selenite0

I day tripped to Lazydragoncon yesterday. It was in McKinney, so I got to do the usual con drive along the 635 and 75, passing the hotels for

fencon and ConDFW along the way.

The hotel was too small for a regular con but worked for a relaxicon. If people are just there to hang out with friends they don't need programming space. Some more rooms for spontaneous gatherings/events could have been useful but everyone seemed to be having a good time as it was.

I got to the gaming room with enough time to set up before my 1pm start. There wasn't any published schedule, but I recruited a few players and we jumped into the game. I've been coming up with new scenarios for the Lone Star Shindig and this was my first chance to playtest them.

It started out well. They didn't twig too quickly to the show references. The tension stayed high with a minimum of violence (one nasty fight, which is about the minimum I'd have for a con game session). By the time most of the secrets were revealed they were running back to their Firefly with the Captain commanding "Set course for not here!"

Then they reenacted one of the scenes from Young Frankenstein. "No matter how cruelly I beg you, no matter how terribly I may scream, do not open this door!" Or rather they reenacted how it would have worked if the Doctor had shoved Igor in there with the Monster as punishment for screwing up the experiment. I wound up laughing so hard I still have some sore muscles today. Made it real hard to keep role-playing a confused, scared 18-year-old girl, I tell you.

Then story went into improv for a while until I could toss another plot hook at them. Lots of fun was had. I'm feeling better about

fencon now. They weren't able to come back for the second session, so I cancelled it.

I ran into several friends from ORAC and saw

rixende at the SCA demo. I was tempted to stay for the parties--especially the

fencon room party--but decided to get home to

celticdragonfly and the kids.