The Forge Archives

As Samwise said, "Well, I'm back."

And the Indie RPG Explosion at Dreamation 2005 went really, really well. I want to thank everyone who came out and made the event a success.

We had scheduled 28 events, and I think only three of them didn't run due to lack of players, which is really good. Particularly considering that attendance at the con was down from their expectations. There were about 690 people there.

I thought sales went phenomenally well, also. We sold more than $800 worth of product.

As they say, "A good time was had by all."

Speaking personally, I feel that there's no real subsitute for meeting people in the flesh, and this concentration of talent in one place was a thrill to be a part of. I want to thank each and every one of you for making the long trip to attend, for enduring the cramped sleeping conditions and occasional miscommunications. Thanks.

Thanks also to Double Exposure for their unflagging support and hospitality. I'll be sure to see you again in July for DexCon.

I managed to run The Agency, Discernment, With Great Power..., My Life with Master, Baron Munchausen, InSpectres, and Universalis, and only screwed up their rules a little bit, so I was pleased with that. I also got demos of Capes and the Mountain Witch, and was able to do some networking. All in all, a great experience.

Yes. Yes!

I'll say more when I have my feet back under me.

-Vincent

What a spectacular experience.  I've got so many individual little memories that I could bore everyone silly by stringing them out like pearls.  I hope you'll forgive me reconstructing just one as best I can.  I found it particularly apt to my system.

QuoteMe (as Professor Despair):  "Snivelling weakling!  You cling to the ideals of right and wrong, but the truth is that there is only power, and the will to use it!"
Dierdre Taylor (Brennan's young daughter, as Angel, shaking her head vigorously):  "Hurting people is wrong.  That's important."
Brennan:  <Reaches out, takes two tokens of Hope debt from Angel's sheet and quietly stakes them on the "Rescue Hostages" conflict>

On the more constructive side, there were a lot of important lessons that I (at least) learned for the first time here:

[*]Demonstrating a game is absolutely the key to selling it:  Most of my sales came directly from demos... often from people who told me at the start that they weren't interested, but were willing to humor me[*]Having some game being demonstrated is the key to consistently drawing crowds to the booth.  Demoing is a spectator sport.[*]People get involved of their own accord on friday and saturday.[*]They don't on thursday and sunday.[*]You can spend almost nothing going to a Double Exposure con (I spent $22 total, for the gas to drive to and from Virginia, and the hotel parking... everything else I needed was provided)[/list:u]My one disappointment was that we didn't have more folks who are nowhere near the point of selling their games.  If I were at the stage I was at (say) four months ago, I would have been all over people like Vicent and Clinton, asking for help.  At the least, they could give me some new ways to look at the design process.  More likely, they could just reach right into the spaghetti tangle of a not-yet-functional system and say "See how this thread here is central?  What if you entangle it with this rule idea here?"

I was very surprised that we didn't have more people doing that.  I sort of wonder whether folks think that it would be an imposition.  From having seen the tenor of the booth, I think that (far to the contrary) anyone who had come in with those sort of questions would have been mobbed by eager designers wanting to help them.

Maybe for DexCon.

Hey, it's Rob, the guy who played MAWG! in Michael's My Life With Master game.

I've been gaming for 21 years and this was my first convention.  It was a hell of a lot of fun.  I got to game the entire weekend without once having to deal with the dreaded Cat Pee Man at the table.  For that alone, if not the utter brilliance of the games I was playing, I thank you.

This was an excellent con, and thanks to everyone who came out. We nearly always outnumbered our customers at the tables, but there was a lot of interest in our games, and at least one attendee told me he had attended because the Indie Games Explosion was going on. It was extremely successful for a modest con like this, and a lot of credit goes to the organizers. They gave us a prime spot, lots of space, and helped out in almost every way imaginable. Although I had one of the games that didn't go off, I was very happy with the way the convention turned out. Plus, my kids had a great time.

I had a fantastic weekend of gaming, although the schedule made this morning a living hell.

I am going to need therapy after that My Life with Master session.  That game is a fascinating look into disfunctional relationships and power dynamics.  I have never had so many internal revelations about a character during a game.

Most of all it was nice to meet folks who I have corresponded with over these forums.  The smaller con was nice for having time to just chill and chat.

I really enjoyed the idea in With Great Power of describing your actions in terms of panels.  I totally grooved on that in my introduction scene.  I lamed out on that later and didn't always follow it up, but the idea of saying, "Okay, this panel shows that, and this one that," and so on was a lot of fun.  Mike really sold that to me with how he opened the game.

[I'm really Joshua, but briefly Luissa of the maggot eyes in My Life with Master, the monkey Tesshu in Mountain Witch, the Gypsy in Cospiracy of Shadows, the ratkin priest in tSOY, and Frank Redboots in DitV.]

