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The Tavern needs to be a safe place and comply with the law. In the UK the OSA requires us to know the age of our members and posters, and yet the UK Govt. has not provided a method to do this that is affordable to small voluntary BBS like ours. To that end, all members are safe and secure, we know you must be adults by now. However if you wish to join as a member, please contact us using the form at the [very] bottom of the page and we shall do a one to one verifiaction.
Furnace Furnace XX: 11-12 October 2025
- Thread starter First Age
- Start date
First Age
D&D h@ck3r and Hopepunk
I thought it was a great weekend of RPGs and good company at our twentieth Furnace Convention in Sheffield at the Garrison Hotel. To celebrate this milestone we arranged some merch in the shape of emblazoned messenger bags from our accomplished trader friends ‘All Rolled Up’ and a separately sourced dice tray give-away to all attendees. Dom did such a great job pulling all that together!
Dice Trays, Bags and ARU supermodel
In many ways, Furnace is shaped by our venue, which we have stayed with for our twenty years. There is a really good understanding between our event and the hotel staff. We are a regular feature for them, and we work very well together to make the weekend as enjoyable as possible for everyone that attends. This year, due to changes in the flow of hotel business, we had an opportunity to multi-function use the large restaurant area, in addition to our more usual venue rooms. This large space opened up the convention with eight more large round tables in an airy and well lit space. This year, the ‘Mess Hall’ became the convention hub for our traders, bring & buy and raffle. It worked brilliantly!
This extension to our space afforded us an opportunity to expand our registration to ‘about 100 people’, which was extremely satisfying. I was beyond delighted to see the enthusiastic sign up for the event from regulars, returners, and a good number of very welcome newbies. Of course, this enlargement needed a complimentary number of games to fire the event to life across our five sessions. Our attendees responded by filling our schedule to the brim with, I think, 74 adventures from an astonishing 58 games. Everything from 10 Candles, Alice is Missing, to Legend in the Mist, Daggerheart, to Draw Steel and the Cosmere RPG and everythingish in between. We even had two games of D&D 2024.
We pre-book all games at our conventions. GMs get priority picks based on the number of games they offer, and then we open out to everyone working through preferences slot by slot to get the best fit we can, so that everyone knows who is playing where. I say ‘we’, by which I mean Elaine, our games Tsarina, who worked considerable magic to produce our more extensive schedule this year. I often hear that the convention ‘runs smoothly’, and that’s true in good measure to the beating heart of our game scheduling. Thank you Elaine!
Our regular traders, Patriot Games and All Rolled Up, were in attendance. It's so good to be supported by both of them, providing a rich shopping experience in amongst the games and socialising.
I ran three games. 'Legend in the Mist' - a very lovely 'rustic fantasy' using tag phrases instead of numbers and a charming resolution mechanic. It'll be a big game for me for years to come. Its scalable versatility has me thinking of all sorts of future places and possibilities. 'Coriolis' - a Middle Eastern inspired space opera set on a giant space station, solving a mystery of a stolen statue. This was a last minute game to help with GM dropouts, and enjoyed the interplay and enthusiasm from my players. 'Cepheus Universal' - a classic Traveller style SF adventure as the 'pirate bait' plan went explosively awry. What might next year bring?
Pirate Bait - one of my games
I played in two great games. JohnO’s atmospheric ‘The Harrow’s Scar’, set north of Hadrian’s Wall in the second century AD. My energy was somewhat low, but enjoyed the game a great deal with a background amusement that, unlike my other players, I genuinely had no idea about Cthulhu lore at all. JonR’s sumptuously presented ‘A Box of Old Bones’ using the venerable Dragon Warriors game. The system is very 1985, but good fun nevertheless. Blingtastic game full of imagery, props and a steady hand on the setting. I picked well!
I was glad to receive some canny feedback from our attendees during the event. We have introduced a feedback and action log to make sure we capture, record and agree what, if any, actions we need to undertake in time for our next outing. We want to both listen and act. One of my favourites was a word of congratulations that we had managed to grow the convention, and yet retained the warm and inclusive Garricon feel. Thank you, that was generously given and warmly received.
Today, I've paid some conventon invoices, updated the convention accounts, created a Garricon feedback action log, analysed the games offered at Furnace, and finished this text, which can be found on my blog. I was asked how much work goes into running the convention and realised that I didn't really know. A monitoring timesheet is unlikely, but I reflect that, allowing for the main well oiled processes, the many small tasks over the year will amount to a significant amount of time. I enjoy much of it, and there is a particular reason why this is so.
There was a moment during Jon’s richly realised Dragon Warriors game, when I turned to one of my fellow players and co-organisers, Dom, and pointed to the ‘Mess Hall’ area behind us, full of gamers engrossed and exclaiming in their adventures and said, “Dom, look. That’s why we do it…”.
Let’s do it again shall we?
Dice Trays, Bags and ARU supermodel
This extension to our space afforded us an opportunity to expand our registration to ‘about 100 people’, which was extremely satisfying. I was beyond delighted to see the enthusiastic sign up for the event from regulars, returners, and a good number of very welcome newbies. Of course, this enlargement needed a complimentary number of games to fire the event to life across our five sessions. Our attendees responded by filling our schedule to the brim with, I think, 74 adventures from an astonishing 58 games. Everything from 10 Candles, Alice is Missing, to Legend in the Mist, Daggerheart, to Draw Steel and the Cosmere RPG and everythingish in between. We even had two games of D&D 2024.
We pre-book all games at our conventions. GMs get priority picks based on the number of games they offer, and then we open out to everyone working through preferences slot by slot to get the best fit we can, so that everyone knows who is playing where. I say ‘we’, by which I mean Elaine, our games Tsarina, who worked considerable magic to produce our more extensive schedule this year. I often hear that the convention ‘runs smoothly’, and that’s true in good measure to the beating heart of our game scheduling. Thank you Elaine!
Our regular traders, Patriot Games and All Rolled Up, were in attendance. It's so good to be supported by both of them, providing a rich shopping experience in amongst the games and socialising.
I ran three games. 'Legend in the Mist' - a very lovely 'rustic fantasy' using tag phrases instead of numbers and a charming resolution mechanic. It'll be a big game for me for years to come. Its scalable versatility has me thinking of all sorts of future places and possibilities. 'Coriolis' - a Middle Eastern inspired space opera set on a giant space station, solving a mystery of a stolen statue. This was a last minute game to help with GM dropouts, and enjoyed the interplay and enthusiasm from my players. 'Cepheus Universal' - a classic Traveller style SF adventure as the 'pirate bait' plan went explosively awry. What might next year bring?
