Good Monday Gamer ✈️
It's a rainy Monday morning here at Newark Airport. But there's coffee! I spent the weekend in Ossining, NY, for Burning Wheel Con 2023. The con was a great mix of old friends and new faces, and I was happily surprised by the amount of new folks showing up to play. The Burning Wheel catalog is a bit long in the tooth, and indie to have new players says a thing about the games.
In the four sessions of Miseries and Misfortunes I played in, I was a French Infantry Officer in 3 and a French Protestant Exorcist in one. I believe I'm in good shape to begin running this game! The game is built on the basics of D&D with lifepaths, skills, and social mechanics added. I typically fall off of heavy, historically heavy games for the same reason I bounce off of heavy-setting games. There is too much lore to absorb and questions about what to do with it. In these games set in a historical Paris, we played ne'er do wells in service to the Prince De Conde - And that dude is a Hellion! Add in the high strangeness of gnosis, and I'm your huckleberry!
I enjoyed being able to go deep on one game this weekend in the format of this con. There were five scheduled game sessions and plenty of room for after-hours gaming. I think this is the big allure for me for this con and other small cons like it.
I got back to the regular grind this afternoon. NY to Newark to Detroit to Kansas City. Something about traveling feels good, almost medicinal!
Where's your next con trip to?
See you next week!
I'm jealous! M&M is kind of a white whale game for me. I love the historical period, love the fiction that inspired it, but every time I read it my brain kind of bounces off the rules and I'm too intimidated to bring it to the table until I get my head around it. Sounds like a hell of time!