Concrete Cow 15 games

The games below will be offered at the Concrete Cow 15 convention on 14 March 2015. If you have something you'd like to offer, please drop us a line via the UK Roleplayers forum or any of the other places where we publicise Concrete Cow. See the Concrete Cow 14½ games page for what was on offer last time.

The Bit.ly link for this page is http://bit.ly/eiw4wQ.

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 game sign up	9.40am
Morning games	10.00am – 1.30pm
Afternoon game sign up	2.10pm
Afternoon games	2.30pm – 6.30pm
Evening game sign up	Open sign-ups throughout the day
Evening games	7.30pm – 11.00pm
Close	11.00pm

Sign-up process

Allocating games to players is by sign-up sheets on the day, but with a staggered call to sign up. This should prevent unpleasant, jostling crowds around the sheets while also not penalising those who can't get to the venue at the crack of dawn.

• Everyone gets a tombola ticket (sealed) when they arrive, and another over lunch.
• Signup sheets go out as-and-when, but without player names on them. This gets people a chance to see what's on offer and decide on preferences.

Twenty minutes before the game slot starts, we start allocating people in waves.

• First wave: under 16s and Cow newbies. They can take a friend or two along to sign up with someone they know.
• Subsequent waves: I call out a digit. If your ticket ends with that digit, you get to sign up in that wave.
• Repeat until everyone's in a game.

If groups of people want to get into the same game, wait until the last member of the group has been called, then go up en masse.

We'll do the staggered sign-up for the morning and afternoon slots, but not the evening slot. There are fewer people around in the evening, and more opportunity to peruse the sheets. I don't think we'll get the crushes that necessitate the more complex process for the morning and afternoon slots.

Offering games

You can download blank sign-up sheets as sign-up sheet (MS Word) or sign-up sheet (PDF). (If you're offering a game, please note that you're still responsible for writing your own sign-up sheet; we don't create them for you.)

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

Send us your game blurbs via the UK Roleplayers forum or any of the other places where we publicise Concrete Cow and we'll put them here!

(Please add games in alphabetical order)

Note for GMs

If your game has pre-generated characters, please take a look at their demographics. If the pre-gens are mostly straight white men, ask yourself why. If that's what's required by the scenario, fine. If not, please include more diversity in the characters.

If you game involves content that some people might find upsetting, please note that in the game blurb.

If you don't want someone at your table, you have every right to ask them to leave. You don't have to provide a reason, but please try to remain civil. Ask an organiser to step in if it's needed.

During a game, if you notice that one person's behaviour is making someone else uncomfortable, please don't ignore it. Do something about it. Take note of the harassment policy.

The GenCon Games on Demand advice and parts of How to Run Safer, Accessible, and Inclusive Game Conventions go into much more detail, even if it is rather US-centric.

214 System

The Holy Wax Infant of Prague

In 1583, court spy-master Sir Francis Walsingham sent an adept gnostic team to Prague on a mission he didn’t commit to public record. While Doctor John Dee and his companion Edward Kelley negotiate with King Rudolph over his support of England in the face of aggressive manoeuvres by Spain, you have been despatched to a monastery in Alfstad, northern Moravia, to seek out the return of a prized relic.

Slot: Morning

GM: Paul Baldowski

Players: 3–5

The Gongfermor Deception

Sir Francis Walsingham lobbied Queen Elizabeth to caveat the Witchcraft Act 1563 - An Act Against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts - with The Dee Sanction. In his role as spymaster, Walsingham could see the danger posed by magick and the supernatural and sought to fight it with (admittedly unholy) fire. Under the guidance of Doctor John Dee, you protect the Queen from maleficence - so when someone uncovers a wax effigy of Elizabeth in a dungpile, you're called into action.

Slot: Afternoon

GM: Paul Baldowski

Players: 3–5

Blood & Water

The storygame of Being Human: players create a set of supernatural housemates and their residence within the first hour of play, then explore the consequences of their choices in the remaining time.

A League of Their Own

The time is now, but the world is not our own: here, superhumans have been an accepted part of the world for almost a century and you are one such group of heroes, trying to deal with the responsibility of their powers while still holding onto the things that matter to them.

