Stumping Johnzo by suddenly informing him that he is G-d.
A pale horse appears, carrying two Cathar children who willingly walk to their death in the flame.
Aelfred, aka Decimus, the Goth (as in large Germanic man) entrancing the noblewomen of Urba Magna with his sensual dancing: "I have inflamed the loins of your women, I expect to be well compensated."
Whim the fairy piloting a magically enslaved and armored skeleton like a mecha around the Tomb-Complex of Ymmu M'Kursa.

Here's a Facebook photo album full of iPhone photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=20332&l=d8472&id=605929854

Posted By: johnzo"Hi, dad."

Serious over the wrong border from Nam / pistol-whipped fuel lines hot gaming love.

I miss GPNW already.

Go Play NW remains one of my favorite events of the year. It saddens me that I'm going to have to wait so long before it happens again.

I played Perfect (2nd Edition), Sugarfighter Black, XXXXtreme Street Luge, Principia, Geiger Counter, Misspent Youth, and Tunnels & Trolls.

Thanks so much to everyone who helped organize this again and everyone that ran and played games with me or just hung out and chatted over food. The people make GPNW just as much (if not more) than the games.

Ohhh, so much good gaming.

I played:

A post-partum depression racked mother who hadn't wanted the kid in the first place, and whose child is stolen in Ogre's DRYH game.

I played Shock for the first time, and the jury is still out.

I played In a Wicked Age again, and had a fabulous time.

I played Polaris for the first time with Ben Lehmann, Nancy and Daniel. I freed the Sun and became it's queen. Go me!

I played a Mythenders Playtest, and the dice hated me. I still damaged the hell out of the Midgard Serpent, though.

I ran the Playtest for MY for Rob Bohl. Had a great, if difficult, time. It wasn't the the game, but my players were a touch, ahem, exuberant. I'm looking at you JoePub.

I played in the most INTENSE game of DRYH ever with Carl* as GM, Wilson and Daniel. Oh my Gods, I cried. I think the other two players at least teared up as the father of the missing children narrated the magic horse sacrificing itself to save the Princess and therefore win his children back. I actually burst into tears while describing it to Ogre during the drive home.

I had a wonderful time!! Thanks to all of you who put so much work into this so we could have such a good time!!

A few memorable quotes:

Leslie, as Nick the "recovering arsonist": "But... it was all so FLAMMABLE!"

Wilson, as Julianna the insomniac banker: "Roofs! There aren't a lot of words on roofs!!"


*Hopes desperately I haven't screwed up anyone's names.

I hope the Quote of the Day boards get posted in the photo thread. There was a lot of goodness there.

They're in Wilhelm's photo set above. I think it would be cool if we transcribed them to the wiki somewhere for posterity.

Posted By: amnesiack

I hope the Quote of the Day boards get posted in the photo thread. There was a lot of goodness there.

They're in Wilhelm's photo set above. I think it would be cool if we transcribed them to the wiki somewhere for posterity.

Absolutely! I think Phil grabbed the sheets as well.

For fuck's sake, tell me about Montsegur 1244 immediately.

...Can't, Jason, because i wasn't in old france at the time, i was seven years in the future with a bunch of other teenagers and my cracked-out deadbeat dad trying to kill the aliens and save the world by burning every bridge that mattered to me in Carl's masterful presentation of Bliss Stage. Sitting at a table with Nancy, Albert and Hans was a all-star crew, all of whom i trusted enough to pretty much lose my shit and care-about-everything-that-happened to 11. (follow?) Everything was just so good. The scenes on the roof with My and Nancy's Pilots drinking stolen scotch and fighting over (and due to) feelings for Albert's Pilot; the borderline abuse i was dishing to my anchor (also portrayed by Nancy) which she just took because her other choice would be to let me die- yeah, it was fucking good. Like, enough for me to run off for months, if need be. Luckily, there's no fucking way i'm not gonna play like this for a space of months.

