[Report] National gaming week event at Pori, Finland - 2016

Saturday had both Malifaux and Android: Netrunner tournaments and a speed painting competition. There was also a chance to borrow board games to play at the event, and a swap meet of games. D-oom Products (that's me) offered roleplaying games experiences (forest banditing with Finnish game Hood and cyberpunk mayhem with The Black Hack: Cyber-Hacked!). Sotakone Miniatures had a demo table for Batman Miniature Game and there was a presentation of (was there actually?) Captain Sonar & Mansion Of Madness 2nd Edition.

This event was exceptionally interesting for D-oom, because I released two new products! Cyberpunk Adventure Generator (PDF is pay-what-you-want at RPGNow, prints 5€ directly from me. Check my webstore at HOLVI or email me at doomproducts[ä]gmail[döt]com) and a basement print version of Cyber-Hacked!

Ready to rock'n'roll!

Panorama picture distorts, but here is my setup; roleplaying games, adventures and sourcematerial, dice, dicecups, dicebags, miniatures materal, music, baseball caps and more!

View from where you walked to the booth of doom. Right after me was Sotakone.

Free KaaosZine stickers for everyone! KaaosZine is an online music magazine
I write reviews and articles for.

And here comes games pictures...

Some minis of Batman Miniature Game. They are really, really cool.

More goons for Batman Miniature Game.

Really cool scene for Batman Miniature Game.

People of Malifaux. There was a time I was super excited of this game (never bought it), but after seeing Batman in action, I think that card based mechanics is a gimmick, and smooth gameplay comes from dice.

Malifaux in action. This scenery is absolutely fantastic!

Almost like a diorama. Details of some of these structures are lovely.

From previous western scene.

More Malifaux in action.

Are they playing Malifaux? Not sure, but the scene is absolutely fantastic!

These robots were so cool!

Are these fighting against the aforemention robots? What a random bunch of antagonists!

And finally some roleplaying in action. I am running Hood, a Finnish new rpg where you play one of Robin Hood's merry men. The mechanics are simple, yet encourage you to use your imagination in your advance. You have five d20 you use for different actions in your turn; 2 dice to kick the guard's nuts, 2 dice to push him over and 1 die to run past him. It's quite fun! There are a problem or two in the rules in my opinion, though. There is no any kind of feel of danger - you just don't get damage or other that easily for it to matter at all - what is the biggest flaw. And I am not that sure how long a campaign will run being interesting, and not just a thing where you do fancy and funny stunts. One does not simply watch hundreds of hours Erol Flynn movies (or does?).
And product layout is just horrible! GAH!
I do recommend Hood (currently for Finnish audience only), for it is a fun game.

Unfortunately this was the only game I ran. No Cyber-Hacked!. No even more Hood. I know that In Pori tabletop games, card games, wargames and such are very, very popular, but roleplaying games not so. Also I think that when people go to events, they want to eat snacks, drink soda, and talk with their friends instead of focus for a longer period of time in an imaginary world - which is social, but not event/whole group social. There must be a roleplaying games only event, so maybe those wargamers can leave their awesome minis for a second.

I personally enjoyed the event a lot. Pori is very active in gaming scene, and people are awesome! They are so nice, fun and cool. With D-oom it's been easy for me to blend in, but sometimes I hope I could go play some demo games, instead of patrolling my booth. That was a reason why I decided to run roleplaying games with my booth, to participate into gaming experience of the event. There were distractions because of customers, but it was okay. Miniatures gaming could be a bit harder, or maybe easier. As long as I can rush quickly behind my cashier it would be fine.

Anyways, can't wait for the next event with Porin Pöytäpeliseura Pöllökarhut (in English: Pori's tabletop gamers society Owlbears). I'll be there, and enjoy it fullheartedly.