End Game October 2008 Mini-Con Report

         This was one of a continuing mini-convention series at a game store in Oakland, "End Game". There were 18 events scheduled in three time slots of 4 hours each (10AM-2PM, 3PM-7PM, and 8PM to 12PM). I had originally planned on running Dogs in the Vineyard and A Thousand and One Nights, but a change in my schedule forced me to cancel. Instead, I only played in one game in the morning slot, then had to leave after lunch.

         When I was there, there were 22 people playing (plus the seven GMs) -- about evenly divided among the seven games. Demographically, the attendees seemed mostly men age 30 to 50, though there were 3 or 4 women.

The Warsaw Uprising, 1944

         This was a session of the game-master-less RPG Grey Ranks organized by Alvin Frewer. I had been curious about this since it won the Indie RPG Awards for games released in 2007. Besides me, the other two players were Paul and Gil.

• Gil played Adam Sikorska aka "Zenon", a 17-year-old boy whose care was "Friends" as symbolized by his homemade radio. His immature reputation was "angry".
• Paul played Lidka Sawicha aka "Zofia", a 16-year old girl whose care was "Faith" as symbolized by Father Prochaska. She was described as a lower-class, heavy-set girl who believed that God's will was that the Polish people can and would save themselves without the godless Communists. Her immature reputation was "boorish".
• Alvin played Jeremi Bartnik aka "Dart", a 16-year-old boy whose care was "City" as symbolized by the Bank of Poland. He was described as an upper-class boy whose immature reputation was "elitist".
• I played Danusia Becker aka "Skaut", a 17-year-old girl (with a butch/tomboyish nickname) whose care was "Family" as symbolized by her little brother Stefan. I described her as a working-class girl whose parents had been factory workers, who was used to taking care of her younger brothers and sisters at home. Her immature reputation was "timid".

         Our adventure was in something of a cinematic tradition. First, we visited a Resistance contact (Mr. Fritz) trying to collect some missing ammo, but he was killed by a stray bullet. We then dodged a patrol to retrieve the ammo from an occupied factory, where Zenon's uncle was cooperating with the Germans. He covered for us, but Zenon (I think) killed him as a traitor. In the next sequence, we were trying to bring the ammo to the front lines by Jerusalem Street, but were flanked by a column of panzers. Skaut's affair with another boy was revealed in that, but he was killed in the action. The final scene was trying to rescue captured children from a holding unit in the city, by the Cathedral Garden bunker. That failed, and Skaut was killed, and two others were mixed in with the prisoners.

         This was in some ways similar to other scene-narrated action/drama that I've done, but for the setting. It did have some extra historical details, such as reviewing a timeline and city maps that would be uncommon in some similar games.

Conclusions

         The End Game minicons are still going strong. I plan to run again in the next one.