Concrete Cow 10.5 games

The following games will be offered at the Concrete Cow 10½ convention on 11 September 2010. If you have something you'd like to offer, please email concrete-cow-owner@yahoogroups.com. See the Concrete Cow 10 games page for what was on offer last time.

Game Slots

To keep some sense of organisation about the day (ha!), this is the approximate timetable for the day.

Doors open	9.00am
Morning games	10.00am - 1.30pm
Afternoon games	2.30pm - 6.30pm
Evening games	7.30pm - 11.00pm
Close	11.00pm

At previous Concrete Cows, the morning slot often has an excess of games, the afternoon slot is OK, and the evening slot has very few. You may want to bear that in mind when you're deciding when to offer your game.

Allocating games to players is by sign-up sheets on the day, on a first-come-first-served basis. You can download blank sign-up sheets as sign-up sheet (MS Word) or sign-up sheet (PDF).

Note that, depending on circumstances, not all of these games may run on the day.

Guest of Honour games

Dead of Night is the roleplaying game of campfire tales, slasher movies and b-movie horror. It is a game of screaming victims, unstoppable killers and slavering monsters, where the horror movie clichés flow thicker than blood and the only victory is survival.

Dead of Night is designed to be quick and easy to play, with rules that help you tell horror stories without getting in the way of the fun. The rules are simple and straightforward to learn, yet offer all the options and depth to allow you to customise the game however you like.

Bad Signal

Arizona, USA and the temperature is in the 120s with no sign of letting up. But it's not just the heat. There's a weird atmosphere to the place, a charge in the air that's getting people all worked up and causing electrical equipment to act all strange. And that's not to mention the weird voice that keeps cropping up on the radio, in between the static, turning men into killers, killers into monsters.

Something bad is in the air, 10-4 that.

A game of truck drivers, CB radios and psychopaths on the open road.

GM: Andrew Kenrick

Slot: Morning

Number of Players: 5

XVIIth Legion

In AD9, three legions from Rome crossed the Rhine into Outer Germany to put down an uprising. None returned.

One year later, the Emperor Augustus dispatched a handful of legionaries to recover the standards of the lost legions.

This is the story of those legionaries.

A game of horror, depravity and savagery in the dark forests of Europe.

GM: Andrew Kenrick

Slot: Afternoon

Number of Players: 5

Run Silent

It is November 9, 1983, and the Cold War is threatening to go hot. NATO is conducting a huge military exercise and the USSR suspects this may be the prelude to a massive pre-emptive strike. All Soviet forces are on high alert. The Delta-III class strategic missile submarine K-129 has been stationed south east of Iceland, its six nuclear warheads primed to destroy the north-eastern seaboard of America.

18 hours ago K-129 collided with the USS Michigan, an American Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine. The fate of the Michigan is unknown.

12 hours ago a large portion of K-129s crew attempted mutiny. 17 crewmembers are dead, 34 are locked in forward compartments. During the mutiny K-129 ran aground.

1 hour ago something started banging on the outer hull. Two divers sent out to investigate never came back. Something is out there, trying to get in. And you're trapped in here, just trying to stay alive long enough to get back to the surface.

A game of horror, paranoia and something sinister lurking in the deep.

GM: Andrew Kenrick

Slot: Evening

Number of Players: 5

Other games

(Please add games in alphabetical order)

Send us your game blurbs at concrete-cow-owner@yahoogroups.com and we'll put them here!

Albion beta playtest

Celtic Fantasy Roleplaying in a once and future Britain

Two centuries ago the Age of Madness ended in the event known as the Shrug. Gaia’s outrage raised the sea and changed the weather, and society crumbled. The Druid Order came forth to lead us in a new way, inspired by the ideas of ancient times. Now the seven kingdoms know peace and prosperity, but rumours and shadows are growing. Who will confront them?

Albion is a fantasy roleplaying game using Celtic elements and themes in an isolated future Britain that has turned back to its past. Magic lies below the surface and can be stirred by any skill or roused by spells, and the paths of destiny call for champions.

GM: Tim Partridge

Slot: Morning

Number of Players: 3 to 4

Apocalypse World

Baby The Rain Must Fall

Been rainin' for XXXXin' ever. A dark, greasy rain that tastes like XXXX.

We met the old timer pushing his shopping trolley on the cracked interstate outside a' what used to be Pittsburgh. He tried to run, but the Gunlugger put him down with a shot that clean tore his legs off. XXXX didn't jibber jabber much after that, but he did point us in the direction of gas and titties in return for us promising to kill him real quick. Found a young boy all tied up in the trolley once we thought to look, along with a hunnered or so of them tiny batteries from back in the day.

He's still with us that old timer. Scrawny little fella, the Angel still managed to cut near twenty pounds of good meat off his bones. At least food ain't gonna be one of the problems facing us as we trek across this cursed earth - full of XXXXin' cannibals I hear, neck XXXXers and worse, clean flowin' water too so they say - on our way to them titties.

This Is APOCALYPSE WORLD. Where rain tastes like XXXX, life is cheap, and titties are always dirty.