Pirate Bait - one of my games
I played in two great games. JohnO’s atmospheric ‘The Harrow’s Scar’, set north of Hadrian’s Wall in the second century AD. My energy was somewhat low, but enjoyed the game a great deal with a background amusement that, unlike my other players, I genuinely had no idea about Cthulhu lore at all. JonR’s sumptuously presented ‘A Box of Old Bones’ using the venerable Dragon Warriors game. The system is very 1985, but good fun nevertheless. Blingtastic game full of imagery, props and a steady hand on the setting. I picked well!
I was glad to receive some canny feedback from our attendees during the event. We have introduced a feedback and action log to make sure we capture, record and agree what, if any, actions we need to undertake in time for our next outing. We want to both listen and act. One of my favourites was a word of congratulations that we had managed to grow the convention, and yet retained the warm and inclusive Garricon feel. Thank you, that was generously given and warmly received.
Today, I've paid some conventon invoices, updated the convention accounts, created a Garricon feedback action log, analysed the games offered at Furnace, and finished this text, which can be found on my blog. I was asked how much work goes into running the convention and realised that I didn't really know. A monitoring timesheet is unlikely, but I reflect that, allowing for the main well oiled processes, the many small tasks over the year will amount to a significant amount of time. I enjoy much of it, and there is a particular reason why this is so.
There was a moment during Jon’s richly realised Dragon Warriors game, when I turned to one of my fellow players and co-organisers, Dom, and pointed to the ‘Mess Hall’ area behind us, full of gamers engrossed and exclaiming in their adventures and said, “Dom, look. That’s why we do it…”.
Let’s do it again shall we?
dpmcalister
Acolyte
I'd really love to come back to this. I think my last visit was for the 10th anniversary! Unfortunately October is normally a bad month for me as it's full of birthdays (not least of which my wife's which is the 11th 
).
).
steveh
Rune Priest
It’s October, which means it’s my annual trip to the Garrison Hotel in Sheffield and two days of great ttrpg gaming.
It was Furnace’s 20th anniversary, and the organisers gave us each a nice dice tray! (You can’t miss them in the photos below – they’re bright orange.)
New for this year was taking over the hotel restaurant space for eight tables of games. That gave more space for games, but more importantly, the new space was light and airy – a huge improvement on some of the dingier tables elsewhere. (I predict that next year they will be snapped up quickly!)
I played four games. (I don’t play in slot 3, Saturday evening, as I go home instead.)
John ran Kelli’s Heroes, a military heist adventure for Traveller, inspired by a certain movie. Set during the Fifth Frontier War on Becks World (or “Space Iceland” as we described it), we were a Recon company sent to check out a downed shuttle that led us to rescue some scientists who had discovered a vault of Ancient technology.
Lots of fun – with a nice scene where we intimidated the heck out of some Vargr, forcing them to flee rather than actually engaging them in battle. I played squad leader Calli, a compulsive gambler, who was heavily in debt and happy to go after priceless Ancients artefacts!
We had two firefights – the first lasting no more than two rounds, the other over in the first salvo.
Remi ran The Price of Arrogance, a swashbuckling adventure involving sinister conspiracies, a mysterious artefact, a race across the sea and a slave uprising. I played Eberhardt Fischer, a merchant.
It was my first time playing 7th Sea. We were playing second edition, and there was some debate as to whether it was better than first. I have no idea – it seemed fine to me, very dramatic and encouraged over-the-top actions.
I particularly liked the rule that gave you an extra die to roll if you describe what your character is doing with flair (rather than just say “I attack”). I’d happily incorporate that in other games.
I ran Good Society, the Jane Austen rpg, on Sunday morning. I had five players, and I used the Romantic Comedy playset from the book. (I used Storybrewers one-shot advice from here.)
The players seemed to enjoy themselves and leant into the spirit of the game – secret betrothals, marriage attempts, a very sweet gay romance between two of the minor characters, and even a duel.
A few things I will take away:
Anyway, I will run Good Society again, probably with a different playset.
Graham ran a Cepheus Universal game, which put our crew of adventurers on a remote survey outpost as bait for pirates.
I played Tara Vix, an ex-media star (rank 6, “National Treasure”!) turned navigator on the Quicksilver, our 300-ton starship.
Our adventure ended with a space battle against the pirates (we were only supposed to be bait – our backup never arrived…), which I think is the first time I have ever used space combat rules in Traveller (or a Traveller-derived game). We destroyed two fighters and got away.
Graham had good table bling, including stands for the characters, a full-colour hexmap, and standees for the ships.
And that was me done! I wonder what I’ll run and play next year?
Continue reading...
It was Furnace’s 20th anniversary, and the organisers gave us each a nice dice tray! (You can’t miss them in the photos below – they’re bright orange.)
New for this year was taking over the hotel restaurant space for eight tables of games. That gave more space for games, but more importantly, the new space was light and airy – a huge improvement on some of the dingier tables elsewhere. (I predict that next year they will be snapped up quickly!)
I played four games. (I don’t play in slot 3, Saturday evening, as I go home instead.)
Calli’s Heroes - Traveller
John ran Kelli’s Heroes, a military heist adventure for Traveller, inspired by a certain movie. Set during the Fifth Frontier War on Becks World (or “Space Iceland” as we described it), we were a Recon company sent to check out a downed shuttle that led us to rescue some scientists who had discovered a vault of Ancient technology.
Lots of fun – with a nice scene where we intimidated the heck out of some Vargr, forcing them to flee rather than actually engaging them in battle. I played squad leader Calli, a compulsive gambler, who was heavily in debt and happy to go after priceless Ancients artefacts!
We had two firefights – the first lasting no more than two rounds, the other over in the first salvo.
The Price of Arrogance – 7th Sea
Remi ran The Price of Arrogance, a swashbuckling adventure involving sinister conspiracies, a mysterious artefact, a race across the sea and a slave uprising. I played Eberhardt Fischer, a merchant.
It was my first time playing 7th Sea. We were playing second edition, and there was some debate as to whether it was better than first. I have no idea – it seemed fine to me, very dramatic and encouraged over-the-top actions.
I particularly liked the rule that gave you an extra die to roll if you describe what your character is doing with flair (rather than just say “I attack”). I’d happily incorporate that in other games.
Good Society
I ran Good Society, the Jane Austen rpg, on Sunday morning. I had five players, and I used the Romantic Comedy playset from the book. (I used Storybrewers one-shot advice from here.)
The players seemed to enjoy themselves and leant into the spirit of the game – secret betrothals, marriage attempts, a very sweet gay romance between two of the minor characters, and even a duel.
A few things I will take away:
- I made a mistake in also playing a character. It wasn’t my original plan, but one of the players suggested I do so. Well, I wouldn’t do it for two reasons.
- Six main characters is too many in a three-hour slot. (Storybrewers recommend 3-5 players.)
