Southern Exposure 2005, Part II

Picking up Saturday afternoon. My mood was much improved after the morning’s WGP game. I was keen to play in Scott’s Sorcerer scenario, as I had run Sorcerer for him two years ago. I believe he had a full four players signed up, so I hung out with Luke waiting to see if there would be an empty seat for me. There were four empty seats, so the game folded.

This was about twenty minutes after the start of the timeslot. Up until now, Luke had nobody for his scheduled run of “The Gift.” Suddenly, a number of stragglers from folded games (including me, Scott, and Continuum’s Chris Adam) descended en mass. We played The Gift with a full complement of eight.

I was the Dwarven chancellor-type character. The Dwarven prince had never played BW before. He and the player of the Elven prince were buddies and both very entertaining, acting-wise. The elven prince gave a performance like Alan Rickman as a foppish elven lordling. It was fun to watch … for the first hour. I guess because both of them were buddies, they only wanted to posture and circle and never bring anything to a head.

I probably should have driven things harder, but I didn’t want to steamroll the guy (my prince) in his first BW game. That’s a bad habit I need to work on. Particularly in BW, you *can’t* steamroll another player without opening yourself to the possibility of being steamrolled as well.

Anyway, The Gift went alright. I got in a Duel of Wits against Scott as the elven Loremaster. I won with 1 point left in my body of argument because I scripted a perfectly-timed Rebuttal, but allocated too many dice to attack and not enough to defense.

We hung out and ate some of my wife’s amazing pumpkin pie. Then, at 8pm it was time for Master.

I had 2 players who had never played MLwM, plus Kat, who’s bothed minioned for me and Mastered in her own right. We started late. We moved our table. There were some interruptions. The energy just wasn’t there. The two players (Jeff and Jillian. IIRC) had a bit of a flair for the absurd and silly. Always dangerous in a MLwM game. And I didn’t ward it off nearly enough. It was still a pretty good session, which is much more of a testament to Paul than to me. I think I might step away from MLwM for a little while. There’s a potential LJ entry in my head entitled “My Life with ‘My Life with Master.'”

Sunday brought two canceled games, and leisurely packing of the car, heading home, eating at a Turkish place for lunch (not really my thing), goin’ to the orchard, fevered retrieval of K. from her grandparents, and general resting.

All in all, the con was a good time and I’m glad I went. Andrew Morris got people for one of his Capes games, and Tony seemed happy minding the “booth” all day. Of course, i’ve yet to see Tony unhappy, so I may have misinterpreted. Nate P. didn’t make it due to car trouble.

Got to see some old acquaintances, like Scott Lesher, Don Concoran, & Joe Poli. Met some new folks, like Jeff whose-last-name-I-can’t-recall, Michael Hahn, and Luke’s buddy John (whose-last-name-I-also-cannot-recall).

After GenCon, I fully intended to miss all the fall conventions this year. I’m glad I made an exception for Southern Exposure.