Last of my new-to-me reviews from games I ran at RinCon in Tucson a few weeks ago. This is a short one. But very sweet. A palate cleanser after last week’s look at Elder Mythos.
Decaying Orbit
Sunday I offered an amuse-bouche, a charcuterie board of small games that would not take up the full four hour slot. The first thing I ran for my group of 6 (me included) was Decaying Orbit, which I’ve written about before. If you don’t go through the link, the short version is that Decaying Orbit is a For the Queen adaptation in which everyone plays a part of an artificial intelligence running a space station falling into a sun. For the game I ran at RinCon, I suggested a different station than my first go, a research station rather than a colony ship. Went great, and almost everyone at the table was new to For The Queen style prompt games.
The most fun is watching folks realize how fun the “Corrupted Memory” option is: when someone is playing out their personal recollection of what the AI was doing during the trip, any player can tap a little card that says Corrupted Memory and cut them off. For the players who have never experienced it, it seems rude at first blush. So I had to pick the perfect moment to leave a provocative question unanswered. I think I tapped it during my own thing, describing a mysterious mass that appeared attached to the backside of our solar panels. “What’s it look like? Are there cameras back there?” “Yes,” I say, “Let’s zoom in oh no corrupted memory!” Everyone at the table cackled and started to compete to be the first to tap the sign.
Dragon Braggin’
The new game I ran, though, was Michael Miller’s (of With Great Power fame way back in the day) Dragon Braggin’. It’s another For The Queen hack: they’re terrific light RPG-adjacent fillers! This one’s quite far afield from the original. You start by picking from one of four broad categories of characters: Wonders (wizards and such), Strikers (assassins, burglars, etc), Defenders (knights, barbarians) and Supports (bards, clerics). Then you deal out a string of events describing a dungeon delve you’ve just come from. The facts on the cards are objective facts about the delve. When your character type comes up you concoct your own version of events, and the other players ask followups.
When the retelling is over, you start several rounds of toasts, boasts and roasts about your own and others’ antics during the delve, chosen from a river of three available toast cards or a blind draw from the deck. The whole time, you’re competing for your win condition, which you’ve chosen in secret before the toasting begins: first pick of the treasure, the dragon slayer, the leader of the party next time, and the biggest braggart. At the end of each round, everyone votes for one of the titles, and the voting criteria are different for each. Sometimes you can’t vote for yourself, sometimes you can. The toasts you’ve chosen might also give you extra votes to pass around. There are some interesting mechanical wrinkles that make this bit really sparkle.
Maybe it was just a lucky first play but I thought Dragon Braggin’ was brilliantly constructed. My wizard got hilariously roasted to hell and back, petty little snipes and heartfelt congratulations were shared, and the whole game ends with the winner of the braggart sharing their sincere feelings with each of the party members. It was the end of the con and it was just a perfect way to wrap things up. One hour, up to six players, and you’ll probably pee yourself laughing. My current favorite party RPG.