Hans portrayed the first anchor of the session, as Albert's 14 year old Pilot was building her mech around herself, and the way Hans described the situation and surroundings was dizzying and so rapid as to startle me into feeling a shot of fear, though i had nothing mechanically at stake in the scene. It was all awesome. It was especially awesome how Carl, on behalf of all of us, got up once to go to the next table and ask some punk in a yellow t-shirt named Ben Lehman who was playing Sugar Fighter Black to try and keep it down, we were trying to focus on our game's touching moments... a game that he wrote.

this is why i love our indie game community. Fuck yeah.

quote from this game that i have already spent too much time thinking about getting tattooed across my chest-

Hans' Pilot, to Nancy's Pilot: "Glory Time, Fly Boy."


more snippets and AP chunks after i stop shaking from physical and creative exhaustian.

thanks times a million GeePeeEnDub Crew!
-jackson te-mutha-fuckin-ay-gu.

Posted By: pingI had an absolute blast this weekend! It was great to meet and game with new people. I played every slot, and I think I have a gaming hangover if there is such a thing. My roster was IAWA x 2, Geiger Counter, Trollbabe, modified Mountain Witch, and last but not least Tony's-car-smashy-game I'm calling "All Hail El Trucko!" Thanks everyone and hope to see you again soon and the locals maybe sooner.

The fact that I didn't get to game with Ping was a freaking CRIME...

Posted By: Caesar_XThe fact that I didn't get to game with Ping was a freaking CRIME...

I feel that way about so many people there, including you.

Posted By: BrendanI have to take a moment aside here to mention how world-shatteringly awesome that game was. It felt like the perfect convergence of system, players, atmosphere and intent for that particular night in that particular world. I played a psychotic six-year-old saint from the Children's Crusade, wielding the hammer that drove the nails into the True Cross and just generally floating around trying to single-handedly bring about the Second Coming. Along with Christian, we had Jackson Tegu playing a guy with a fairy-prison sword who literally killed mountains, and Joe McDonald as a violinist who was trying to redeem himself of debauchery after winning a musical duel with Metatron. And of course there was Ryan Macklin, running the game and opposing us with two monsters: a thousand-foot-long salamander wyrm, and The Earth Itself. Jackson beheaded the serpent, Joe was killed by lava and born anew in the middle of the game,and then the earth swallowed us and I detonated it with a nuke made of God. I think I'm going to be chasing the fun level of that game for a long time.

Dude, that game was fucking madness unleashed. I'm totally glad you got in. As an aside, I didn't quite get that your character was still a child as a Mythender.

Knowing that just made the game so much more fucking awesome. A six-year-old, ending dragons and living mountains. Damn.

I should also make it clear that with Joe's character's resurrection, that was all him. I didn't kill him -- he made it his action to die and be reborn. I...I didn't know my game could do that! I'm glad I do now.

Posted By: jackson teguOh, and D&D 4e totally rocks, it's like a watered-down MythEnder

Damn. I've been half-joking that "Mythender is coming out on June 6th, but they're calling it something else." But to hear this is a hell of a compliment. Thanks!

Posted By: Jason MorningstarFor fuck's sake, tell me aboutMontsegur 1244immediately.

by your command

In A Wicked Age is like 18-year-old Macallan- starts out smooth, and the more you drink the better it gets.

Geiger Counter was a hoot, and I can pinpoint the exact moment when it clicked - it's when someone took the "Infected" condition, and decided that it meant "1950's McCarthyism Paranoia" - so now, everyone else framed into a scene with the paranoid televangelist risked becoming paranoid themselves.

4E has me chomping at the bit to run it with my own crew. Not that I wasn't chomping at the bit for it already. But still...

T&T rocked the casbah, as expected. Leg'o'lamb lives!

