Concrete Cow 17.5 games

The games below will be offered at the Concrete Cow 17½ on 16 September 2017. 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 17 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, this is the approximate timetable for the day.

Doors open	9.00am
Morning game sign up	9.40am	(ABCDEFGHIJ)
Morning games	10.00am – 1.30pm
Afternoon game sign up	2.10pm	(JIHGFEDCBA)
Afternoon games	2.30pm – 6.30pm
Raffle draw	6.30pm
Evening game sign up	7.10pm	(EFDGCHBIAJ)
Evening games	7.30pm – 11.00pm
Close	11.00pm

Sign-ups will be on the day only. You may want to learn more about our signup system.

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.)

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!

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, at any time. 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.

The Games

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

Morning

Call of Cthulhu (7e): Islands in the Stream

South Pacific 1925. A National Geographic Team have to make some vital repairs to their yacht after a storm. They land on a small island to effect repairs and take on fresh water. A nice spot to take some pictures and research for the Magazine Article.

GM: Paul Eyles

Players: Up to 6

Call of Cthulhu: Dissociation

The last flight from San Diego to Seattle has left for the night. It's a quiet flight, with hardly any turbulence. An hour into the three hour flight, the passengers notice lights moving in the darkness outside the plane. At that moment, all the lights in the plane go out and the engines start to power down - and this is just the beginning.

NOTE: Just to avoid any confusion, I'm offering this twice during the day (in the morning and afternoon slots) as two separate runs, not one single game over two slots. Don't sign up for both!

GM: Matt Sanderson

Players: 4-6

Code of the Spacelanes: Fireball XL5 - INVASION OF THE GRANITOIDS!

It is the year 2064. World Space Patrol ship Fireball XL5 has received an urgent message from Space City. Patrol ship XL14 - responsible for patrolling sector 24 - has been lost with all hands. Before being destroyed, the crew were able to send one last Neutroni radio message.

The planet Plytus has been obliterated by a fleet of Granitoid Warships. Granitoids are a race of virtually invincible robots. Their only weakness, the rare mineral, plyton, was only found on the planet Plytus. With that gone there is nothing to stop them wreaking havoc across the Milky Way.

And now they’re on their way to Earth.

Your mission is to do anything you can to slow delay their invasion fleet to allow the World Space Patrol to call in the other Fireball craft from their assigned sectors to defend Earth.

Anything you can.

A big budget Hollywood update of the class 1960's TV series starring:

• IDRIS ELBA - as Colonel Steve Zodiac
• ZOE SALDANA - as Space Doctor Venus
• MORGAN FREEMAN - as Professor Matthew "Matt" Matic
• ANDY SERKIS - as Robert the Robot
• JOHNNY DEPP - as Zoonie the LaZoon

There is absolutely no need to have any previous knowledge of the TV series or the game system.

GM: Simon Burley

Players: Up to 6

The Cthulhu Hack: Tainted

Out in the deep woods of North America, a tiny settlement has fought to survive and won. When the travelling investigators arrive, they find proud, tough people and are welcomed with warmth and hospitality. Hard times behind them, why would anyone want to leave?

This is a playtest game for an upcoming supplement and your feedback will help shape the adventure's final form.

GM: Paul Baldowski

Players: 4 (max)

Discworld: Five Gods Go to the Seaside

You aren’t much of a pantheon, but you are accustomed to getting by. The humans of Little Creeper Swamp don’t ask for too much, and believe enough, and no missionaries have come poaching on behalf of the big boys up on Cori Celesti for years now.

But that was before the railway. Before the outside world came knocking with steam and steel. Your worshippers are getting antsy. And how can you keep them down on the swamp, once they’ve seen Quirm?

So it looks like time to take a trip out of the swamp yourselves. Time to remind wandering worshippers that about some old-time religion. And hopefully not time to dodge retaliatory lightning bolts from the Hub.

GM: Phil Masters

Players: Up to 5

Exalted: Death and Saltwater

Blurb: Following the exile of an enemy of the state, the Silver Prince would like to ask you to quietly "deal" with him. The good news is all of you have stupendous powers. The bad news is so does he.

GM: Will Morris

Players: 2-5

I Love the Corps: 28 TRAINS LATER

Not a typical I Love the Corps game, this is Thomas the Tank Engine meets 28 Days Later! Set in the Isle of Sodor, in the modern day, can a group of people trapped inside Annie escape alive? A comedy survival horror. Not for the faint of heart, or for kids.

