Tabletop @PAX: What did you play? Share your stories

sagelt

I'm guessing people are finally making it back home after an awesome weekend at PAX, so let's hear it: what did you play? What rocked? What new stuff did you try out?

Fiasco was the game of the con for me. I ran something like 7-8 games for all kinds of people, mostly people who hadn't played Fiasco before (if you were in one of those games: Hi! Thanks for playing, I had a blast). I also managed to work in Burning Wheel and Dungeon World, both of which suffered a bit from me being tired.

susan

I finally got to try Pandemic, which I loved, and Small World, which I suspect I'd have loved if I'd had more time with it. I also got to demo Warmachine/Hordes, which honestly seems a whole lot like small-scale 40k to me and I don't get why people seem to think it's so much different/better. I demoed a card game called 'Poo', which was sadly completely forgettable, though I did crack a Magic the Gathering deck for the first time in a decade. And finally, as my signature now boasts, I won the 2010 DM Challenge Competition, which was one of the coolest things I've ever taken part in with so many other awesome DMs.

Jmstar

sagelt wrote: »

I ran something like 7-8 games for all kinds of people

.

I also managed to work in Burning Wheel and Dungeon World, both of which suffered a bit from me being tired.

You think those two things are related? You were a machine!

I know you guys had a dedicated gaming space - how many tables were going at any one time? Did people just drop in and out? I've never been to PAX and don't really know how it was organized.

sagelt

There was lots of gaming space, I mostly hung out in the 'indie games room' which was really just a freeplay room that we used as a central point for setting people up with indie RPG sessions. In the afternoon and early evening there were usually three or so games at a time, with fewer than that earlier and later in the day.

Most of the games I saw had a group of people play through the entire session without much dropping in or out, but we tried to grab people as they walked in and match them up with games, if they were interested. The only really scheduled thing that happened was the Burning Wheel game, where we had to plan around an Omeganaut's schedule.

Dracil

New games: On the PAX train I tried out Condottiere which my friend later bought. I also tried Betrayal at House on a Hill with some people from train at the tabletop freeplay, which was kinda neat. I bought and played Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer

Of the games I brought, I played Bananagrams, Zombie Dice, LOTS of Space Hulk: Death Angel, Spot It, and The Resistance. I think Spot It really worked with the more casual gamers. I did not win a legitimate game of SH:DA at all. All my wins so far, I screwed up a rule somewhere (mostly forgetting that Intimidation only works with genestealers engaged with the Blue Team or that Launch Control is an OR not an AND on adding token or rolling for win)

I also played BSG several times (other people's copies) and played a -player game of base Dominion (mainly to teach). Also borrowed Galaxy Trucker to teach my friends.

Matev

susan wrote: »

I finally got to try Pandemic, which I loved, and Small World, which I suspect I'd have loved if I'd had more time with it. I also got to demo Warmachine/Hordes, which honestly seems a whole lot like small-scale 40k to me and I don't get why people seem to think it's so much different/better. I demoed a card game called 'Poo', which was sadly completely forgettable, though I did crack a Magic the Gathering deck for the first time in a decade. And finally, as my signature now boasts, I won the 2010 DM Challenge Competition, which was one of the coolest things I've ever taken part in with so many other awesome DMs.

Congrats! Glad you got the stack of stuff! I knew I wasn't going to win after my game ended, but most everyone had fun, and that's what counted.

Other than the DM challenge, I didn't get much tabletop time in, and I wished I had. Oh well, there's always meetups and next con. =D

Sipex

What is DM challenge? This intrigues me.

I missed PAX due to life.

Matev

Sipex wrote: »

What is DM challenge? This intrigues me.

I missed PAX due to life.

WotC ran a Dm's challenge to celebrate the release of their 4e Tomb of Horrors book. (Continues the plot from the original ToH and Return to ToH from 3rd edition.) The goal was to make a trap-laden dungeon for players to work their way through.

I had my players all kinds of jumpy and paranoid by the end, so I succeeded in that sense. Totally wished the RP aspects I'd written in had been played up more as that was supposed to add more tension (Hooray for horror movie inspiration.) Oh well, I still liked the traps I came up with, simple as they were.

segedy

I missed PAX as well, due to being on the wrong coast. I hope to fix that mistake for PAX East!

I'm really interested in how the table-top gaming worked- I gather that the freeplay rooms were specifically set out for board and role-playing games, yeah? How many rooms were there? Were they in a good location?

I heard that the Dreaming (comic store) had both a vendor booth and some kind of gaming space somewhere else- was that connected to the freeplay room?

Mostly I'm interested because it sounds like you guys had a great time and I want to make sure this all happens again in Boston!

samurai6966

As far as board games, I played some Munchkin Quest, Revolution, Zombie Dice, and StarCraft Board Game, and Poo (Card game about Monkeys throwing poo. It's really fun.) As far as RPGs, I played Eclipse Phase, transhuman space horror. I played a thug type in a group of ex-cop, scientist, and an octopus. We had to get a nanobot weapon from a black market dealer and the octopus blew up the ship and we where able to get the weapon but one of our party members was working with a group outside of ours, so he stole the info from where the nanobots came from and tried to escape but I was dealing with the guards outside so when he came out, I ran up to him and snapped his neck. It was awesome!

Jmstar

Sage, any advice or lessons learned for PAX east?

Also: Anybody who played Fiasco, I want your stories! I wrote the game and I'm dying to hear what went down.

Sevorak

I went to PAX with a couple board game enthusiasts, so I played a ton, including Puerto Rico, Ticket to Ride Europe, Fury of Dracula, Witch's Brew, among others. I really enjoyed Fury of Dracula. I think it was our Dracula's first time playing Dracula, so we won pretty easily, but it was fun. The only bummer was that one of the guys I went with is a bit of a board game snob, so I didn't get to play some of the games I wanted to try, like Dominion and some of the simpler, fun games. I saw several games of Globalization being played, and it looks like a good one, as well as Ascension.

Also tried out Eclipse Phase for the first time and had a good time.

sagelt

JMstar, I think the biggest thing I learned is that there are a lot of people who want to play games, especially if you tell them you'll be in one place with one kind of game (I was the guy at the 'Indie Games Room'). If I had known so many people would want to try new cool stuff, I would have made sure there were more people on hand to run it.

Grath

I 'd all of the attendees in table top when I was enforcing. It didn't even feel like work.