- I found it hard to juggle both facilitating and running a character, and I don’t think I did my characters justice. With longer, or fewer players, I’d happily facilitate.
- Strangely, the players found the minor characters almost more interesting than their main characters. I don’t know if that’s because we had the main characters (as cards) on standees, while the main characters were just character sheets.
Anyway, I will run Good Society again, probably with a different playset.
Pirate Bait – Cepheus Universal
Graham ran a Cepheus Universal game, which put our crew of adventurers on a remote survey outpost as bait for pirates.
I played Tara Vix, an ex-media star (rank 6, “National Treasure”!) turned navigator on the Quicksilver, our 300-ton starship.
Our adventure ended with a space battle against the pirates (we were only supposed to be bait – our backup never arrived…), which I think is the first time I have ever used space combat rules in Traveller (or a Traveller-derived game). We destroyed two fighters and got away.
Graham had good table bling, including stands for the characters, a full-colour hexmap, and standees for the ships.
And that was me done! I wonder what I’ll run and play next year?
Continue reading...
sanjurotokage
Acolyte
By any chance do you have the dates for next years convention? I am thinking of going
First Age
D&D h@ck3r and Hopepunk
Furnace XXI will be held on the weekend of October 10th & 11th 2026.
Darran
Level 7 Blingmaster
The same thing hits me as it’s my wife’s birthday on the 12th October.I'd really love to come back to this. I think my last visit was for the 10th anniversary! Unfortunately October is normally a bad month for me as it's full of birthdays (not least of which my wife's which is the 11th
SavageSpiel
Rune Priest
Off to Furnace again, along with my husband who remembered to register this time. This was set to be the biggest Furnace yet, and excitingly for me, a few friends were coming for the first time, including one guy I'd never seen in person before, allowing me to confirm that he does in fact have legs.
Last year's outing to the Italian restaurant was seven people. This year, probably due to the increased numbers as well as greater awareness, there were seventeen of us. Which meant it was a bit of a long meal as they had so many people to serve (it's a small restaurant and we took up about half of it) but did make for good conversation. If we get numbers like this again next time though, it might be worth splitting the Friday meal across more than one venue.
Saturday kicked off earlier than usual, as breakfast was ending earlier so they could kick everyone out of the breakfast room and reset it as an additional gaming space. This room provided an additional eight tables, allowing for the biggest Furnace yet. It also meant a bigger area for All Rolled Up and Patriot Games to set up their stalls, and for the Bring and Buy table, all of which were very welcome.
The traditional opening speech was followed up by collecting the bag I'd pre-ordered, and also a commemorative dice tray. I decided not to use the bag during the weekend (foreseeing chaos with everyone having the same bag) but did use the extremely nice dice tray which is now a permanent resident in my gaming bag.
The luck of the draw meant I hadn't got into any of my game picks in the morning session. Fortunately there was a space left in a Pendragon game, and since people had previously told me that they thought I'd like Pendragon, I decided to give it a go.
Well I do like Pendragon. The skill lists were a reasonable length, with a clear split between combat and everything else, much like Dragonbane. The traits meant I had a solid idea of how Dame Tamura was going to behave, and gave the option of making rolls to see if she was going to make poor choices as a result. Whether I'd actually want to play an entire Great Pendragon Campaign, I don't know, as I'm not sure how much doing knight things would appear long term, but I'd be willing to give it a try.
By the end of the session, Tamura had got lost in London, had mild religious disagreements, watched fellow knights vie for a lady's favour, and performed an emergency knighthood. Good times all round.
So long term blog readers have probably noticed that I like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Pinebox Middle School is a slightly younger age range than Buffy but still firmly in that general area, so this was obviously a must-play.
I picked out the Athlete character, noticed a degree of resemblance to the Williams sisters, and accordingly named her Juno. Juno and friends set out on a camping trip with the local not-actually-scouts group, where things naturally went very wrong. Juno's athletic skills served her well in most situations, but things did get a little hairy towards the end when she was forced to play the flute, an upsetting experience for everyone involved.
Overall this had pretty similar vibes to Tales from the Loop, with the additional benefit of being Savage Worlds, where the dice just aren't as dickish as they tend to be in Year Zero Engine. Overall I have a slight preferences for the older teens in East Texas University (also based in Pinebox) but this is a great game nonetheless.
Time to take up the GM mantle and run a game. Having claimed one of the Jailhouse tables rather than a cell, I felt I should offer something where I could manage five players, and decided to try writing a Dragonbane adventure. Knowing I'd need miniatures, and somewhat inspired by an all duck game I played at a previous con, I decided on an all cat person game.
Prepping for this game, I discovered that while writing monsters for Dragonbane is pretty fun, I don't like making characters at all - at least, not the assigning skills part. And I'd signed up to provide five of them. But eventually I got them done, and Coco, Felix, Smoky, Marmalade and Stripes were ready to discover what catastrophe had befallen their home village of Meowington.
Running Dragonbane, particularly stuff I wrote myself, is still a weird experience for me because it's quite a long way away from the kind of thing I normally do. It's hard for me to judge how things actually went. Still, nobody looked bored or acted disengaged, so it clearly wasn't terrible. The biggest hiccup was when I couldn't remember the villain's motivation, which was really rather important to the story. Fortunately I remembered in time, but I should probably write that one down a little more clearly in future.
Nerves and insecurity aside, it was a lot of fun getting to bring out some of my collection of cat adventurer miniatures and make use of the Tom Cartos battle map books.
SLA is usually good for a laugh at a convention, and this was no exception. Offered the usual set of pregens, I decided to try something new and picked out the Neophron, a bird person with good social skills, making me the de facto party leader, although leader is a strong word for a party of SLA characters especially when there's a Stormer and a Frother in the group.
Our mission was simple: get a kebab. For which we needed money. For which we needed a job. For which we needed to replace the paper in the job printer so that it would print properly and we could read what the job was. And so began a sequence of bizarre events as we set out to clear a paper jam and ultimately get something to eat.
The GM was playing a little fast and loose with the system, which I appreciated as it gave me a chance to get more to grips with the basics of how it works, without having to worry about oddities like the reverse declaration initiative system. Also a welcome opportunity to pull out my bag of d10s. He also had the feats printed out on cards, which was a more convenient way to read them than all being printed on one sheet.
This was probably the highlight of the convention for me. Funny, gory, well GMed and with an enthusiastic group of players.
Before the final slot we had the raffle. Thanks to Chaosium sponsoring basically every convention I've been to this year, most of the prizes were Chaosium books and I walked away with a brand new copy of BRP.
