February 19, 2008: OrcCon Report

It's the last day of OrcCon. Fun is being had. I ran three games:

Tribes. A playtest with four copies of the prototype - therefore, four tribes. The big thing we wanted to test was whether the environment is too rough. It is. We will make it less harsh. Before the first decade was over, two tribes were starving. They fell upon the only halfway successful one, killing half its members and driving the others into hiding. The attackers then impressed me by NOT betraying each other and fighting to the bloody end. One tribe kept the new hunting grounds; the others went home. And the survivors of the victims managed not to die out completely, so at the end of play there were three living tribes. One of the attackers grabbed a child during the raid. Everyone assumed it would be lunch. In fact, the attackers raised the child as their own, and its mother, though dead, was a table winner because her genes were passed on.

Munchkin Quest. I ran one game, and MIBs ran others, using the beautiful prototype stuff created last week by huge efforts from what seemed like half our Austin staff. It's lots of fun; people liked it. It is still probably a bit too slow. We found places to tweak the rules for clarity.

Evil Stevie's SPACE Pirate Game. This was the first time out for this Lego extravaganza. Many lessons were learned including "Sticking 1,700 dots on carpet is a very bad way to create a giant hex map," "You can ship a whole game's worth of Lego in one suitcase if you don't try to pack pre-built ships," and "If the Patrol ships make nonaggression pacts with any nearby pirates rather than fighting, they should not be offended when the merchants join the pirates for their own protection."

My huge thanks go out to the friendly and hospitable convention staff and to the many MIBs that were here helping me with my games and running lots of others!