So this year I have noticed a trend that people, far more conscientious than I, have made blog posts about their experiences at Continuum. ‘Now I have a Blog that I keep saying I should do more with‘ says the part of my brain that has just turned 60, ‘I need to get into the habit of using it, so it must be a challenge!!‘
The neurotic and slightly autistic part of the brain does realise that the conscientious few are not actually throwing down the gauntlet because I have not made a blog post in several years, so I will take the challenge as ‘Maybe I should actually get into the habit of writing more!‘, something I have been saying to myself for many many years.
My first Continuum was in 2016, when I just attended with my buddy Andy, who had been trying to drag me along for a couple of years, ‘Its great’ he said, ‘a weekend of beer and role-playing games’. But with it being a weekend away in Uni halls, drinking beer and playing role-playing games, it was always going to be an ask for my adorable wife. Additionally, knowing Andy as we both do, I could understand her reluctance, he is after all a bit of an animal. However, I proposed to her that she should also have a weekend away with her bestie and it opened the door.
When I returned from Continuum 2016 I said to my adorable wife ‘This is going to be a thing, its only Bi-Annual, but this is something that I want to do!‘ and Continuum helpfully change it to an annual event rather than bi-annual. Its a good job my wife loves me.
Running my first ever games at a con at Continuum in 2018 and then continuing to run at every one that I have attended since, I think that I can say that the bug had definitely bitten me. Although I still tag along with Andy, I now also look forward to meeting up with others that I only see at Continuum or maybe bump into at ‘other’ cons. Continuum 2026 was my 7th and I ran 4 games and played in 4 more. Honestly, it is a highlight of my year and I always look forward to it, but what can I write about it.
Friday – Arrivals
There is now a car load of four of us that make the trip to Continuum from Peterborough, Andy, Phill, Dave and myself. Three of us hail from the Regional Peterborough Gaming Society (RPGS) and so see each other often, leaving an interloper, Dave. I met Dave one Dragonmeet, I went all the way from Peterborough to play in games with strangers and ended up in Traveller game being run by Dave, also from Peterborough. The next year I repeated the feat and managed to end up in Dave’s James Bond game, honestly quite by accident. So when I then bumped into Dave at a Continuum, I already knew what town he lived and we have been shuttling him backwards and forwards ever since.
Organising pick up times consisted of using a group on WhatsApp that everyone was members of and was the same experience as organising a game of D&D for your Uni-buddies when they all live on different continents and when they are in town always get last minute cancelations. Ok, I exaggerate…
Phill fills the boot with three crates for the bring and buy and everyone else squeezes their clobber around it and we set off. The journey is incident free, with the exception of nearly getting side swiped by a Taxi, who did not realise that by indicating you are going to be turning into a junction that car in that junction is likely to pull out in front of you, so you better be sure you are not indicating for the junction after the one a car is coming out of!!!
On arrival, Andy instant starts panicking about the lack of beer, Dave regales us with the tale of the convention that ran out of beer and myself and Phill look to see what is in bottles. All, were excellent and conveniently colour coded, to Green, Yellow and Red. I think the Yellow was my favourite as three bottles of it disappeared very quickly.
Game One – Son of Duke (Pendragon)
Playing in this one and it was run by Phill, who is a GM for me in many excellent games but as this was in arrivals time I figured I would support. It was not needed, enough of the ‘Pendragon Posse’ had arrived and signed up that we were in for a good game.
I got to play Sir Tyron the Giant, who as the name implies was a beast of a man. Along with the other knights, we were tasked with ‘making a man’ out of the Dukes son all of us making a roll to establish what our characters new of the Son’s character. I fluffed it and so treated the Dukes Son as a fellow Knight, encouraging him into danger and doing all the things we were not supposed to do with the insipid little toe rag.
Making the conscious choice to portray Tyron as an individual where thought takes a little longer to conclude and continually being hungry, I settled in to play the comic relief as often as I could. I suppose that I did alright, as the people at the table that knew me groaned and those that were new to me actually laughed at some of my antics.
