The GoPlayNW 2017 Megapost

I returned to GoPlayNW this year looking forward to facilitating a few games and playing in a few more. With so many people like Adam Koebel and John Harper getting the word out about this con, I knew I wanted to set a good example here and facilitate many games and have them be first-come-first-serve. 

GoPlayNW, to me, isn't just a reunion of gamers and designers you don't always get to see. It's also about gaming with strangers. In order to balance my schedule of games I wanted to play (and who I wanted to play with) and games I wanted to facilitate, I made a loose strategy to follow: I’d facilitate every other game session. With each day having three slots of games, I facilitated twice on Saturday and once on Sunday. 

Saturday:
9am – The King is Dead
1:30pm – Lacuna
7pm – Mouse Guard 2e
 
Sunday:
9am – Worldbuilding Fiasco
1:30pm – Across The Endless Sea
7pm – Band of Blades
 
My gaming highlight of the weekend had to be my Band of Blades session Sunday night. Stras and John’s (Not John Harper—another John) gritty dark fantasy military/XCOM RPG was something very special. I’m super excited for that game to continue to develop. I’ll be streaming it as soon as I can!

My facilitating highlight probably was Mouse Guard. Across the Endless Sea was close, but MG just hit all the right notes that we wanted to. Three of us made mice and I ran an old favorite session of mine about transporting a new queen bee to the tiny hamlet of Dorigift. In fact, the following day, one of the players came up and thanked me again for running Mouse Guard and how it was the highlight of their con… which as a facilitator is always something special! 
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Next year, I think I’ll be playing more board games. Like, something chunky and grandiose.

And hopefully, by next GoPlay, I’ll also have in my possession a copy of Band of Blades to run!