UK Games Expo on the horizon

 

At the end of the week it'll be the UK's largest gaming convention, UK Games Expo.

I've been a few times in the past, and have always been completely overwhelmed by the size of the convention, but this is the first time I've gone for longer than a single afternoon. Usually that's enough for me, it can be exhausting and so much happening, but this time I'm going to brave it a bit longer – mostly due to having the support and backup of my lovely wife this time. 

What do I hope to get out of the convention? 

Not sure. I know lots of people going and that's the real reason for it – meeting up with loads of cool gamers and developers. There are a few people going I haven't seen for many years, and some I've never met in person (only over the internet) and it's going to be great to catch up and chat. 

I also want to check out those cool minis at Crooked Dice – surely they have to have made a Mulder and Scully set by now? 

And, Darrington Press... I'm not much of a fantasy gamer, but Daggerheart is looking more and more tempting...  

I've printed out maps of the halls, marked on stalls I definitely need to visit. There are so many people I need to say hello to! It should be good!! Exhausting, but good!

If you're going and see me wandering the halls, looking as bewildered as I always do at these things, say 'hi!'.

[I may try to record a video or something while I'm there. I was going to do another "what's in the box?" video today but the footage was awful. I'll need to try again...]

My Taste In Music Is Your Face

This is going to be something a little different for me. This blog is usually where I get all nostalgic or talk about tabletop roleplaying games, or movies, or my obsession with The X-Files, or something like that. I don't often venture into the realms of music, despite it being quite a major part of my life.

Bear with me though, there are some strange narrative elements coming up that you may not be aware of, so stick with it. You may like it! If not, things will return to gaming next post, I promise.

Photo of the stage on the Clancy tour, showing the city of Dema. 

Over the last couple of years my wife has become completely and utterly obsessed with the band Twenty One Pilots. The wonders of Kerrang! TV (oh, how I miss that) showed the video for Holding On To You, and it seems to have latched itself into her subconscious, because when the video for Stressed Out hit circulation, we recognised the band and (intrigued) started watching the videos and checking out the rest of their music. 

The Music Is The Story, the Story is the Music

Who knew it was going to be such a rabbit hole! Listening to the songs, certain phrases would occur over and over, mentioning Bishops, Dema, Banditos, and something called Vialism. With a bit of research, Debs opened a whole can of worms and told me to look into it too... It seems that for the last ten years (to the day actually, as the album that really started this narrative, Blurryface, is ten years old today as I type this) they have been telling an epic story. 

Dema is a city on the continent known as Trench. Within the city are nine Bishops who control each of the nine districts, leading a religion known as Vialism. There is a resistance group, cute alien things called Neds, and major characters Clancy (Tyler Joseph in the band) and the Torchbearer (Josh Dun in the band). 

As you watch the music videos, some of them are 'Lore' videos, telling the story of Clancy's escape from Dema, being dragged back by Nico (one of the Bishops), being forced to perform as propaganda, escaping again, gaining the psychic ability to reanimate the dead like the Bishops, and returning to Dema to take down the Bishops. It's all pretty epic.

Letters from the Bishops, and a map of Trench and Dema

However, it's not just the music videos and some of the lyrics that build this Lore and the story. Some of the merchandise includes clues and codes, the latest album ("Clancy") had a digital version with a booklet full of clues and puzzles. 

As you can imagine, we were intrigued and fascinated. Delving even deeper and listening closely to the lyrics, you can tell that not only is this clever and detailed world building, but it also has a deeper meaning about mental health, and personal struggles. Probably why it resonates with so many fans.

The Few, The Proud, And The Emotional

I'd foolishly bought tickets for the concert over a year ago, initially thinking it was for last May until I tried to book the time off from work... d'oh. And then, they announced they were bringing their touring exhibition with them. Props and artefacts from their history – stage costumes, props from music videos, original notes of the lyrics. All broken down by album or tour. Debs' eyes lit up at the opportunity, so we had to go to that as well...

