Depends on how miffed they are at their roommate?
Wish I could find the video of this old SNL skit, but I think the transcript speaks to the current situation....
So how was the Con?
I had fun. Aerodrome wasn't there, so I couldn't repeat as con champion. I played a pickup game of Federation Commander, Aeronautica Imperialis and also Sailpower (twice). I think I liked Sailpower the best. I was most surprised by Aeronautica Imperialis, because I don't really care for Warhammer or 40K, but that aspect of things is really abstracted. If you see Sailpower at a con and it looks intimidating, it really isn't. I won both Sailpower games, the first was a team exercise, and the second was just me and another player, who also was on the losing side the night before. I think he was just a bit too combat oriented, and it lead to his downfall.
First game, we played British, and the first two turns my friend and I are on the same team and we start scouring the islands for treasure. At the end of the second turn the other team sails their ships right past us and fires on my friend's ship, doing a heck of a lot of damage, but they shot their wad so to speak. Their Dutch ships have 5 guns per side, our ships have 4 guns per side. I light the ship up closest to me with 8 shots and decimate that ship, knocking out 4 of his 5 guns on that side. Next turn, I break out the ours and backup 4 inches, while the other player had turned and formed a T with my boat, and ended up having to stop. So I lit him up again with another broadside, which because he's T'ed up on me meant I did double damage. The rest of the game they're trying to avoid us, which they manage to do, and I cover my friend, since he's not really able to defend himself, and he goes hunting for treasures, while I keep the other guys at bay.
Second game was just me and one of the opponents from the night before. Since it's just the two of us, we have bigger ships to play with, he wants the British this time, I take Americans. He wants a gentleman's agreement of no firing on each other. After last night, I'm not interested, even though he can outgun me 2 to 1. On the very first turn, I'm maneuvering to get into a good spot for the island searching, and I'm actually planning to send out crews on launches, but he comes by on an intersecting course, light's me up right away, and takes out all but one of my guns, but he stops close enough for me to initiate a boarding action. So I grape shot his deck with the remaining gun, and send over 20 marines, and proceed to decimate his ship. 3 turns later, after reinforcing my men and wearing each other down, I decide to fire his ship and get back to mine, since his is on fire and he can't possibly get the fire under control. He surrenders with 15 men to my 30. We started with 120 to my 150. Fun game, I think I'm going to get into it...and envision a huge money sink. It's motivation to get my garage remodeled for woodshop and game area.
Sailpower models look a bit big. I play a lot of Napoleonic Naval miniatures and I like Heart of Oak or Beat to Quarters as a rule set. They are both 1:2400 scale
That being said I end up playing almost all miniature games at Cons because the RPG games generally suck ( because they are one offs). Napoleonics and American Civil War are my favorites.
The Sailpower designer conceded that it's big. It's meant to be fun-sized. I can ignore that my ship is as large or larger than the island. It was fun to play.
And yes, RPGs generally do suck. Although, I did enjoy watching (for about two hours) a Zombie apocalypse D&D game that looked pretty fun. I think everyone ended up dying, though had a blast in the process. The theme of the con was Apocalypse.
My experience with RPG games generally sucking at cons has given me pause to try and do an Ars scenario at a con... Hard to do.
I think I want to put in another story or two for the characters for the 1223-1226 time frame, if players are interested. I've left sufficient room, and adding Marko and gerg to the mix of players makes me want to give them a better introduction to the saga before throwing them into a Tribunal.
I have some ideas, but if you had ideas, please feel free to share them. In case you can't tell, the stories are drawing to a close. We have Part II of Blacksmith of Brandywine, which will receive an appropriate title. We will pickup Crowbar at some point. I'm going to push off Collaborate and Listen indefinitely (maybe after Tribunal), as I've come up with some things to happen in the mean time that I want to do before revisiting Collaborate and Listen.
The Flambeau have the whole possibility of helping out with Val Negra and the House... Korvin and Fiona have things setup for after Tribunal, but I want to resolve Tribunal before picking those up, so I'm thinking something more near term.
I'm working on some more letters that Korvin will try to influence some of the more senior Mercere Magi but that is not an adventure. I'm working on the start of the Elemental Mystery Cult (Meistroli y Elfennau) for the Halvard rewrite. First time I've done a mystery cult so I'm still playing around. A question that I thought of was/is...Can a hermatic mage advance in a non-hermatic mystery cult? Can he gain virtues and flaws based on the cult which would be supernatural abilities?
Welcome back Jonathan! Glad you had fun at the con. It's nice to see this forum lit up with red again 
I'd be up for a story or two before Tribunal, if you're leaning that way. Of course Tranquillina's Tormenting Master Flaw is close to a catch-all hook - I feel that Cumhachd can pretty much manipulate/shame Tranquillina into just about any mindset she (e.g., the SG) wants, which can make her launch herself into an impulsive choice of action. It would also be fun to do something with Korvin: in addition to interacting as Interpres and his Deputy and mucking around with some Hermetic Intrigue, Tranquillina can also cultivate a healthy interest in getting information about Mutantes spell mastery abilities, as well as a less-than-healthy interest in who exactly Abagail should be learning from 
If energy permits, it could also be fun to run a story for Pierre Legris, perhaps something that gets him out of the covenant. The Workshop stuff is fun in a nerdy way but there's not much RP there. But Pierre's a secondary priority to Tranquillina if resources are scarce.
