August 30, 2005: Hello From Japan

I'm typing this from the lobby of the Yokohama Prince Hotel, that being where the hotspot is. The tenth Japan Games Convention is over. I had a wonderful time. Now it's back to Tokyo for a day of meetings and shop visits. Tomorrow: Narita Airport (properly pronounced with the accent on the first syllable), many, many hours in the air, and then home.

This was a big convention . . . over a thousand people. They kept me busy, and it was always a good kind of busy. Along with Mr. Yasuda of Group SNE (who was my twin brother and the priest of the opposing faction) I acted as a kindly old priest in a LARP based on their newly GURPS Yuell fantasy book. We were training the adventurers who were going out to defend the city from the Red Dragon (played by a really great puppet which is now riding in my luggage) and the Elder God (played by Santa Cthulhu).

As it turned out, Yasuda-san was possessed by Cthulhu and I was possessed by the Red Dragon. In the final battle, our factions were both defeated by the people of the city. But, heh, we might be back!

Yesterday, I ran a GURPS adventure for four players chosen at random. I got very GOOD random players! Though they did not complete the adventure, they got a long ways and left things set up so that the authorities would come in and set things right, and the Shadowy Manipulators would be discredited. I won't give any more details, because I'm going to expand my notes into coherence for e23, and Yasuda-san wants to translate it for Role & Roll magazine over here. So everything is good. More later, including pictures.
-- Steve Jackson

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