Art of Wuxia at Con of the North 2020 After Action Report

I ran two sessions of a new scenario this past weekend at Con of the North  in Minnesota.

The scenario, Ghostly Echoes, came about after some deep discussions with Dr. Albert Dalia (scholar of medieval Chinse history and wuxia author). I wanted to return to the supernatural like I did with A Jianghu Ghost Story but I wanted to tie it into some of the deeper wuxia themes that Albert and I had been discussing.

I really wrestled with this one. I never have a problem writing adventures, characters, scenes etc. This one was difficult. Wanted to tell a story, one of respect so profound it transcended time and even death. I also had to have player agency determine the outcome. This was the part I needed to get absolutely right or I’m just there telling a story. The player actions needed to have impact.

I was pretty terrified of running the scenario. I thought it was good. I thought it was the best one I’ve written so far but it would require clever players forming a strong empathy with a villain around mysterious drives and circumstances of a significant event of the past. Would they buy it? Would they buy-in to the emotional themes and would they risk going for the deeper understanding or just cut, punch and spell their way through the adventure? I was hoping that players would take advantage of some of the other skills some of the characters had such as Detective and Scholar.

I wrote five probable endings with one being the best and some being absolutely tragic. I’m not going to give the adventure away as I hope you get a chance to play it in some form or other in the future. I got done with the first adventure concluding with a very short three sentence epilogue and then said, “The End”.

Silence

Silence for like five unbearable seconds.

Then they all started clapping, smiling, saying “wow” and “friggin’ awesome”. It worked!  It got them in the feels and they responded.  The exact same thing happened with the second group. It showed me yet again that I can ask a lot from players and they will risk if I too will risk.  Good lesson there for me I think.

I’m working up all of these convention game scenarios as one shot adventures so you could see them in your own games if AoW does well enough.

Even though I didn’t do any conventions last year I still ended up with half of the players in each session being return players from previous years with one player having played every scenario I’ve offered (all seven!) to date.

Most of all I had a fun time running a complex and what I feel is a meaningful scenario and Art of Wuxia provided a perfect vehicle for it.

I also learned a new lesson. I’ve run Art of Wuxia convention games over 2 dozen times now. I let players take their character sheets and handouts if they like. This time, in the excitement I accidently let a couple of players take my character name tents and paper minis. I didn’t expressly tell them not too and when I was packing up my first game found I was missing some. Now, this won’t break a game of course but I find these items really handy for myself and the players to keep track of the action. A copy of the document found on a friends phone and a quick stop to get files printed saved me. Note to self: bring multiple printed backups of key items.  Lesson Learned!