A second outing for my K-Pop Demon Hunters inspired game. With only three players this time, it was the Celebrity, Changeling and Forged who set out to protect Busan from demons. Based on what happened last time, I provided bulldog clips to attach the photos to the name cards, although I'm wondering if separate standees for the cards might also be a good idea. It may come down to how much lamination I can face doing.
With only one player being familiar with the movie, I had to work a little harder to bring the setting details, not helped by my tendency to forget that we were in Busan, not Seoul, and I don't think overall that it was as good as the game at Concrete Cow. But it still works as an adventure and it's going in my regular convention rotation for a while. As I learn more about Korean mythology, it may even get a sequel.
And that was that. Furnace remains an absolute delight. I got to catch up with old friends and meet some lovely new people across all the games. I really hope our first timers will join the rest of us again next year.
Continue reading...
Last year's outing to the Italian restaurant was seven people. This year, probably due to the increased numbers as well as greater awareness, there were seventeen of us. Which meant it was a bit of a long meal as they had so many people to serve (it's a small restaurant and we took up about half of it) but did make for good conversation. If we get numbers like this again next time though, it might be worth splitting the Friday meal across more than one venue.
Saturday kicked off earlier than usual, as breakfast was ending earlier so they could kick everyone out of the breakfast room and reset it as an additional gaming space. This room provided an additional eight tables, allowing for the biggest Furnace yet. It also meant a bigger area for All Rolled Up and Patriot Games to set up their stalls, and for the Bring and Buy table, all of which were very welcome.
The traditional opening speech was followed up by collecting the bag I'd pre-ordered, and also a commemorative dice tray. I decided not to use the bag during the weekend (foreseeing chaos with everyone having the same bag) but did use the extremely nice dice tray which is now a permanent resident in my gaming bag.
Game 1: Pendragon
The luck of the draw meant I hadn't got into any of my game picks in the morning session. Fortunately there was a space left in a Pendragon game, and since people had previously told me that they thought I'd like Pendragon, I decided to give it a go.
Well I do like Pendragon. The skill lists were a reasonable length, with a clear split between combat and everything else, much like Dragonbane. The traits meant I had a solid idea of how Dame Tamura was going to behave, and gave the option of making rolls to see if she was going to make poor choices as a result. Whether I'd actually want to play an entire Great Pendragon Campaign, I don't know, as I'm not sure how much doing knight things would appear long term, but I'd be willing to give it a try.
By the end of the session, Tamura had got lost in London, had mild religious disagreements, watched fellow knights vie for a lady's favour, and performed an emergency knighthood. Good times all round.
Game 2: Pinebox Middle School
So long term blog readers have probably noticed that I like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Pinebox Middle School is a slightly younger age range than Buffy but still firmly in that general area, so this was obviously a must-play.
I picked out the Athlete character, noticed a degree of resemblance to the Williams sisters, and accordingly named her Juno. Juno and friends set out on a camping trip with the local not-actually-scouts group, where things naturally went very wrong. Juno's athletic skills served her well in most situations, but things did get a little hairy towards the end when she was forced to play the flute, an upsetting experience for everyone involved.
Overall this had pretty similar vibes to Tales from the Loop, with the additional benefit of being Savage Worlds, where the dice just aren't as dickish as they tend to be in Year Zero Engine. Overall I have a slight preferences for the older teens in East Texas University (also based in Pinebox) but this is a great game nonetheless.
Game 3: Dragonbane
Time to take up the GM mantle and run a game. Having claimed one of the Jailhouse tables rather than a cell, I felt I should offer something where I could manage five players, and decided to try writing a Dragonbane adventure. Knowing I'd need miniatures, and somewhat inspired by an all duck game I played at a previous con, I decided on an all cat person game.
Prepping for this game, I discovered that while writing monsters for Dragonbane is pretty fun, I don't like making characters at all - at least, not the assigning skills part. And I'd signed up to provide five of them. But eventually I got them done, and Coco, Felix, Smoky, Marmalade and Stripes were ready to discover what catastrophe had befallen their home village of Meowington.
Running Dragonbane, particularly stuff I wrote myself, is still a weird experience for me because it's quite a long way away from the kind of thing I normally do. It's hard for me to judge how things actually went. Still, nobody looked bored or acted disengaged, so it clearly wasn't terrible. The biggest hiccup was when I couldn't remember the villain's motivation, which was really rather important to the story. Fortunately I remembered in time, but I should probably write that one down a little more clearly in future.
Nerves and insecurity aside, it was a lot of fun getting to bring out some of my collection of cat adventurer miniatures and make use of the Tom Cartos battle map books.
Game 4: SLA Industries
SLA is usually good for a laugh at a convention, and this was no exception. Offered the usual set of pregens, I decided to try something new and picked out the Neophron, a bird person with good social skills, making me the de facto party leader, although leader is a strong word for a party of SLA characters especially when there's a Stormer and a Frother in the group.
Our mission was simple: get a kebab. For which we needed money. For which we needed a job. For which we needed to replace the paper in the job printer so that it would print properly and we could read what the job was. And so began a sequence of bizarre events as we set out to clear a paper jam and ultimately get something to eat.
The GM was playing a little fast and loose with the system, which I appreciated as it gave me a chance to get more to grips with the basics of how it works, without having to worry about oddities like the reverse declaration initiative system. Also a welcome opportunity to pull out my bag of d10s. He also had the feats printed out on cards, which was a more convenient way to read them than all being printed on one sheet.
This was probably the highlight of the convention for me. Funny, gory, well GMed and with an enthusiastic group of players.
Before the final slot we had the raffle. Thanks to Chaosium sponsoring basically every convention I've been to this year, most of the prizes were Chaosium books and I walked away with a brand new copy of BRP.
Game 5: Monster of the Week
A second outing for my K-Pop Demon Hunters inspired game. With only three players this time, it was the Celebrity, Changeling and Forged who set out to protect Busan from demons. Based on what happened last time, I provided bulldog clips to attach the photos to the name cards, although I'm wondering if separate standees for the cards might also be a good idea. It may come down to how much lamination I can face doing.
With only one player being familiar with the movie, I had to work a little harder to bring the setting details, not helped by my tendency to forget that we were in Busan, not Seoul, and I don't think overall that it was as good as the game at Concrete Cow. But it still works as an adventure and it's going in my regular convention rotation for a while. As I learn more about Korean mythology, it may even get a sequel.
And that was that. Furnace remains an absolute delight. I got to catch up with old friends and meet some lovely new people across all the games. I really hope our first timers will join the rest of us again next year.
Continue reading...
Last weekend saw me back at Sheffield for Furnace's twentieth anniversary, something that my co-conspirators Elaine and Graham had tried to make a little special. As usual, I'll talk a bit about the organisation of the convention and then my experience at it.