GM: Christopher Dean

Players: 4-6

Hot War: Karl Franz is Dead! Long Live the Emperor

The Empire is in flames – sectarian strife between the faithful of Sigmar and Ulric has the Empire teetering on the edge of civil war. Chaos cults worm their way into the heart of the Empire and fell news speaks of a Storm coming from the North whilst the dead stir in Sylvania and the Orks mass at Blackfire Pass. Now the Emperor has been assassinated and you are the Elector Counts come to Altdorf to elect the new Emperor to lead the Empire through its most desperate hour. This is a political game of high level PvP using a modified Hot War as the system.

GM: Steve Ellis

Players: 5

Tags: Politics, PVP, WFRP Old World

16+

Masks: Guardians of the Galaxy Rebooted

When Thanos is trying to steal your Infinity Stones, when the Kree are brawling with the Chitauri and it's putting your planet in peril, who are you going to call? The Nova Corps, they're the proper space police. But if they're not available, you might make do with a bunch of convicts who've escaped from space jail.

You'll reboot the Guardians to suit your whims. Be the Rocket Raccoon you've always dreamed of being. You am Groot.

This will be run using the rules from Masks, a superhero RPG similar to Dungeon World, Apocalypse World, and Monster of the Week.

GM: James Torrance

Players: 4

Savage Worlds: Crystal Heart - A Weapon to Kill For

They say that a person’s heart is made of their dreams and desires. The core begins to form in each of us from the moment we are born, growing together with our aspirations, hardening into a full solid heart as we come into adulthood and our personality is set. And when we die, and our dreams are forever lost… our heart fades away with them. Each person creates their own heart, their life determines its colour and shape; the number of shapes and colours as varied as the number of people in the Five Lands.

In our world there are teams of Crystal Hunters, agents of the mysterious and powerful organisation Syn. They seek to collect the ancient Crystals, incredible relics from a bygone age. The holder of such Crystal can create marvellous miracles. One can summon the wind to his aid, another can increase her strength a hundred times, a third can force the trees to uproot themselves and obey his bidding.

But in order to harness such powers, the person must sacrifice something dear indeed: their own heart. The Crystal Hunters undergo a delicate surgery in which their hearts are taken out, replaced with the Harness, into which they can insert the Crystal that they find so dear.

These are the agents of Syn. Relentless. Fearless. Heartless. And now, one of them has broken the rules.

The game is based on the webcomic Crystal Heart and will be run in Savage Worlds. No need to know either of these; newcomers welcome!

GM: Eren Aviram

Players: 3-5

Teen Noir

Teen Noir is a GMless structured freeform game of violence, lust, greed and passion. Something is terribly wrong in a small American town whose facade is as wholesome as its underbelly is sordid. Your characters are local teenagers, all of whom have dreams that - mostly - will never come to pass. The rumour mill is going crazy. All of you are suspect. One of you will take the fall. Odds are it won’t be the one who’s truly guilty. This is noir and noir never has a happy ending.

As this name suggests, this game looks to evoke the teen noir genre such as Brick, Veronica Mars and Riverdale (though with a harder edge). Includes ‘hardboiled’ style internal monologues, a central mystery, guilt and suspicion, and thematic resolution (similar to Durance and Swords Without Master).

This is a late-stage playtest of a game based on Swords Without Master and your feedback will help shape the game’s final form.

Facilitator: Epistolary Richard

Players: 2-4

Yggdrasil: Of Jarls, Skalds and High Adventure

A friendly Jarl is hosting games.

An unfriendly Jarl is sure to cause trouble.

Meantime a skald tries to tell the truth, but can he?

Take ship and try to get there in time to be heroes.

GM: Mark "Mist77"

Players: 6

Afternoon

Call of Cthulhu: Dissociation

The last flight from San Diego to Seattle has left for the night. It's a quiet flight, with hardly any turbulence. An hour into the three hour flight, the passengers notice lights moving in the darkness outside the plane. At that moment, all the lights in the plane go out and the engines start to power down - and this is just the beginning.

NOTE: Just to avoid any confusion, I'm offering this twice during the day (in the morning and afternoon slots) as two separate runs, not one single game over two slots. Don't sign up for both!

GM: Matt Sanderson

Players: 4-6

Code of Warriors and Wizadry: Chariot of the Gods

A sprawling fantasy saga in an afternoon. Starting in an impossible situation with their backs against the wall your brave, your cunning adventurers will claw their way to victory using just their wits, courage and willingness to spit into the winds of Fate. There'll be epic battles, struggles for survival, political wranglings, ancient magicks, evil villains, monsters and madness. I can't reveal any more details of the scenario without giving away the plot. You'll just have to trust me. I've run this adventure before and it's EPIC.

It's set on Aertha, your fairly typical Swords and Sorcery world with all the usual races, roles and tropes. What's different is it uses my new fantasy rules, The Code of Warriors and Wizardry. If you've played in my Code games before, you'll have some inkling of what it's all about. Easy but breathtakingly broad character creation. You can make literally whatever you want - even a whole new Race of creatures for the world. Fast and cinematic conflicts. Only 2d6 but truly magical things happen when you roll a double.