Afterwards Phill did confide in me that he had been a little daunted at first as a couple of the players are long running Pendragon GM’s. He however (as always, but I am biased) ran an excellent game and all at the table were entertained.
Game Two – One Last Job (One Last Job)
One Last Job was to be my first contribution to running at this years Con and I would say was very much an experiment as it was free form game, which if I was doing normally it would be to a known audience. The joy of running at a Con is that you have no idea who will turn up at your table.
The game was amongst my PDF collection and was written by Grant Howitt and the basic premise is that you play a bunch of washed up hero types but as players have no input into the generation of your character, instead taking a character idea that someone else comes up with. You then get abilities as you play the game, again suggested for you by the other players. To me it sounded like Fiasco with a little more structure.
Then the paranoid and slightly autistic part of me starts on ‘What if Grant Howitt turns up at the Con, what if he signs up to see what I do with his game?‘.. far fetched I know, but I know of many at Continuum that have been published and if I was going to dip my toe in that pool then I would start with a PDF publication. The fear of running at a Con is that you have no idea who will turn up at your table.
Of course, Grant Howitt was not at my table, but someone who knew him and worked with him was….what are the odds…I mean…seriously.
The group decided a Christmas Style adventure and the plot generated around that idea that Santa Claus wanted something done about the Smile Corporation. They were delivering boxes throughout the year with smiles on them and detracting from the Magic of Christmas. And so Santa goes to his number one trouble shooter, Mall Santa (though there was some debate as to whether he should be Maul Santa).
Mall Santa in turn recruited Santa Hacker, another Santa but this one with an affinity for computers. Santa Hacker decided they need Antonio the Acrobat to by pass some lasers. Antonio brought Hooded Nicholas, who comes down your chimney and takes your presents. They bring Hans Hands, Head Elf, who is a charismatic face man to the party, who in turn recruits Pedro Hutt, pizza delivery/wheelman extraordinaire.
And then we started the ‘plot’ and everything started to get silly…
We had a Vatican Navy base hidden off of the coast of Norway, Underwater Thermal Vents and a statue of the Virgin Mary with a hidden compartment. It was very James Bond meets Elf… accept that the ultimate bad guy had a bald Chihuahua rather than a fluffy cat.
Half way through allocating out the character abilities, I realised that there were issues. This was obviously a game that was not designed for a table of six, something I should have seen, but as I say it was an experiment.
Everyone said they had a good time though and all agreed that I was asking too much for the system. I do love the concept, but Grant obviously never had it in mind to run with so many so it was all a bit ‘lumpy’. Sorry Grant, I feel like I let you down..
Saturday – Breakfast
So having said to meet up at 8:30 outside the breakfast hall, Phill goes straight in without us, leaving myself and Andy twiddling our thumbs wondering where he had got to. But as always Cranfield laid on perfectly acceptable grub and much socialising was done.
Game Three – The Computer is your friend …Yes or No….Answer wrong and bring in another clone… (Paranoia)
As I entered Duck Point to join in this game there was a sign on the door written in both Red and Green writing. It declared something along the lines of ‘This a Red Security clearance door and you have been told that you have to attend a briefing inside. You are standing in a Green Security clearance corridor. You have Green Security clearance, what do you do?‘
I stopped in my tracks, trying to remember the last time had played the game, over 30 years ago. The GM, Tim, let me into the room but explained that I had just been killed by an electric shock. Being the first, I sat back to watch everyone else in the game ponder the note.
We choose characters and got into the swing of things very quickly, all of us struggling with remembering the rules to the game. We were led through an initiation that then went to a our first mission. The Computer stopped us from killing each other along the way and me whispering to the player next to me that the player opposite was most definitely a mutant, I think I almost had them convinced.
My personal highlight was when I was stopped from shooting a fellow trouble shooter for putting a man eating fish into a fountain.
Computer: ‘Why are do you think that they are behind the fish in the fountain’
Me: ‘Because that fish was not in the fountain when I poisoned the water in it earlier…..oppps’
Another highlight was after going to a break and I waited at the door until someone inside opened it for me…the note was still on it.
