Sunday, July 28, 2013

[Atomic Robo] San Diego Comic-Con Wrap-Up


So San Diego Comic-Con was last weekend, and it was an exhausting bunch of fun again, just like every year. But unlike every other year, this year I ran a couple of ARRPG games there in the open gaming room. Which was kinda maddening at first, because it's a big room with a lot of tables and a volunteer organizer who REALLY ENJOYS SHOUTING BELLIGERENTLY ALL THE TIME AS HIS DEFAULT MODE OF COMMUNICATION (we all know a gamer like that, right?), but we all got used to it and had a good time.

Anyway, I wanted to share a few pictures from the Sunday morning game I ran for Thursday Knights. Because I took some.

Her rocket, her rules.
This is Kaylee. (Yes, like that Kaylee.) She's seven. She played Helen McAllister, aka Nightingale. Her dad played Donovan McAllister, aka Jack Tarot. For those unfamiliar with Atomic Robo canon, Helen is a headstrong, resourceful, and smart gearhead, and Jack Tarot is her masked-vigilante father. They fight crime! In the '30s!

So yeah, as soon as I put those two PCs on the table, these two players naturally snatched 'em up. They were a great pair, as you might expect a real-life father-and-daughter duo to be playing those PCs. At one point, Kaylee decided that Helen had a rocket she'd secretly been working on stashed in the local dump, and when Jack Tarot tried to sit in the pilot's seat, Kaylee (and maybe Helen) snapped, "My rocket, my rules!" So that instantly became an aspect, obviously.

Ronnie Knox
Our AV recording engineer for the game was Cailin Laabs, and she did a couple of amazing character portraits while we played. This one, of Lt. Ronald Knox of the New Jersey State Militia, is a copy of a Scott Wegener piece that I swiped for this PC (played by her husband Greg Laabs), but man, it's a dead-on copy, and she also did it in what seemed like no time.

Prestigious Princeton Professor
And here's Cailin's portrait of Professor Richard Pierson, which she drew based solely on the character as played by Dan. The picture I used was one of circa-1938 Orson Welles, for what I hope are obvious reasons. I love this portrait because it looks great, of course, but also because stylistically, it fits right in with Ronnie Knox up there.

Arguably a robot.
Robo's player Lance drew a portrait too, and as you can see it's... Lance seems like a nice guy.

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