BUT, even I wasn't fully prepared for how the wide range of player options in the game transform the fantasy experience. Dungeons and Dragons this ain't. It depends on the players but, usually, there's a tendency towards the grand and the gonzo - as much Monty Python and the Holy Grail as Game of Thrones.

A sprawling fantasy saga in an afternoon.

GM: Simon Burley

Players: 2-6

Cthulhu Dark: A Head of His Game

Pittsburgh, 1937. American tycoon Andrew Mellon is in the process of buying a rare and valuable painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Giorgione. It will be part of his legacy, and form part of the collection which he intends to leave to the National Gallery in Washington. But is the painting really by Giorgione? Or does it hide within it a darker secret? The PCs (all members of Mellon's immediate family) may follow the clues through a series of paintings to discover at the end the horrific truth.

GM: Ian P

Players: 3-5

Cutlasses Without Captain

For the hardened crews of the wooden merchant ships that ply the lucrative trade routes of the Main, there are none more to fear than the pirates of the Gulf. Yet these pirates fear those even more desperate than they - the Cutlasses Without Captains. The Cutlasses have but a simple code: They will never be bound by Law or Rule or Oath and they will never value another’s life above their own.

To mark oneself as a Cutlass is to step beyond any responsibility and all protection. No laws bind them, but no laws protect them. Any may cut you down who wishes and is able. Traitors, oathbreakers, deserters, criminals, any may take the Cutlass’s Mark and leave their past behind. Most die quickly, but those who survive and prosper as raiders of merchant, soldier and pirate alike are the living legends of the sea.

This is playtest of a game based on Swords Without Master and adopts similar thematic resolution and phase structure. It also includes guidance on short campaign arcs that will allow characters to fulfil their quests and shift the balance of power within the islands of the Gulf.

GM: Epistolary Richard

Players: 2-4

Deadlands Reloaded: Black Day at Bad Rock

The year is 1879, but the history is not our own…

The US Civil War continues under an uneasy ceasefire. Contested states are caught between the might of the North and South. Lawless states; dangerous states. Such as Colorado, where a US Marshall and a Texas Ranger meet to exchange prisoners: a smooth-talking card-sharp and an old testament preacher, in an area the Native Americans simply call: Bad Rock…

Tags: Weird Western, Supernatural, Guns, Cards, Magic, Murder, No PvP, Big Damn Heroes!

GM: j0rdi

Players: 4

GURPS Steampunk: The Passage of the Altairean Rose

The paraplanetary airship Altairean Rose, operating out of Port Antarctica, has been posted lost, presumed destroyed with all hands. But some will not accept that verdict. She was not the stoutest of vessels, to be sure, but there is no evidence of boiler explosion or Faradayan flux collapse, and no wreckage has been reported anywhere among the known worlds.

You have been commissioned to determine the truth. But if one paraplanetary vessel can simply vanish, is it wise for others to seek to follow?

GM: Phil Masters

Players: Up to 5

I Love the Corps: Pandora's Box

Prepare yourselves for a psychological sci-fi thriller. It is 2450, and you are the Unstoppables, infantry veterans and propaganda darlings of the Corps. You committed a heroic action that helped win the Minos Campaign, and are doubly renowned as every squad member survived three years of one of the deadliest campaigns. The game opens as you awaken from stasis after being sent off to fight in another campaign. You are being urged by marines to evacuate after an attack on their base, and the story propels from there. But where the hell are the lab techs that would normally wake you and check you out and why is the lab door blasted down? Only one way to find out!

GM: Christopher Dean

Players: 4-6

Lamentations of the Flame Princess: No Salvation For Witches

To strike a blow against the Patriarchy, six women perform a dangerous rite in an abandoned priory. Through dance, they commune with Terpsichore, Greek muse and patroness of dancers.

Starving demons slither across the moors; monstrous nuns shriek in the infirmary; and within the Attic, a great unraveling awaits.

The fate of the world rests in the hands of the players. Will they bring about an egalitarian utopia? Will they skulk away in the night, pockets bulging with treasure? Will they bring about the destruction of all things?

Looking for 5 players willing to journey to 17th century England and fight, rob, or just annoy some witches.

GM: Oli Palmer

Players: 5

Monster Hearts: Pale Assassins

The valley community of Gaelen started as a trading post in a mountain pass; then came the gold seekers, and logging, and with the freeway, tourism. Or at least that's the history everyone thinks they know. Actually Gaelen doesn't exist, not completely; it's a settlement for Ruritanian exiles who fled the imaginary Old Country and banded together for their own survival, and somehow their little imaginary town became real.

