Revelation Feb 22

Thought I'd jot down a few thoughts about Revelation 22, a PtbA/FitD convention in the Garrison Hotel in Sheffield. 

The first time I'd even heard of Revelation was when I won a "Golden Ticket" to attend and pre-book my games there in the raffle at Shacon (a small convention dedicated to Savage Worlds that sadly only ran once in 2017). 

I'd not really had much experience of PtbA games before then, but I'd had such a good time at Shacon that the Golden Ticket was the obvious choice of prize for me. Obviously it turned out to be the right choice as I'm still going 4 years later.

Revelation 22 was going to be a bit special, not only the third face to face con since lockdown, it was also the first time I was going to be running a game there, but more about that later.

My first 2 games were a double-slot of MASKS, a game where you play teenage supers trying out your powers and exploring a lot of teenage angst, a bit like Teen Titans. The game was played across 2 tables in a Multi-verse style with the potential for a cross-over or two, making it feel very like "Supers" TV shows I've watched.
My playbook was "The Bull" and I based her on a mix of Jessica Jones and Hulk, Concrete Tiger, dresses in orange and black striped hoody and Kevlar leggings with concrete running through her veins. I'd imagined her really angry and oft sullen, but after the team relationships were forged she turned into the confident for the whole team, which still makes me chuckle.
The game flowed really well and the cross table communication between the 2 GMs was very entertaining, though it did lead to some puzzled looks from the other tables. 
In the break between sessions, Concrete Tiger was pulled through a rift into another world, crossing over into a much darker, more sinister version of her Earth, leaving behind both her love and her rival, but accompanied by another trusted team member. In this world the adult supers were evil twisted copies of her own beloved mentors from home. 
After a few missteps the junior heroes of 2 Earths teamed up to take down the evil masterminds behind the failed merging of their worlds and get everyone back home safely.
It was tough, but the job was finally done and Concrete Tiger was on her way home, it was a bittersweet victory though as the big bad erased her niece, Lily, out of existence in both worlds before being defeated.
It was a brilliant game and a big shout out to the 2 GMs, it looked seamless to us, but must have been a lot of work keeping the info for 2 worlds aligned.

My 3rd game was Crash Cart a FitD game I'd not played before. You play members of a private ambulance crew in a world where call outs are triggered by implants that monitor the vitals of your client and getting to your patient can be more of a challenge than fixing their body. 
We started off being called out to a patient who'd had a bad reaction to some recreational drugs sending his cyberware into a reboot loop. Finding him in the maze of cubicles separating the beds/upload couches was trickier than you might think. Our robot crew member made a much quicker route out for us though by ploughing through cubicle walls rather than navigating around them, giving us enough time to get our patient back to the ambulance. We probably would have been able to get him to the hospital in time if it wasn't for that idiot son of the boss calling us out to get him out of trouble again. He probably did have a stomach ache, the mob calling in your gambling debts will do that to a lad, but having to cut our own door out of that card hall cost us valuable time and our genuine patient his life. Our next run was a bit more sinister, our patient was having his organs removed in the back of a moving truck, presumably against his will. The surgeon ended up coming with us too after getting his own scalpel plunged into his throat and being persuaded by our liberated robot to sign up to our service, he's a clever one that metal lad. 

The game uses cards instead of dice and the rules were written ambiguously enough that we realised we'd been playing "in hard mode" at the end of the game. The card mechanic was actually quite elegant in the end and I can see myself playing this game again. Though it might not be the same without cries of "Happy Robot Liberation Day" on every shift.

My 4th game was Matrons of Mystery, run by it's author @SavageSpiel, I'd been looking forward to trying this game ever since it was published and it did not disappoint. It's a cosy mystery game where you play 50+ single or widowed ladies with a taste for investigation. The ladies really came to life in the best way and I found myself pressing sherry into one of the ladies hands on a very regular basis, in fact every time she mentioned she used to be a doctor before she became a surgeon. Another of the ladies carried around special biscuits to "help with your nerves".  After being alerted to a mysterious death at the convention hotel by a very distressed Maria, the cleaner there. After calming Maria down (she may have been fed some of those biscuits and a small sherry) we ambled into action to "preserve the scene", well someone had to take charge didn't they?  We all had a lot of fun chatting to the young men and women at the role-playing convention at the hotel. So much so that our retired surgeon ended up wearing an "athletics vest" with an ampersand shaped dragon on it and became the DM for our bridge club.

My 5th game was the one I was running. I'd chosen Monster of the Week as it has a distinct Buffy feel and I'd never had a bad game of it before. I'd created some monsters and an idea of a plot heavily inspired by an early episode of the show (with some invaluable pre-con help from Craig, thanks muchly), but I was really nervous before starting as I'd only run PtbA once before, as a playtest for this, and hadn't decided how I was going to open until I sat down the table. A missing 4th player added to the nerves to start with, but it meant that I finished the convention with the same players as the 1st game which was brilliant. I started a little shakily, having only printed 2 copies of the basic moves and forgetting what they were to start with. Luckily as we were only 4 players it was really easy to share and the game lifted off after that. The players animated my germ of an idea in ways I hadn't thought possible. We even ended up with the basis for a recurring threat for the rest of the series after this pilot episode. I enjoyed it so much, and my confidence was buoyed enough by my players that I've offered this game up for another convention. Massive thanks to them for rounding off the convention in such a wonderful way. 

In conclusion it was another triumph of a Garrison Convention, it may be the smallest one with 20 to 25 attendees, but it gives you a chance to interact with everyone. I consider myself very lucky to live in Sheffield and so close to this venue. Thanks to everyone there for such a lovely atmosphere and the committee for all their organisation.