[OrcCon] After Action Report

[Josh Roby]

So Paul Tevis and Jesse Burneko and I went on down to OrcCon in LA this past weekend to run a few indie games and hold down a table in the Open Gaming RPG Room to do short demos of the same games and any others we happened to have.  Short form: Scheduled Games worked out, Open Gaming bombed.

Scheduled Games - I ran two Dogs games; the first had five players (whew!) the second had just one.  Both, however, we very successful games, everyone enjoyed themselves, and at least two players will be hitting up the lumpley.com webpage to see about getting themselves a copy.  Minor Note: I would highly recommend putting your website URL on the bottom of your character sheets if you expect your game to have significant play presence at Cons -- I ended up writing the URL down on the two players' character sheets, but it could have already been on everybody's, and lots of folks keep their con character sheets as little souveniers.  Jesse's Sorcerer 2-hour Sorcerer game had no takers (probably more to do with the time slot than anything) but his Capes game had eight players, and met with great success.  Paul's two-slot Mountain Witch game at the end of the Con had a full roster.  Jesse, Paul, if you want to relate anything about those experiences, please chime in!

Open Gaming Room - We ran little demo games for each other, but we had nobody come by the table and see what was up and in fact there were few people that even came into the room.  At least at this particular con, the emphasis seems to be on scheduled games.  Paul suggested that this is a West Coast / East Coast thing, a subject on which I am totally unqualified to speak on.

Plans For Next Time - The next Strategicon convention is in May, and it looks like we'll be trying it again with a revised action plan.  We are talking about running some "Smorgasbord" scheduled events where players can come get a "taste" of four different indie games in a four-hour slot, and then run full-length games of the same titles in the second half of the con.  I'm thinking that doing up a little handout "menu" listing the games being played and including the websites where you can get them would be a good thing.  I'm also curious to see about nailing down some space in the schedule booklet, although I'm not sure if that would actually have much effect on actual people showing up to play.  Lastly, we're going to see about "seeding" the games that we are running so that the sign-up sheets don't start and end empty -- folks are far more likely to sign up if there's already at least one name on the paper.

[jburneko]

Hello,

I would like to add that I manned the open-gaming room from about 10am-3pm solo on Saturday.  Josh and Paul had written a big sign on a white board that I had discovered, so I just "setup shop" as it were and waited to see what would happen.

1) I did observe that particular sign catching a lot of people's attention at the door.  Since the white board is built into the wall if that continues to be the open gaming room in the future I recommend appropriating that board each con with advertising for the scheduled games like we did on Sunday.

2) I *did* get people coming by.  One woman, a White Wolf LARP veteran, was very very interested in My Life with Master.  Her words, "I play a ghoul, I'm such a minion."  An older couple the guy was very intersted in My Life with Master, the woman was very interested Dogs in the Vineyard.  A couple of younger people.  Don't know if they were a couple or brother and sister or what.  Both interested in Capes and both showed up to my actual Capes session.

When there were two I should have been more agressive about offering to demo something.  The thing is, I'm not a salesmen at heart (one of the many reasons, I find joining the GenCon Indy booth intimidating).  Had I had one other person with me who knows the games well, I might have felt more comfortable saying, "Hey, we can show you how this works, if you're interested."  But with just the three of us really co-ordinating this doesn't feel feasible.  Perhaps in the future (long future) if we end up building up a following (and maybe some False Doctrine and Sorcery... oh wait... nevermind) then we can try the open gaming strategy again.  In addition to building indie-game awareness I would like to grow open-gaming as well, but one battle front at a time, right?

Jesse

[Josh Roby]

I'm actually wondering if, assuming we did three or four smorgasbords and three or four full-length games, if we could just score a room for the length of the con... and if we could get that room to be on the second floor instead of up on the third.  There were a number of barely-used rooms off of the Open Gaming Board Game area that would have suited very well.