Organisation
I'm not actually sure when I started to become involved in organising the convention, but Graham has been there from the start, and Elaine got involved a year before me. I know it was around the time that most of the original committee stood down, and I think it's at least fifteen years ago. The thing is, we've been doing this for a while now and it pretty much runs on rails because the various mechanisms have been developed and put in place. However, we do love to try and respond to feedback from our attendees and improve the convention each year, so there are always changes.
This year, we made two substantial changes; we moved the lunch and dinner sign ups for the Garrison Hotel online, and we added in a large new space that allowed us to increase the number of games and attendees. There was always a worry with the latter that it may change the feel of the convention, but the initial feedback from attendees has been really positive. It did feel that the hub of the convention moved from the upstairs room where the majority of the gaming had taken place, which was different.
The new space, which we referred to as the 'Mess Hall', replaced the somewhat remote and musty Armoury and gave us somewhere with lots of space for the traders (once again, Patriot Games from Sheffield and All Rolled Up) and eight tables of games. Net, it allowed us six extra tables, so realistically somewhere between thirty and forty-two extra attendees). We ended up about twenty-five people up on previous years, with a number of drop-outs over the last few days, otherwise we'd have been in the middle of that range. So just short of one hundred people.
We also had, as Graham called it, "merch". We'd decided to give the attendees a gift from the convention to celebrate the twentieth year, so started to look at what was possible. In the end, we focussed down onto either a bag or a dice tray. From a budget perspective, we realised that we couldn't really afford to get both, and that high attendance would potentially make bags very expensive. In the end, we gave everyone a dice-tray and made a route to get subsidised messenger bags available via All Rolled Up. These were usually over £30, and we made them available for £13 each to attendees.
We refreshed the convention recently (partly because we wanted to give it a slightly more modern look, and partly because we lost access to the original files), so we combined the logo with a fantastic stock image of a steel furnace for the bags. It looked even better than I hoped when I saw them for real on the Saturday. I think, as I write this, we have a single bag left from the run, and they seemed to be very popular.
We also had a custom dice tray made. We decided early on that we wanted to get a hard dice tray rather than a neoprene one, and had discussions with two vendors through Etsy. One had a yellow octagonal design with the logo vinyl printed on it in black, and the other had an orange square design with the logo laser engraved. We went for the latter, and they arrived promptly and looked great. The vendor has some other great looking gaming items, which you can find here. They seemed to be well received and were in use across all the gaming tables that I could see.
Aside from those changes, the biggest difference was the increased number of attendees. This meant that Elaine needed to level up her cat-herding skills for the game choices and allocations, and I got to chop and print a lot more attendee badges.
Preparation
As usual, I offered two games at the convention. Both were games that I'd never run before, which does up the challenge somewhat. However, I'd played the first game many years ago, and played and run the related games to the second one repeatedly, which removed some nerves. Of course, TravCon ended up being the week before Furnace, which was pretty awkward as, combined with a lot going on at work, it reduced the time that I had available immediately before the weekend for preparation. This was the second year that TravCon was so close to the event and I may end up not going to it if it happens again, as I've been feeling the after effects the last week.
My first game was In Nomine, which came out in the late 1990s. I'd played in a fantastic mini-campaign set against the backdrop of the Northern Ireland Peace Process at the Chester Roleplaying Club run by my friend Ric (I suspect that Steveh may have also been in the game). That was probably close on thirty years ago, and it was a memorable experience, enough that I've always had the game on my mind. I picked up a copy of the game second hand (before I realised that it is still available new via Amazon POD) and read through it. The game has you playing Angels and/or Demons, fighting out the war between Heaven and Hell on Earth. The subtitle of the game really says it all: "Good & Evil, Life & Death, Rock & Roll".
It's a surprisingly simple engine at its heart - you roll a d666 (3d6 where two dice are looking at rolling under a target number, and one dice gives the quality of the result - but if you used the full rules around combat it shows its age and has lots of fiddly mods. Needless to say, I didn't use the fiddly bits. I went digging to see if I could find a decent introductory scenario, and ended up using S.John Ross' Feast of Blades, which is very much an investigatory chase. I printed the PDF version from Drivethrurpg out spiral bound, and spent some time preparing, trying to get a feel for the interconnectedness of the plot. Some of the routes forward really resolved around a single clue, so making sure that it was available was key.
During my preparation, I realised that the game was now effectively in its third edition, and the current PDF/POD had errata corrected, plus updates and clarifications. I ended up printing myself a custom hardcover of the current PDF with a recreation of the original cover on it, as I really don't like the current front cover of the game.
The final hurdle was the characters; I'd hoped to steal from existing introductory scenarios or from material on the web, but I soon found out that most of the characters in the introductory scenarios were one of two specific Choirs of Angels, and that although there are many links to In Nomine resources on the Steve Jackson Games websites, many of them are dead now. I spent an evening creating a character sheet in Word, then making five characters. The existing PDF sheets aren't form fillable, which is why I went with creating them in Word.
The second game I offered was Tales of the Old West, a game set in the Wild West. From the moment I heard about this, I was interested in it. The game takes Fria Ligan's Year Zero Engine and uses it to deliver a gritty Western experience. Nothing occult. Nothing weird. No horror (beyond that of humanity on a lawless frontier). Perhaps for the first time, I had access to a game which would let you play through situations like those you see in Clint Eastwood movies or series like Lonesome Dove. I'd missed the Kickstarter, so my friend Remi kindly picked up a copy for me from UK Game Expo.
Reading through the book, I quickly found a plot hook I liked, so I fleshed that out. It was the usual build out some options for routes through (keeping in mind the five room dungeon principle for the number of steps you're likely to get through in a session) with a variety of challenges. Because time was compressed, I chose just to reference NPC stats from the QuickStart ("QuickDraw") and the core book rather than spend time creating custom stats. I used the characters from the QuickStart as well, as they were nicely set up to riff off each other.
Finally, I spent some time on the internet and scrubbing through internet to find images I could use with at the table for characters. It's amazing how much easier it is to give a feeling of menace when you show a picture of Lee Van Cleef as a bounty hunter who's blown into town, or the Young Guns riding as the gang with the notorious reputation.
Execution
Furnace is the only one of our conventions that I come to the night before. It's just too busy on the day to rush set up unless we do a stupid early start, and I like the chance to catch up with people the evening before. This year's convention had brought back a wide range of people that hadn't been since COVID hit us, and it was lovely have a pint and a chat in the bar.
Graham had landed earlier in the evening and checked out the gaming spaces, and stashed the merch. The hotel did a fantastic job; they'd set up tables and put up the shower curtains we'd bought in the upper windows of the jailhouse.
"Shower curtains?", you ask, with a quizzical look.