Carl's Bliss Stage game, though... holy crap. Just when we thought we'd run out of time, and it was over, the group collectively hot-shotted a rapid-fire set of scenes that left my eyes wide, my hands shaking, and my head in the throes of an emotional suckerpunch on par with last year's playtest of Kin. The session stuck with me all night long, and invaded my dreams that night (fitting, non?) I'm gonna remember that sesion for a long time to come. Mad props to Jackson, Al, and Nancy; the trust exhibited around that table was amazing.

And Jackson, you're not a Seattle local, are you? Cuz if you are, it'd be criminal if we went another full year before sitting at the same gaming table again.

Yes, there must be a gaming hangover, but it's well worth it!

I just woke up after a nap, recovering from a heady lack of rest. I know, I shouldn't have rested my head, but I awoke safe and sound, although now I'm back in this mundane world instead of the strange and wonderful dreamworld of this weekend. Ah, but the memories, fuel to flourish even here!

Well, that was a bit off, but that's about the best I can do right now, after staying up talking with Carl until nearly 4 AM.

It was an awesome convention to me, and in this post I use the "awesome" properly, not colloquially, i.e., I am in awe. And being both still in the rosy hue of awe and still recovering from the collective creative burst of this weekend, I'm not really able to properly focus, but I do want to get down my thoughts, based on my notes from the games I ran and my memories of the games I played in. This will be long, a big braindump, something I try to do on occassion, even if an email to myself, to record things before they become too vague in memory but also to post here in case it jogs anyone else's memories or otherwise give feedback. You'll see very different foci in the write-ups on games below, having to do with how my head wraps around each game. For example, the PTA write-up is very rich in specific narration details, and that's because I feel (and think) more like the audience than participant when I produce PTA, reacting to the players based on too-many wasted years of watching TV in my youth (these days I actually watch rather little TV on the whole), whereas the CNP write-up is distinctly meta about the way the game went and how at least I saw my role in it working.

First and foremost, thanks, thanks, thanks to the Go Play organizers. It should be mentioned that on a logistical note this year was even better as the process of signing up and finding games had, at least for me, just the right combo of organization and flexibility. Also, and more importantly, I REALLY liked the variation in time slots, for me at least these were just the right variation in hours for games, and I really appreciate that. It definitely increased enjoyment because it allowed for games that needed more than 3 hours to exist, and I enjoy a mix of longer and shorter sessions. I would like to see the same times and durations for slots next year.

I'm not sure where to begin and won't give justice to the wonderful players this weekend. Everyone was great to play with, and there were many exceptional shiny moments from so many of you; I suspect that everyone contributed at least one exceptional shiny moment this weekend, the kind of thing we remember forever (even if perhaps a bit foggily as we age!), which is a great accomplishment.

As John Harper pointed out, it was great to see Jackson's Knights and Squires in-development impromptu working draft play, and I thank Jackson for sharing that, I really like the idea of this game and where it's going.

Oh, and that was also about the best I'll do for people' s names, I'm terrible at remembering names, so as you won't see too many names below please note it's not for lack of impact. In many cases below I do have first names down if I was with it enough to get them down in my notes while running games.

Games in subsequent parts -

PTA, Beth's Underground: http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=6652&page=1#Item_1

Cyber Ninja Pirates in Space: http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=6653&page=1#Item_1

In the Village AKA You Are Number...: http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=6654&page=1#Item_1

Mother When's Day (Don't Rest Your Head) - http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=6674&page=1#Item_1

Les Chiens de la Terreur: http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=6655&page=1#Item_1

Don't Rest Your Head Last Game of GPNW08 GMed by Carl: http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=6656&page=1#Item_1

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A PS to my lengthy stuff:

1 - edited - I was looking through the threads, and I am going to take the "parts" above and put them into separate threads and link them, so I hope by the time you read this it's done or if not done, it should be shortly

2 - I actually started this 4 hours ago! I thought I was going to do a "quick" write-up, but it all spilled out.

I love you guys! Thanks for making this an intensely fun and learning weekend! See you next year if not sooner.