Man, I had a really spectacular time with everybody. Such a spectacular buch of role playing. Such creativity and devotion to characters and story.

I woke up this morning to a "we thought you were going to be in on time today," so I've gotta work before I can say more, but thanks to everyone for excellent  games and conversation.

Wow, Dreamation was wicked cool. I finally got to play all those great games that I've been hearing about.

So what did I play? Hmm...Capes, as...well...a few different characters;  Dogs in the Vineyard as Ham-Isaih; Mountain Witch as Tanaka (Rat); NPA: The Agency as Reginald Forbes III, wealthy man about town; NPA: Discernment as the Subject; With Great Power... as Mezmero (David McArthur); My Life with Master as Dieter the creepy butler; Ganakagok as Barakaj of the Kuweo Clan in the village of Tukanuk; The Shadow of Yesterday as....uhm...the ranger guy whose name I'm blanking on (damn, I knew I should have saved all my character sheets); InSpectres as Matt Johnson, the CFO; and Universalis.

What did I like the most? Ugh, I can't pick just one. I was pleasantly suprized at how much I enjoyed Capes and the Mountain Witch. The others that I enjoyed, I already expected to, and they didn't let me down. Ganakagok had interested me, and came through, although the mechanics of the Village Phase made my head hurt. Bill said he's going to revise that section, though, so it should play out much more smoothly when that's done.

Hopefully, there'll be more IGEs at future conventions. It was great putting faces to names and getting the chance to play with such cool folks. Plus, I ran into a few friends and pimped all the nifty games to them.

Dreamation in a nutshell was a great experience. It was great meeting the other forge member who I had only known by handles and thier bosting on the boards, and of couse seeing old friends like Jared and Brennan made my weekend as well. I wish I could have had more of a chance to play in other games. I played in a Mountain Witch demo, and was way impressed. The whole roll first and then tell the story aspect was awesome as well as other mechanics like trust. All I can say is put me down fro a copy when released (hell I already have the dice now). I also got to play "With great power!". It was way left field from what I was used to in a Supers RPG, they system was fresh and did not leave me with that supers burn out I ususaly have after a game of M&M or hero.
I was very pleased at the turn out for my own game Pulp Era, and felt all warm and fuzzy as I had players who signed up for all 3 of my run because they enjoyed the system (if it ever gets to the printer they can own a copy as well). The last cool thing was to finaly meet Clinton, when you keep hearing great things about someone its finally nice to just shake thier hand.
Hope to see all of you again in July at Dexcon

As for me, I had a great time as well.  My only regret is that I didn't get to meet more folks and play more games--but I tell myself it's okay, you were sick (I was, too:  after I got in Friday my buddy Dave took me to a Walgreen's to fill a prescription for an antibiotic to combat a wicked sinus infection).  But I got to meet Tony and get his Capes demo, as well as shake a few hands, pick up DiV and MLWM as well as Capes, and linger hungrily over a few other games.

And I got to run Ganakagok, which pleased the hell out of me.  The story was quite fun, consisting of a trek through the bowels of a giant iceberg, a climb to the top of a spire of ice to encounter the totemic spirit of the King of Whales in preparation for a climactic final struggle with a High Priest of the Sun to stave off the Dawn.  The players were game and jumped right into the spirit of things, and helped me learn a Thing that I think is important:  yes, part of the reason that we have characters is so that they can have attributes they use to affect the world around them, but another reason is so that they can have attributes that can be meaningfully affected by that world.  The key word is of course "meaningfully," and that's the thing that needs fixing in Ganakagok.

So, all in all:  A-Number One learning experience.  It's a little sad to have to go back to one's day job.

Bill

A good time was had by me.  I don't think I have had as good of a time as I had at a convention as I had at Dreamation.  Those who attended have surely secured their place in the pantheon of Rawk!

Keith

Ganakagok? Seriously?

How cool is that.

I may have to finegle a way out to the coast next year if this happens again. Sounds like too much fun.

Mike

Why wait a year?  DexCon is a slightly larger summer edition of the same convention, just six months away.  I've just posted a thread for Indie Gaming Explosion 2.

I just wanted to thank all of you for making Dreamation such a satisfying experience.  It is extremely gratifying to me, that people had such a good time there.  :)  I'll definitely look forward to seeing as many of you as possible back for DEXCON, in July.

Naturally, any comments on how we can improve for future events are appreciated, though PM or email might be more appropriate than the forum.  Likewise, please feel free to ask me any questions about our upcoming events (or this past one, of course).

Again, thank you, guys.  Having you there was really great.  And maybe at DEXCON I can actually manage to play or at least demo a few things.

Becca