This year I was also given the chance to run #Firefly and run demos in the booth for MWP (Margaret Weis Productions). It was a great experience as I met the staff was able to learn more about the Cortex Plus gaming system which I have been wanting to learn to play better. It was also a chance for me to talk Into the Nexus with the people at MWP. I am happy to report they are still interested in the game but just need to allocate resources to it. I will keep working on it until such a time as they decide that I am an awesome resource to have working on it or I have to publish it myself. Either way, I’ll keep working on it and making new adventures and missions for next year.

The Dragon Familiar is certainly going to be a new prestige class.

August 19, 2014 0

Misdirected Awesome Games.

Rolling a 1 isn't failure. It's Misdirected Awesome.

Category