The Loveliest Adventure of the Fall, MidgardCon

MidgardCon 2022 took place from September 30 to October 2, in the Gildehallen at Borre in Horten. The event is a collaboration between Midgard Viking Center and Spillekveld på 37. It became a fantastic weekend of experiences, in authentic Viking surroundings.

Atmosphere from Gildehallen (photo: Thomas Flaaten Fredriksen)

Friday

The podcast Drager & Drottner opened the festival with an improvised radio play, completed in one hour. They used a simplified version of the rules of Dungeons & Dragons, and served up song, antics, and a wild hunt for a potion shop. A truly creative crew who know how to make entertainment.

After the opening number, we spread out in the longhouse to get started with board games or roleplaying. I myself ran a playtest of TJUVRADD, a new roleplaying game in development. Around the table I had a very experienced group, who made up an excellent test panel for the concept.

Initial explanation of Tjuvradd, with town map and character sheets

TJUVRADD is a shady roleplaying game about cloaks, knives, and the hunt for the treasures of the nobility. These are some of the main points from the playtest:

• The test revealed several mechanics that work well, and several that need to go back to the drawing board. The concept of creating the entire character with a single dice roll worked very well. At the same time, a good suggestion came in that the TJUVRADD's distinctive trait should be established when creating the character.

• Several good suggestions came in on how the setting can be developed further, so it matches the mechanics. The game will likely move from a traditional human-based medieval setting to a Victorian atomic dystopia with anthropomorphism. It is going to be awesome!

• The game felt like a hybrid between a board game and a roleplaying game. I want this to become a roleplaying game, and that means the number of locked procedures must be reduced. I still believe in building the game around the day belonging to the WARDEN, and the night belonging to the TJUVRADDS. But we'll see.

• I want TJUVRADD to become a light and breezy game, with a fast pace, where a heist can be completed in an hour or two. That also means a number of the game's components must be cut - kill your darlings.

It was incredibly fun to observe which elements made the players lean forward, and to see when they leaned back. Both states are an important part of the development process. I look forward to continuing the development, because this playtest gave plenty of energy and motivation to keep going!

Saturday

Kvad was set up twice this Saturday. I ran the first of these two games, from 12:00 to 16:00. This was a dedicated game for the SAGA HEROES from the Kickstarter campaign. In 2021 these guys bought golden tickets to a play experience with the author, and the following year it became reality. Gildehallen set the perfect frame for the experience. We played through the module Hevnvisa, the starter adventure from the book, where the villagers of Steinlia take revenge on Sigurd Jarl. In many cases this adventure ends with a gruesome death for the evil jarl. This was no exception, and the kvad the players wrote after the adventure goes as follows:

The traitor Sverre was struck down hard And righteous farmers then joined the band Across Grimfjord they rowed To take those who believed The battle against Sigurd Jarl was brutal But the victory was completely total Churches in Nordveien were set aflame And the White Christ driven from the land

This put a worthy end to the Kickstarter saga. A big thank you to Game Forlag who published the book, and to everyone else who has been along for the journey!

The hour of revenge, together with the SAGA HEROES (photo: Thomas Flaaten Fredriksen)

Between the two blocks, Norway's leading roleplaying podcast Vertshuset recorded a new episode live. Last time I joined as a guest, and this round it was none other than Rollespill-Simen joining. He is already well underway reaching people on social media, with the goal of getting everyone in Norway to play roleplaying games. This episode covered, among other things, how to share the spotlight in a player group, and toward the end of the episode the house demon Roland himself appeared, running a roleplaying relay called 'Rolands Mördarhula'.

In the second play session, which lasted from about 18:00 to 22:00, I finally got to try a legendary roleplaying game called Burning Wheel. A highly complex game, which has been described as a medieval simulator. Because of its technical nature, much of the conversation revolves around the rules. As we got the hang of it, the story also emerged more clearly, and in the end it became a truly dramatic saga. The tale was about a Viking jarl who had come home from a rather unsuccessful raid, and how he was close to losing the support of his people. But with help from the völva, and by making a deal with the devil himself, he took back power with dark forces. I had the pleasure of playing the jarl Eirik, and it was a properly intense experience.

Picture of the "bible" Burning Wheel, and the character sheet for Eirik

This game concluded my festival weekend, as I couldn't attend on Sunday. A big thank you to organizers and participants, old and new friends, for a fantastically fun weekend!

For those who haven't yet been to MidgardCon, the atmosphere in Gildehallen is simply incredible. This is an event that comes with my strongest recommendation!

Great spirits! (photo: Thomas Flaaten Fredriksen)

I hope to see you (again) next year!

-KO