Last week +Helen Yanolatos and I spent an almost week in Las Vegas, enjoying our birthdays (and her first time in the city). It was a fun time and the bar was set high when we started the week off with a game of Call of Cthulhu with some locals and others.
This was the view from our hotel, it turns out that, not to be outdone by London, Vegas is going to get a Ferris wheel...a party Ferris wheel. But you guys don't want to hear about that stuff, do you? No, you want to hear the gory details of our game of Call of Cthulhu! Let me preface this by saying that I spent the better part of a day in airports, in three different time zones around the country. I started in Tampa. Then I flew to Charlotte, North Carolina. Then I flew to Phoenix, Arizona. And then finally I ended up in Las Vegas. My day started at 5am EST and I arrived in Vegas at 3pm PST. That was a crazy day, and I topped it off with running a game of Call of Cthulhu.
But before gaming came dinner, and I had this:
Yes, now I'm just taunting you. If you like burgers, and find yourself in Vegas...be sure to check out Holsteins Shakes and Buns. You won't be disappointed. Helen recommended it, after her sister had been there on a previous trip. It was some great food. I've always found that Las Vegas is a really good place to find some really good food.
And then, of course, came gaming. This group slowly gathered at the hotel:
Pictured, from left to right: Larry Dixon, +Helen Yanolatos. +Trentin Bergeron and +Caroline Pierce. If it turns out that Larry's on the Plus, I'll be sure to tag him in this.
After snacking and character generation, we got down to the brass tacks of gaming. For a while now, Caroline and I have talked over Twitter about a game of Atomic Age Cthulhu. It almost happened when she was down in Tampa last fall for Fetish Con, but it fell apart a week or so before hand (totally my fault on that). But I swore that I would run a game, and when this trip with Helen came through...I put the plans into motion. Luckily I have a girlfriend who thinks that meeting strangers for a game of Call of Cthulhu makes an for an excellent vacation plan.
In case you're not familiar, Atomic Age Cthulhu is part supplement and part adventure collection, dealing with the 1950s. There is some good information on the decade, for those who might not know a lot about the time, and the adventures are top notch.
I should probably review it sometime, formally, but I will say that the adventures in the book are pretty good. I ran the scenario based in pre-Union Hawaii (which I have run partially before via G+ Hangout). It is a really solid scenario, and it is easy to hook characters into it. I let them make up their own characters, and gave them a pretty free range on what they could do. Larry played a Navy mechanic who was also a car buff, Caroline played a lounge singer hoping that the movie being filmed would let her break into the big time, Trent played a Navy Captain (his rank fluctuated a few times during play), and Helen played a travel writer. Rather than try to shoe-horn them into the scenario, since a couple of them had very loose reasons for getting involved in a Cthulhu investigation, I told them that they were all there at the hotel where the movie's star (Hoyt "The Hips" Oakes) was staying and then had a planned riot draw them into the story.
This is right after Trent's character was throat punched by a female cultist that he tried to ask questions.
This is Larry during the character creation part of the evening.
The characters survived the night, through the judicious application of Marines to the end of the adventure. Which demonstrates that sometimes it is best to let the guys with the big guns deal with irradiated Deep Ones. Everyone had a lot of fun, and it was a great way for Helen and I to start our (too short) time in the city.
This is my new Greyed Out dice bag, among the growing gaming debris.. It made it through TSA and airport travel like a Boss, plus everyone commented on how lovely it was, as well. And then after we finished at 3ish am....we collapsed for the night.