Game Four – Paranoia Starts With P (Mothership)
I signed up for this as had heard good things about Mothership and wanted to give it a try. The GM was an unknown name to me, but half the fun is dipping your toe and seeing how other people do things.
It turns out I did know the GM, he had been in the Paranoia game of that morning and we had a giggle, so I was hopeful. All the characters were out to be picked, most of the easily recognisable templates from things like Alien and so I went for a least socially acceptable one there, a Teamster called Britany.
We also had the option of little name badges to help other players identify the characters and so on mine I wrote Britany – Teamster (Bitch!). The GM looked over at my badge and nodded with approval ‘I see you have got the measure of her as character’ he tells me with a sly grin.
The adventure was kind of Alien vs the Pod People and was excellent. The players all played the mood and fired off each other and I almost felt sorry for the poor guy that was playing the Corp type. Then at the end we were betrayed, one of our number was a Traitor and left us to die. Of course I did my best to go out in a blaze of mindless heroism by overloading my plasma cutter and shoving it into the giant tree that was doing its utmost to use us as fertiliser.
I will say now, that this was a revelation for me. Loved the Mothership Rules, the audio effects and all the jazz that appears to come with it. But the price when I look at in Leisure Games afterwards…too much.
After the game finished, the guy that had betrayed us all took me to one side and explained that he had previously been an RPGS’er and remembered me for his time there. I could not reciprocate but did feel a swell of pride to have been stabbed in the back by our own.
Game Five – There is no “I” in Cthulhu (Call of Cthulhu)
Once again I am running but this is the first of my more structured and less freeform games that I brought with me. If you have played in my games you will (hopefully) have noticed that all of character come with a smidgin of background as well as stats and in addition some information about what that character thinks about the other characters. I have done this for a while now as certain types of players like to have something to get their teeth into rather than just stats, I know its what I like to see as player.
Consequently, a lot more effort is needed and goes into prep, which means my loving wife has to put up with ‘I need some time to prep for Continuum‘ from about February onwards.
There is no “I” in Cthulhu was set on a management retreat deep in the forest with no mobile phone signal and a long journey back to civilisation. The candidates all got a first impression of each other on the journey in (narrated) and a pit of fun role-play as they ‘threw the conche’ around to get everyone’s names and the players got into the swing of things straight away.
To be honest, I was stunned at how well they all adapted and played these ‘normal’ finance managers, salesmen trainers, HR Reps and marketing people within the environment. When something odd happened, such as ghostly Indian figure in the woods, they would put it down to ‘an event being prepped for tomorrow’ and laugh it off. In the end I was physically beating them with plot stick just to get them to stop talking about which behavioural index is better than the other.
The degradation of the characters was also planned, in that I know how each of them would descend into madness and as ‘odd stuff’ happened and rolls were fumbled I was able to bring them into play.
It was an exceptional table, they took everything that was sent there way and ran with it. Thank you to all that played in that game, you certainly entertained me.
Sunday Breakfast
I know you are all dying to know, yes we managed to meet up properly this time and Phill was allowed out of the shit house.
Game Six – Hong Kong Hijinks (Feng Shui)
This one was written to be played at the RPGS and as it was a high energy action game, I figured it would be a great one to blow cobwebs away on a Sunday morning. It came with 17 pre-gens (long story which I will write up in another post I think) and was pretty much prepped and ready to go.
One of my players was a youngster, who when I ask if she was watching or playing, did that cute snuggle thing into her Dad’s neck, which kids do when they are shy and Dad said she would be playing. First impression, I have a high energy game here and one of the players is totally shy. Well…you know what they say about first impressions!
