Conventions and Events - Concrete Cow 12½ - 8 September 2012, Milton Keynes

Posted by: Neil Smith On: Apr 22nd 2012 edited

Milton Keynes RPG Club are holding another of their games days on 8 September 2012.

WHO?
We're Milton Keynes RPG Club. Find out more about us at http://www.mk-rpg.org.uk.

WHEN?
Saturday 8 September 2012. Doors open at 9.00am, first games start at 10.00am. We'll finish at 11.00pm.

(Concrete Cow 13 will be on 9 March 2013.)

WHAT?
Any roleplaying or board game. You want to play it, bring it along and run it. A full list of games on offer is on the Concrete Cow games page and you can see the list of games offered at Concrete Cow 12.

If you want to run a game, let us know and we'll put it on the list.

WHO'LL BE THERE?
Traders are TBC, once we've done the whole diary-checking-and-confirmation thing.

More importantly, there's all the fantastic games gamers who'll be there and all the fantastic games you'll bring along. If you let us know what you're planning to run, we'll put it on the Concrete Cow games page.

(Note that for child protection reasons, under-16s will need to be accompanied by an adult at Concrete Cow.)

WHERE?
The Old Bath House, Wolverton, in the north-west corner of Milton Keynes. The full address is

The Old Bath House
205 Stratford Road
Wolverton
Milton Keynes
MK12 5RL

Maps are available on MK Web, Google Maps, and Streetmap.co.uk.

Directions for drivers are on the directions page.

Regular trains to Milton Keynes run from London Euston station. The nearest station to the con is Wolverton (one stop north of Milton Keynes Central), about five minutes' walk away.

HOW MUCH?
Still only £5.00, payable on the door. This'll cover the cost of hiring the hall.

For more information, visit our Yahoo group, email concrete-cow-owner@yahoogroups.com, or ask here!

Posted by: Neil Smith On: Jun 27th 2012

I've finally got a few minutes to rub together, so time for a quick update about Concrete Cow 12½.

The good news is that Leisure Games have confirmed that they'll be returning as a trader.

The bad news is that Reaper's Revenge won't be back. The price of petrol is making the trip uneconomic. Bob's hoping to be back in March, though.

The list of games is also looking decidedly empty. Consider this the start of the nagging for you to tell me about all the wonderful games you'll be offering at Concrete Cow.

Finally, I'm nothing if not a bandwagon jumper. Concrete Cow 12½ now has a shiny new event page on Google+, to go with the Concrete Cow G+ page, the Concrete Cow Facebook page, and the Concrete Cow 12½ Facebook event. Now for the delicate decision of which of them to update to get the word out, but without spamming too many people.

Hope to see you all on 8 September!

Posted by: Neil Smith On: Jul 10th 2012

A couple of updates for Concrete Cow.

Games
The wonderful Epistolary Richard has proposed three games he'll be offering at Concrete Cow, listed below. However, we're still after more! If there's a game or three you'd like to offer, please let me know. I'll list them on the Concrete Cow games page and do my best to tell the world about how wonderful they are!

Richard's games are:

Monsterhearts: The Big Game
Based on the Apocalypse World engine, this is a a story game about the messy lives of teenage monsters. Monsterhearts lets you and your friends create stories about sexy monsters, teenage angst, personal horror, and secret love triangles. When you play, you explore the terror and confusion that comes both with growing up and feeling like a monster.
This game will play as a standard game of Monsterhearts, but will include Joe Mcdaldo's sport event mini-game rules for playing 'The Big Game'.
Author: Joe Mcdaldo
GM: Epistolary Richard
Players: 3-6
Slot: Morning