Debs posing in front of the "Blurryface 10th Anniversary" posters that lined the approach

We arrived good and early at the O2 in London, what was once 'the Millennium Dome'. We'd only been here once before when the Game of Thrones exhibition was here, and strangely enough the Fan Premier Exhibition (FPE) was in the same upper bar area of the arena. 

There was a big queue (which surprised me) for the exhibition, but the staff were all brilliant and explained everything to us. We got our "Ned's" bags of goodies and wristbands, and went in...

Tyler's handwritten lyrics for one of my favourite tracks
"At the Risk of Feeling Dumb"

The queues working their way around the exhibition. Bishop robes (red) in the next bit!

Bishop robes for eight of the nine Bishops (the robes of the ninth were on the floor...)

Debs and Me on the "Stressed Out" trikes. 

More cabinets of clippings, drumheads, outfits, and more

There was a heck of a lot to see, and there are another 150+ photos on my phone of the exhibition alone! At the end of the exhibition, there was an area with a bar, and loads of cushions on the floor so you could sit and chill. There was also a stamping station, where you could stamp designs onto the yellow bandana that came in your "Ned's" bag of stuff. There was also a place to add yellow and red tape to your outfit, add a message to the band on a flag, and (of course) the continuing lore...

We went on the second to last night of the tour, so set up in the last area was a Bandito tent with another letter fragment. There have been letter fragments at each concert venue, with morse codes and clues to build upon the story. 

The Bandito tent with the letter fragment pinned to the front

The following night, the tent was gone, with another clue. The flags were burned, or covered in black... 

See what I mean about the cool lore stuff?

We hung around for a bit, Debs decorated her bandana, and I chatted to a few of the older fans who were there – I honestly thought I was going to be the oldest person in the whole building, but it just goes to prove that their music seems to appeal to all ages. 

Eventually we headed out, and got a well needed cuppa before starting to queue to get into the gig itself.

Welcome Back To Trench

The gig itself was amazing. The venue was smaller than I thought it was going to be (I honestly thought it was going to be so large you wouldn't see anything) and we were lucky enough to be front row of the seated section to one side, right next to one of the "B-Stages".

Josh Dun, right up close!! 

There were a couple of really clever bits that stood out among the rest of the awesome. There was a moment where Tyler (wearing a balaclava) looks close into the camera that's on the stage so that the screens at the side affirm that it's him. He jumps into a trapdoor behind the middle riser on the stage, then appears in the crowd at the top of one of the balconies. You think, "ah, it's a body double" and then he takes the balaclava off, and it's him! I know there was some clever switcheroo deception going on, but it was awesome. 

The other really dramatic bit was when Josh appears in the crowd at the back of the auditorium, carrying the flaming torch - he is the Torchbearer. He walks through the crowd to the podium where Tyler is, and hands him his Clancy jacket. They head to the stage, and the stage looks like the city of Dema (see the pic at the top of this blog). It's so flippin' epic. 

(Of course, in a change to the plot, the final night - the one after we were there – Tyler doesn't take the jacket... and the crowd goes nuts). 

And then the city starts burning! 

Told you it was flippin' epic!!

Tyler, right up close!!

In the end, the concert finished with the traditional last song - "Trees". They set up small plinths in the middle of the crowd so they could both drum the final moments, while red confetti exploded from the roof onto the audience. (Of course, this night, the drums were chained down as it was the gig after the one in Manchester where a "fan" walked out of the venue with one of the drums. It made it into the music press, and the fans rallied to track the drum down. I don't know the details, but the tour team posted a video of them getting the drum back...)

And then, we headed home. 

In Time I Will Leave The City

That kinda wraps it up. Except... the tour ended and the social media continued. Cryptic letters were spelling something out, and a closing eye graphic and dimming the opacity of their website. There are theories that the whole of the concert is told as a recap, a flashback, in the moment Clancy closes his eyes while Blurryface grabs him by the throat (see the Paladin Strait video below). That rallying of "why you fight" just before you take action... 