All of the characters would be attending and event at the top floor of the museum, obviously a tower block. Once 6 characters were chosen I could assign all relevant ‘plot’ points to the characters, Saito Ren(Killer), had a mark that was attending the event, Riku Hayashi (Ninja) and Dante Vex (Bounty Hunter) also had a mark but it was shared between them with three potential people, Sgt Alex Kwan (Kung Foo Cop) was on protection duty, Callum Ridge (Drifter) was working bar and Dr Mei-Lin Fong aka Midnight Jade (Masked Avenger) was the manager of the museum. So with everyone in the mindset of what they needed to do, the flying monkeys in with machine guns in their chests stared appearing and it all got a bit hectic.
Once again, my players knocked it out of the park and I had many, many highlights from the game. Callum was using his abilities to kill mooks to great effectiveness and then complaining that he was the only one doing anything. This is mostly because Riku, Dante and Alex got into a three way tug of war with their mark. Saito Ren had a conversation with his mark, the lovely Claire Jiang, discussing the whys and what for’s of why he should not kill her, whilst the pair of them fought together to fight of the monkeys
But the star of my show was the youngster, who was keeping up with me on the enthusiasm that she brought to the game. She was awesome!!
The game was basically one big fight, but that had been the plan all along, I feel that I could maybe have cut the fight down and do more plot stuff so it was less Bar Room Brawl even and more RPG but everyone enjoyed it and it defiantly woke us all up.
Remembering David Gallico
Sadly it was announced in the Discord channel earlier in the year that we lost David. He had been around the majority of the Continuums that I have attended and played in a couple of my games and I played in one of his, a most memorable game.
The game was a D&D game and was set in the Stormbringer universe and was a tad, frantic shall we say. David was endeavouring to run the ‘Sorcerers of Pan Tang’ one of the published modules for the Stormbringer/Elric RPG, a full on campaign designed to be done over multiple sessions, yet David was running the whole thing in the four hour session the game was scheduled for. A feat that he achieved.
Consequently, the game was a ‘little’ driven as the action was moved very quickly from scene to scene. All of the players at that table were drawn up into the madness and were pulled along for the ride, experiencing a game that would be talked about for many years to come.
The game also served as a proper introduction to some of us as we bonded over the chaos, starting friendships that abide to this day.
And so, we all came together at lunch time and we raised a glass to David and his memory. As a DM you always want your games to be memorable and to make your players happy and he certainly achieved that.
Game Seven – The Adventure of the Castle of Tears (Pendragon)
Because Dave (the one I gave a lift too), always accuses me of stalking him, I had not told him that I was signed up already for one of his games, (In truth, I had completely forgotten that I had), and so when he the list was published and my name was already on it he was very happy.
Now Dave is one of those people that has a strange way of showing happy, he bemoans you, grumbles and occasionally throws in swear words, but I am sure he loves me really.
As Knights, or the Giant Slayers as our glory declared, we encountered a cursed knight that we had to joust or loose bits of memory. Now my character was excellent at jousting but as a player I am awful at rolling dice…I forget what happened next.
To cure the knight and a wasting sickness that plagues the land, the local wisewoman needed plants that she was unable to gather a monster had moved in beside the mountain lake in which they grew. Therefore we had to trapes up the mountain and find the monster to get the plants.
I figured that as we were scouting, the climb up the mountain would be easier in leather armour rather than full plate mail, a decision that I would enjoy and come to regret later.
Climbing the mountain, the knights that had kept on armour were ruined when we got to the top, so I had a little scout around and discovered that our monster was a Griffin. When the others had gotten their breath back, a plan was formulated where I would act as bait and tempt the Griffin down to a beach area and try and stick it through the wing with a long spear and thus curtail its ability to fly so that my fellow Giant Slayers could render it incapable with their swords.
It did not work, the spear through the wing was not effective enough and although some solid blows had been landed, the Griffin was able to take to the skies again and returned to its nest. This posed a new problem, as it was obvious that Griffin had ‘chick/cubs’ that it was tending to and it raised the question ‘what has it done to to us, should we really kill it’.
The decision was made that the nest should be checked out to see if there were any remains of humans or live stock in it, therefore if it were preying on civilisation we would kill it, but if it was an honourable beats and was living human folk alone, then we would leave it be. As I was still only in leather, it was down to me to scale the nest and have a peak, which I did and saw that the creature only appear to have been hunting game, so it would be safe.
