I'm heading to Ropecon, Finland's biggest annual RPG event for the weekend. It'll be my first time, and I'm curious to see what it's like, and I'll be sure to share my thoughts once I get back.

What sort of gaming events do you have in your neck of the woods? Big or small, they're all relevant. You never know what ideas you can borrow from people across the world!

So, I'm back from the trip to Ropecon, sore, tired, and happy.

First of all, it was hot. Not only was the weather very warm for this part of the world (I hear Ropecon never fails at bringing in a heatwave), but the event also reaffirmed the idea that geek is sexy!

Gawking aside, I spent most of the weekend playing roleplaying games. I did attend two seminars to kill time, and lef both of them halfway through to my next gaming session. I'd grade the talks "ok", but the again, I'm bit of an academic snob.

On Friday I got to play a very cyberpunkish session set on the hive world of Necromunda in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. To my relief the WH40k element was rather marginal; I was afraid of getting into a game with a fanatic with a very stiff view of the setting. This, however, was pretty much straight-up cyberpunk, only with a touch of techno-mysticism. The gaming system was fascinating: a homebrew cooked up by five guys and allowed to simmer for years of playtesting. The system was a solid simulationist affair with similarities to D20 or Cyberpunk 2020 (in the basic dice mechanic, ie. die roll+abliity score+skill to go over a threshold) and RoleMaster (damage was rolled on a chart, not given a numerical value). As anyone who knows RoleMaster even by reputation can guess, the system was fairly heavy, but to my surprise not very cumbersome. In other words, it could encompass a lot of detail in any given action, but also managed to resolve it quickly and without slowing down the game. I found the game very refreshing, and it was good to see that not everyone is going for überlight story-oriented games, and dare to design a system meant to act, not as law of drama, but as laws of physics - impartial and uncaring.

On Saturday I signed up for another homebrew game, this time fantasy, but it never happened because the GM had slept in. To make up for that I organized a game of Shock: Social Science Fiction, a system I've expounded on here. This session led some interplanetary slave traders and their victims to divide humanity into two species: regular and Ewok-cancered. No surprise the former moved to exterminate the latter...

After Shock I played an amazon valkyrie space babe in a session of Space Rat. This RPG has a very simple, ridiculaous premise: the player characters are various sorts of ludicrously sexualized, variously stereotypical women vying for the attention of Jack Cosmos, the hottest and most heroic humanoid rat in Space Ranger history. The concept is so outrageous that it actually works! Also, although it did nothing to improve the pacing of the game, the fact that our GM seemed to be slightly baked added a Felix the Cat sort of vibe to the session. I'm already planning to run a Space Rat (or possibly Space Pussy, or Space Hermaphrodite) session at a local event.

Unfortunately I missed a chance to play in an Apocalypse World session GMed by Vincent D. Baker, the game's designer. I've played AW's fantasy descendant, Dungeon World, and I'm looking to run a Mass Effect campaign based on the AW system; I'd like to play the vanilla version first, just to get a feel for the raw mechanics, and this would have been a wonderful opportunity to play as intended. Should've checked the sign-up sheets before I left on Friday... *grumblegrumble*

Oh well, live and learn.

On Sunday I got to join a hilarious session of HeroQuest (the RPG, not the boardgame) run by Jeff Richard, one of the authors of The Guide to Glorantha. We played a band of wuxia ninja pirates bent on raising hell in the Eastern Isles. He used the massive Guide as a something of a random encounter generator. Long story short, we kidnapped the high priestess-princess of the bird people, sailed to pyramid island, stole The Phoenix Egg and used it to found a heretical cult among the birdfolk. Hilarity all round!

Afterwards I must admit I had the feeling that I'd played in only four games. I might be spoiled rotten by our local event, Maracon, held once in each of the four seasons. Maracons are all about games - little to no other stuff is bothered with. During a Maracon, which lasts as long as a Ropecon, I usually play six or seven sessions of RPGs. The main difference is, of course, that here I don't have to bother with public transportation or long-distance travel, just hop on my bicycle and get there in minutes. Given the same luxuries in Espoo, I'd probably score just as many games.

Oh, by the way, I picked up three Finnish indie games from the sellers' booths, as well as a book on occultism. We'll see what I'll make of them once I've recovered from my journey into that geek wonderland...

Oh....here are your tales of gaming

I was in Ropecon as well and it was my second time. It was great experience once again and I totally agree MuadMouse's comment about how geek is hot. Cosplays are one of my favourite things in conventions. The costumes some of those people had made were truly amazing. While I have no skills for such things I immensely enjoy seeing what other people have made. Nex time I really must dress up some how. Other thing I love about big conventions like Ropecon, is that I get to meet friends around the country, people I wouldn't otherwise see. Like this time I met two of my best friends from high school and some other people from my old home town. Of course the program itself is worth going to a con. I must say that though there was some really interesting seminars there weren't as many interesting ones as last year. I heard two very good ones about intelligence agencys, spies and agents. Now, among other things, I know that a spy and an agent are two different things. The spy works for the agency and the agent is a civilian persuaded by the spy to reveal some important information. Intersting, isn't it? Maybe the most interesting seminar I listened was about larp in Palestine. It really opened my eyes about how you can use larp as a tool to fight against prejudices and increase peoples awereness about diffrent kind of things. The most touching example was that they had brought larp for children (5-12 y.o.) in a refugee camp in Jordan, if I remember correctly. It must have been an amazing experience for those children. Also this year it was my holy plan that I would attend to some rpgs. Unfortunately I failed at that. I signed up for one but then it turned out that it was already full, I just hadn't noticed how many players the gm wanted. And the next day... Well, I worked at the con ( to get in for free) and I had 8h nightsift at lodgins making sure that everyone behaved. As a result I was so tired the next day that I didn't even consider attending anything. I am one of those people who really can't function if they're tired, especially if the action need brainwork... Maybe next year.. All in all, I had really good time and I hope I can attend next year as well. Now I just need some sleep... 13h for one weekend isn't quite enough...

Updated 29 July 2013 (14:59)