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Remarks from 2001Player and Judge stories from the 2001 Nascrag event - Conspiracy 301 Dave M. - Donut Disciples Playtest Memories. Unlike the rest of you lucky folks, other commitments kept me from going to Gen Con this year. But, not to be deterred, I offered my services to NASCRAG as a play-tester. One of my favorite bits was when we encountered Spiritus Fermenti. Originally the challenge with Spiritus was simply NOT to drink with him. Of course, at the time we didn't know that, and we decided we had to rehabilitate the poor sod. True to the NASCRAG spirit (pun intended), Randal launched into an involved scenario involving Spiritus' lost love that had driven him to drink; his dear departed... hamster, Lucy. We ended up bartering for a hamster with a medicine man who kept them as food for his boa constrictor and getting Spiritus to take the pledge. All of this, of course, was made up on the spot. Another highlight was Indy quietly sitting at the end of the table, creating the artwork as we played the game. Some of it was rough, but it was wonderful to see it happen before your eyes. My biggest disappointment is now hearing about encounters that were obviously added after the play-test. Cheerleaders? What Cheerleaders? Make up a game show? Underwear? Agghhh! And, hey, the TV and remote control were my idea! I've got a better appreciation of all the work you NASCRAG folk put into this event on an annual basis now. It's a truly herculean effort and I applaud you for it. In fact, allow me to start the 2002 bribery early this year. Go to 2001 Calendar and you can print off your own copy of the 2001/2002 Girls of NASCRAG calendar, featuring the art of Bill Cavalier and the birthdays of all your NASCRAG buddies. Peace ------------------------------------------------------------------- Indy, NASCRAG Chief Artist Well, I don't have any good second or third round stories to tell; my second round team was so un-memorable that I honestly can't remember a thing about them. Our third round team (I reffed with Julianne and Jeff) was comprised of Nascrag newbies, kids in their late teens/early 20's. They enjoyed themselves immensely, completed the adventure, but didn't score real well on roleplaying. But, they had FUN, and came to our party to see what that was all about. I feel pretty sure they'll be back next year. I did ref Steve Barnes, our British Connection, in Round 1, and he and his friend (an Englishman doing an excellent French accent, how humiliated HE must've felt!) really enjoyed themselves. At one point I asked him if he had been to Euro-GenCon (held in London), and he said yes. The one thing that E.G.C. had over Wisconsin, however was: "You see where the snack bar is?" he asked. (We were gaming directly across from it in the hallway.) "Well, at Euro GenCon, there was a PUB where that snack bar is. We could DRINK WHILE WE WERE GAMING at GenCon!" MY Round 1 story is the best! Don't remember team names, but these guys did this. Opening scene, plane comes in for a landing, the characters look out the windows and see the bad guys waiting for them. They knew it was trouble in the making, so Avi says "I rip my shirt a little and muss my hair. When the plane stops, I open the door, and come to the doorway." The player then roleplays standing in the doorway, door opens, and Avi pumps her fist in the air, exclaiming "POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!! DUDES, WE CAPTURED THEIR AIRPLANE! THERE'S A SAFE IN THE BACK THAT YOU NEED TO HELP US OPEN!" Lower level bad guys are usually pretty stupid, so these knuckle heads run onto the plane, run to the back to get into the safe, and Shu-Mei says "Web." GenCon 2002 is 51 weeks away. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Dan A. - Clan Yeoman Team Indy Said: You can bet that we'll be back next year (and we're bringing plenty of bribes...you NASCRAG judges were demanding on our snack supply)! We thoroughly enjoyed playing all three rounds. We had such a horrible Gen Con experience this year and the NASCRAG event was the one redeeming part of it. Didn't score real well on role-playing?! Indy... you hurt our feelings! We secretly suspect that you were just sore about our comments on your artwork. :) We couldn't help but notice that Avi had lips of enormous proportions! They occupied a good 1/3 of her face! - in round two, while making our way into the compound, we posed as construction workers. Avi made a strength check and was able to pick up a bag in each arm, and an extra bag of gravel between her enormous lips (our DM was very accommodating)! We'd like to give a hearty thanks to everyone at NASCRAG. Thanks for making it so much fun! See you next year! (I know our team name doesn't appear as one of the teams that advanced to the final round, but we promise, we WERE there) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian C., NASCRAG Judge One scene that I thought worked really well this year was the 'Spirit of the Law' trial scene. I saw it run four times. Two of my teams answered it in less than two minutes (one guilty, one