[BNW] GenCon report

[The White Crow <whytcrow@io.com>]

I didn't get to see Matt, because I had stuff I had to do at 5, and I kept 
meaning to find someone to find him and introduce us, but it didn't 
happen.  If I'd made my wishes clear, however, I could have gotten to go to 
the 20th anniversary party.  I have connections. :)  Ah, well, there's 
always next year.  Hi anyway, Matt, and I'm sorry I had to miss your demo.

In any event, I did get to play in two BNW games run by Walter and Ed.  The 
first one *rocked* -- we only had three players, since there was a screwup 
for space on Thursday and things were relocated then lost by the event 
staff.  But it was very cool--we played Primers dealing with strange things 
among the ranks, and we got to do some very nifty stuff.  I got to play a 
TK, which is one of my favorite power packages.

The second session didn't go as well. This was a Defiance scenario (not 
connected to the first).  The main problem was that unfortunately teh space 
problem had been fixed so the game could be held in the original location 
in the Hilton.  However, the Hilton ballroom seems designed to amplify all 
noise, so it was an unbearable roar in there the entire time. I could 
barely hear people even when they shouted, and had a touch of headache 
during most of the game due to the noise.  The second problem was a player 
who was a general idiot.  We were trying to sneak, and he drove up to the 
police and proceeded to piss them off.  If you are an *Ace*, someone whose 
power is about *driving* stuff, you don't get out of the car when the 
policeman asks you to do so.

However, there was a fine moment when the Tough (another PC) decided he'd 
had enough of the "agitate the police to no real end" stuff, and he got in 
the car to drive off.  The Ace jumps in the passenger seat of the car, and 
the Tough proceeds to speed away.  A roadblock loomed, and the Tough said 
"I floor it!"  The Ace started yelling "But that's my Lambourghini!"

The Tough looked at him and said "Not my car.  Not my problem."  And then 
proceeded to botch his driving roll and flipped the car over onto its 
roof.  He of course walked away.  The Ace was rather bashed up and ran 
through all of his delta points in that one encounter, not even half an 
hour into the game.

The rest of the scenario was pretty cool.  We blew up a mad scientist 
(mostly b/c we forgot I'd hung his coat with him still in it on a hook), my 
char who had the Squeamish Quirk spent most of the last firefight throwing 
up, and we managed to cause an aweful lot of collateral damage.  All in 
all, that was pretty fun. :)

I didn't hear any word on the future of BNW, although it was much discussed 
when I got the chance.  After seeing some other games flounder and die 
early on in thier lifespans, I'm glad that we have as many books as we 
do.  It still irks me that I don't have "official" rules for making Alphas 
nor the answer as to where teh alphas went, but that's ok.  If I can still 
play in cool games like I did at GenCon, I really don't care that much 
about new books getting published.  (well, not much)

Keep up the good work folks!

Jennifer