Although Con on the Cob is a fairly small convention, I found it to be made up of nicer than average folk. I conducted a mini-survey of all the people I met and discovered that almost all of them drove more than 3 hours to be there. I was a btt surpised, but after more prying found out that CotC was turning into a yearly tradition for them - almost like a family reunion of sorts. All in all, I think it was a good place for Desolation to be - we just needed to get the word out more.

I ran Any Port in a Storm on Saturday from 4 to 8.

I had a pretty full table (thanks to Dennis Rude) that was a mixture of people familiar with Ubiquity/Desolation and people who had never heard of such a thing. It took about a half hour to get everyone settled with a character, explain the background, and explain the system. For some reason, the ubiquity dice didn't sink in with a couple of folk immediately and I am thinking I may need to take a step back and rethink how I explain their use better.

*DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED ANY PORT IN A STORM*
*PLOT ELEMENTS WILL BE DISCUSSED*

Once the story actually got under way I think it rolled along nicely. I had 5 players who decided to play Krek, Menelaris, Esther, Lem, and Dhenner. They managed the first combat without too much difficulty. Esther was not shy in tossing out her spells (she knocked herself out with Burn), while Menelaris didn't use any magic.

After the fight, the party had the typical encounter at the city walls, except for poor Dhenner. He managed to sneak up to the wall just as the giant blast of Weave lightning hit. He managed to survive, but was badly hurt. Since it was a con game, i decided to just have the lightning do Burn damage so he could continue playing after a night of rest.

The group rested and (as planned) first encountered some convicts who had settled in the city. But instead of following my plot (like the other 5 groups who played this scenario), they decided to find other residents in the city. I decided to wing it and see what happened. Basically, after meeting up with the citizens of Equillon, half the group was ready to go kill the convicts and the other half wanting to parlaly.

Hearing the mutilated and frostbitten guards' angry rants without first meeting the convicts really makes the convicts look bad. Fortunately, the person playing Lem had an irrational sense of justice and refused to just attack.

By now, time was running short. So instead of making the convicts "good guys" like the normal scenario says. I decided to just make them evil and have everything the guards say true. I still left Severs as well spoken and likeable as before and for a while I think the party wasn't sure who was telling the truth.

There was good role-playing all around from the players.

While 3 of the party went to speak with convicts, the other two (Krek and Menelaris) went snooping around and found some imprisoned town folk. A small combat ensued and they raced to go warn those who were parlaying.

Inside, Dhenner managed to notice some sly looks passing between some of the NPCs and acted decisively - by throwing a knife into the head of an octopus shaman. The fight was fierce but one sided (as time was running short). The group managed to defeat the convicts and save the townspeople.

All in all, despite the plot change and running long, I think everyone still had a good time at the game. I don't think the massive plot shift was obvious, but who knows.