innocent!). But they weren't role-playing at all and neither of them advanced. My other two teams took considerably more time. One actually did a 'Six Angry Men'! At one point they were 5-1 in favor of guilty, and the lone hold-out was able to convince them all to switch their vote, back to 5-1 innocent, and finally 6-0. (I was a prick and told them they had to be unanimous.) This team made it to the semi. My last team spent a good fifteen minutes arguing this, all in character. It was Miles and Shu Mei standing against four 'innocent' votes. I didn't have to do anything but answer an occasional question. And I LOVED it! Watching the arguments going back and forth between the characters (NOT the players!). Shu Mei was stuffing money into the man's pockets while apologizing for her guilty vote! They couldn't be swayed, so the judge declared a hung jury. Sure, they didn't get the points for finding him innocent, but they got lots of role-play points out of it. I think they came out ahead! Some of their core members made it to the final, and placed 5th (Tuskernana!). Scenes like this really show the true role-playing teams. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel B., Special Guest, (Kult of Knarf Team) Hee hee! The Kult of Knarf (a/k/a Team NERKY: Ben, Tymme, Peter, Jen, new guy Marc, me, two Round 3 Ringers, and Frances Queen of Bribes the critical 7th member) surprised themselves by taking fourth place in NASCRAG. Brain is recovering. In Round 1, our Nigel was "Max Headroom." In the Vision Quest, our mountain lion was Snaggletooth. ("Exit, stage left!") Our fish was very much like the animal at the Restaurant At The End of the Universe and made us very paranoid. The part where every station was a pun on "spirit" didn't really come across until I read the module. We never did figure out what we were supposed to do at the political rally. The nonviolent side was so extreme compared to both Native American culture and our characters that it seemed like we should try to get them to compromise. We took literature from both sides. We were expecting a good token when we left without chosing one over the other and they started talking to each other. Third Round + 33 hours: I just now thought of the perfect evil T.V. show skit - The TERRORTUBBIES! A disembodied burning baby head cackles in evil glee while Lu-Lu, Poe, Dipstick, and Hanky Panky are tortured by demonic appliances! Oh, well... wait 'til next year. :) Third Round + 37 hours: I just now realized that we were probably supposed to do a game show. Doh! ------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve B., Steelight Team Hi, As a Brit on his first visit to the US GenCon (curtesy of Wizards for winning the GenCon UK D&D National Championships last year!), I took a relaxed attitude to playing games at the Con last week - I got a bunch of Generic tickets and then just dipped into various games. As expected, some were good & some were bad (actually the RPGA Masters event was awful!). Then I innocently signed up for the Nascrag Conspiracy 301 event. What can I say? Fantastic!! Most fun I've ever had at a con! Never have I seen so many people so enthusiastic about a game. Full marks to all the members of your group who went to the con determined to ensure that other people had a great time. I was fortunate enough to get through to the final round (part of the rather poorly named Steelight team!) & have never played such an entertaining 3 round game (certainly had plenty of excellent 1 round games, but to maintain that level over 3 rounds takes special attention!). I'm afraid I can't remember the names of my refs (but Indy was one of them!), but I don't think that it matters, as they were all excellent! If you ever make it over the pond to the UK GenCon, I'll be the first to sign up for a game! (otherwise, I may make the 1st US Gencon in Indi!). Please pass on my thanks to Big Al and all of your group for the fun time that they promoted - my fridge loves it's new magnet! ------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom L., Archbishop of Cranberry, (Shu Mei's Super Mojo Voo Doo Chicken Team) Hey gang, After four days and about as many hours of sleep, Rob, Skup and I are back from Gen Con. Our event went well. The only problem was that we were scheduled over at the Hilton Crystal Ball Room. This was a problem because the Hyatt ALSO has a Crystal Ball Room. So a lot of our players got lost. (Not to mention that fact that our first slot was moved to the MEC because the Hilton had double-booked the ballroom on Thursday.) And if you want to press gang pick-up players there's NO ONE to be found hanging out at the Hilton. (At least not like they do at the MEC.) The plot for NASCRAG this year found the six secret agents trying to unravel the mystery of who's behind the murder of their boss. Set in a near future, the adventure started on a jet flying to South Dakota. There's no pilot, just the computer system and a self-destructing mission briefing. From there we found a secret-agent van complete with a Knight Rider-esque Macintosh computer. After a spiritual test to