Think Being Human crossed with Misfits and maybe a touch of Avengers Assemble: because superhumans are part of everyday life, NPCs are more likely to accept weird occurrences and less likely to dismiss the idea of aliens, mutants, giant robots, etc. That'll make it that much harder to hide your secret identity and explain to your friends and family why you're living with these other oddballs...

GM: James Mullen

Players: 3 or 4

Slot: Afternoon

The Code of the Spacelanes

All of Time and Space

An adventure for THE CODE OF THE SPACELANES set in the Dr Who Universe.

You can play any character you want from anywhere in Time and Space. You an even play a Timelord (just not one if the "big" ones). The only thing you've got in common is that somehow you've washed up in a runaway TARDIS. As "round things" explode all around you, IF you can get along and IF you can bring the thing under control and IF you can land the bloody thing - beyond the doors could lie anything and anywhere in Time and Space. IF you can get the doors open......

Previously run at Conception 2015.

Slot: Morning

GM: Simon Burley

Players: 2–6 (3–5 preferred)

The Code of Steam and Steel

Castle in the Sky

An adventure for my forthcoming game of Scientific Romance and Steampunk - THE CODE OF STEAM AND STEEL.

On a world not our own, the privileged live down on the plains near the sea, where the Sky Castles are said to have crashed millennia ago. These pampered few have their "freedom" protected by an overwhelming military force - with its fleets of flying dreadnoughts - and a "benevolent" Government.

The less fortunate live inland and uphill, mining for the resources that civilisation needs to survive using the ageing and decaying technology of a bygone era. A few disgruntled types have abandoned the world to live as Sky Pirates - parasites in Ornithopters living off the society below.

You are one of a small group who have come into the possession of a clue to an ancient secret that could rock the world to its foundations and rewrite the past and future of mankind.

A brand new adventure - based upon and in the world of Studio Ghibli's classic anime "Laputa - Castle in the Sky". A work rare beauty, which we'll probably trample all over.

Slot: Afternoon

GM: Simon Burley

Players: 2–6 (3–5 preferred)

The Comics Code

Superheroes and Dinosaurs

At the first public demonstration of a brand new paradigm of 3D film technology the villain Psaurosyche attacks. He is know for his ability to mentally control lizards and - coincidentally - the film being shown is a dinosaur epic......

Look, the Scenarios got Superheroes, right? And dinosaurs. Subtle it ain't.

Based on the Squadron UK scenario created and run by Matt West at Indiecon 2014 and previously run in its current form at London Anime and Games Convention 2015.

Slot: Evening. NOTE: This game will run for exactly two and a half hours cos I have to run for my train - making it perfect for anyone who, like me, has to leave early.

GM: Simon Burley

Players: 2–6 (3–5 preferred)

Concrete Cow is Like a Box of Chocolates...

A fine selection of delicious treats hand-picked from the collection of Short Games on the Groundhoggoth blog:

Vox Populi: Congratulations! You and your comrades have overthrown the Evil Overlord and liberated the land from his tyrannical grip; now all citizens are free once more to live their lives as they choose, within the new laws & policies being laid down by the Republic, i.e. you and your comrades.

Power Grab: A very fast and fun game about making up superpowers, then grabbing them on the fly to solve the problems you face.

Safety in Numbers: An ensemble cast survival horror/disaster movie game, where everyone takes charge of a bunch of simple characters and hope that at least one of them will survive to be the big hero!

Un-GM: James Mullen

Players: 3 to 5

Slot: Morning

Cthulhu Dawn

Before Armitage, before Alhazred and the Black Pharaoh, before even Hyboria's great Eibon, there was... Thag.

At the dawn of prehistory, cavefolk use their crippling lack of intellect, skill and talent to protect their tribe from monstrous, scaly creatures that think as little of humanity as they do of bugs. Cthulhu? Dinosaurs? Bad luck. It's both! The Elder Things, Mi-go and dinosaurs still rule the world. The cavefolk will uncover the fell influence of these otherworldly terrors on their tribe. Can they live long enough with their sanity intact to save the world? Probably not. But it'll be fun trying.

A hack of Og, the caveman game of slapstick hilarity with Cthulhu Dark, the purist, bleak and unforgiving game of cosmic hilarity horror?*

Immature content.

• They laughed at me and called me mad, the fools! Soon they will all pay. I'll teach them to mock me. No, I'll teach them not to mock me. Yes. That.

