Concrete Cow 17 games

The games below were offered at the Concrete Cow 17 on 18 March 2017. If you have something you'd like to offer, please drop us a line via the UK Roleplayers forum or any of the other places where we publicise Concrete Cow. See the Concrete Cow 16½ games page for what was on offer last time.

The Bit.ly link for this page is http://bit.ly/eiw4wQ.

Game Slots

To keep some sense of organisation, this is the approximate timetable for the day.

Doors open	9.00am
Morning game sign up	9.40am	(ABCDEFGHIJ)
Morning games	10.00am – 1.30pm
Afternoon game sign up	2.10pm	(JIHGFEDCBA)
Afternoon games	2.30pm – 6.30pm
Raffle draw	6.30pm
Evening game sign up	7.10pm	(EFDGCHBIAJ)
Evening games	7.30pm – 11.00pm
Close	11.00pm

Sign-ups will be on the day only. You may want to learn more about our signup system.

Offering games

You can download blank sign-up sheets as sign-up sheet (MS Word) or sign-up sheet (PDF). (If you're offering a game, please note that you're still responsible for writing your own sign-up sheet; we don't create them for you.)

Send us your game blurbs via the UK Roleplayers forum or any of the other places where we publicise Concrete Cow and we'll put them here!

Note for GMs

If your game has pre-generated characters, please take a look at their demographics. If the pre-gens are mostly straight white men, ask yourself why. If that's what's required by the scenario, fine. If not, please include more diversity in the characters.

If you game involves content that some people might find upsetting, please note that in the game blurb.

If you don't want someone at your table, you have every right to ask them to leave, at any time. You don't have to provide a reason, but please try to remain civil. Ask an organiser to step in if it's needed.

During a game, if you notice that one person's behaviour is making someone else uncomfortable, please don't ignore it. Do something about it. Take note of the harassment policy.

The GenCon Games on Demand advice and parts of How to Run Safer, Accessible, and Inclusive Game Conventions go into much more detail, even if it is rather US-centric.

The Games

Note that, depending on circumstances, not all of these games may run on the day.

Morning

BubbleGumShoe: Welcome To Jubilation

Premise: The Breakfast Club meets Stranger Things Saturday detentions suck! Especially when you could be hanging out with your friends at the Mall! Or at the Movie Theater! Or practicing for the Big Game!

But here you are, stuck with Mr Crinkleson, in the library of Wesley Snipes High School, in the town of Jubilation. The town built by the Sidney Corporation, and that only exists because of the nearby Sidneyworld resort and themepark. It is already a weird place to live ... how could it get any stranger?

GM: Anthony John Lee-Dudley

Players: 4-6

Call of Cthulhu: Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus

The letter came out of the blue. A solicitor in Maine informed you that you had been named in the will of their client. In order to claim the inheritance, you are requested to attend the reading. It's a long way to go, but a lot is at stake. There's one question that lingers. Why would a complete stranger leave you anything?

GM: Matt Sanderson

Players: 4-6

The Code Of Shojo and Shonen: Kong Island Rangers

You know the score. There’s this mysterious island somewhere out in the ocean and your film crew/explorers/special ops team has decided to investigate. This will be an exciting Giant Monster/Anime mashup.

Pre-generated characters are available, but – ideally – you’ll create brand new, island-exploring, characters as part of the game. It doesn’t take very long and is great fun. Fay Wray, Jack Black, Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson or someone from your own imagination. The world’s your oyster! (Probably a giant man-eating oyster.)

THE CODE OF SHŌJO AND SHŌNEN is own lightweight Anime rules. Just 2d6, easy to play. But when you roll doubles, truly magical things start to happen.

Notes: This is a fun and exciting game and suitable for all ages and types of players. However, fans of the King Kong, Godzilla, Pacific Rim or Power Rangers films should find it particularly enjoyable.

GM: Simon Burley

Players: 2-6

Cthulhu Dark: Walk in the Light of Your Fire

London, 1851.

Working at the Owen & Crane match factory has never been easy. Deadly or disfiguring accidents are everyday risks. Exposure to white phosphorous rots you from the inside. The efforts of the supervisors to maintain productivity and discipline border on the sadistic.