SG resources are always scarce... But the idea behind this 1223-1226 timeframe was to create a period of time that was broad enough that allowed players to adequately figure out what they're doing for the Tribunal. The goal for additional stories is to get the players more stories before Tribunal, or in your's and Marko's case a bigger story to expose them to the saga. There is something to be said for reading the past stories, but it doesn't give your characters a huge voice in the story. Marko's case is a bit different, since he's starting later, after a lot of things have been set, as far as covenant governance, but I'm not sure that matters 100% to Marko, while it might be important to Roberto. Roberto will have to deal, though.
I've got some ideas, what I'm wanting from players is feedback on what they want most now. Of course, I reserve the right to say no, and do something different.
Viscaria may want in on that Val Negra action, post-Tribunal. We'll see what happens, in terms of making her name and whatnot. Definitely something she doesn't have time for before the Tribunal, and its entirely possible that she's already missed the fun bits of covenant building for them. But if you want to push things in that direction, I'm game.
Viscaria is also hoping to head to the Grand Tribunal.
I think we've had this discussion before. I've run several very popular one-off RPG sessions at conventions over the years. They need to be interesting ideas which can be effectively played in 2/3rds the alloted time, so that the players can have time to RP.
They were a pretty diverse set of games, too:
- a Memento style, non-linear session set in Legend of the Five Rings
- a game that claimed to be Shadowrun but turned out to be Aliens 4
- a Little Fears game called Run For Your Life, Charlie Brown!
- demo RPG sessions for Exalted
Those were probably my most popular ones. I agree that the standard is generally way too low, especially when it comes to publisher-sponsored games. I've pretty much stopped playing the Shadowrun Tournament games, because I've been able to guess the plot within the first 5 minutes of Round I every time.
To be honest, I'm just killing time until Tribunal and the Giant Summit.
Is that enough?
Well, resolution on the threads going on now (particularly the misadventures of [strike]Fiona[/strike] Blanche, and Ulrich's stuff, advancement and training and whatnot). I'm actually kind of enjoying not being the lead in ten different threads for a while, kind of give me some down time so to speak.
But, off the top of my head, pretty much. It gets pretty chaotic here, sometimes.
Just wanted to be sure...
Sometimes? I think the only time it isn't chaotic is when I say I'm taking a few days, and then it quiets down to a dull roar.
I started and stopped the thread to give a bit of a push, to bring things for the players into focus.
And I think I've been extremely clear, it's up to the player(s) to initiate this. Who is doing it and how are they getting there, what kind of resources are being made available to them, and when are they going? Much like you started Other People's Vis, any player(s) can start this out. If you want stuff from Confluensis, you have to go there, or at least someone does. I've heard send Renaud being mentioned as going there but really if that player doesn't want to send him I'm not going to force it. And perhaps it's me, and the amount of stuff going on, I just generally don't get the sense that anyone wants to go there. Makes some sense that the characters don't want to go into the lion's den, so to speak.
Very true. I'm still ruminating on how available some of the less common texts might be. I think you're asking for odd stuff. Things that might be in a magus's library, but hasn't been transcribed into an available lab text. This involves a time cost. I'm not sure that Mons Electi can pay the cost, so to speak.
When does someone have enough Greek knowledge to learn what is in the stash? When I get to a point where the 1223 stories can be closed off, I can detail the stash. Not sure how this has any bearing on the Crowbar thread, though, so I'm saying whether you or anyone has cataloged his stash is irrelevant to that thread. You might learn more about Guernicus House history, but it would be foolish for Viscaria to mention any of that while doing the tour/inspection.
Yes and no. Marcus disappears in 1223.4, are you really assuming Marcus isn't back a year before the Tribunal? While I haven't played him in later episodes, I hadn't made it clear, and I'd left it undefined, based on what players planned to do. If no one goes to get him, that's probably the case. Oh, and as above for Confluensis, if people are going to get him, start the thread and let me know who's there. I know I said I'd start a thread in the Blacksmith of Brandywine, but I am still not really clear on who's going. It's not really definitive. Players who are going to try and rescue Marcus should start in a new thread, I can then put some meat on the outline for that story, based on the actors involved.
If you want to presume that Marcus is unavailable for Viscaria for any reason and the Bath House is unfinished, well, then it is unfinished with the Tribunal officers visit. Keep in mind Roberto doesn't arrive until after the events of Crowbar.
I guess my silence wasn't clear enough. 
I didn't voice a problem with what was done as far as the copies made, given what Peregrine wrote for the texts, it seemed reasonable, and probably satisfied the demands of the players better than anything I could have come up with. So I didn't think I needed to explicitly approve it. 1222-1227 OOC - #442 by Peregrine_Bjornaer
Wait,
what about Roberto and the Bath House?
I missed something.
I will be clear yet again. Renaud offered to go to Confluensis but no one took me up on it so we have since moved on. Renaud has not gone to Confluensis and at this point is not going to Confluensis.
Korvin has 1224.1 season set to read and catalog Apollodorus' papers/books and things. He will have Greek 4 at that point.
According to your friendly neighborhood Diocetes, our Greek teacher is engaged with instructing Korvin through 1224.2, at which point Korvin's score will be 4. The teacher will continue with Jacques for nine intensive months of Greek training, followed directly by Isen.
Does this teacher really not have a name yet? or a background? The only thing I can find is a suggestion that he's Daffyd's uncle. Let's either name him Benner, or let Peregrine choose a better name
I think I've correctly updated the Mons Electi library catalog now.