It all built up to today's announcement that there's a new album coming in September which may finish the storyline. Debs is already overexcited at the prospect of new songs so soon after the tour. 

Overall, it was awesome. And I worry that all of that showmanship, storylines, and mystery has spoiled it for everyone else I wanted to see live. We'll see... next month it's Nine Inch Nails!

Sidequest: Every TTRPG played 21-30

Continuing my previous posts listing every tabletop RPG I've ever played, we're starting to get into the Nineties! Of course, just a handful of Eighties RPGs to get through, but we're getting there. 

If you want to catch up with the list in (sorta) chronological order, check out the previous parts here:

Part 1 - 1-10

Part 2 - 11-20

And now, without further ado, let's get on with it. 

#21 - The Price of Freedom

Cover of West End Games' The Price of Freedom

The Eighties were certainly a strange time when it came to the political climate (not that it's any more stable now). In the Eighties, the threat of war influenced movies, TV series, and games. Heavily influenced by Red Dawn, West End Games' TTRPG The Price of Freedom was all about guerrilla warfare in an occupied America. It was very tactical, and came with hex maps and counters for units. It was a bit bleak, and my players didn't really want to play in that setting, so I ended up converting it to play "V", the TV series of alien invasion with a deep message mirroring the horrors of WWII. 

Instead of fighting humans, the resistance was fighting alien Visitors. The hamsters and mice needed saving!

#22 - Robotech

Palladium Games' Robotech RPG

A bit of a strange one and a bit left-field, but for some reason I wanted to play with big robots, and spotted the Robotech RPG on the shelves at our local store. I bought it, read it, was thoroughly confused (it felt a bit like D&D) and we created some characters, but that may have been as far as it went. I'd never seen Robotech, so the concept of the aliens being flippin' giants didn't even occur to me (it wasn't that clear in the book I don't think, or I was just stupid). This may have been my only exposure to the Palladium system. I think someone else in the group had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles RPG, but I never played it. 

#23 - Star Wars (West End Games)

Star Wars RPG (West End Games)

Look at it. It's beautiful. One of my favourite games of all time, up there with Ghostbusters, is the original Star Wars RPG by West End Games. I mean, I was a fan of WEG having played Ghostbusters, Paranoia, and The Price of Freedom, but when they announced they had the license for my favourite films that was me sold. 

The Star Wars RPG is just awesome. I know it has its foibles and there were times where we were rolling so many D6s that you could hardly see the table, but it was glorious. It really captured the action and feel of Star Wars. It was the last RPG I bought and ran in what I call my "Golden Age", and we played a heck of a lot of it. Probably so much my players were sick of it, but I loved it, and I loved Star Wars. Still do (with both). 

After that, things wound down for a bit. I went to college, a lot of the players went off to university, and gaming in general faded into the background for two or three years. 

#24 - Vampire: The Masquerade

Vampire: The Masquerade (1st Edition)

There is going to be a bit of a recurring theme here for a while, sorry. I went to the University of the Arts to do a degree (so I could do comics and graphic novels - see, that constant bouncing between comics and RPGs at it again). I'd gone away to Uni, met loads of new people, and immediately stumbled across a gaming group playing Vampire: The Masquerade. I'd never even heard of it, but was immediately hooked. This was back when we had student grants to help pay for our education, before it became 'loans', and I was terrible. I blew a chunk of my grant on buying a heap of Vampire books. This was going to be my next big thing. I ran a game for my old group, started another group locally with people from the comic shop, and set both games in the same city, at the same time, crossing over events and characters. 

Vampire got me back into gaming in a big way, and introduced me to my future wife. We joined the Camarilla, went to a couple of big Camarilla meetings. Heck, Debs was head of Clan Toreador for a while, while I was the second in command in Clan Tremere. 