But things can always get worse…

Recently, the accidents have grown more frequent. The attitudes of some of the workers are growing darker and more desperate. And sometimes you can glimpse shapes in the vapours, hints of something terrible and alien.

Do these events spell doom or are they the first hints of a radical change that offers salvation?

GM: Scott Dorward

Players: 4 (adults only)

Dogs in the Vineyard: A Town Called Stockton

You are God’s Watchdogs, young men and women called to preserve the Faith of All Things in the King of Life Reborn. Acting as arbiters, sheriffs and inquisitors of the land, you and your fellow Dogs travel the Territory, rooting out pride, sin, injustice and demonic influence wherever it flourishes. Towns will welcome you with celebrations and honours, but you’re there to stir up the dirt and lay bare their sins.

Dogs in the Vineyard is a game inspired by pre-statehood Utah, religious authority, and Mormonism in its early Frontier days.

GM: John Stynes

Players: 3-5

Dungeon Crawl Classics: The 13th Skull (A level 4 adventure)

Thirteen generations ago, the ambitious first Duke of Magnussen made a fell pact with an unknown power, who asked for but one thing in return: the thirteenth daughter born to a Magnussen duke. Now, generations hence, the daughter of Duke Magnussen XIII is stolen away by a hooded executioner riding a leathery beast. As it wings back across the city walls to drop behind the Duke’s mountain-top keep, all who watch know it alights in the Magnussen family crypts, where the devilish secrets of thirteen generations have been buried and forgotten – until now…

This adventure module also includes The Balance Blade, a short level 2 adventure in which a wizard’s patron makes a simple request: travel to another plane to retrieve a legendary blade of neutrality. But once the journey is in motion, the wizard finds that not all is as it seems!

GM: Bruce C

Players: 3-6

GURPS: The Inheritance of Doctor Spallanzani

When the notorious Doctor Nathanel Spallanzani is reported to have passed away, dark forces may be expected to descend upon the storm-blasted Scottish island which he had made his home. Agents of the Department of Unconventional Philosophical Resolutions must respond with due despatch to preserve the peace of the realm. But if Unconventional Philosophy is in play, matters may already be spiralling into waters darker than those around that island.

A GURPS Gothic-Action-Steampunk scenario.

GM: Phil Masters

Players: Up to 5

HQ2 Star Wars: Strikeforce Shantipole

In the Roche Asteroid Field, a secret Rebel project nears completion. Headed by Commander Ackbar, the Shantipole project has developed a powerful new starfighter for the Alliance arsenal.

But first, Shantipole must be safely escorted back to Alliance High Command. That's where you and your team come in. With a freighter, sealed holodisc orders, and a good blaster at your side, your ship emerges from hyperspace -- right in the middle of a TIE/Recon starfighter patrol!

And they told you this was going to be a routine mission...

Based off the classic 1988 WEG module, but using the HeroQuest 2 rules it's all Star Wars!

GM: Steve (SJE)

Players: Up to 5

Mindjammer (2ed), Interstellar Rescue: Mindjammers are Go!

Description: It’s Thunderbirds meets space opera.

The inhabitants of the recently-recontacted colony world of Olkennedy are using Commonality high-tech, but don’t really understand it. It goes wrong a lot, often catastrophically.

The Commonality sponsors Interstellar Rescue, a mixed group of Commonality and Olkennedian personnel, to rescue those involved in these failures and perhaps persuade the Olkennedians that the Commonality have their best interests at heart.

Faced with a series of disasters, will the heroes be able to save the day? Will the people love them or hate them? And what will their SOs think of the sacrifices they must make?

Tags: Fate, SF, rescue, heroes; no special requirements, under-18 friendly

GM: Neil Smith

Players: 4-6

Monster of the Week: Monsters of the Week

Four monsters - one mission: Eliminate members of your kinds that are wreaking havoc in the mortal population.

(Unlike normal Monster of the Week everyone will be playing a pre-created Monstrous character)

GM: Ashley Munday

Players: 4

Paranoia: Operation [redacted]

Greetings, citizen, and congratulations on your promotion to the rank of Troubleshooter! You have been selected for a very special mission. Will it be difficult, you ask? Friend Computer would not have chosen you if it did not have complete confidence in your abilities. Do you doubt Friend Computer? Of course not. Will it be fun? Of course, citizen. Fun is mandatory!