GM: Tom Pleasant

Players: Up to 4

Dark Trail

A Trail of Cthulhu and Cthulhu Dark hack by Graham.

The Dying of St Margaret's

On the remote Scottish island of St Margaret’s, the investigators take jobs at an all-girls private school. Each is searching for an acquaintance who disappeared from the school, but what they discover drives them to the edge of insanity.

Part of Graham Walmsley's Purist quartet where there is no escape, no comfort, no salvation when faced with the Mythos. Guns will not help you, reason will not protect you, faith will not give you comfort. You are powerless and insignificant: your only choices are death, insanity or a quiet life with a shattered mind.

Originally designed for Trail of Cthulhu, this will be run using Dark Trail, Graham's mash-up of Trail and his own rules-light system, Cthulhu Dark.

Mature content.

GM: Tom Pleasant

Players: Up to 4

Deadwood

Deadwood is a lawless Old West Gold Rush town where the thin veneer of civilisation ain't enough to hide the expression of every mortal vice. Just like the tv show there'll be gun-fights, saloons, whiskey-drinkin', bad American accents, oath-breakin', and outright soliliquisin'!

This is a GMless structured freeform tabletop game using the basic approach used in Forsooth! We'll have 2 characters each, each with a motivation to drive them forward and an oath that draws the line they dare not cross.

Un-GM: Epistolary Richard

Slot: Afternoon

Players: 2–4

The Final Voyage of The Selene

Being a final account of the circumstances leading up to the evacuation of The Selene, on its return voyage from the frontiers of explored space, in the form of a Storytelling Game for 4 to 6 players.

This is a guided narrative freeform in the style of Witch: the Road to Lindisfarne. During the course of 3 acts, bookended by a prologue and epilogue, the six characters will explore their agendas and motivations, while the players are aware that their actions may be the cause of the disaster that engulfs The Selene and their characters may not get out alive.

To celebrate the commercial release of this game on Drivethru this year, we will be using the 6 new Roles and 6 new Agendas, plus some other tweaks from the extended play suggestions.

Un-GM: James Mullen

Players: 3 to 5

Slot: Evening

Dogs in the Vineyard

Hawkins’ Point

Until recently the town of Hawkins’ Point was a poster child for gentiles and the Faithful living peacefully together. Then it all started falling apart. Gentile famers’ stock was attacked by unknown predators. A gentile child went missing. Now the Faithful are accused of witchcraft and the local Sheriff is eyeing the gallows.

You’re God’s watchdogs - charged with protecting the Faithful. You - with your revolvers and books of life - are all that’s standing between the Faithful and a community that’s baying for their blood.

GM: Ashley Munday

Players: 4

Fear Itself

Along Unseen Paths

The history department at University College London has received an unexpected windfall which will allow them to conduct a project that will mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One - an oral history study of the Thankful Villages (where all the soldiers returned home safely from the war). Starting in Stanton Prior, Somerset, they will be part of a team working over the next couple of years to complete the project across the country. The team head to the picturesque village, in the middle of summer, to spend a few days talking with the locals and enjoying the beautiful landscape. However, they are not the only ones who have come to the area looking for something. Some things should be best left unseen.

System: Fear Itself

GM: Matt Sanderson

Players: 4–6

Slot: Morning

Five Geek Girls & a Guy

Would The Big Bang Theory have ever have been made if it focused on the lives of a bunch of geeky girls and the super-hot guy who moved in across the hall? Of course it wouldn’t. Happily, though, as story gamers we don’t have to be network executives to get to see the show that could have been made, we can create a pilot episode of our very own.

This is a GMless structured freeform tabletop game, most similar to Witch: the Road to Lindisfarne with a cold open, an Act structure and various questions to be answered. This game is currently in playtest, so players' feedback will go to shape the final form of the game.

Un-GM: Epistolary Richard

Slot: Morning

Players: 3–6

Frankly, I'm Glad They're Dead

A Storytelling indie RPG, based around a 1930's themed murder. The characters all wake up with no memory of the last 24hrs, locked in a room with a dead body in front of them. Things just escalate from there.

GM: Dave Dawkins

Players: 3–6

Slot: Morning (one hour duration)

Golden Sky Stories

Studio Ghibli meets Furry with a sprinkling of Cute. Childish Japanese animal spirits solving small problems with hugs and miscomprehension.

