Sydcon

My new hostel proved to be in a very convenient location. It was technically in an area of town known as Redfern, but the front door bordered on Prince Alfred Park, which borders on Central Station. By any measurement, it was very central.

I spent the next five days meandering about the city, shopping at Paddy's Market -- a sort of bazaar that sells many things -- and going on lengthy walking trips -- some as long as four hours a stretch. Weekly rail passes proved quite useful, and took most of the stress out of getting around. I spent time in a few libraries, reading books purchased from Galaxy. Occasionally I would surf the Internet, though I tried not to do that too often.

On Saturday, Sydcon began. This roleplaying-games convention proved a welcome respite from the realm of frat boys and cranky old Irish I had encountered while living in hostels. Here was a group of people who would understand my jokes, and who were generally nifty people. Plus they're natives, and know where to find the good cafes.

As it was a gaming convention, I played several games. I was cautious, and didn't sign up for too many of them. The convention planners had eight game slots: Three on Saturday and Sunday, and two on Monday, with a trivia contest Saturday night, a banquet Sunday night, and an afterparty Monday night. The way my schedule worked out, I always played games beginning on or after 1pm.

The first game I played in was a Star Wars game, entitled "Supertroopers 2: The Search for More Money". It was a silly game, as evidenced by the title. As an example, in order to explain a box of explosives, one of our players invented a new holiday called "World Day," and manged to get away with it. For this, the game master awarded him a "one of a kind" miniature, produced by "a friend who works in the special effects industry": A gelatinous cube. It was really well done, complete with a floaty sword and shield. And scaled to size, too.

The afternoon game was a Cage Match, which definitely could have been more fun, but is an interesting idea regardless. The basic concept is to roll up a level-twelve character and have them fight other players in a cage, to the death. Unfortunately, it seems that I'm not very good at creating those sorts of characters. In the end, I lost all five matches we played, sometimes on the first round. Not so much fun.

The next day began with my first ever freeform game. Invented in Sydney, they're sort of like Larps, in that it's live-action. However there is almost no system, just a sheet of paper with your goals, and interaction with lots of other characters. It's kind of like improv theater. The game was set in the year 2330, and was entitled "A Colder War". Basically, there was a standoff between the worlds' superpowers China, Brittan, Russia, the USA, Germany,and the Athuleans (offworlders). There was squabbling over a superweapon. My character happened to be a high-ranking salesguy for a defense contractor, trying to make a sale at every opportunity. I basically played Robert Preston. It was wonderful. And the Earth blew up, but that's okay, we were on a space station.

In any case, I decided to skip Day Two of the cage match, and instead opted to play in a game called Turf Wars. That could have gone better, but it could have gone worse. I played the Cowardly Rogue, who ended up hiding in a warehouse while our base was overrun. Bonus points for surviving, but penalty points for cowardice.

Monday was NSW Labour Day,so the con continued for a third day. The only game I played on Monday was "Djude, where's our wizard?", where I played Djude the Barbarian, as we tried to find our wizard. I really enjoyed the game, though Djude didn't do much more than look pretty and hit things a lot. Which, really, is what he's built for.

Other events I attended included the Trivia Challenge, where my team managed to get last place, the Banquet, which took place at a fancy pizza restaurant, and the After Party, which took place at a bar. I ended up meeting lots of people, and had a great time. It really enforced the idea that, as long as you have a good game master, the games can be really quite a lot of fun. I look forward to finding a good group wherever I end up.