Fiasco: Fiasco LIVE!
Fiasco is inspired by cinematic tales of small time capers gone disastrously wrong – inspired by films like Blood Simple, Fargo, The Way of the Gun, Burn After Reading, and A Simple Plan. You’ll play ordinary people with powerful ambition and poor impulse control and in the end it will probably all go south in a glorious heap of jealousy, murder, and recrimination. It's an award-winning, GM-less game designed to be played in a few hours with six-sided dice and no preparation. During a game you will engineer and play out stupid, disastrous situations, usually at the intersection of greed, fear, and lust.
In Fiasco LIVE! we'll put the emerging clusterfrag on its feet! We'll keep the game at the core, but with a bit of larp, a bit of improv and few props, we'll breathe life into the pivotal moments by acting them out. So ideal players should be willing to throw themselves, literally, into their characters.
Fiasco is optimised for 4 players. If we get a fifth or sixth, they'll get to play every other unfortunate who gets dragged into the chaos.
Author: Jason Morningstar
unGM: Epistolary Richard
Players: 3-6
Slot: Afternoon

X-perimentals
(Note, games are not associated with the X-Men, the X Factor or the X-Chromosome)
X-perimentals are several short, in-development, indie games experimenting with game mechanics that are a little different. Each game should be between 30 mins to an hour and players can step up, stick in or step out as they need.
GM: Epistolary Richard
Players: 2+
Slot: Evening

Magazines
The Gazebo is a new, online, quarterly magazine about all things gaming. It covers the UK and Ireland, and has articles on RPGs, wargames, boardgames, and CCGs. Issue 1 is out and Issue 2 is coming soon. I'm mentioning it because a) it's good and b) they're including an advert for Concrete Cow in exchange for me mentioning the Gazebo. Sounds like a win-win to me!

So, go check it out.

OxCon
Finally, a few people are trying to put together a con in Oxford, which I think is a great idea. They're currently canvassing opinions on the best time of year to hold it. If you're interested, please weigh in on the vote.

Posted by: Neil Smith On: Aug 15th 2012 edited

Another update from Cow HQ!

It's less than four weeks until Concrete Cow 12½.

I've just confirmed the buffet lunch back at the Eastern Paradise. The menu is:
* Poppadums
* A starter (Onion bhaji)
* A chicken dish (Chicken tikka masala)
* A lamb dish (Lamb dopiaza)
* A vegetable dish (Mixed vegetable curry)
* Pilau rice
* Naan
...and all for just £9.50!

(The exact dishes may change, but above is the current plan.) If people want an alternative vegetarian dish, they can order anything off the menu for no additional charge. You can also order other dishes at their standard prices.

We could also do with some more games on offer! The list on the Concrete Cow games page is growing, but slowly.

The latest games on offer are:
In the Spotlight
A GM-less hack of Jared Sorensen's excellent InSpectres, each ItS game takes a TV series with a central character and allows you to play them. Yes, everybody gets to play the central character but each player also gets one of the regular supporting characters as their own PC: the more trouble the PCs get into, the more the central character gets to do to get them out of it! Previously used to play Doctor Who, House and Blackadder, this time I'd like to have a go at Buffy the Vampire Slayer!
Un-GM: James Mullen
Players: 3-5
Slot: Morning

A Penny for My Thoughts
Have you lost your memory? The Orphic Institute for Advanced Studies can help, with its revolutionary Mnemosyne™ treatment process. With the help of others in your therapy group, explore your past and face whatever traumas have led you to this state, ultimately answering the question: do you want to remember?
Un-GM: James Mullen
Players: 2-4
Slot: Evening

If you want to offer a game on the day, please post here, or PM me, or something, and I'll put it on the list.

See you in a few weeks!

Posted by: Neil Smith On: Aug 24th 2012

More games on offer at Concrete Cow, now just over two weeks away.

A couple of games of Call of Cthulhu 7ed:

Rubberband Girl
You see I try to resist
If I could learn to twang
Like a rubberband
I'd be a rubberband girl
A modern day game of horror players with a mature outlook.
GM: Mike Mason
Players: Up to 5

Paul Fricker will run some more CoC 7ed. Details if he ever gets round to letting me know... (That's Paul Fricker, the author of CoC 7ed, and Mike Mason, ex Kult of Keepers.)