Well, there's a story. The hotel refurbished the upper spaces and as part of that the heavy red velvet curtains were removed but not replaced. At certain times of day, the sun can shine directly through the windows making it very hot and bright. We spent two years improvising around this with me teetering on top of a chair taping baking paper to the windows as a diffuser. This year, we bought some shower curtain poles and curtains that let us do the same job in a more professional manner. They're stored at the hotel and we arrived to find that they'd already put them up for us. They do the job nicely.
Morning started earlier than usual, because the Mess Hall space was shared with the restaurant, so breakfast had been moved an hour earlier than usual. Once we'd had the usual lovely food, we moved into setting up. The traders were quickly ready, and we got all the signage, QR-codes to the schedule and merch ready.
The convention opening went on longer than usual, as we had to hand out bags and dice trays. Graham gave one of his best speeches, but unfortunately I only got about half of it because I managed to catch the stop button on the phone during the speech. Frustrating.
I think the gist of the message was 'Enjoy yourselves, be kind, give us feedback and grab us if you want help'.
Slot 1 - Traveller - Calli's Heroes
The first slot saw me playing JohnO's game of Traveller. We've spent lots of time in the past geeking out about SF, and I was really happy to final get a chance to play with him again. The scenario was 'Kelly's Heroes' inspired, with us playing characters in an Imperial Army recon unit that gets a chance to make a big score against the backdrop of the Fifth Frontier War. The game was full of classic Traveller references with Vargr, Zhodani and Ancient Artefacts. I absolutely loved this, partly as I rarely get a chance to play Traveller's and partly because the characters were so well written and the scenario so well presented. JohnO is an illustrator and designer and all the maps and character images were fantastic.
My apologies to my fellow players as I was late getting into the game because of the set up and then a GM who I needed to find a new game for when a couple of the folks hadn't turned up due to illness.
Lunch was from Morrisons, and I took advantage of the break to go back to my room and re-read some of the In Nomine material so it was fresh in my head.
Slot 2 - Blade Runner - If You Prick Us, Do We Not Bleed?
I've long been impressed with Fria Ligan's Blade Runner adaptation. It feels like the setting and the dice mechanics mean that you have characters that feel more competent than the usual YZE engine characters. Gray was offering a game, and I jumped at a chance to play. I did have to admit just how much I loved the setting when he asked what knowledge we have of the setting (yeah, I've seen both films, and Black Lotus, and read the graphic novels...) but everyone there had a good knowledge of the setting.
I loved the way that Gray gave us some index cards with a short description of the characters available rather than dropping loads of stats on us at the start. He also did a good safety introduction.
I ended up with an Deckard like Inspector, who I named Evander Edelmann. Our team comprised three humans and two Nexus-9 replicants. The story and plot was all of Gray's own creation, and it was fantastic. I think that we could have spent double the time we had on the game, especially as we got into the roleplaying aspects of interviews and interactions, but Gray skilfully lead us to a satisfying ending. Would love to play more of this!
Dinner was via KFC and we had another meeting of the Garrison Book and Film Society. Well, it's not as formally as that, but every Saturday night at the Garricons we tend to head to KFC and have a good natter about what we've read or seen since the last convention that's worth following up.
Slot 3 - In Nomine - Feast of Blades
In Nomine was really fun to run. The players very quickly got into roles of Angels, and we opened in an airport just before Christmas with them waiting for a relic to arrive, which they'd been told to recover. They gave aid to those in need, dealt with wrong doers and got into a fight with a demon. Then the aircraft that they'd been waiting for crashed and things started to escalate. They managed to get ahead of the curve and brought their mission to a successful conclusion, avoiding the need for the potential big-fight, but missing the chance for a chat with a Demon Prince.
Overall, I think it went well. I only had one moment with a wobble over the rules, and I think the scenario worked well (although the open nature of it had me thinking on my feet). Unfortunately, one of the players was very tired and had to go to bed part way through. I was worried that they weren't enjoying it, but they caught me the next morning and apologised for leaving and thanked me for the game which lifted my concerns.
Annoyingly, I forgot to take any picture at table.
After the game, I had a pint in the bar with JohnO and others but made sure I wasn't late for bed.
Slot 4 - Dragon Warriors - A Box of Old Bones.
This was a delight of nostalgia. Jon, the GM, has written for the game and had put a huge amount of work into preparation with lovely handouts and lots of material to support. I'd read the scenario years ago in a White Dwarf and the fact that I had remembered it meant it was one that I'd liked. Dragon Warriors is very much a game of its time (the mid-1980s) but I knew what I was getting into and had a really fun game with a great bunch of players. I played a Lady Nina of the Grey Sycamore, and got to use 'Dragonbreath' and set villains on fire. I even managed not to burn the Abbey we were staying at down. Great fun.
There was a lovely moment in the game when Graham drew my attention to the room full of people playing, having fun and reminded me that this was why we do it. He's absolutely right.
I also got to feel old; I can remember when Dragon Warriors was released and realising that it's 40 years old this year was... uncomfortable.
Lunch was Morrisons again.
The raffle went well, and was boosted by Chaosium sponsoring the convention so there were lots of books to choose from.
Slot 5 - Tales of the Old West - Sins of the Past
I really enjoyed running this; a fantastic group of players made a memorable game. Neil, who also blogged about the convention here, has lots of experience running this game and was super-helpful during the game. I realised that I'd made the right choice with the pictures I'd printed when I saw how the players reacted to the 'bounty hunter'. It quickly started to feel like the genre, and the players were very clever in the final scene where they managed to get the drop on the gang they were hunting and avoid going into full combat. The theme underlying the adventure was one of the chance of redemption and community versus paying for your crimes of the past. The party went for redemption and community, which was lovely, because they could have chosen to either hand in or get the bounty for several of their neighbours had they wanted to. My only other reflection was that I was probably a bit more sweary than usual when I got into character for the gang but it felt appropriate. I don't think that I offended anyone, but if I did, I apologise.
I loved running this and I can see it coming out at a convention again.
Conclusion
And that was it. Some minor tidying up to do. Thanks to the traders, hotel staff, attendees and my fellow organisers. Furnace XX was a great celebration of twenty years, and the twenty-first event is already booked.
18 October 2025
Continue reading...
Darran
Level 7 Blingmaster
The photos of the new gaming space look fantastic (the wedding decorations add to it the vibe too!).
I remember looking at the Garrison Hotel as a venue back in 2005 and loving the “main hall” space.
Certainly space to expand into.
Of course the greatest part of the venue are the cells. Back then there were five of them as one was converted into the lift from the main bar to the function room. There were a couple of cells in the main bar area too.
I remember looking at the Garrison Hotel as a venue back in 2005 and loving the “main hall” space.
Certainly space to expand into.
