CanGames 2024 Day 1 Report

Since the convention has been over for two days already as I write this blog entry, I figured that I should start posting up the reports on the weekend that was at CanGames 2024 today, while I have the chance. I don’t really know how long and detailed these reports will be, given how I didn’t get to see all that much of the convention this year, and I didn’t take any notes about the convention events as I usually do. This stuff is pretty much from memory and a couple of notes I jotted down during the games that I ran at the convention. Unfortunately, there aren’t any photos included with these blog entries (other than one from Saturday), as I didn’t take any pics at the convention for a variety of reasons. Other things on my mind. So this is a very small slice of perspective about the convention, if nothing else. This post, and the rest covering the events of each day at CanGames 2024, is behind the cut.

I woke up on Friday, the 17th of May, somewhat early. I usually don’t sleep all that well the night before CanGames (or any other convention) for a variety of reasons, and this year was no exception. Given this was my first CanGames since 2019, due to COVID and a serious medical issue last year, I was quite anxious about the convention and nervous about running my games this weekend. I did manage about 4 hours of sleep, my left abdominal area and my right shoulder giving me grief right away. My real concern for the day was how my bowels would do due to the serious medical issue I’m dealing with that doesn’t need to be discussed here. I didn’t feel all that bad, considering. I made sure the gaming materials I needed for the evening session of Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game were packed and ready to go, and made some of the basic foodstuffs I planned to take for myself and . I needed to wait for SteveR to arrive and help me with making some of the snacks for the day, both in terms of helping me make them ready and choosing what he wanted to eat during the day.

Once SteveR arrived, a bit later than planned, we finished making the snacks and put everything in his van before heading out for the convention. We stopped on the way there at Tim Horton’s and tried the new pizza flatbreads that they have there for lunch. We had the pepperoni one and it was…not good. Too generic, too greasy and too small in terms of “slices” for my taste. The water I had with it didn’t wash away the taste. We then headed downtown for the Rideau Curling Club and the gaming venue. We arrived at the Rideau Curling Club some time around 2:15 pm or so, and it didn’t seem as crowded as I thought it might be. I was expecting to see the food truck that was supposed to occupy part of the parking lot, but it wasn’t there (see below). CanGames typically doesn’t have enough parking at the curling club itself or nearby for a convention of its size, but SteveR had little difficulty parking the van.

We managed to carry all the gaming stuff into the venue, but I was somewhat surprised how heavy the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game rulebook and materials was, though I had tried to pack “light” for the convention. While I have a lot of gaming stuff that I want to sell, I didn’t bring any of it with me this year to the convention as to be honest, I’m just not able to lift a lot of stuff these days for various reasons, and I didn’t want to impose too much else on SteveR. That, and one doesn’t get good value for the gaming stuff one sells at the CanGames booth because of the current economy and the fact that the convention is so small.

On entering the Rideau Curling Club, I was somewhat surprised at some of the changes that had been made to the curling club itself, which I won’t go into here, but the curling club website above shows some of what it looks like now, and any photos from the convention that folks find on-line will show that stuff. One really noticeable change was that the large collections of seats and chairs near where the convention Registration Desk was located had been replaced by four large round tables with relatively comfortable chairs. Nowhere to elevate my legs somewhat and sit in an “L”ish position. The other major surprise to me was the sheer number of people there, a lot more than I was expecting, and that was even after folks signed up for various games in the 2:00 pm slot. It was also relatively comfortable and cool on the main floor. Still, I was glad I’d brought my light hoodie with me. I went and collected my registration package at the Service Desk, and then went to check out my three games and their attendance totals. I was surprised to find I had a full table pre-registered for the evening’s Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game game, the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game session on Saturday was full (it was only designed for four players), and Sunday’s session of the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game had four people signed up. Was pretty chuffed about that. 🙂 Looking at the names signed up for my games, I was pretty happy to see that Roddy Turner had signed up for the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game session on Saturday, and several other folks whose names I recognised had signed up for stuff as well. I asked the folks at the Tournament Desk to add an extra player space to the Friday night session of the Rivers of London RPG, and saw that the Sunday session was listed for only 4 players, instead of 5, so asked them to add two player slots to the Sunday game.

and I then went and deposited stuff in the lockers downstairs. As I was descending the steep stairs to the curling club basement level, I realised I was going to have to be careful for the weekend, as the dizzy spells and shakiness that I’m suffering from these days could be somewhat dangerous. Once back upstairs, SteveR and I sat down and relaxed for a few minutes, and then had a bit of snack food and some more water. The curling club bar was open, and we learned there that the food truck wasn’t present because the Rideau Curling Club kitchen was open for the weekend, though it was going to carry a typical “gamer menu” (hot dogs, hamburgers, a few other dishes) at decent prices.

