I had a great time at DEXLITE 2023, the first in-person Double Exposure convention since February 2020. It was so good to see old friends and meet some new ones. Thanks to Avie, Vinny, and the whole Double Exposure team for taking the chance on this convention and making it happen. And thanks to our amazing SPARKS team for keeping on-site games blazing. Kat, Jeff, Bobbi, Anja, and Brendan: you’re the best!
My convention started on Thursday with prep, packing, shopping, driving, more shopping, lugging, orienting myself to the renovated hotel, and just general setup. I’m glad that some people threw together SPARKS events on Thursday, but I was too exhausted to take part.
Friday
Friday morning, I ran a session of Pasión de las Pasiones set in the Star Trek universe game “Love: The Final Frontier” for Angela, Richard, Andrew, Susi, and McDowell. Many of them turned my expectations upside down by playing against type. The La Empleada playbook was a put-upon Klingon! The La Doña was a scheming Betazoid ambassador! The El Caballero was an upstanding Starfleet officer, but his twin (El Gemelo) had been kicked out of the Mirror Universe for being too nice. Of course, “too nice” for the Mirror Universe was pretty wild and reckless in the Prime Universe, so of course the Klingon Empleada had fallen for both of them! Most of the session took place at a masked gala on the studio backlot’s Palace of Versailles set, with shadowed assignations and a Klingon/Starfleet dance off!
Friday afternoon, I got to do something I haven’t done in probably 15 years: play InSpectres as a player! I run the game a lot but this may have only been my third time as a player. It was a lot of fun to hunt down the secret at the center of an Old West town appearing in the modern day with Bobbi and Bob. My character was a die-hard skeptic, ready to debunk every appearance of the supernatural, driven by the fact that his sister wasn’t kidnapped by aliens, his mother didn’t go missing in the Bermuda Triangle, his father hadn’t been lost on Loch Ness, and so on. Along with Bobbi’s mediocre medium and Bob’s trouble-magnet, we cleared out weird happenings for a faceless corporation. After the Old West mission, Dave was able to join us! His character was my character’s 18-year-old son, Brahm “Dropkick Murphy” Tisdale, bristling at being an intern at his dad’s job. We dealt with a Yeti infestation in Wisconsin and laughed a whole lot.
Plus, after the game, I got to play some Frisbee with Dave, which is always a joy!
Friday evening, I was able to secure a place in The King is Dead with Meguey, Joshua, and Dave. Although I was familiar with the Firebrands structure, I hadn’t gotten to play The King is Dead. We wove a tense tale of inter-house turmoil over the succession to the throne and brinksmanship that never quite tipped over into all-out warfare. Dave’s accomplished yet shy foriegn prince from House Luneste stole time with Joshua’s cunning princess of House Antyre. As the scion of House Oake, my character’s marriage to Meg’s princess of House Sandoreale made her the High Queen and me the prince consort. My brain refused to settle into sleep afterward, which is unpleasant to go through but always the sign of a good game!
Saturday
Saturday morning, I ran Pasión de las Pasiones, “Love: The Final Frontier” again. A full table of six players, Danielle, Lisa, Kirk, Erin, Cassie, and Brian brought so much energy and fun to the table. They leaned heavily into classic Star Trek tropes: the driven, honor-bound Klingon, the overwhelmed Betazoid, the swaggering Starfleet captain, the half-Vulcan balanced between logic and emotion, the scheming Romulan … and her secret doppelganger! Thrown into an absurd contest, and then cast into a swinging ’60s nightclub and told to “win the party,” the group really cut loose with heartfelt confessions and passionate kisses. Star Trek and Pasión de las Pasiones: Two great tastes that taste great together!
Saturday afternoon, Jeff and Bobbi were generous enough to playtest Topia Outpost Prime, my in-development PbtA game inspired by ’90s TV sci-fi. They made the station’s counselor and chief medical officer who learned that strange alien technology was creating strange behavior among the crew. Tracking down the technology, they brought it to the alien Custodian for safekeeping. The game mechanics for making the Custodian seem otherworldly got a bit of a workout and will be the better for it. Thanks to Jeff and Bobbi for the feedback.
By Saturday night of a con, particularly one that’s all-masked in the summer heat, everyone is a little tired and punchy. Making sense of things in a game is a challenge. It’s a good spot to run a game where making sense doesn’t matter as much, so I often run InSpectres. I had a full table of fun people: Adam, Jeanette, John, Richard, Will, and Susi had a lot of fun making their ragtag band of characters running an InSpectres franchise out of a Halloween costume shop in the off-season. They hunted down the ghost of George Washington … or was it Thomas Jefferson … or maybe FDR … or a deceased actor best known for appearing in commercials for a local car dealership’s President’s Day sales. Then, they were hired by a vampire to clean out a bunch of ghosts possessing the patrons of the college bar he owned. Whoever drank the spirits was possessed by spirits, turning their blood bitter. I love to end a convention on a game full of laughter!