Character generation at the table.

GM: Mik Reed

Players: 3 to 5

Slot: Morning or Afternoon, depending on what else is on.

Hara: The Wanderers

An early (first?) public outing for this new indie game.

In the words of the author, "it's an excellent system, based curiously around a d30. The combat has tactical depth, but is mostly simple and fun. It's set in a land of Bronze Age warriors and Dinosaurs, magic most foul, beautifully illustrated and with intriguing story lines. One of those storylines, I've just finished composing, and now need to put in front of a bunch of real people."

As for the game, the author says, "Pre-gen characters, I can't really say too much about the storyline without giving stuff away, but someone wants the players to fetch something. And there will be dinosaurs."

GM: Dave Dawkins

Players: 3–6

Slot: Afternoon

Heroquest

Dinosaurs Against Christians!

The Velociraptors visit the Creation Museum.

After escaping from the place of bright lights and screams your pack lived happily in the wilds, avoiding the tasty featherless pink things whenever you could. Now the pink things have captured two of your pack mates and you want them back. You’ve tracked them to the pink things nest. Now you have to get in, find your pack mates, release them and get out before they’re fed to the pink things’ young. Should be easy enough, what can go wrong?

GM: Ashley Munday

Players: 5

Hollowpoint

The action/mission/heist game of hyper-capable agents working together to overcome a common threat. Sort of like a more narrative version of Feng Shui.

Trauma Team

Dr Simon Noon has been found—hooked up to a medical cyberdeck in an 30-dollar-an-hour hotel in Rio. That's just his body, though—his mind could be anywhere, and it's the mind that has Sendai Corp's intellectual property. Sendai have a Gold Beam on their Trauma Team account, which guarantees a 30 min response from the best in the business—that's you. Former solos, fixers, cyberjockeys and techs, you now work on Cybernet Extraction for minds that are trouble to find in the vastness of the 'net. Your mission is to bring Noon back alive and mind in one piece. Be quick, because the clock is ticking on his brain meat...

GM: smiorgan

Players: 3–6

Slot: morning or afternoon

Hot War

Death to El Jefe!

Revolution has come to the Caribbean island of Corto Maltese, again. The forces of the hated despot known as El Jefe -- a former revolutionary himself -- are on the run. This time things will be different. This time the people will be free.

Amidst the chaos, four men are thrown together by circumstance. Each is very different, but tied to the others in a way none of them could have imagined. The turmoil of the revolution presents an opportunity for each to shape events in his own image, but who will prove the strongest?

This scenario uses a modified version of the Hot War mechanics and a thoroughly different setting.

System: Hot War (slightly modified)

GM: Scott Dorward

Players: 4

Slot: Afternoon

Monster of the Week

Five Nights at Freddy's

Things are going sour down at Freddy Fazbears Pizzaria in Chicago. The famous and friendly animatronics are as feel good as ever of course, and its famous stuffed crust is still a hot seller, but the recent death and mutilation of the night security guard has raised a few questions on site safety. It has also attracted the attention of a group of (un)professional monster hunters who are out so solve the mystery! Thats you and the gang - Monster of the week lets you and your fellow players design the monster hunting group of your choice with themes from Buffy the vampire slayer to Supernatural or Scooby Doo. Powered by the Apocalypse.

Keeper: Robin Poole

Players: 3 to 5

Slot: Morning

The One Ring

Where's My Cow?

You and your cousins have been looking after Uncle Rory's farm whilst he has been visiting in Hobbiton. Last night you harvested a fine mushroom crop, but then overate in the ensuing feast, and all of you fell asleep at the table. When you awoke the next morning you knew you were in trouble—Uncle Rory's prize cow had gone missing, and you can't remember putting her in the cowshed the night before so who knows where's she's gone now. Uncle Rory is due back in a few days and he'll be furious if you haven't found his cow.

An introductory adventure for a group of young hobbits, created especially for Concrete Cow. It will showcase the system, although with a few little tweaks to reflect the setting being in The Shire.

Un-GM: Ben 'wraithben' Cole

Players: 4+

Renegade Jennys and Boilerplate Jacks

Sweetwater Plantation

So there I am, on a bleeding slave plantation, trying like hell to placate an angry Comanche airship captain. He’s having none of it; he wants those slaves as tribute, no matter how sick they are.