[ptevis]

I'll add that Josh's first Dogs game rocked, and that my Mountain Witch game came off really well. Of the six players, one had played in Jesse's crazy eight-person Capes game, two were already indie fans, and one was a brand new convert. (I'm not sure about the other two.) That's at least six people from that con who are interested in indie games in the future. (I'm also counting the couple from Josh's Dogs game.) That seems like a reasonable start for a small con and just the three of us.

I agree with Jesse that with only three people, the open gaming demo table is hard to manage. I do think it might have worked better if we'd had more signage on the table itself (instead of just the whiteboard, which was useful in its own way), but with only one person at the table at a time, it's pretty hard.

I'd like to get a schedule worked out for Gamex (Memorial Day) as soon as we can. It sounds like there should definitely be another Capes game and probably another Dogs game. I think octaNe or Inspectres would also work well. I don't think the RPG department has any rooms on the second floor, but if we want to do Indie Speed Dating, I'm pretty sure that they'll let us do it as a scheduled event in/near Open Gaming. Thoughts?

Also, are there any other people in the LA area interested in participating?

--Paul

[Josh Roby]

Capes, yes -- and maybe With Great Power and Truth and Justice while we're at it.  As you pointed out, Paul, there's a lot of people there who want to play superheroes games, and there's only Champions games running.  So some alternatives that will supply what they're already into would be good stuff.

I really dug both my Dogs games, but I think it's a game that can do with just one instance, next time, especially given its... curious premise.

I'm actually thinking, though, that a smorgasbord would be better than speed-dating.  Speed Dating requires four GMs and four groups of players rotating between those GMs -- that's a lot of overhead and a lot of participants needed before it really starts working.  I think we'd get a lot more bang for our buck and engage what participants we do get by taking one group of participants through four games, all run by the same GM (or maybe two GMs handing off).  Hence 'smorgasbord'.  That and the potential culinary metaphors amuse me.  By no means am I knocking the speed dating model; I just don't think we have enough interested parties to pull it off -- yet.  Thoughts?

Jesse, did you get any players in the My Life with Master game?  We might be able to play it up to the Cammarilla folks.

I'll poke at my Sunday group to get some more of them to come next time -- Judson came but I only saw him fleetingly; the others had schedule conflicts.

[jburneko]

I'd be happy to run Capes again.  I'm going to have to be strict about the number of players though.  The other thing is that Capes is really really hard to prepare for because of all the cutting.  I think I'm going to try and snag one of Tony's new click-n-lock binders by the next con.  I think I may also insist that for scene one, every one pull from my pre-built character pile before branching out and building a new character for scene two.  But that's something for the future.  I did sense an overall interest in superheroes.  Although, I don't know much about those other supers games.

I did get players for the My Life With Master game.  Write up here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=18830.0  I found this much easier to run in a con environment that I had previously thought and would be happy to run it again.  Also, the people who turned out for the My Life with Master game were really enthusiastic about seeing "weird little games" on the schedule as break from the D&D and Call of Cthulhu grind.

As much as I like playing and promoting Sorcerer, it's a tough game to run at a con and not a lot of people are familiar with the "genre" it's modeled after.  "Wait, all I can do is summon demons?!  What kind of a Sorcerer is that?!"  The same kind of Sorcerer who would understand why Star Wars is a Romance... but I digress.

Jesse

[Brennan Taylor]

As much as I like playing and promoting Sorcerer, it's a tough game to run at a con and not a lot of people are familiar with the "genre" it's modeled after.  "Wait, all I can do is summon demons?!  What kind of a Sorcerer is that?!"  The same kind of Sorcerer who would understand why Star Wars is a Romance... but I digress.

I've actually had some really great success running Sorcerer at cons, and usually with a group who have not tried indie games before. The scenario is basically a group kicker with four characters whose motivations are tightly intertwined, and it will run itself from there. (I'd be happy to share it with anyone interested.)