GM: Indie Pete

Slot: Evening

Number of players: 3-4

Tags: PG-13 (strong language, strong sex, some sustained violence), love story, post-apocalyptic, poetry, pretty darn rainy.

Board Games

Arkham Horror and other assorted games, on a pick-up basis.

Call of Cthulhu

Goodnight Vienna

Over the Mediterranean Sea: September 1942. After an abortive bombing mission the B24 Liberator ‘Goodnight Vienna’ has been flying for twelve hours and is running out of fuel. Defective navigation equipment means the crew don’t know where they are any more accurately that ‘somewhere over the Med’ and haven’t been able to establish radio contact with their North African base. Its time to bail out. Hell is below.

Author: Glyn White (in the Shadows Of War Monograph)

GM: Matt Nott

Number of players: up to 8

Slot: Afternoon, 2.30pm-6.30pm

On the Shores of Roanoke

August 18, 1590. Governor White returns to the Roanoke Colony only to find the colonists having all vanished with the only clue as to their whereabouts being the single word "Croatoan" carved into a post. A little over 400 years later, the mystery remains, theories abound as to the nature of what really happened in those distant times. An all consuming obsession is about to shine a ray of light into the darkness.

GM: Matt Sanderson

Slot: Morning (10.00am - 1.30pm)

Number of Players: 4-6

Prelude to a Coda

August 1942, the annual Bayreuth Festival celebrating the works of Wagner is in full swing, gearing up to the fourth and final opera in the Ring Cycle. Guests of the Fuhrer and high ranking members of the Third Reich are in attendance for one of the most prestigious events in the Nazi social calendar. The last train is pulling into the station with the remaining guests for the performance when events take a turn towards the strange and unusual...

GM: Matt Sanderson

Slot: Evening (7.30pm to 11.00pm)

Number of Players: 4-6

Danger Patrol (Beta Playtest)

We’re going to play Danger Patrol, an action/adventure retro sci-fi game. The idea is to create the episodes of a 50s-style TV show in the vein of the old Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials (with maybe a dash of the Venture Bros., Star Wars, and Indiana Jones). You’re all going to play members of the elite Danger Patrol—special super-powered crime fighters who protect Rocket City from evil Stygian Adepts, the nefarious agents of the Crimson Republic, rampaging monsters set loose by mad scientists, and other crazy threats.

To make your Danger Patrol hero, you’re going to pick a Style and a Role. Your style tells us what kind of being you are: A Robot, a Mystic, a cybernetic Atomic, or something else. Your role tells us what your job is on the team: A super-spy Agent, an elite soldier Commando, a wiley Detective, etc. Are you ready? Let’s go!

GM: James Mullen

Slot: Afternoon

Number of Players: 3-4

Dead of Night (2ed)

Dead of Night is the roleplaying game of campfire tales, slasher movies and b-movie horror. It is a game of screaming victims, unstoppable killers and slavering monsters, where the horror movie clichés flow thicker than blood and the only victory is survival.

Dead of Night is designed to be quick and easy to play, with rules that help you tell horror stories without getting in the way of the fun. The rules are simple and straightforward to learn, yet offer all the options and depth to allow you to customise the game however you like.

Perfect World

The Time: July 4th, 1955

The Place: Hoover Hills, USA

On the night before Independence Day, a group of teenagers witness a strange green light fall from the sky and upon investigating, discover something truly out-of-this-world. Dismissed as delinquent pranksters, they are unable to convince the townsfolk of the danger they are in, until it is too late and Hoover Hills comes under siege from unspeakable horrors!

GM: James Mullen

Slot: Evening (7.30pm to 11.00pm)

Number of Players: 3-6

The Silent Majority

It's 1923, and a group of like-minded people gather in London with the goal of founding a new Spiritualist church and bringing comfort to those lost souls on either side of the line that divides life and death. The old building once known as Our Lady of Sorrows may now be crumbing and rat-infested, but with love and devotion it can rise again as a beacon of hope. And in its dark corners, the voices of the dead whisper, waiting for someone to listen...

GM: Scott Dorward

No. of Players: 5

Duty and Honour

Kleiner Krieg

What proud young man would not want to serve in the elite Hesse-Cassel Field Jäger Corps? Familiar with nature, expert shot, independent, better paid, the chance of adventure in the New World! Join the just fight to subdue the unruly and treasonous thirteen colonies, in the service of His Royal Majesty George III, King of England.

GM: Gary "EvilGaz" Bowerbank

Fiasco

...Maybe some dude from youth group talked you into boosting a case of motor oil, but now your cousin is dead in a swamp and you killed him. Maybe you and your girlfriend figured you could scare your wife into a divorce, but things went pear-shaped and now a gang of cranked-up Mexicans with latex gloves and a pit bull are looking for you. It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

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. There will be big dreams and flawed execution. It won't go well for them, to put it mildly, and in the end it will probably all go south in a glorious heap of jealousy, murder, and recrimination. Lives and reputations will be lost, painful wisdom will be gained, and if you are really lucky, your guy just might end up back where he started.

