Hey, why is nobody talking about NBP here? We had a great event which included such things as the best Unknown Armies game ever played, a Roach game where a player LARPed dancing with a corpse, and the world debut of Goons v. Bear the Courtroom Drama. It was a weekend of good games, good food, good booze, and good company.

I played four games: I played in Sons of Liberty Saturday morning, then MythEnder Saturday afternoon, and then 1001 Nights on Saturday night. I played a game of Monster Island for Milo (my son, age 8) and Clarissa (age 6) on Sunday morning.

Logistically, it went very well, with the exception that there was no sign out, so I didn't find people when I arrived late on on Friday night, and instead camped solo and found them Saturday morning. Once connected, though, it was a lot of fun.

Posted By: SteerpikeAll in all good times and I am looking forward to the next Nerdly Beach event.

Which should be in Late September!

As resident emo-gamer I measure a game's success on whether I learned something about myself and/or my fellow players. There was certainly plenty of that at hand both from the games themselves and from the general social dynamics overall. I walked away with much food for thought.

My first game Friday night was a solo affair I call, "Make The Milestone By The Hour." I popped in The Requiem for a Dream soundtrack and fantasized that I was in Alfred Hitchcock movie as a drove from L.A. up to the park. I had no desire to arrive after midnight and so I watched the road signs and picked times I wanted to reach those places and then mentally calculated the speed I would need to drive to make it. It was exciting.

Saturday morning I spent relaxing in the shade while reading The Committee for the Exploration of Mysteries. I don't game before 11am. I admit this game fascinates me if only because I actually want to play it despite it's being WAY outside what normally excites me. At some point in here the word "Robo-Theist" drifted over to me from the Sons of Liberty group.

Saturday afternoon was my first real game of the event. I was facilitating a game of Dirty Secrets. I really like this game. If you haven't played it and have any interest in hardboiled detective stories you should give it a go. It was a good game but suffered from the "we're too nice" problem. Dirty Secrets can get really intense when the players *push* a little harder than we did. I liked the Chinatown-esq ending where the murderer got away free and investigator ended up going to jail (2nd time that's happened in a Dirty Secrets game I've played). I was also happy in that this is the first Dirty Secrets game (I've played 3) where the murder turned out to be an actual murder, and not a suicide.

Saturday evening I played my first game of Polaris. I enjoyed the narrative that was created a lot. My jury is still out on the game itself. I want to play it a few more times and read the rules first hand. I really like the squeeze this game can put on you creatively and emotionally particularly since there are "no going back" points in the resolution. I found myself wanting MORE of the formal structure. I really enjoyed playing the Princess of Spring when being the Mistaken and I really enjoyed frantically running around in desperate denial trying to prove my wife was not a demon, as the Heart.

Late night Saturday which spilled over into Sunday morning consisted of debating the finer points of indie publishing including the purpose of game texts, what it means to charge money, how much responsibility can be shifted to the reader, how much engagement and practice can be asked for, and play-testing a design vs play-testing a text. Interesting stuff. I learned a lot about where I stand on these issues and where those around me stand. Much food for thought.

Sunday morning I pretty much spent contemplating whether life was really worth continuing to live and whether or not I should cancel my In A Wicked Age... game.

By Sunday afternoon I had decided not to cancel my game and was glad I had made that decision even if I wasn't exactly in top form. The image of the demon god of blood and vengeance drinking down the memories of the guardian spirit's lover will probably haunt me for a long time. I really like this game and look forward to playing more of it. I learned a lot about it in a very short time and all that I learned I liked.

And by late afternoon Sunday it was time to hit the road. Laura Bishop and I stopped for dinner in Santa Barbara and I lamented the fact that I do not live there. What a pretty city. By about 1am I was home and collapsing into my bed.

All in all a great time, and I'm glad to hear that we might be doing it again in September.

Jesse

Ok, someone has to tell me about this UA game...

Some pictures of the awesome