Note: this will be an adventure from the Crash Priority sourcebook. If you've played scenarios from that you should skip this!

GM: Amy Hewitt

Players: Up to 6

Powered by the Apocalypse (Cyberpunk): The Sprawl - The Kurosawa Extraction

Your client has been trying to get hold of Mr Kurosawa for months, but he has been locked down deep within a rival's arcology, and all efforts so far have failed. But now, there is a unique opportunity, and you are the team to take advantage of it. A lot of the detail on the scenario will be created collectively at the start of the session during character creation.

GM: Sam Syddall

Players: 3-5

Sawmill: Psychoville

Five lives will intertwine and be drawn back to a secret chapter from their shared past…

Inspired by the TV series by Reece Shearsmith & Steve Pemberton, this is a darkly comic tale of apparently unconnected, highly eccentric characters, but as we explore their separate lives, the threads of their shared past draw them back together to confront something they would rather forget…

Tags: GMless, dark comedy, rules light

Un-GM: James Mullen

Players: up to 4

SLA Industries: Military Fashion Show

Our band of anti-heroes must protect the World of Progress fashion icons from being cut down by the prol scum.

GM: Tim Evans

Players: Up to 6

StormHack: See Hwamgaarl and Die!

StormHack is Stormbringer 1st edition mashed up with Whitehack (with a bit of Over the Edge and Everway thrown in).

See Hwamgaarl and Die! is the classic Stormbringer 4e adventure on the Pan Tangian isle in the City of Screaming Statues. What's the worst that could happen?

GM: smiorgan

Players: Up to 6

Afternoon

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (2nd Edition): Trip to Hell

Your party are victims of a dark ritual to channel the vile powers below, evil energies spark the air you breathe, the wails of tortured souls ring in your ears... something went wrong...

A choice of pre-generated 5th level characters, fast paced action and bizarre magical challenges, running a loose version of AD&D 2nd edition rules.

The Nine Hells await...

GM: Moss Bancroft

Players: 4-6

Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed: Palatine Light

It's nearly Christmas and Providence is alive with parties. When you work for Mr Walsh however, its a good idea to jump when says so!

The weather is getting worse, but the Boss needs you to take a boat over to Block Island and look out for his latest endeavour; the jewel in his criminal empire - La Canard Noir!

GM: Anthony John Lee-Dudley

Players: 4-6

The Code of the Spacelanes: Babylon Recall - A Blakes Seven adventure

An adventure that never was based on the classic British TV Space Opera. The freedom fighting crew of the powerful, enigmatic, alien spaceship "Liberator" soon won't be the only ones with access to the unbelievable technology of an ancient race.

"Something" has been unearthed on Mars. A secret so powerful it threatens to tear The Federation apart with civil infighting, with the victor gaining the ability to grind the galaxy under their heel. (Probably the spiked, white, leather heel of Supreme Commander Servelan.)

What's needed is a brave, mad (suicidal) dash into Earth system - with its defence systems and fleets of Federation pursuit ships - to seize or destroy the enigmatic discovery from under the noses of the various Federation factions before it can foment a conflict that would envelop and kill millions of innocents.

Seven against the Federation. What else is new?

Play any character from any of the four seasons of the original series. What does it matter if Oleg Gan never met Del Tarrant? Jenna and Soolin would probably be fast friends! I've character details for all of them, but you're free to amend them - if you think I've underestimated Blake's leadership abilities - or design your own original Hero.

Played using my own THE CODE OF THE SPACELANES rules. Just 2d6, frighteningly easy, fast and fun - with magic happening every time you roll a double.

GM: Simon Burley

Players: 2-6 (apparently the SPACESHIP counts as the 7th member of the team - go figure!)

Cthulhu Dark: The Brightness of the Firmament

London, 1851.

Jacob’s Island in Bermondsey is one of London’s most notorious rookeries, known in the press as a den of thieves and vice. The truth is that its cramped, stinking alleyways are home to working families, trying to survive despite poverty and regular outbreaks of cholera.

A discovery by a young mudlark brings something alien into the darkness of the rookery. Is this simply another horror to be endured or does it present some strange glimmer of hope?