#25 - Werewolf: The Apocalypse

Werewolf: The Apocalypse (1st Edition)

I told you there was going to be recurring theme... Of course, Vampire wasn't going to be enough, and when Werewolf: The Apocalypse came out, I was just as intrigued, aiming to add werewolves into our current Vampire game. As a bit of an aside, I ran a Werewolf story with my local group set in the same city as the Vampire game – their actions directly impacting upon the Vampire chronicle as a whole. It was fun! I think we did a couple of adventures like that... but then, something else came along.

#26 - Mage: The Ascension

Mage: The Ascension (1st Edition)

Oh yes, now we're talking. Vampire was cool, and goth, and moody. Werewolf was angry, and nature, and anti-corporation. Mage: The Ascension was just nuts. And we loved it. I ran a Mage game for our local group (who we still play with today) and it was amazing. Debs created a character that inspired so many works of fiction. The setting, the characters, the themes we tackled in those games were beyond anything we could hope to replicate. It was Quintessence in a bottle, rather than lightning. When the Paradox Backlashes hit, things went really weird, and yet we kept it all in the same city and story as the old Vampire game. Truly epic. Until one of the characters died...

#27 - Wraith: The Oblivion

The incredibly hard to read and over-the-top cover for Wraith: The Oblivion

So, one of the characters died in our Mage: The Ascension game, but no one wanted to see the end of that character. Luckily, White Wolf had just brought out the next in the line of World of Darkness games, with Wraith: The Oblivion. Therefore, the character remained in the Chantry, and joined in with the adventures, only as a ghost! We never played a dedicated game of Wraith, at least, not to my recollection. But we explored many of the themes and adventure ideas in the Wraith setting in our main WoD campaign. 

It was about this time I considered going back into writing roleplaying games again. 

However, things happened, I got grumpy, over-reacted, and turned my back on World of Darkness. I wanted to keep running the game we had going in Mage, keeping with weird magic and ghosts and supernatural stuff. That's when I turned to the next game in the list...

#28 - KULT

KULT (1st Edition)

The replacement for World of Darkness was an easy conversion over to the grim and terrifying world of Kult. Sure, the magic wasn't as easy to cast, but it made the game more creepy and somewhat sinister. The Mage character's Chantry was a pocket in the Metropolis, and things took a decidedly darker turn. There were still vampires and evil creatures, but the influences of Hellraiser were definitely there. Possibly the tensest games I've ever run, and some of the scariest stuff we've played, but it was cool and very 90s goth.

And that 2nd edition with the cool typography (rumoured to be done in MSWord)... oh, Lordy. That's so good. 

Maybe a little too dark, though, which lead to converting our existing game once again to yet another system...

#29 - CJ Carella's WitchCraft

CJ Carella's WitchCraft

More closely in line with the themes and tone of our old World of Darkness game, we switched over to CJ Carella's WitchCraft. I was initially drawn to the cover design, and that the game was a smaller digest format rather than the usual sized gamebook. It was smaller, easier to carry, had some great art, and the system felt very like the old World of Darkness. Of course, this introduced me to Eden Studios...

#30 - All Flesh Must Be Eaten

All Flesh Must Be Eaten (1st Edition)

We'd relocated to the other side of the country, and the gaming had come to a halt again. But there was a little gaming store on my way into work. In there, I spotted another one of Eden's smaller digest RPGs, the legendary All Flesh Must Be Eaten, a game of zombie survival horror. I didn't actually get to play it until many years later, after we'd moved back to where we were before, and I started hosting an RPG bookclub at the bookstore I was working at. Instead of reading a book and talking about it once a month, we'd pick a game, and run a short one-shot once a month. The members of the group could then buy it at a small discount if they liked it. 

I ended up running a quick one-shot of All Flesh Must Be Eaten, set on one of my sixth-form school trips. It was suitably over-the-top and complete carnage, but great fun. 

--

That's it for the latest section. Possibly only a couple more of these to go, I find I'm buying games and reading them more than I get chance to play them these days. You may be surprised at the omissions when it comes to what I haven't played!! 

Until next time, stay multi-classy!