Unfortunately, its young spotted me and I beat a hasty retreat. Mum decided to have a parting swipe and my awful dice rolling came to the front again as I failed to dodge and then I regreted not being in the heavy armour and I was down. I had an armoured colleague with me who decided to evoke his passion of Love Giant Slayers and instantly attempt to avenge me and went man on man with the Griffin. Now he had heavy armour on, but one knight on foot is no match for a Griffin and he was not just down, he was down and out.
Strangely (to me), the player then politely packed up all his stuff and left, I would have stayed just to see what they did. I have played in enough of Dave’s games to know he would not allow a death to keep a player from the fun of the game, he would have had him play a squire or introduce another knight that had not been chosen at the start, but he was not given the chance to do this.
Anyway the game continued, effectively down two knights, as although I was not dead I was out of the action for a number of months to heal. We ran from the Griffin, though I was carried and performed the sacred duty of leaving the blood trail so that we could be tracked, ‘We shouldn’t move her’ said one of my companions, just before he bumped my stretcher down a hill side.
They persevered and Giant Slayers won the day again, freeing the cursed knight and lifting the plague from the lands.
Game Eight – Traitors! (Call of Cthulhu)
I was running my last game of the con and for the first time I was suffering from the curse of Sunday night. Enough people had now left the con that I only had two signups and I would have called the game as it probably would not have worked, but another player jumped from their game as they were the only sign up and joined us so we could run with three.
This was the game I had been looking forward to doing the most, it was obviously Cthulhu but I had built in elements of the Traitors TV show and all of the characters were players on that show.
It started with an elimination and then during the night someone was also murdered as the two main actions from the show, leaving plenty for the players to discuss and work though.
The next day, during the trial, it all went Pete Tong, the sky darkened and they heard the word ‘Corrag’. They lost contact with the remote group and its camera crew and were asked to investigate. At the site they found the remains of the crew, but no fellow contestants and one survivor that talked of a great beast that had rampaged through them all.
Now they retreated to the castle and found that they were completely isolated, no phone, no satellite, nothing. There were about 6 crew left, plus the other three from their group and last nights banished and murdered individuals that had been on site for exit interviews. The host, Lucian Vale, was having a break down in his room and was not being much use to anyone.
Hitting the books, they uncovered that Corrag was a legendary wise woman who had visions of the future. According to the tales of the Highlands, she had foreseen the massacre at Glencoe of the MacDonald Clan, yet her warnings had been ignore by McLain MacDonald, the Clan Chief.
It was around that time that one of the others noticed that the other contestants were back in the woods outside. It was clear that something was wrong with them as they looked odd and vaguely scary.
One of the areas that had opened up was the old library and provided more wisdom and they learned that Corrag had taken McLain MacDonald’s sword and cast it into a loch with the words “So long as this sword lays undisturbed by man, no man from this Glen will die by the sword again.”
Another news article told of a fisherman that had pulled a sword from a loch and when he had done so he neighbours had started behaving oddly and in a scary manor. The plot was revealed, find the sword and throw it into the loch.
What followed was a combination of ‘Night of the living dead’ as possessed contestants tried to do them harm in the castle and then a mad night time rush across the Highlands to a loch to throw in the sword.
Everyone enjoyed the game and they all did excellently considering there was only three. I could not shift the feeling it would have been different with more players. The Traitors game bit would have gone differently, as at least one of the available PC’s was a Traitor and the group managed to pick three that were not. But everyone enjoyed it and I know that I am my own worst critic. Who knows, if Traitors is still on a screens in a couple of years time, I can try it again.
The Journey Home
On the Monday we said our goodbyes and packed up to go home. Phill had shifted a crate at the Bring and Buy so the boot was slightly less cramped.
The conversation was the normal subjects, what we could run next year and when Dave would run a game of Pendragon for us outside of a convention.
It was, we all agreed, another great Continuum and I for one can not wait to do it all over again.