prove ourselves worthy, we road-tripped up to the Yukon to confront the sorceress who assassinated our boss. The road trip alone took over an hour, as we were role-playing it to the hilt, with Avianna picking fights with the computer and Shu-Mei chain-smoking cigarettes the whole way. (Much to the dismay of Nigel, the meticulously neat onboard computer.) In round three we found ourselves in hell where we participated in a series of game shows and had to create our own original diabolic game show in order to confront the boss villain behind the Evil Plot. (Our gameshow was "Demonic Iron Chef" -- just like the original but with chainsaws, more blood, and a little cannibalism thrown in for good measure.) We must have done something right, because we won third place. Rob played Sir Geoffrey Huntington, British gentleman and rogue. Skup played Kyle the pseudo-Canadian cleric from another planet. I played Shu-Mei, chinese philosopher and mage. We also got three guys in their early 20's to play Brittany the USAF assassin, Sir Miles the French paladin (although the guy couldn't do a french accent so he was irish instead), and Avianna the valley elf ranger. They were pretty good. They role-played well and knew enough not to beat on everything in sight. They had won second place the year before, so they had a clue. Our team name was "Shu-Mei's Super Mojo Voodoo Chicken" Round one Al was our judge. Round two we pulled a new guy, Mike Watts. He was a lot of fun to roleplay with. (So much fun we we got a little behind in the main plot.) Round three we had Mark Frey and Len. (And actually finished right on time, thanks to some ungodly damage rolls by the paladin.) Skup and I also played in a Slot 666 event with Buster and Mark Frey as DMs. This went from 2:30am until 6am Saturday morning. It cost us several sanity points, but we had a good time. NASCRAG Round One Rule #1: Always team up with people who remind you of yourselves back when you used to win the tournament. "I'm up? --I'm wackin'" -Statements taken frightfully out of context. "Sir Miles, you hit by a shot. It seems to come from the direction of the RV." -Al "Can someone drive the van?" At the the Meijer's Super K Wal Drug: "I look around for claymores." -Tom "Whaddya waitin' for??" If a neighboring gaming table admonishes you for cheering the kobolds on too loudly, you can shout them down with a rousing rendition of "We've got spirit, yes we do, we've got spirit, how 'bout you!" "I try to log in to the computer panel on the wall of the jet." - random Player in a random party SLOT 666 Tom checks over the stats on his dwarven paladin, Eymah MacDufus: "FOURTEEN Charisma?? I'm the Elvis of dwarves!! I get laid so much, some days I forget how to stand up!" "MAGE armor? Why would you want that sissy stuff, you nancy boy! You want REAL armor! There's nothing like a cold iron codpiece hugging Big Jim and the Twins to remind you you're alive!" -Dwarven advice on spell selection "You see a set of stairs with a door at the end." - Mark Frey "I go down the stairs. I check for traps with my feet." - Tom the dwarven paladin NASCRAG Round Two (Road Tripping to the Yukon.) "You pull up to the BP station." -DM Mike Watts "I go into the gas station and buy some snacks." -Kyle "Did Shu-Mei smoke before?" -DM Mike Watts "Ok, Nigel reverses the flow on the air conditioning to suck the smoke out the vents. Suddenly you have to draw a lot harder to get a good puff off your cigarette." -Mike Watts "I turn on Nigel's video console and start up a game of Solitaire." -Shu Mei "If I had my way, I'd pull over, tie you to the bumper, and strain bugs with your teeth." -Nigel, getting into a tiff with Avianna "Shut up! SHUT UP!! Stop antagonizing the vehicle!!!" -Sir Miles to Avianna "Hey, can you guys give us a ride out west?" -hitchhiking hippies [On the road with the fried hippies] "Ok guys, this is as far west as we are going. See you later." -Geoffrey "Do you have any foodstuffs to declare?" -Canadian border guard "Do you have any weapons to declare?" -Border guard Rule #1 of Border Crossings: Rule #2 of Border Crossings: "At the next gas station, I pick up a container of Wet Wipes and sponge myself off." -Shu Mei "What's with the Trekkie?" -random NPC referring to Avianna's ears NASCRAG Round Three (Game shows in hell) "What color is Al's Underwear?" -Toby, host of 'Survey Says' "While we're waiting for an answer, let's hear some cheesy accents. Brittany, let's hear YOUR cheesy accent!" -Toby "We take the remote control and flip over to Channel 99, NASCRAG After Dark." -Party "You find a closet brimming with number two pencils." -Len Mark Frey: "Whoa, there aren't many gummy bears left in this bag." ( categories: 2001 )
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YearSeriesAuthorsAl Baker
Al Nudelman
Bart Slimp
Brian Chase
Buster Pishkur
Carole Bland
Catherine Brennan
Dave Mitchard
David Blustein
Doug Moore
Jack Garon
James Robert
Jay Johnson
Jim Krenz
Joe Ulowetz
Julianne Brand
Len Bland
Liz Brennan
Marg Frey
Mark Frey
Mary Kevin
Mike Collins
Mike Watts
Randal Cox
Rex Settle
Robert Jeffries
Robert Moore
Artists |