Of course the greatest part of the venue are the cells. Back then there were five of them as one was converted into the lift from the main bar to the function room. There were a couple of cells in the main bar area too.
First Age
D&D h@ck3r and Hopepunk
Lovely write up @Dom
Last weekend saw me back at Sheffield for Furnace's twentieth anniversary, something that my co-conspirators Elaine and Graham had tried to make a little special. As usual, I'll talk a bit about the organisation of the convention and then my experience at it.
Organisation
I'm not actually sure when I started to become involved in organising the convention, but Graham has been there from the start, and Elaine got involved a year before me. I know it was around the time that most of the original committee stood down, and I think it's at least fifteen years ago. The thing is, we've been doing this for a while now and it pretty much runs on rails because the various mechanisms have been developed and put in place. However, we do love to try and respond to feedback from our attendees and improve the convention each year, so there are always changes.
This year, we made two substantial changes; we moved the lunch and dinner sign ups for the Garrison Hotel online, and we added in a large new space that allowed us to increase the number of games and attendees. There was always a worry with the latter that it may change the feel of the convention, but the initial feedback from attendees has been really positive. It did feel that the hub of the convention moved from the upstairs room where the majority of the gaming had taken place, which was different.
The new space, which we referred to as the 'Mess Hall', replaced the somewhat remote and musty Armoury and gave us somewhere with lots of space for the traders (once again, Patriot Games from Sheffield and All Rolled Up) and eight tables of games. Net, it allowed us six extra tables, so realistically somewhere between thirty and forty-two extra attendees). We ended up about twenty-five people up on previous years, with a number of drop-outs over the last few days, otherwise we'd have been in the middle of that range. So just short of one hundred people.
We also had, as Graham called it, "merch". We'd decided to give the attendees a gift from the convention to celebrate the twentieth year, so started to look at what was possible. In the end, we focussed down onto either a bag or a dice tray. From a budget perspective, we realised that we couldn't really afford to get both, and that high attendance would potentially make bags very expensive. In the end, we gave everyone a dice-tray and made a route to get subsidised messenger bags available via All Rolled Up. These were usually over £30, and we made them available for £13 each to attendees.
We refreshed the convention recently (partly because we wanted to give it a slightly more modern look, and partly because we lost access to the original files), so we combined the logo with a fantastic stock image of a steel furnace for the bags. It looked even better than I hoped when I saw them for real on the Saturday. I think, as I write this, we have a single bag left from the run, and they seemed to be very popular.
We also had a custom dice tray made. We decided early on that we wanted to get a hard dice tray rather than a neoprene one, and had discussions with two vendors through Etsy. One had a yellow octagonal design with the logo vinyl printed on it in black, and the other had an orange square design with the logo laser engraved. We went for the latter, and they arrived promptly and looked great. The vendor has some other great looking gaming items, which you can find here. They seemed to be well received and were in use across all the gaming tables that I could see.
Aside from those changes, the biggest difference was the increased number of attendees. This meant that Elaine needed to level up her cat-herding skills for the game choices and allocations, and I got to chop and print a lot more attendee badges.
Preparation
As usual, I offered two games at the convention. Both were games that I'd never run before, which does up the challenge somewhat. However, I'd played the first game many years ago, and played and run the related games to the second one repeatedly, which removed some nerves. Of course, TravCon ended up being the week before Furnace, which was pretty awkward as, combined with a lot going on at work, it reduced the time that I had available immediately before the weekend for preparation. This was the second year that TravCon was so close to the event and I may end up not going to it if it happens again, as I've been feeling the after effects the last week.
My first game was In Nomine, which came out in the late 1990s. I'd played in a fantastic mini-campaign set against the backdrop of the Northern Ireland Peace Process at the Chester Roleplaying Club run by my friend Ric (I suspect that Steveh may have also been in the game). That was probably close on thirty years ago, and it was a memorable experience, enough that I've always had the game on my mind. I picked up a copy of the game second hand (before I realised that it is still available new via Amazon POD) and read through it. The game has you playing Angels and/or Demons, fighting out the war between Heaven and Hell on Earth. The subtitle of the game really says it all: "Good & Evil, Life & Death, Rock & Roll".
It's a surprisingly simple engine at its heart - you roll a d666 (3d6 where two dice are looking at rolling under a target number, and one dice gives the quality of the result - but if you used the full rules around combat it shows its age and has lots of fiddly mods. Needless to say, I didn't use the fiddly bits. I went digging to see if I could find a decent introductory scenario, and ended up using S.John Ross' Feast of Blades, which is very much an investigatory chase. I printed the PDF version from Drivethrurpg out spiral bound, and spent some time preparing, trying to get a feel for the interconnectedness of the plot. Some of the routes forward really resolved around a single clue, so making sure that it was available was key.
During my preparation, I realised that the game was now effectively in its third edition, and the current PDF/POD had errata corrected, plus updates and clarifications. I ended up printing myself a custom hardcover of the current PDF with a recreation of the original cover on it, as I really don't like the current front cover of the game.
The final hurdle was the characters; I'd hoped to steal from existing introductory scenarios or from material on the web, but I soon found out that most of the characters in the introductory scenarios were one of two specific Choirs of Angels, and that although there are many links to In Nomine resources on the Steve Jackson Games websites, many of them are dead now. I spent an evening creating a character sheet in Word, then making five characters. The existing PDF sheets aren't form fillable, which is why I went with creating them in Word.
The second game I offered was Tales of the Old West, a game set in the Wild West. From the moment I heard about this, I was interested in it. The game takes Fria Ligan's Year Zero Engine and uses it to deliver a gritty Western experience. Nothing occult. Nothing weird. No horror (beyond that of humanity on a lawless frontier). Perhaps for the first time, I had access to a game which would let you play through situations like those you see in Clint Eastwood movies or series like Lonesome Dove. I'd missed the Kickstarter, so my friend Remi kindly picked up a copy for me from UK Game Expo.
Reading through the book, I quickly found a plot hook I liked, so I fleshed that out. It was the usual build out some options for routes through (keeping in mind the five room dungeon principle for the number of steps you're likely to get through in a session) with a variety of challenges. Because time was compressed, I chose just to reference NPC stats from the QuickStart ("QuickDraw") and the core book rather than spend time creating custom stats. I used the characters from the QuickStart as well, as they were nicely set up to riff off each other.
Finally, I spent some time on the internet and scrubbing through internet to find images I could use with at the table for characters. It's amazing how much easier it is to give a feeling of menace when you show a picture of Lee Van Cleef as a bounty hunter who's blown into town, or the Young Guns riding as the gang with the notorious reputation.