Posted By: OgremarcoI Ran some DRYH, which I've still never had a chance to play. It's my turn next time, Macklin.

Fuck yes, it is.

Scotch also appeared in the Bliss Stage game, as Josh stole his crazed Dad's last case of 30-year old scotch and took it up to the decaying roof of the zeppelin hanger at Moffett Field in Mountain View, trading sips with Keenan, washing away the taste with home-brew beer and occassionally tossing a (full) bottle down to smash on the concrete far below.

A drunk Josh (played magnificently by Jackson) threatened Keenan with a broken bottle on the decaying roof, during a flashback interlude as the ANIMa Josh was piloting chased a fleeing alien drone out of the atmosphere, with Josh unable to hear his anchor/lover's reassurances that it would be safe to do so because of the wash of nightmare static.

My full line-up was:

Villains -- a Nine Worlds variant by Brandon Amancio

Urchin -- GMed by Laura Mortensen

several rounds of Once Upon a Time

Heart of Darkness -- a Mountain Witch run by Chris Bennett

Tears in Rain -- a Blade Runner variant of Trollbabe, GMed by Alan Barclay

Operation [omitted] -- a straight run of Lacuna, GMed by Carl Rigney
All were good. My favorite was Heart of Darkness with the amazing line-up of Ogre, John A, John P, Ben, and Brandon; with a runner-up of the Lacuna run with Rebecca, Willem, and Nancy.

I'll have a detailed con report soon.

Posted By: johnzoThat was never a problem for me this year, because all GPNW dining groups were automatically guaranteed to be excellent.

Definitely, the social meals were a highlight for me as well. It seemed like every venue I got to sit next to someone new and connect with them. I always learn something interesting from those conversations.


Man, I'm having AWESOME-WITHDRAWAL today. Bring GPNW back!!?!

Posted By: johnzoSadness: aside from a short hallway conversation, Matthew S-B managed to elude me all con; next year, sir, you will not be so fortunate.

Word and truth. : (

However, I hope to correct the EPIC FAIL of the last year, wherein I didn't reach out to the awesome peeps met at GPNW07 that live close enough to game with. If next year rolls around and I haven't tried to buy you a drink, I deserve an ass kicking.

Posted By: johnzoJoe McDonald's tie

Also truth! I wanna know where to get one.

My first post on Story Games? Solely to thank everyone (whether we gamed together or not) for an experience well worth the trip to GPNW08. I'll limit myself to one highlight for each game.

Perfect: A completely-dressed Inspector leaping from bed to restrain a character (Lukas'?) against a wall for hours, two wide-eyed children watching from beneath blankets the whole time.

Destructicus Prime: a toy-based smash-up that opened with Ben launching a tank off a ramp (landing on and then smearing an entire dimetrodon across the arena) and concluded with three players so desperate for glory they attempted called-shots to a volcano--with their own vehicles.

In a Wicked Age: Daniel's utterly-irredeemable demon-child riding his own mother down rough-hewn stone steps to an in-use torture chamber.

Reign: Laura's Roman noble, seemingly demure until she threw down the intimidation and blackmail.

Shab-al-Hiri Roach: Jackson's physicist, so graviton-obsessed that he created a "Collider" to study the effects of dropping very heavy things on very breakable things. Just when I thought he couldn't relate gravity to the religious ego-check he was receiving, he drops mention of Lucifer's own fall.

Geiger Counter: Ben's insistence that the Menace not be brought down by a swarm of bees; I could not have agreed more completely.

Tunnels and Trolls: Lukas' tank, a halfling wizard/tenor.


Again, warm thanks to all.


[reason for edit: links]

Echoing the other posts, I had a fantastic time at GPNW. I really liked the new time slots, with a mix of 2, 3 and 4 slots. The 3 hour slots last year felt rushed to me, and I was very happy with the new arrangement. I also liked the advance signups, and how the sheets were printed out so there was flexibility for people to add or drop and instant visibility of current status of games to everyone looking for something to get into. I heard Ping was behind the signup printouts? Many thanks!

