Sleeper RPG: Playtest @ Birmingham Games Expo 2012 (Updated)

Introduction

[30 May - Added scans of documents

13 June - Added more scans of missing characters. Thanks Anna :) ]

I turned up for my first ever games expo excitedly on Friday morning to pick up my tickets and rush off to play an unreleased RPG game called Sleeper.  A disaster occurred, they could not find my tickets. Within minutes someone introduced himself as Tony and whisked me away and sorted me out with tickets then virtually escorted me across the road for the game.

Thanks Tony, disaster to superb customer experience in minutes.

Sleeper RPG: Before The Game

UK Games Expo: Game Link - http://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/game.php?id=RPG37

Having never played a game at an expo before I thought I would try something new. The write up above looked quite intriguing and the briefest of scans of the Death Spiral website helped.

A bald gentleman introduced himself as Ben Counter, freelance author and one of the creators of the game, and said he would be running the session.

After a few minutes I figured out where I knew the name from, minus ten points for me.

The Famous Ben Counter

Sleeper RPG: Introduction

Ben introduced the general game concept. (from the Site)

Sleeper is a roleplaying game of Cold War relics and secret wars. It pits your character’s superhuman powers and elite training against the deadliest relics of the Cold War. The game combines military action, ultramodern gear, science fiction horror and the secret history of the twentieth century in deadly and thrilling battle for the survival of the world. During the darkest days of that conflict, the superpowers came to believe that nuclear war was a likely event. So they took their biggest secrets – the artificially enhanced agents and soldiers, possessing superhuman powers and the highest levels of training – and buried them in secret facilities from which they would wake when nuclear war had finished. These sleepers would then help found the post-nuclear world according to the principles of the regimes that created them.

I had a feeling of Cold City, Hot War meets military action movie. We had six pre gen characters to choose from. I selected Gravedigger as he was frankly the best. A teleporting KGB sniper agent. When I played him he developed a strange liking for the hot tub, I don't really know why.

Gravedigger

RPG Book Binding For Fun and No Profit Whatsoever

I love games. All of them. I like computer games, board games and pen and paper role playing games. I love reading. I love reading on electronic devices, especially ones with e-ink screens, like my ageing prs 505.

What I do not like doing is reading heavily formatted books, like RPG rulebooks, on a computer screen. Even with the best hyperlinks and formatting I think some things are better read on paper. I did have a few problems though.

1. PDFs are generally a lot cheaper. Though sometimes not much, here I glance in the direction of Mongoose publishing.


2. I had the PDF of ACKS for under a tenner.


3. I really wanted the hardback book but it cost a lot and I could not find a supplier in the UK.


4. A friendly and cheap print on demand service was not being offered.

What to do I thought, what would Mr Maker do? He would make his own!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="72" caption="My first attempt in progress."][/caption]

Do It Yourself Book Binding

I have been thinking about doing this off and on for months now.

Playing Yesterday's Games Today

Recently I ran a quickie beginner friendly game at the grand opening of Fife's newest gaming arena Minmax Games, if I am feeling brave I will post a link to the scenario at the bottom.

Since I rediscovered role playing games I have run some sessions of Savage Worlds, played a fair amount of Dungeons & Dragons 4E and am now running a regular Traveller game. My current experiences with 4E are not the best, this I suspect has more to do with my play style and gaming memories than the actual system itself. The system seems well balanced just not my cup of tea. I did find myself thinking back to basic Dungeons and Dragons.

[caption id="attachment_546" align="aligncenter" width="220" caption="D&D Expert Set (Source The Acaeum http://www.acaeum.com/)"][/caption]

My memories told me the game was quicker, simpler and just more fun.