I took it relatively easy for the rest of the afternoon, wandering around a little bit and seeing what games were going on during the 2 pm to 6 pm slot(s), checking out the upstairs level where I’d be running my Rivers of London RPG session that night, looking around the Marketplace (which was already open, a change from previous years). I managed to pick up some extra D100s at one of the booths that was open, since I needed to provide them for some of the players who were going to play in the Rivers of London RPG sessions I was running, as one may roll an extra d100 for tasks and the like. I can’t remember the name of the booth, try as I may. Spent the time just soaking up the atmosphere of the convention and the much larger number of people at the convention. I don’t think that CanGames has ever had this many people attending on the Friday, though I learned that it was just as packed in 2023 and the convention was seeing some growth. It was good to talk and gab with some friends and acquaintances I’ve not seen since 2019, and I was pleasantly surprised at how many people had really missed me at 2023’s convention. I also wandered a bit and checked out some of the games running, including Eric Paquette’s Sentinel Comics game, Daniel Poulin’s Dune RPG game, and a few others. One interesting thing that happened during the afternoon was due to the manner the CanGames booklet was set up. While the booklet had the listings of games being run in all the time slots with various information on the games being run, all the details about the sessions and adventures was only available on-line. However, the app wasn’t working properly… Quite a few people came up to me during the afternoon to ask me what the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game game and the adventure (case file) I was running was like and stuff, as well as inquiring a bit about the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game I was running on Saturday and which version of the game it was. Insofar as the Rivers of London RPG was concerned, this had an impact on the session on Friday night and the one on Sunday afternoon.

Around 4:30 pm or so, I spoke to about supper, and he and I decided to order out from Swiss Chalet. He placed the order around 4:45 pm, and because of it being the long weekend and a Friday, the food didn’t arrive until close to 6:05 pm. I had a quarter chicken dinner with a baked potato, and supplemented that with some of the celery, orange and yellow peppers, and a bit of cheese that we’d brought with us for snacks. Had a plastic glass of ginger ale and part of a bottle of water with the meal. After supper, SteveR brought up all the gaming stuff he and I needed to run our respective games (he was running the Goblin Slayer RPG at 7 pm). I was running my game on the Balcony level of the Upper Floor while he was running his game on the Main Floor, so he helped me take everything I needed upstairs and dropped it off near the table where I would run that night. I managed to chat with Daniel Poulin between his game sessions for a few minutes, and we managed a quick catch-up before we both had to get ready for our evening games.

And then the fun started. It turned out that two of the six players signed up for my game that night dropped out because it was running so late (until 11:00 pm), but someone else had signed up in one of the two vacant slots so that was good. Then another person dropped out of the game because of an emergency at home, dropping me back to four players, but then another person came up to the sign-up table and joined the game, and someone else noticed that the game was short a player and they signed up as well! So the game was filled. The irony of it all was… the three players who joined up to play the game were all people whom I’d spoken to at length about the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game during the afternoon because of the lack of information about the games in the CanGames booklet! Fate and irony, I guess! Then it was back to join the players at the table, and completing the set-up process for the evening.

The adventure I ran on Friday night for the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game is called “Fairycakes”. The adventure is set against the urban fantasy mystery roleplaying game based on the Rivers of London series of books by Ben Aaronovitch, and concerns a group of investigators from the London MET Special Assessment Unit (SAU), also known as “The Folly,” investigating an attack on a homeless man who is actually a troll in order to find out what really happened and whether magic and the demi-monde are involved. The player characters for the adventure, called a case file in the game system, are: Nafeesa Jones, a London MET police constable and apprentice magic practitioner; Morgan Omans, a hedge wizard turned police officer, and also an apprentice magic practitioner; Mina Patel, an entertainer who does data entry work for the London MET and works with the Folly on odd cases; Jordan Schneider, a medical doctor who works with the Folly and rather enjoys the “weird bollocks” cases; Jules Garland, a chancer (opportunist) who works at times with the Folly; and Eli Venturini, a lecturer/historian on the 17th Century and particularly the life and times of Sir Isaac Newton who consults for the Folly. Thus, all of the player characters work for the Folly or act as consultants with them from time to time. I’m not going into detail about the plot here (because others might run the adventure down the line, and I’d like to run the scenario again sometime!), but suffice to say that the adventure went very well, though I did alter a couple of the plot’s aspects to make it fit within the time limits somewhat. The six players who played in the game were a good mix of people, some of whom I’ve played with at the convention before, and most whom I had not. In a neat twist, none of the players were familiar with Ben Aaronovitch’s novels or the game itself, but most of them were intrigued by the game system and the world on which it is based. Bruce McDiarmid (a good friend of mine who plays regularly in games I run at CanGames) took on the role of Mina Patel. A nice young woman named Jenny played Morgan Omans. Ken Aranda (another fellow that I know at the convention) played the character Nafeesa Jones. Eli Venturini was played by a person new to me at the convention, Tyler, who said he was looking forward to the game as he’d heard a good deal about it from his father that afternoon. Another young woman whom I know at the convention, Emily, played the character of Dr. Jordan Schneider. And finally, a newcomer to my games, Caroline, came into the game and took the character of Jules Garland. She told me that she was playing the game as the basic premise was really up her alley. 🙂