Friday night was very noisy dinner at Kai's, and then moving over to a lounge at the Deca hotel bar, which was quiet and lots of fun talking with folks until midnight.

Saturday morning I ran Dogs in the Vineyard for Will, Matt, John P, and Kingston. Daniel W was very kind about giving up his seat when the fourth signed up player arrived in the nick of time. A passing wagon train of non-faithful was disrupting the community. Kingston's Dog Brother William, an orphan from back east, wanted to pin the trouble on the non-Faithful doctor from back east who lived in the town and was well-liked, but wouldn't explain why, so there was a big argument in the steward's barn over "Does Brother William come clean about the Doctor?" against the other three Dogs, and in the end he gave and explained that the Doctor was his mother's brother, and had done nothing to help William's mother when William's father died, snubbing her. He wanted to punish the Doctor. The other Dogs refused to go along, so William threw his coat on the floor of the barn, and Brother Zebediah shot him in the back, killing him. (We were out of time but both players seemed happy with that result.)

In the next minute, The Doc was left unpurged, the wagon train was sold enough food to get them safely through the mountains but with the profits going to the steward to benefit the town instead of the greedy shopkeeper, and the men townsfolk who were planning to disguise themselves as Mountain Folk and massacre the wagon train once it camped away from the town were convinced not to do that terrible thing. William got to haunt his Uncle and brought his mother's ghost (whom he had relationship dice with) along to help with that.

Saturday afternoon I ran Bliss Stage for Nancy, Hans, Albert, and Jackson, as has been written elsewhere. There were many great moments in that, but I especially liked how veteran pilot Anna (played by Hans) had the opportunity to destroy the alien base herself but decided to leave that part for Keenan instead, because if someone wasn't going to come back from a mission she wanted that to be Keenan. Nice! So she slips out of the creche tank and tells him "Glory time, flyboy!" That was just great.

Keenan then plants the bomb at the alien base, half of which turns into a freaking MILE-HIGH GIANT. Keenan hotshots to blow up the giant by flying up its cannon, and makes it home safely anyway.

Anna leaves the resistance cell with her baby and best friend Laura, "I gotta admit that asshole is a damn good pilot". Josh blisses out (118) and kills his asshole dad to become the new cell leader, and resolves the hope that we can raise a new generation, both on the outside with Anna, and inside the resistance cell with Keenan and his anchor's baby on the way. Whether we can ever understand or defeat the aliens is not yet known, but destroying their base bought enough time that maybe the next generation can grow up and win the war for humanity.

Then the Bliss Stage players and I went out to dinner with Ben Lehman and had a fascinating conversation about Bliss Stage, Polaris, and other matters. I sadly turned down an invitation to game in the evening slot, because there was no way I was going to make it to midnight, and wanted to get enough sleep to be able to run well Sunday. That's my only regret from the con, but it was still the right choice.

(continued...)

Just to clarify and spread the shout outs around: Phil LaRose and Brandon Amancio also deserve huge credit as organizers for Go Play NW. Double shout out to Ping, who essentially volunteered herself and made the sign up sheet happen. WOOT!

Thank you Tony, Brandon, Phil, Ping, and John. GPNW was great and I look forward to next year.

Totally, from me too, thanks to Tony, Brandon, Phil, Ping, and John for everything they did to make it happen. And let me say: I did indeed (in the spirit of spreading the religion of indie and story gaming) bring two essential clueless newbies, Jana and Rebecca, who went on to have absolutely transformative experiences.

I credit the culture of gaming that all you awesome people maintain - no, rather the SUB-culture, wherein veritable "outsiders" like Jana and Rebecca can have such great experiences that all the way home they rant and rave at the kindness, support, creativity, courage, and inspiration everybody brought to the table, Rebecca now has an idea for her own game (on cursed objects as villains!), Jana wants to start reading fantasy fiction to catch up with all the references and creativity. Whew!

