Dragonflight in Seattle (Aug 13-15)

[Zak Arntson]

Guess what? Getting close to 20 years of gaming, and I've never been to a convention before. I figure it's time to stop that by going to Dragonflight this year, and possibly GMing an event or two. I'm wondering at the indie/Forge community presence at Dragonflight this year. Who else is planning on attending? And is it kosher to coordinate Events so that we can attend each others'? (I have no knowledge of convention etiquette, so consider me a lost puppy)

I know the thing's in August, but as a total newbie to conventions, I want to get prepared for this thing way in advance. So, with that in mind, is it way to early for me to even worry about it yet?

[Mike Holmes]

And is it kosher to coordinate Events so that we can attend each others'? (I have no knowledge of convention etiquette, so consider me a lost puppy)

Depends on what you want, but there's no etiquette that I can see that would prevent it. In fact, in many cases it helps to "seed" an event with somebody you know (makes it much easier to scrape up people last minute if you have to do that). And if you want to meet and play with someone from The Forge, it's a great idea.

I mean, if it were a demo of somebody's game, and you were taking the seat of a potentially paying customer, then maaaaaybe it would be a problem. I sense that I'm not sensing what it is that you think might be bad about doing this....

So, with that in mind, is it way to early for me to even worry about it yet?

Never too early. Starting at the end of the previous year's con isn't too early. That's not to say you couldn't wait, but deadlines have a way of creeping up, you know. Better to have everything ready way ahead of time than be caught short. Are you even sure that registration for events hasn't already closed for the event in question? This often happens months in advance.

If so, there's no reason that you can't arrange something impromptu. I get the sense that Cons are a lot less formal than you're imagining them.

Mike

[Bankuei]

Hi Zak,

I used to do Dragonflight back in high school, and may be in town around that time, but no guarantees.  What I can say is that games are usually held in rooms on different floors in SU.  It is very hard to get pick-up gamers this way.  I'd recommend hitting up Kinko's and leaving fliers around and posted on walls advertising when and where your game is happening, if you want to pick up extra people.  

Chris

[rafial]

Hi Zak!  I'll definitely be at Dragonflight.  And I'd love to do something to present a coordinated indie presence.  Last year, a couple of the folks that were involved with the SGA monday night games did an SGA track as part of the RPG section of Dragonflight.  We got about five people to commit to run one or two games so we had something running continuously over the weekend.  I remember that Universalis, BESM, Dust Devils, Trollbabe, and Mutants and Masterminds got run.  We got a little blurb in the program guide, and we also had flyers that we posted around the con.

I'd love to see something like that happen again.  And now is exactly the time to start planning, since getting support for it from the convention organizers means that we'd have to present them with a commitment soon.

[jdagna]

Hey Zak!

It's not too early to start thinking about what you'll do, since pre-registrations are coming up shortly.  I think you have about a month and a half left to get events into the pre-convention booklet that will be sent out to all registered attendees well before the convention.  All you need is an idea of which game you plan to play and a paragraph-long summary of the plot, so you don't have to do a lot of work to get to this point.

If you're new to convention gaming, keep in mind that groups are often extremely unpredictable at conventions.  There's no established social contract (or even expectation of continued play) so people will often do off-the-wall stuff.  It's half the fun of convention gaming, but makes planning sessions that much more difficult.

Also, I'm the dealer liaison for Dragonflight this year, and I would love to see an indie presence of some sort from a whole variety of publishers.  I've had good experiences selling my own games at Dragonflight... even with only 500 participants, I've sold more copies of my game each year there than I have at Origins (with 12,000 attendees).  It's a pretty friendly crowd, and there are lots of Forge regulars who attend.

[Zak Arntson]

Thanks, all! I'm currently in email with Rafial on joining the Indie RPG track, for running events. I'm considering running 2-3 indie games. I'd be comfortable with running Donjon, InSpectres, Shadows or Metal Opera. Any other examples of easy-to-grok/easy-to-run-at-a-con indie games?

[Zak Arntson]

Alright, I'm going to run some events on the Indie Game track, and wanted to know if the following descriptions sound catchy. I bow to the collective con experience of everyone else here. I figure I can run a couple of events, and I'd like to get some feedback from experienced convention goers on catchy descriptions. Here are the descriptions I have right now:

Crypts of Kharnet - Donjon
Sinister priests, electric zombies, a mummy queen and her underground necropolis. All wrapped up in stinky linen and unspeakable hieroglyphs. An insane take on your favorite heroic fantasy game, Donjon features gobs of d20s and player-driven outcomes (yeah, that includes making up the treasure you've found). The players finally make as much trouble as the DM!

The Second Expedition - Terra Australis
What happened to the first expedition? That's your job. It's the year 1691, and a handful of weird supers are humanity's only hope against a mysterious incursion from an equally mysterious continent: Terra Australis. Fight invading horrors and investigate their source, defining the underlying world during play. Pop culture references: Hellboy, old serial pulps, and Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle.

Mrs. Krabchitt & the Inimitable Mr. Fuzzyface - InSpectres
"What's that, Mrs. Krabchitt? Your cat's possessed? Tentacles, right. Speaking gibberish. Did he talk sensibly before? Yeah, yeah, we'll take a coupon. Sounds like your typical Type III Phantasmal Force. Feed him some raw meat and we'll see you in fifteen minutes." Blue collar monster hunters deal with the stress and slime of a day on the job.

I'm waffling between Metal Opera and Terra Australis, but since I'm hoping to publish Terra Australis, that one wins out.

So how are those descriptions? Too long? Too short? Catchy enough?

[Michael Hopcroft]

I don;t know whether I'll go to Dragonflight or not. I've hsoiotrically enjoyed the convention but have had trouble getting games off the ground. if I go, it'll be as a fan -- and unless I raise some money quickly it may be too expensive fro me to go as a fan.