Roleplaying at UK Games Expo 2023

We’ve just got back from UK Games Expo at the NEC, Birmingham and, as always, had an awesome time, playing games, catching up with friends, and shopping in the trade halls. Conventions are when I get the chance to play some different games, and this year’s Expo was no exception.

Free League are making some really great games and I was particularly keen to try out Blade Runner which I’d backed on Kickstarter but hadn’t had much chance to dig into. This was our first game at 9am on Friday morning. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness was written by our GM, Bruce Laing, and took place on a pair of disused oil rigs outside Los Angeles. Our job as blade runners was to screen the refugees living on the rigs and ascertain who could be safely admitted into the city. We got to interrogate several individuals using the Voight-Kampff machine before we were sent over to the other rig to investigate the violent death of a fellow officer and bring the culprit(s) to justice. The game was atmospheric, tense, and very enjoyable, and definitely conveyed the noir feel of the films.

We played our second Free League game, Tales from the Loop, that evening. Polybius was written and run by Liam Thornton, and was excellent fun. We began by creating our characters, something that I’m wary about in con games as it can suck up too much time. In this case it worked really well! We ended up with a great set of characters with intertwined stories, ideally suited to the shenanigans that ensued when a mysterious new videogame was installed at the local arcade. Liam told us afterwards that he only runs each convention scenario once, so there is a single, unique version of each story. I thought this was a very interesting approach.

On Saturday morning, I ran demos on the Dungeons & Dragons stand with the Starter Set prequel Voyage to Stormwreck Isle, a single encounter designed to give new players a 15 minute taste of D&D. I ran for 36 players in 3 hours – a mixture of parents and kids, curious newbies, and (bizarrely) some very experienced players. It was a lot of fun and I hope the feedback from the weekend encourages WotC to return next year and bring Adventurers League games back to Expo.

In the afternoon, we played our third and final Free League game, Symbaroum, which we’d played at Expo a few years ago and really enjoyed. The scenario, Call of the Dark, was again written by our GM, Mark Threlfall. We were given detailed pregens, each with their own agenda, as we set off on a quest to the dangerous lands south of the mountains to recover a lost Royal Charter. Our group had some excellent roleplayers and the twist at the end of the adventure was very clever. In contrast to Liam, this was the fifth time Mark had run the adventure, but the first time it ended the way it did.

Our last game, Blades in the Dark, was first thing on Sunday morning. We’d played in Chris Brockley’s game last year and were excited to wander the streets of Duskvol again. This year’s heist was The Bazco Job, a mission to spring an infamous crime boss’s lieutenant from a well-guarded Bluecoat precinct. Our plan involved poisoning our target so he was moved from his cell to the infirmary, using a ghost to possess a Bluecoat inspector, and taking advantage of a raid by a rival gang to execute a daring rescue. Luckily, things went our way and with some judicious use of flashbacks we were able to escape through the sewers!

Overall, it was an awesome Expo with four brilliant games with excellent GMs and, equally importantly, four great groups of players. Can’t wait for next year!

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