Penny Adventures: Zombies!
A group of survivors, holed up in a city filled with the walking dead, have found a way out. The only way out.

Penny Adventures is an easy-to-grasp system which puts Player Character's actions and choices at the centre of the story. The game explores the relationships between people struggling together to survive, and makes it easy for the Players to really effect the narrative.

The game will be run by its author, improviser and comedian Edward Croft, as it steps out for its first convention play! Looking for feedback before the game goes to production.

GM: Edward Croft
Players: 3-4

Ribbon Drive

Tags: Story telling, GMless, no conflict resolution, small scale stories about normal people, may contain adult themes, needs full player buy in.

Ribbon Drive excels at tight, gritty, testing social interaction between the characters in play. It is about creating a road trip where all of the meat is in the interaction between the characters and not so much about the outside world. This will not be an action adventure chase movie. The game is GMless with full shared narration and needs involved players who want to really explore the relationships between the characters in the car, during the game players will explore the possible future dreams of their characters and decide if they will ever be resolved.

The game is based around the mix tapes/CD's/playlists that you build for long road trips. Feel free to bring your own CD if you've made one but don't feel you have to, I will have plenty of premixed CDs with me.

Un-GM: Mik Reed
Additional Players: 2-3

Posted by: Neil Smith On: Aug 28th 2012

Simon Burley, author of Golden Heroes, is after more playtesting for his new superhero game, Squadron UK. What he'd really like is for someone to run a session of Squadron UK so he can play it, seeing what it's like from the other side of the screen! If you're interested, please contact me and Simon will send you a copy of the draft rules.

Simon will also be playtesting the introductory scenario for Squadron UK. More details when I get them.

Posted by: Neil Smith On: Aug 30th 2012 edited

More games on offer! As always, see the Concrete Cow games list for details of all the games on offer.

Dead of Night
A fast-play, stripped-down variant of the game of make-your-own horror movies. Completely improvised! So deadly, every player will have at least three PCs!
GM: James Mullen
Players: 3-5

Discworld (new edition preview)
Mrs. Nomed's Respectable Lodging-House
Mrs. Eulice Nomed runs a respectable lodging house in Ankh-Morpork, which is the best place that you can find to live while you make your fortune in the city. There are, no doubt, worse landladies, so you don't object too much to Mrs. Nomed's funny little rules.
Anyway, when what's in the cellar bursts forth upon the unknowing mortal world, frankly, paying your rent a month in advance and wiping your feet when you come through the door will be the least of your worries.
GM: Phil Masters
Players: 3-5
Slot: Probably afternoon, maybe morning

Marvel Heroic RPG
Ninjas on a plane
It’s a simple job, you’ve been hired by Nick Fury to escort a dignitary from Europe to New York and ensure he locks his briefcase in a secure vault in New York’s grand central bank. Nothing could possibly go wrong. What? Oh the title, yeah it does give it away a little. ;-)
GM: James Hollywood
Players: 3-6
Slot: Morning

Squadron UK
Squadron UK is the British Superhero role-playing game. This is one of the final pre-production play-tests of the totally new 2nd Edition rules.
Consequences
It isn’t big and it isn’t clever. It’s a playtest of the first, example, super-simple Scenario I’m including in the rules for new Referees. You’ll get to create your own Heroes and play through standard, non-taxing, single issue storyline. It’ll be fun though, guaranteed.
GM: Simon Burley (game author)
Players: 3-5
Slot: Morning

Panic on the Streets of London
The emergence of Superheroes has had an unforeseen effect on the criminal underworld. Bullets are no longer good enough, and what’s worse, someone has the means to supply their needs.
Turning up to help the outgunned police deal with a bank robbery can our heroes break the supply chain and keep energy weapons out of the hands of criminals?
GM: James Hollywood
Players: 3-6
Slot: Afternoon

Hope to see you in a week and a bit!