This last weekend was Albacon, an online gaming convention. While based in Scotland, it garnered international attention and players from all over the globe. As a sponsor of the con, we at Handiwork Games decided to run some sessions of BEOWULF: Age of Heroes. Jacob volunteered for this. Here’s his report:
Of course, BEOWULF is primarily designed as a single player game. But it’s awfully hard to show the game off to folks if you have only one player a session. So I took our own advice on multiple players. We had up to three players per session and each Hero had only two Followers. I was on the schedule for one game Saturday evening and one on Sunday evening.
Before the game began, the Saturday players selected their Heroes and Followers. We would be playing with Alys, Bald Eadig, and Waelfwulf. We opened with a quick safety talk and soon enough, the Heroes heard of a serpent causing trouble in Britain and sailed that way. They encountered a few challenges along the way that didn’t cause any lasting harm, met the king Cynfarch, the priest Prydderch, and the princess Ceridwyn. Bald Eadig found a kindred soul in Prydderch and the priest assisted them in starting their adventure.
I won’t say much more about the adventure for fear of spoiling it, but the Heroes dealt with their challenges very judiciously and were ultimately successful in their quest.
Sunday’s Game was also full but early in the day I got word from one of the convention organisers that a player would not be able to make it and another player, though having bought a ticket, had not completed registration yet. Things seemed a bit iffy, but, of course, BEOWULF can run with just a single player as easily as three, so there was no need to cancel yet. However, as the time drew nearer, my one player that I was in contact with indicated that after two full days of gaming, an 8pm – Midnight games was looking less and less appealing with each passing hour. When no one else showed up, we decided not to proceed. Of course Penumbra (the charity of choice this year) still received the ticket proceeds so all was well.
All-in-all, I had fun and was very happy to show off BEOWULF: Age of Heroes at Albacon. Hopefully we will be able to attend next year as well — easily done if it remains virtual, but if it turns into a physical convention then I might need to fly over to Scotland for the weekend.
If you want to learn more about BEOWULF: Age of Heroes and all of our accessories for the game, visit our shop.