GM: Scott Dorward

Players: 4 (adults only)

Deadlands (classic): Mystery of the Missing Miners

Rumours of hauntings and strange occurrences have long plagued the Yellow Jacket Mine. Three years ago a fire devastated a large portion of the mine, claiming the lives of several men, and it has been closed since that day. Two months ago a vein of ghost rock was unearthed close-by, and the Silver Lake Mining Co sent a team of surveyors up there with a view to reopening the mine. Their reports have not arrived as promised - in fact no word of any sort has been received. A representative from the mining company arrives in the nearby town of Dayton, hoping to recruit a team of individuals to investigate. That's where you come in..

GM: Amy Hewitt

Players: Up to 6

Discworld: Negotiating the Dungeon

Count von Steinpapierschere has been running ... some sort of small business, quite successfully, for a long time. A very long time. But now he's proposing to take his business model Disc-wide. His problem is that establishing a franchising operation requires funding. Yours is assessing his proposal, and determining whether he's an enterprising businessman or an archaic blood-crazed evil resurgent from the dark depths. (Or maybe both – let's not be prejudiced here.) And are you the only people with an interest in the Count's operations?

GM: Phil Masters

Players: Up to 5

Excision: Suicide Squad

You're at the top of your game, but is that a good thing or a bad thing? Whether you're the best of the worst or the worst of the best, you've fallen foul of the authorities and been coerced into joining a group of other maverick experts and gifted criminals. What you do isn't exactly moral or legal, but maybe it serves the greater good?

'Excision uses no dice or other randomisers, just a system of skill cards that give players control over the degree to which their characters succeed or fail at the tasks in front of them; the game is intended to capture the theme and tone of Suicide Squad, rather than the content, so players are free to create their own characters and backstories.

GM: James Mullen

Players: 4-6

Kult, Divinity Lost: Judgment

[NOTE: STRICTLY ADULTS ONLY. This game deals with very adult themes, primarily abortion. If this makes you uncomfortable, please do not sign up].

Phoenix, Arizona. Modern day. Down a maze of back alleys, a black door leads to a quiet waiting room. Here, for a fee, the doctor does what is asked of her. Discretion is a specialty. This is the story of the friends and family supporting a young woman that has gone there seeking an abortion. This is pitched as a dark, emotional, and horrific character-driven drama in the world of Kult.

GM: Matt Sanderson

Players: 4-6

Shadowrun (3rd Edition): Extraction Redmond

Mr Johnson wants someone But slipping him out of the high security corporate condoplex would be well hard… As luck would have it hes been seen … in Redmond. So off to the barrens, where else?

GM: Mist77

Players: Up to 6

Sixth World (Shadowrun : Powered by the Apocalypse): The Devil and The Deep Black Sea

Operatives required for a search and rescue mission in the North Sea tox-zone. Only competent runner with a proven track record considered. Online interviews will be conducted via NOODS4U-XXX-Chat room #OhWhatALovelyTeaParty

At least one candidate must provide own vehicle for transport to target. Payment on successful return of missing person (Alive!) Competitive rates. Strong team players. BYOG. Sinless. No Disintegrations.

Another run with a group of drooling randomites dredged up from the New-Amsterdam skinjob forums, you can't trust any one of them and you just know someone is hiding something nasty from you, most likely the dope who hired you to hike out to the middle of what was once the North Sea.

Whats out there? Scylla, to a corpse strewn derelict Arcology where some pirate or other is most likely holding on to a rich corpers daughter and you have to white knight it before she goes all froggy.

Screw it I am in, and I'll disintegrate who I fragging well like.

GM: Robin Poole

Players: 5

SLA Industries: Blu Gone Bad

A routine job goes South in the most unattractive place ever..

GM: Tim Evans

Players: Up to 6

The Society of Dreamers

Something is living in our dreams. We discover the Mnemosite in childhood, learn more during our youth, first meet as the Society of Dreamers as adults, then weave the facts of the story together before learning the eventual fates of both the characters and the Mnemosite. We are the dreamers who live in the dream.

Technique: scenes are framed by each of the players in turn, prompted by one of nine results blindly decided by the other players’ engagement with a bespoke Ouija board.