It seems perfect here. Except the exiles can never leave. Except they will always be looking over their shoulder, wary of visitors. Because they know that old, fearsome, terrible Ruritania never forgets, and its pale, patient assassins have been searching for Gaelen, and when they find it they will end the colony forever.

(edit for clarity -- this will be a usual Monsterhearts 2 game with all the usual skins, strings, relationships and angst; skins will have been given context to fit with the situation/game world but are functionally the same)

GM: Ralph

Players: 4

No Country For Old Kobolds

Realise your lifelong dream of playing the noble D&D race of the Kobold! You will also be playing a dynasty of Kobolds each generation replacing the fallen champions of the previous hour. The game centres around a Kobold village, its trials and tribulations, its vigourous needs and vile enemies who only wish to see it smashed under the iron hoof of oppression. Fighting off elven spider egg hunters, hiding when a group of psychotic murder hobos come by (e.g. Player Characters), Keeping the village alive is paramount!

In this game you can

• Build the kobold village of your dreams
• Tame a wizard to be your friend.
• Form your kobold villagers into terrifying fighting units
• Solve problems, expand your populaton, become a true kobold hero, or corpse.
• Probably corpse.

GM: Robin Poole

Players: 4

Star Wars (FFG): Free Lezam Kigla!

Three years after the Battle of Endor, the Empire is in chaos. The Free Corellian Alliance has declared independence and stands against the remnants of the Empire, many little better than warlords. One such fragment is the human-supremacist Imperial State, led by the self-declared Grand Moff Cunha.

Cunha has kidnapped Lezam Kigla, an outspoken critic of the Imperial State and announced his intent to execute her. The leaders of the Free Corellian Alliance and remaining agents of the Imperial Security Bureau are reluctantly co-operating on a hastily-planned mission to rescue Kigla.

You are that team.

All you have to do is travel to Corfai, persuade Imperial State defector Brovu Gehme to give you some recent codes so you can sneak your ship to Nubia, heart of the Imperial State, break into the jail where Kigla is held, rescue her, and escape. And all that before the tensions between the Free Corellians and the Imperials boil over. What could possibly go wrong?

GM: Neil Smith

Players: 4–6

Evening

Bluebeard's Bride

Bluebeard’s Bride is an investigatory horror game, based on the Bluebeard fairy tale.

The Bluebeard fairy tale is simple enough: A young bride is wed to an ugly but powerful man with a blue beard. On their wedding night he must attend to other urgent matters. He gives her the keys to every room, inviting her to explore… but one room in his house is forbidden. The bride eventually falls prey to her curiosity and opens it, discovering the gruesome sight of former brides who had been murdered… evidence that reveals her husband to be a killer of women.

When you play Bluebeard’s Bride, you aren’t repeating the dark events of that morbid tale. You’re following the skeleton of that story to tell a new one covered in your own bloody fingerprints. The Bride’s story is unpredictable and engaging, leading her down a dark path to an unknown future. Your fate, the terrible contents of the final room, may not yet be fixed, but every step you take moves you closer to your doom.

The players are the Sisters, different aspects of the Bride's personality. All can influence what the Bride does at each turn, but only one has direct control at a time; when she exercises that power, control moves to another Sister.

Investigate rooms, discover the truth of what happened, experience the nightmarish phantasmagoria of this broken place, and decide whether or not you are a faithful or disloyal bride.

GM: Neil Smith

Players: 2–4

Ghost Court

Ghost Court is a game about ghosts and the people who sue them. It's an hour-long party game! It's a live-action RPG! It's a ridiculous legal process! It's written by Jason Morningstar, creator of the classic indie RPG "Fiasco"!

In a small claims court full of plaintiffs and defendants, testy judges, overworked clerks, and peace-keeping bailiffs—all of whom might be living or dead—you will see that spectral justice is done, one absurd case at a time.

Cases last a few minutes and are ridiculous. Will you be an over-the-top landlord, aggrieved at a scheduled haunting gone off the rails? Will you be a sad poltergeist who only wants to make a bad smell? In Ghost Court you might get to be both!

Clerk of the Court: James Torrance

Players: 5-10

Paranoia: All Aboard the Stealth Train!

"Are you ready to be part of a crack team of expert tacticians, diplomats and innovators? Are you at the top of your field, but wanting to go further? Are you prepared to put your life on the line for the benefit of all Alpha Complex, and more importantly, Friend Computer? Then this is the job for you!"*

Friend Computer has called on the troubleshooters to guard an important R&D project from the nefarious forces threatening Alpha Complex, and you are one of the lucky chosen team!

• May not be the job for you.

GM: Any Hewitt

Players: 3-6

Unspecified

Board & Card Games...

...will be available should anyone be without a game