RogerBW's Blog

I often heard about this RPG convention when it was running some years ago, but it stopped before I got round to attending. The organisers have started it again, so I went along to find out more.

It was an easy two hour drive to Birmingham, through fog until I reached Warwick, but a clear sunny day after that. The Station Hotel (station not available since 1964) is conveniently close to the zoo-cum-ruins of the castle. (With chair lift, though it wasn't in service.)

It's a pleasant old place, a welcome change from the usual modern soulless hotel. The main room was used for boardgames and some demonstrations, with three smaller rooms for role-playing.

I'd planned to run The Fractured Mind, but there were about twice as many open slots for players as there were people who wanted to play. (I'd guess about 70 to 80 people present, but only about 10-15 of them were role-players.)

So instead I played Imhotep, at which I did very badly but still found it enjoyable,

and then Human Punishment (won by everyone except me).

Bar food was, even by the standards of a small town in the Midlands, not entirely impressive. The nitrokeg Old Speckled Hen was not terrible, though.

After lunch I got into Mike Mason's Call of Cthulhu adventure, which served as proof that if you hand a bunch of PCs some items labelled "doomsday machine part A" and "doomsday machine part B", they will connect them together.

If you're going to blow a sanity roll, blow it in style.

And so back home. Good fun, and a chance to see a few friends I don't often meet.