Sunday 6 February 2011

The Nationals

The Student National Roleplaying And Wargaming Championships (hereafter The Nationals) are a rather strange thing. A convention that's all about the games - where you play tournament games. Wargames with your own armies, card and board games with your own decks or off-the-shelf, and tournament RPGs arranged by genre or system category.

I've been there on and off since 1998, when it first came to Glasgow after years shuttling between Bangor and Loughborough. (The prize for winning is the opportunity to host it next year.) And my first time out wasn't that great, but enough of us had fun that we went all the way to Bangor (Wales, not Maine) next year and we were off.

I eventually GMed in 2007 after Edinburgh came third but the winners didn't want to do it, and again in 2010 after Heriot Watt came within two points of winning and the winners didn't want it. Both times I failed to get an applicable category to run Buffy going and ended up doing the Action And Adventure category, doing Adventure! one year and Uncharted style modern pulp using Hollow Earth Expedition the next.

But this year, the category I suggested, Urban Fantasy, is the most popular category. So I can run Buffy just fine. And with no pressure at all to do something good. (gulp)

I'll try and keep a development diary of sorts going here, so you can see what goes into a convention game, specifically a tournament game where "be the last to be killed by the TPK dungeon" isn't a viable option for scoring.

Wish me monsters.

No comments:

Post a Comment