World-wandering rock star Malcolm Craig facilitated a game of Contenders for Eric and myself. I had a really good time (and in fact, just wrote up some thoughts on the game on me blog). We had two tragic and one semi-sad tales of hardscrabble life in Depression-era Colorado.

Jon indeed ran some Giger Counter for a host of folks, which ended earlier than we did, so I have no idea how it went.

Finally, there was much fun to be overheard from the folks playing Spirit of the Exalted. Every so often I’d hear “Well, of COURSE I banish her with the Thousand Whirling Winds technique” or “I begin by exploding the island.” Richard seems to be turning into “The SotC guy” at SGBoston, which is neat.

I’ll be missing next week, what with Gen Con and all, but I’m sure much fun will continue to be had!

Last week Eric Pinnick ran Primetime Adventures for the first time. I understand the premise of their imaginary TV show was based on the Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” (which was going on last week), so they had crazy aquarium fun.

Ben Lehman also ran a playtest of a survival horror game that he’s just beginning to work on. Also of note, his second game, Bliss Stage, recently had its first printing, which is super-duper exciting.

This week, SGBoston hosts Malcolm Craig (A|State, Cold City), who’s coming all the way from across the pond to rock with the Boston crew on his way to GenCon. Also, I promised April Pinnick that I’d run some zombie survival horror, using my own system that’s in playtest, Giger Counter (everybody’s designing survival horror games apparently). Richard also said he wants to try running White Wolf’s Exalted setting using Evil Hat’s Spirit of the Century rules. Other games will surely be available too.

Jon Walton continued a serial version of his playtest of Vincent Bakers Afraid. They played long into the night, and it sounded like a good time as well.

See you next Wednesday!

It’s for talking about games, Boston, and gaming in Boston.

In any case, I beleive that the worst of the holiday scheduling grossness is behind us, and we are off to a rocking start in the new year! Last night we had some SURPRISE GUESTS (Mr. Luke Crane all the way from the N-Y-C, the first appearance of Ben Lehman in his new haunts and Jared Sorenson decided to drop by as well), and we ended up with two very full tables.

I ran the first of a three-session series for Tim Kleinarts The Mountain Witch, with a total of 7 players! It went very well, and everyone seems pumped to continue more craaazy samurai tragic action. The trust is building, but the inevitable betrayals are starting to be seeded. Now we need only wrangle two more times that all 8 of us can meet, and it will the first medium-term game for SGBoston to get off the ground! Jon and Eben have nice things to say about the game so far.

Dev ran Crime & Punishment for a full table as well (5 players? 6?), and I heard it was weird but fun. I overheard lots of bullet-riddling and window-falling. Someday, Dev and myself will play in the same game. Some day.

BONUS ACTIVITY: Post your own Thanksgiving-themed Wushu-style action stunt cooking maneuver in the comments. I’ll go first:

I throw the cursed turkey in the air (+1), and swiftly roundhouse the frozen bird into the waiting oven (+1). Then, slowly, I take the still-lit cigarette from my mouth and toss it into the stove (+1). The kitchen explodes into a rain for burned turkey and shrapnel (+1).

Dinner is ruined – but the world is safe. For now.

Myself and Jonathon will be going, at least, as we’re both running games. It’s about a 2 or 2.5-hour drive, so we were thinking that carpooling would be very good! But we need to get a headcount of committed people so we can make actual plans, like where we’ll meet, how many cars, and so forth. Also, as far as I know there is crash space available for the night there, which I am semi-planning on using myself.

So, I would like to have a list of people who are joining us finalized by, say, Thursday of next week (the 9th). Email me at n-dot-d-dot-paoletta-at-gmail-dot-com to reserve your spot, and/or with questions. I’ll send out a reminder or two over the next week, as well.

(1) TOMES OF TERROR! Classic radio dramas staged and performed live, Foley FX and everything. Three different short shows, including “The Monkey’s Paw”!

Some of us checked this out last night, and it was a lot of fun. They were also vending chocolate “monkey’s paws” outside, which was a  bit creepy…

(2) Cruel 2 B Kind, a pervasive interactive game, is running at MIT.

From AvantGame:

MIT is organizing a local game of Cruel 2 B Kind tomorrow (Halloween)
that looks to be great fun. If you don’t have killer Halloween plans
yet, I strongly recommend that you scare folks with your bad-ass
benevolence! There are already 26 teams registered, so it should be
wicked fun.

Cruel 2 B Kind Halloween
October 31, 2006
Sign-in starts at 6:00 PM
Game starts at 6:30 PM
Game ends at 8:00 PM

Cambridge, MA (Brattle Square to Plympton Street (E-W), Mass Ave to Mt. Auburn. Costumes recommended if you know other players! Or if you dare, go undisguised…)