Do you really realize this guys? You oughta think about it. :) Y'all kinda rock insanely. I made a bunch of new friends this time around, saw a bunch of old ones, and met people that I wish I could've played with and gotten to know. Maybe next time!

Thanks to Carl, John Kim, Nancy for my Lacuna experience...Wilson, Jennifer, Chris, Jackson, Rebecca for Beth's Underground...Nancy, Alan, Jackson and Jana for Polaris "Thou Art But A Warrior"...Jordan and Jeremy for Shooting the Moon with me, and Chris, Wilhelm, John, Jennifer, and Alan for Montsegur 1244.

:)

Just a note to add a big huge 'thank you!' for the organization scheme this year. Since I could only attend two sessions, and my wife only one, being able to sign up beforehand meant that we were able to attend at all--I think neither of us would have come had it been the same loose chaos (as fun as that was) last year. I was sad I wasn't able to hang out at all with folks (so most of you are probably thinking 'who is this guy?') but I had a blast, so thanks!

Willem, you are a rock star... especially for bringing along new folks to try out our hobby. I played with Jana on Saturday and it was so great to see someone trying stuff out for the first time. She is a font of creativity and brings a great sense of trust and fellowship to the table.

Hey, Willem, I can only agree that Jana brought quite a lot of depth to the Chiens game she was in, I think it shows in the AP thread:
http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=6655

I had no idea she was new to gaming! Props!

Hey, Jana, welcome to Story Games.

Posted By: JanaOh the intensity! Big thanks to all who welcomed me to your tables and made the noob feel at home (and oh-so-patiently helped with my lack of dice-fu). Y'all rocked my world, your encouragement, creativity, fun and warmth blew me away.

What an awesome place, where a person can jump in and sit down with total strangers, rocket past small talk straight into a shared dream and emerge 4 hours later energized, laughing, richer. I have to say, I came to this event with my back-door chicken-out option ON, and started each and every game terrified--but I kept coming back and trying out another cool new game! Now I want to go live in this Mad City of Dreams and Story! : )

(Okay, I can't figure out what's going wrong with my quoting?)

No idea you were terrified, and you're totally a natural RPGer, I certainly wouldn't have known that you had no experience if you hadn't said so, aside from the specifics of game mechanics, and even that isn't always intuitive or easy with games new to a person, even if someone has paid a bunch of other games. I definitely enjoyed gaming with you (though I have to say, I really enjoyed gaming with everyone - though not everyone's a Dog/Chien who called on the demons!).

OK, I finished my write-ups, posted on my LiveJournal as

Go Play NorthWest 2008

Comments welcome...

Posted By: amnesiack

I hope the Quote of the Day boards get posted in the photo thread. There was a lot of goodness there.

They're in Wilhelm's photo set above. I think it would be cool if we transcribed them to the wiki somewhere for posterity.

... annnnnd... done!

As with the GPNW 2007 thread, I'm compiling some quotes to use on our website. Please let me know whether I have permission to use the following quotes:

Posted By: amnesiackGo Play NW remains one of my favorite events of the year. It saddens me that I'm going to have to wait so long before it happens again.

Posted By: GeekGirlsRuleOhhh, so much good gaming.

Posted By: OgremarcoI had the best damned time!

Posted By: CarlI had a fantastic time at GPNW.

Posted By: willemI credit the culture of gaming that all you awesome people maintain - no, rather the SUB-culture, wherein veritable "outsiders" like Jana and Rebecca can have such great experiences that all the way home they rant and rave at the kindness, support, creativity, courage, and inspiration everybody brought to the table, Rebecca now has an idea for her own game (on cursed objects as villains!), Jana wants to start reading fantasy fiction to catch up with all the references and creativity. Whew!

Posted By: JanaWhat an awesome place, where a person can jump in and sit down with total strangers, rocket past small talk straight into a shared dream and emerge 4 hours later energized, laughing, richer.

Thanks much!

Feel free.