Conventions and Events: Concrete Cow 12: 10 March 2012, Milton Keynes

The Final Voyage of The Selene

A guided-narrative freeform telling the story of a disaster in space, but the story begins with the The Selene leaving the frontier of explored space, heading for Earth, and the disaster doesn't happen until almost the end of the game.

In Camera

This is a game that's meant to capture the style & tone of films likes The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity and Apollo 18.

In the first two rounds of play, everyone creates cameras, using them to introduce locations or characters that will appear frequently in the story.

In subsequent rounds of play, each player can direct an event: during this, a deck of cards is used to pace the event, with red cards equating to light or positive situations and black cards equating to dark or negative ones. The director of the scene has a small hand of cards to hand out to the other players, facing their characters with an appropriate situation as he does so, but the director can make use of the cameras in the scene to 'edit' the footage with cuts, pans and zooms, changing the cards he has and therefore the situations.

There is a reciprocal process in action, in that players decide how their characters respond to the situation they are dealt and this decision feeds back into the cards that are available in later events, weighting them towards light or dark content.

It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out to Get You

A reverse-hack of the well-known Paranoia RPG, this is a super-rules light version of the game, where players only ever roll two types of dice: Hazard & Treason.
Roll Hazard when you follow orders, use skills, operate tools, live up to the ideals of your Service Group, display loyalty or heroism and ask the Computer for aid or guidance.

Roll Treason when you use forbidden knowledge, disobey orders, possess contraband, live up to the ideals of your Secret Society, use your Mutant Power or openly exhibit treachery and betrayal of your fellow Troubleshooters.

Got Sixes? You succeed! Rolled a set? Sh*t happens!

A Death in Winter

The funeral of an old friend is never pleasant…especially when he is dead by his own hand. You have drifted apart since the war, but his death has brought you all to the remote Wiltshire village where he spent his last months. But now, can you solve the mystery of his death, or will something worse happen?

An investigative Call of Cthulhu scenario set in 1920s England.

Microscope is a world building game where you create a society then take a stretch of time and describe it using pivotal moments. It can be as broad as the rise and fall of a millennias old starfaring society or narrow as the short and bloody reign of a mad Goblin king. The genre is chosen at the start and you pick things to add in or exclude to make it slightly more interesting and drive you away from cliche.

There are no 'characters', you will pick up people at these great moments and most likely discard them for the next. Some may last but it's the sweeping theme you are working with.

Mock chronological order.

Defy time and space.

Build worlds and destroy them.

Very Indie/hippy, very little conflict resolution, strongly collaborative.