Got back from Conception yesterday after an excellent time and completing my challenge of running ten games in ten consecutive slots; I think I failed a few Sanity rolls and lost half my hit points, but already I'm thinking what to do next year. Anyway, here are the highlights of my Conception X diary.

Wednesday Afternoon: Arrive, look around for the man who booked our chalet so we can get in. He hasn't arrived yet. Put sign up sheet for 'Elfs' up before I've even unpacked, have a little lunch in the bar, go to check sign-up sheet, there is only 1 space left! Luckily, our man arrives in the nick of time: I have just enough time to throw my clothes in a wardrobe before heading back to the convention hall to run a parody of 'Weekend at Bernie's' that turns into 'Dawn of the Dead' by the final act.

Wednesday Evening: From this point on, not only are my games fully booked within the hour of putting the sign-up sheet on display, even the reserve slots are over-flowing. Finally get to run the 'Stone Tape' inspired game I've had sitting around for several years, but using 'Dead of Night'; duh, why didn't I think of that sooner? The escalation of fear works very well, going from the 'Most Haunted' style premise to three character deaths and two hospitilisations; I won't reveal the fate of the sixth character here, just in case I want to run it again...

Thursday Morning: Actually manage to get up in time and stay in character as the 'Training & Support Adviser' for InSpectres for 30 minutes of my spoof 'Franchise Opportunities Seminar' before reverting to normal GM duties for the game. It goes so well that we play two sessions in the 4 hour block, so the franchise gets to grow! I also discover that my impersonation of Hillary Briss sends shivers up the player's spines.

Thursday Afternoon: Scott & Rich come through with their figures for my game of 3:16; Rich has brought Ewoks to use as Threat tokens! The players will get to KILL EWOKS! Rich turns down my proposal of having his babies, but the game goes very well, ending with the cutting of a big hairy sack...

Thursday Evening: A Toon/Spirit of the Century hybrid, called obviously 'Spit of the Century'. I reflect on the decision making process which has caused me to select the game that requires the most energy on my part as the final game of the day.

Friday Morning: Coffee. Once. It seems to do the trick for the next two days. Reverting to the pattern of last year (it worked well then) I run a game of 'My Life with Master' this morning, leaving all details of the setting to the players. They choose New England in the 1930s and the Mistress is a strict, God fearing woman who kidnaps children to indoctrinate them into her beliefs and is seeking to broadcast her sermons on national radio. A funny, dark, wild game: I still slip into the Master mode of this game too easily not to worry other people.

Friday Afternoon: It's time for 'Don't Rest Your Head' and the first chance I've had to incorporate the source book 'Don't Lose Your Mind' into the philosophy of the game. The players don't seem to know what to expect and are genuinely surprised when the nurses at the sleep clinic transform into faceless automatons with medicine cabinets in their chests. They are also very reluctant to gain Exhaustion dice, which leads to a string of victories over them: I think next time I need to spend more time explaining the power of Exhaustion and downplay the risk. Also, none of the madness talents are used for the first two and a half hours, but once one player has dipped his toe in the water, suddenly they all want to show off their cool powers! Hence a final hour of intense flames, pirate crews and the Millenium Falcon flying to the rescue.

Friday Evening: A good example of the dynamic of a game uplifting it to new realms above & beyond whatever I could possibly have imagined. I genuinely wish someone had videod this, a 'Best Friends' game set around a cheesy 60s space opera, with the players taking on the role of both the actors and the roles played by the actors in the episode created. No words are adequate to describe the beautiful chaos as the players got up and acted out what their characters were doing, even during the space battle and the seduction scenes... Nurse, the oxygen!

Saturday Morning: 3 days ago, when I arrived, I met some people for whom I ran 'Cold City' for last year. "Are you running that again?" they asked. "No", said I,"I'm running Hot War this year" and I outlined the setting to them. I think they were ready to have two of them sit on me while the others raided my backpack for the sign-up sheet... The game went well, though I realised that some of the character agendas & traits didn't line up very well, so might need a bit of tweaking before I run it again. Then again, it might be that I forgot to mention the 'give someone a d10 if you like' rule until almost 3 hours in. They really took to the concept as soon as it was introduced, so that would have made a big difference in the early part of the game where characters were struggling to get successes.

Saturday Afternoon: At least one other person knows what brought this about, my Doctor Who mod for InSpectres... it was almost a bet to see who could be first to make a better game than the one we'd played... Anyway, it worked! "Earn franchise dice" easily became "earn Doctor dice", which were then used to assume narrative control of the Doctor and try to bring the end of the episode closer by accumulating 'Episode points'. One valuable observation was to make a clear link between confronting another character and putting them in peril, thus allowing them to be rescued: it should work as a self-sustaining little cycle once I can word it correctly. Oh, and of course whoever had authority over the Doctor at any time had to hold the puppet... Standing there at the muster before the game, I met several of the people who had played in my games over the last few days (or last year) looking nervously at me as I explained why i was holding a puppet. "What have you signed up for next then?" I asked. "Erm, your game", came the hestitant answer. It has to be said though, there was a lot of competition to gain control of that puppet and I think only one player didn't get his picture taken with it.

Saturday Evening: Done! Finit! I had made it through 10 games, so all that was left to do was play silly card games with my mates at Richard Tyson's board games table. Erm, whats that? You three have never roleplayed before? You want to try something tonight? You want to try 3:16?! So that night, in our chalet, with three players who had never taken part in an RPG before, I took them through 3:16... and it was great! We went from explaining the game to getting their campaign medals in under 2 hours! OK, Dave helped by being the Lieutenant General and doing the mission briefing for me, as well as narrating the planet and its natives each time I got up for more water, but it was a very smooth game and was one of those situations where I learned a lot more about the game by seeing it through the eyes of people with no pre-conecptions taken from traditional roleplaying. I may have to put an AP on Story Games, as its my first experience with total novices and I really found it refreshing.