Execution
Furnace is the only one of our conventions that I come to the night before. It's just too busy on the day to rush set up unless we do a stupid early start, and I like the chance to catch up with people the evening before. This year's convention had brought back a wide range of people that hadn't been since COVID hit us, and it was lovely have a pint and a chat in the bar.
Graham had landed earlier in the evening and checked out the gaming spaces, and stashed the merch. The hotel did a fantastic job; they'd set up tables and put up the shower curtains we'd bought in the upper windows of the jailhouse.
"Shower curtains?", you ask, with a quizzical look.
Well, there's a story. The hotel refurbished the upper spaces and as part of that the heavy red velvet curtains were removed but not replaced. At certain times of day, the sun can shine directly through the windows making it very hot and bright. We spent two years improvising around this with me teetering on top of a chair taping baking paper to the windows as a diffuser. This year, we bought some shower curtain poles and curtains that let us do the same job in a more professional manner. They're stored at the hotel and we arrived to find that they'd already put them up for us. They do the job nicely.
Morning started earlier than usual, because the Mess Hall space was shared with the restaurant, so breakfast had been moved an hour earlier than usual. Once we'd had the usual lovely food, we moved into setting up. The traders were quickly ready, and we got all the signage, QR-codes to the schedule and merch ready.
The convention opening went on longer than usual, as we had to hand out bags and dice trays. Graham gave one of his best speeches, but unfortunately I only got about half of it because I managed to catch the stop button on the phone during the speech. Frustrating.
I think the gist of the message was 'Enjoy yourselves, be kind, give us feedback and grab us if you want help'.
Slot 1 - Traveller - Calli's Heroes
The first slot saw me playing JohnO's game of Traveller. We've spent lots of time in the past geeking out about SF, and I was really happy to final get a chance to play with him again. The scenario was 'Kelly's Heroes' inspired, with us playing characters in an Imperial Army recon unit that gets a chance to make a big score against the backdrop of the Fifth Frontier War. The game was full of classic Traveller references with Vargr, Zhodani and Ancient Artefacts. I absolutely loved this, partly as I rarely get a chance to play Traveller's and partly because the characters were so well written and the scenario so well presented. JohnO is an illustrator and designer and all the maps and character images were fantastic.
My apologies to my fellow players as I was late getting into the game because of the set up and then a GM who I needed to find a new game for when a couple of the folks hadn't turned up due to illness.
Lunch was from Morrisons, and I took advantage of the break to go back to my room and re-read some of the In Nomine material so it was fresh in my head.
Slot 2 - Blade Runner - If You Prick Us, Do We Not Bleed?
I've long been impressed with Fria Ligan's Blade Runner adaptation. It feels like the setting and the dice mechanics mean that you have characters that feel more competent than the usual YZE engine characters. Gray was offering a game, and I jumped at a chance to play. I did have to admit just how much I loved the setting when he asked what knowledge we have of the setting (yeah, I've seen both films, and Black Lotus, and read the graphic novels...) but everyone there had a good knowledge of the setting.
I loved the way that Gray gave us some index cards with a short description of the characters available rather than dropping loads of stats on us at the start. He also did a good safety introduction.
I ended up with an Deckard like Inspector, who I named Evander Edelmann. Our team comprised three humans and two Nexus-9 replicants. The story and plot was all of Gray's own creation, and it was fantastic. I think that we could have spent double the time we had on the game, especially as we got into the roleplaying aspects of interviews and interactions, but Gray skilfully lead us to a satisfying ending. Would love to play more of this!
Dinner was via KFC and we had another meeting of the Garrison Book and Film Society. Well, it's not as formally as that, but every Saturday night at the Garricons we tend to head to KFC and have a good natter about what we've read or seen since the last convention that's worth following up.
Slot 3 - In Nomine - Feast of Blades
In Nomine was really fun to run. The players very quickly got into roles of Angels, and we opened in an airport just before Christmas with them waiting for a relic to arrive, which they'd been told to recover. They gave aid to those in need, dealt with wrong doers and got into a fight with a demon. Then the aircraft that they'd been waiting for crashed and things started to escalate. They managed to get ahead of the curve and brought their mission to a successful conclusion, avoiding the need for the potential big-fight, but missing the chance for a chat with a Demon Prince.
Overall, I think it went well. I only had one moment with a wobble over the rules, and I think the scenario worked well (although the open nature of it had me thinking on my feet). Unfortunately, one of the players was very tired and had to go to bed part way through. I was worried that they weren't enjoying it, but they caught me the next morning and apologised for leaving and thanked me for the game which lifted my concerns.
Annoyingly, I forgot to take any picture at table.
After the game, I had a pint in the bar with JohnO and others but made sure I wasn't late for bed.
Slot 4 - Dragon Warriors - A Box of Old Bones.
This was a delight of nostalgia. Jon, the GM, has written for the game and had put a huge amount of work into preparation with lovely handouts and lots of material to support. I'd read the scenario years ago in a White Dwarf and the fact that I had remembered it meant it was one that I'd liked. Dragon Warriors is very much a game of its time (the mid-1980s) but I knew what I was getting into and had a really fun game with a great bunch of players. I played a Lady Nina of the Grey Sycamore, and got to use 'Dragonbreath' and set villains on fire. I even managed not to burn the Abbey we were staying at down. Great fun.
There was a lovely moment in the game when Graham drew my attention to the room full of people playing, having fun and reminded me that this was why we do it. He's absolutely right.
I also got to feel old; I can remember when Dragon Warriors was released and realising that it's 40 years old this year was... uncomfortable.
Lunch was Morrisons again.
The raffle went well, and was boosted by Chaosium sponsoring the convention so there were lots of books to choose from.
Slot 5 - Tales of the Old West - Sins of the Past
I really enjoyed running this; a fantastic group of players made a memorable game. Neil, who also blogged about the convention here, has lots of experience running this game and was super-helpful during the game. I realised that I'd made the right choice with the pictures I'd printed when I saw how the players reacted to the 'bounty hunter'. It quickly started to feel like the genre, and the players were very clever in the final scene where they managed to get the drop on the gang they were hunting and avoid going into full combat. The theme underlying the adventure was one of the chance of redemption and community versus paying for your crimes of the past. The party went for redemption and community, which was lovely, because they could have chosen to either hand in or get the bounty for several of their neighbours had they wanted to. My only other reflection was that I was probably a bit more sweary than usual when I got into character for the gang but it felt appropriate. I don't think that I offended anyone, but if I did, I apologise.
I loved running this and I can see it coming out at a convention again.
Conclusion
And that was it. Some minor tidying up to do. Thanks to the traders, hotel staff, attendees and my fellow organisers. Furnace XX was a great celebration of twenty years, and the twenty-first event is already booked.
18 October 2025
Continue reading...
I’m happy to do either of them again.
paulbaldowski
Rune Priest
DM me.