Overall, the players really enjoyed themselves, and it was a fun game session of Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game. I talked to the players about the basics of the Rivers of London series of books, the game world, how (Newtonian) magic works, and the basics of British police investigations, and then went over the game mechanics and rules. After answering any questions the players had, I took Ken and Jenny (who were playing the magic practitioners) aside and talked with them briefly a bit more about magic and their spells. All of the players grasped the d100 rules and how Luck worked very easily, and we then got into the adventure proper. The player characters started with a briefing with their mentor and boss, DCI Nightingale, about the incident involving the attack on the homeless man/troll, and then proceeded to start their investigation into the matter. They quickly got into the setting and the world, proceeding with their investigation and learning what they needed to in order to move to the next bit. I helped them out with British law and police procedure when they needed it, and the case moved a bit slowly at first as the players got their feet wet, but soon picked up momentum and the players did a great job of things. There was some really good roleplaying throughout the four-hour session, some of the best moments of it coming during the briefing/reporting to Nightingale about what they’d learned, during some of the investigation moments that give players the “AHA!” insights, and the like.

Each of the players played their characters quite well, though Tyler struggled a bit playing Eli Venturini, as he wasn’t certain how to go about researching certain topics. Caroline told me later that she wasn’t sure how to play Jules Garland, the opportunist, but gradually figured out what her character’s strengths were and started to play with them. Both Ken (playing Nafeesa) and Jenny (playing Morgan) did a great job playing the two apprentice practitioners. With Nafeesa as the team leader, Ken did a good job of keeping the others in check and focused on the investigation paths that they needed to follow. Jenny had Morgan focus on some of the research at times with Tyler’s Eli Venturini, but both she and Ken had a marvellous time with the Sense Vestigia. And I’ve got to say that the whole vestigia/signare aspect of the game in terms of the magic had most of the players fascinated and intrigued. Though they all did get tired of the “hints of apple” vestigia until they figured out the connection to what was going on in the plot. My favourite moment in the game was the look on the faces of the players when I showed them the images of the [redacted] when they saw the drawings of the [redacted] and finally met them later on. The final sequence in the scenario was a bit anti-climactic to me for a variety of reasons, but worked to bring the case file to a satisfying conclusion and the players told me later that they were pleasantly surprised at how the adventure wrapped up.

Due to some lovely roleplaying sequences that I didn’t want to disturb, and the limitations of the time restrictions on the game, I had to cut a couple of scenes down or out of the scenario, but nothing that would have made a difference to the overall plot. After finishing up the scenario around 10:35 pm, two of the players stuck around for a bit to talk about the adventure and the game, but all the players told me that they loved the simple game mechanics (especially the dice mechanics and the Luck system). Two of the players told me that they were going to buy the game and the first few novels in the series based on how the game played and how much fun they’d had with it. One of the players, Caroline, stuck around a bit longer and we talked about the Rivers of London RPG and a bit about the books as well, and gaming in general.

Once the players had departed, helped me pack up the game materials for the night. He took the gaming stuff to the car while I went and took care of convention business (handing in the attendance sheet, with my ranking of the players for certificates, at the Registration Desk and collecting my $5.00 token). I checked my blood glucose (around 5.8) and had a bit of the last of the snack food we’d brought with us. Forgot to bring any yogurt with me, but otherwise hoped for the best. Once that was accomplished, was waiting for me and we headed for the car, which he told me was parked in a slightly different spot from where we’d parked when we arrived.

On the way home, SteveR and I chatted a bit about the game he had run that night, and while it’s not a genre that I like or enjoy, it sounded like the game went well and he liked running it. (Though the rulebook was a bit large and bulky for my taste). We got back to my place around 11:50 pm or so and SteveR helped me unpack the car, and then headed home himself. After SteveR left, I had a bit of water to rehydrate, made a piece of toast with cream cheese, and a cup of tea. The latter was really good, and helped my throat which was a little raw by then. I went downstairs (carefully) and unpacked the day’s gaming material from the bags and the personal tote bag stuff and then packed the basics for the game I was going to run on Saturday. I had a bit more water, but was on my last legs for the night. It was close to 1:15 am when I went to bed, and I read a book for about 20 minutes and then lay back on the pillows and fell asleep.

And there you have the write-up for the Friday of CanGames 2024. I hope it wasn’t too long for folks, and those who’ve read this day’s write-up enjoyed it. The write-up for Saturday at CanGames will get posted as soon as I have a chance to do so.