Playstyle: Nordic Dreaming; listen, don’t block, no need to complain or explain, everyone is equal.

This game may contain mature themes.

We’ll use an X-Card to moderate content anyone at the table finds uncomfortable – perfect for a fast-moving, weird narrative in which anything can happen. You just tap the X-Card whenever something you’d prefer wasn’t in the game arises and that’s it: no explanation necessary. It’s a way of being considerate without interrupting the flow of the game.

There’s more on the X-Card here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SB0 ... PlI3A/edit

Facilitator: Abstract Machine

Players: 3-4

The Warren (Powered by the Apocalypse): Watership Downton Abbey

In 1768, Capability Brown laid out the landscape gardens of Lavender Hall, and ever since then your aristocratic dynasty of rabbits have lived among the roots of a mighty cedar tree in the grounds. You face the natural foes of the rabbit: peacocks, deer, National Trust members, National Trust members' pet corgis, and worst of all those other rabbits who live in the warren that's by the rose bushes near the manor house and who think they're better than you. Yet Lavender Hall is also filled with opportunities for the enterprising rabbit: perhaps you can penetrate the confines of the walled kitchen garden, liberate the inmates of the petting zoo, pilfer the contents of National Trust members' picnic baskets, or grab yesterday's leftover carrot cake from the bins behind the cafe?

GM: James Torrance

Players: 4

Evening

Board and Card Games

I will be bringing along a selection of board and card games for people to entertain themselves with.

GM: Amy Hewitt

Cthulhu Dark: The Truth Shall Make You Free

London, 1851.

For the children of London’s poor, the ragged school movement is a rare source of hope. Its volunteers provide basic lessons in literacy and numeracy, vocational training and the occasional hot meal. It helps the children develop skills that their forebearers never had, offering them a chance to break out of the cycle of poverty.

In the Field Lane ragged school, on the edge of the Saffron Hill rookery, something is going wrong. Someone or something has infiltrated the school, pursuing a different agenda, offering dangerous knowledge. Will this provide the children with the power to shape the future or is it spurring them on to destruction?

GM: Scott Dorward

Players: 4 (adults only)

Dead of Night: Deliver Us From Evil

Father Timothy Clifford , the Rector at the Church of St John-at-Hackney was recently pulled from the local canal near the point of death ; his final gasped word: Maleficium, meaning "wrongdoing" or "mischief" in Latin.

Summoned before Bishop Wilkins a small group of Priests are now called upon to investigate his death and others strange goings on in East London.

Note: this game will contain strong graffic violence and themes of an adult nature.

GM: Matt Nixon

Players: Up to 4

Dealing Death

In this game you will play a group of characters in a deadly, horrific scenario. You will be facing a menace which you can only evade, never escape. You cannot defeat this menace, but perhaps, with luck, you can hide longer than your friends. As the horror mounts, the pressure to abandon, betray or backstab your friends will grow. The game will reward you for this. The menace you face will creep up on you. Any time you seek to take any action to evade or frustrate the menace, you will need to draw cards from a special tarot deck. The harder the task, the more cards you draw. Two is average difficulty, three is hard, four is brutal. These cards will kill you.

GM: Sam Syddall

Players: 2-5

Dungeon World : The Perilous Wilds

Your ship was bound for the tiny port town of Blackmarsh, a colony on Brunel Isle a newly discovered and almost unexplored continent. You have come here to find your fortune with a head full of rumours about the strange ghostly elves who live there, lizard man tribes inhabiting anciently constructed cities, black hearted reavers who scour the coast and the conquistadors of Duke Brunel who consider the place their own private domain.

However, violent storms have set you aground with barely enough food to last 2 days in an inhospitable land, with no map and no way back to civilisation. You must fend for yourselves in the Perilous Wilds.

GM: Robin Poole

Players: Up to 5

LARP for Airports

A low key, plotless, whimsical, chatty game where nothing really happens. Relax and enjoy time spent waiting to board a plane with your friends.

This is a larp but it will be played sitting down and doesn’t require any real “acting” or funny voices. It is a playtest but is very unlikely to fall apart completely. Short run time - two hours or less.

Facilitator: Michael Such

Players: 2-6