A new experiment this con! Happy Jacks RPG normally streams their live show at the convention at Saturday 8pm. This time, they also decided to experiment and stream actual convention games as well, and I was honored to be part of that lineup.
I ran MR-KR-GR on Saturday morning. MR-KR-GR is a crocodile-ruled kingdom, and one of a thousand thousand islands, a South East Asian inspired fantasy setting by Zedeck Siew and Munkao. (You can find Munkao’s Patreon for this project here.) The game I run uses the setting, but with a system I put together with elements borrowed from Fall of Magic, World of Dungeons, and Apocalypse World. (If you want more details on my perspective and history with MR-KR-GR, go see my prior blog posts here and here, or alternatively on the Gauntlet Blog here and here for more design-specific considerations.)
Character generation consists of a name, a title, and a choice of trait. We started with Diya the Princess of Tohey with trait +Clever (played by Joey), Mahi the Witch of Merating with trait +Witch (played by Chris), Loren the Owl of Kandis with trait +Scout (played by Jason), Sutten the Barber of Afar with trait +Sneaky (played by Rob).
We went through initial scenes with our characters, seeing Loren the Owl person wearing a cowl, bristling in the new found heat of this journey, taking the -Distracted trait. Mahi surrounded by death flies, a slow rot, suffering under a curse (-Cursed), withdrawn. Diya the Princess, also afflicted by this same illness, but early in its effects, being told (in a flashback) by the vizier to go find hope and a cure, as her father is succumbing to the same sickness. Diya has traveled for a while, and is showing the wear of the journey (-Destitute). Sutten, dealing with a wasting poisin (-Poisoned), from stealing honey cakes from a prior, sorcerer master. Sunken cheaks, desparate, food tasting like ash, he gets a lesson in the spirit mango scam trade from Jaji the boat owner. (This was around the 20 minute to 47 minute mark.)
Next we play a few scenes near the gates, announcing the border to the Death-Rolled kingdom. (This starts around the 48 minutes mark.) And onward… we started with some scenes promising good, but then ending in misery and disappointment. We saw them all meet at The Giant’s Tears, a prominent tea shopon Trader’s Island. It was a lovely little scene where the group comes together.
And then on to AR-YM-SR the archaeologist, and on to face a Demon Idol, and redemption… living or dead.
It was a fantastic tale, and I truly thank the player’s for bringing such great characters and painful and lovely stories.
You can download or listen to the audio on the Happy Jacks RPG site. The beginning consist of pleasantries, discussion of the X-card and safety mechanics, and very initial character generation, but we really launch into it around the 20 minutes mark.
Part of the crew… Joey, Chris, Ron. Engineer Jason is just to the left out of frame!
The video for this was made available a little after con, and now you can watch!