Fiasco is a GM-less game for 3-5 players, 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. It's like making your own Coen brothers movie, in about the same amount of time it'd take to watch one.

Two slots on offer, with Un-GMs Indie Pete and Ashley Griffiths

Number of Extra Players: 2-4

GURPS

Charms to Soothe

They said you had a talent, that you were smart enough and fit enough and enough of a bastard that you could serve your country in a way most people never even get to hear about. And you did want to serve your country, didn't you? So you found yourself on the front line of a war that most people simply wouldn't believe was possible, working for a secret organisation tasked with defending the UK from whatever supernatural threat faces it.

(A tie-in to the novels of David Devereux)

GM: Roger Burton West

Number of Players: 5

Hot War

Time and Tide

Over 80 years have passed since the town of Innsmouth was destroyed and Devil Reef bombed into sand. The incident is now a distant memory, and while Innsmouth is no more, the town of New Gloucester has risen from its remains. Families from all over are now settling in this scenic seaside town, some drawn by the beautiful sea view and easy commute to Arkham, and some by a pull they cannot quite explain. Life in New Gloucester is good, quiet and prosperous.

But nothing ever really dies in Innsmouth. Soon the town leaders will find themselves drawn into a battle for the very soul of their community. And as the horrors of the past rise, new opportunities arise.

GM: Scott Dorward

No. of Players: 4

Mouse Guard

The Sinking of the Black Crow

Autumn, 1152. A torrential storm threatens soon to smash into the busy heart of Port Sumac. Speeding just ahead of the angry clouds is the Black Crow, that famous galleon just returning from trading in the fabled Orient, its wooden belly groaning with winter supplies and other treasures. Alas! Just within sight of safety, the mighty storm drives the Crow against the rocks! With massive drops of warm rain crashing to the ground and furious winds battering the rooftops, the First Captain of Port Sumac orders the Mouse Guard to attempt a rescue of the crew of the Black Crow and what cargo they can.

Beneath the furious waves, in the cold calm underwater, a hideous tentacled terror from the depths lurks; while inside the Port, a cunning and opportunistic merchant sees an opportunity to destroy the power of the Black Crow and the Mouse Guard in one fell swoop! Will the Mouse Guard save the crew? Will the mice of Port Sumac starve to death in the long cold Winter if the supplies are lost? Will the Black Crow ever spread its sail again? Will the enemy within the walls of Port Sumac triumph in villainy?

Let's find out in this swashbuckling chapter of Mouse Guard!

GM: Indie Pete

Slot: Afternoon

Number of Players: 3-4

A Penny for My Thoughts

You’re suffering from a form of global amnesia, a rare case of total memory loss. Your only hope of recovery lies with a group of people with the same condition and with Mnemosyne, an experimental drug that allows other people access to your memories. Will you be able to help each other remember?

Will you want to?

This is a GMless story-telling game od memory, identity and redemption.

Un-GM: James Mullen

Slot: Morning

Number of Extra Players:3-4

Remember Tomorrow

Remember Tomorrow is a quick and dirty near-future "cyberpunk" game; it's a framework for making near-future stories, now, reflecting the short fiction and novels of Gibson, McAuley, Noon et al.

Remember Tomorrow is a role-playing game set in the near future. Look at the world today, now flash it forward twenty minutes into the future. Sky Cars: Check. Memory Couriers: Check. Everything Else: Slightly Changed, huh, how about that?

Remember Tomorrow is set in a place called Somewhere. Maybe it was once Glasgow, Milan, Reno, Auckland or Hong Kong. Everywhere in the world is Somewhere. Are you Ready, Willing and Able?

Un-GM: Scott Dorward

No. of Players: 3

Rogue Trader

Call of the Past

The Reddigaust dynasty of Rogue Traders have a long and glorious past. With a warrant of renown, a huge fleet of ships, holdings and enterprises dotted all over the sector, they were certainly in their glory days. Unfortunately, they were all also heretics. A purging by the Inquisition brought the dynasty to an end. Almost.

One untainted Reddigaust remains, and one single ship, the Raven Shard. It is the task of the last Reddigaust and the crew of the Shard to try and restore the family name to the light of the Emperor, banishing the dark heresy into the past. But with a suspicious Inquisitor permanently on their case, it's not going to be easy. Perhaps even less so when a mysterious message is received from one of the old family holdings. The last Reddigaust may want to leave the past behind, but the past may have other ideas...

No knowledge of RT is needed for this, although a basic understanding of the WH40K setting may be helpful. Even that is not essential though.

GM: Alex Helm

Number of Players: 5

A Taste For Murder

In an English country house, someone is about to commit a murder. Even they do not know what they are about to do.

Inspector Chapel must unravel this mystery. As the Inspector investigates the family’s relationships, dark secrets come to light. Who had an affair? Who had a child, unknown to those around them? And who had a motive for murder?

A Taste For Murder is a GM-less game for four to six players. Halfway through the game, there will be a murder. At the end of the game, when the murderer is revealed, it will be a surprise to everyone

Un-GM: WooHoo

Number of Extra Players: 3-5