But then he cuts off his retort and his eyes go wide. I turn around to look at what’s caught his attention. Sliding through the cotton fields comes what looks like a person made of smoke, with ropy tendrils for arms and glowing coals for eyes.

I turn to suggest that now is no longer a good time for this conversation, but he’s already backpedalling towards the rope ladder back onto his ship.

And that’s when the trap springs, and everything goes white...

Airships, steamworks, sorcery, skullduggery. Politics, crime, espionage, and the occasional good deed. Renegade Jennys and Boilerplate Jacks is a game of outcasts surviving in an unhinged, steam-powered world. Taking its cues from Firefly, Blake's 7, and Farscape, this roleplaying game invites you to play disreputable steampunk heroes in a world that's already tried once to throw them away.

• GM: Neil Smith
• Players: 3–5
• Slot: Afternoon

Rise and Fall

Dystopias come from somewhere, and they go somewhere. They appear because someone is able to convince others that they are reasonable, and they disappear because someone is able to exploit their weaknesses. They rise, and they fall.

Rise and Fall is a GM-less story game for 3-5 people in which players create a dystopia, explore its rise to power, how everyday life operates during its tenure, and then how the regime is brought down.

• Un-GM: Cat Tobin
• Players: 2–4

Shadowrun

A Vanishing

Someone has vanished, probably into the Barrens of Seattle. Jonson is offering cash for retrieval.

Shadowrunners meet here!

GM: Mist77

Slot: Afternoon

Small Folk

Fire on the Boating Lake

(A preview of my newly-published FATE-powered game of wainscot urban fantasy, which hopefully will be on sale online in the very near future, just possibly even before the con. That may depend on the weather in Texas. Seriously.)

The Small Folk are modern descendants of the fairy kin and elves and such, hiding in the walls of human civilisation. Communities live scattered throughout human towns and villages... And Fast Dave sees that as an opportunity. After all, even if Small Folk don’t have a cash economy, there’s the possibility of trade. And he’s got three of the Small Folk who've bought into his ideas. Sort of.

But the tribe in the public park in Newtown may be difficult to deal with. They evidently have their own worries at the moment, and rumour says that they’re kind of hard to persuade. Something weird about the park’s boating lake has them worried. Fast Dave may have to do a lot of talking, and the gang may have to solve a few other problems to get this mob on side. But it wouldn't be fun and profitable if it wasn't a little bit difficult, would it?

Slot: Morning

GM: Phil Masters

Players: 4

Trail of Cthulhu

On a Wild and Savage Hillside

Rural Carmarthenshire, Wales, 1690. The Beddoe family keep to themselves, tending their farm peacefully. Of course they have their secrets, but who doesn’t? A few eyebrows were raised when Griffith left the church, and loose tongues wag about Gwenllian being a foundling, but these are minor vexations. And now Margaret has a child on the way, after many years of disappointment. This is a happy time.

At least it should be happy. Events are conspiring to make the Beddoes confront the secrets of the land on which they live and the blood that runs through their veins. Is their family strong enough to survive, and will anything ever be the same again?

This self-contained scenario forms the opening of the upcoming campaign, A Poison Tree.

System: Trail of Cthulhu

GM: Scott Dorward

Players: 6

Slot: Morning

World War Cthulhu

Captive Audience

It is early February 1941. The Blitz has been underway for five months. During the continual bombardment, a group of friends have come together to keep up morale in this troubled time. Having known each other from school, they and their partners meet every two weeks for an evening of Bridge and socializing. This week though, they have been invited to a different kind of gathering at their usual meeting place...

System: Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition

GM: Matt Sanderson

Players: 4–6

Slot: Afternoon

The Meat Trade

London, 1941. The inevitable air raid has come early today and you've been caught on the hop. Public shelters are grim at the best of times, with no running water or sewage, bedding down with a bunch of strangers. You can't choose who you're shut in with, and some sorts are stranger than others. No matter what you've been through so far, tonight will be one for the books. Before the night is out, you'll have made new friends and powerful enemies, and learned that the threats that lie under London's feet are at least as deadly as those falling from the skies.

System: Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition

GM: Scott Dorward

Players: 5

Slot: Evening