[Indy GenCon '05] Too slow chicken marango!

[Malcolm Craig]

Evenings are gonna be precious like gold, Malcom.  So, we're gonna need you to sell us your game.  Tell us it's worth an evening.  I've checked out your website and all I can glean is the setting.  Give us some hint as to what the game's really like and we can tell you if we're willing to risk an evening on it.

-Eric & Lisa

An evening isn't essential, afternoons/mornings are equally viable. And I see your point: evenings are important social time as well.

Anyhow, what is a|state about? I'll try and briefly summarise:

The themes of hope and community are essential, core elemnts of the game. Hope stems from the fact that in such a grim, seemingly hopeless setting, an absence of 'hope' (in any form) would simply mean an endless round of toil and struggle, with no positive objective. 'Hope' as a concrete 'thing' is tied into character development by means of the experience system, which encourages actions, reactions and undertakings which inspire this nebulous commodity.

A/State is intended to be flexible. You can run a huge variety of games in The City, with any theme and flavour you can imagine. Some narratives that are particularly central to the game are:

- Protect the Corner: This narrative focuses on a 'patch' that gets caught up in trouble, and casts the characters as its defenders. Foci: different kinds of patch, ways to give characters and players a stake in its protection, ways in which the struggle over this can take unexpected twists and turns, endgames, relationship to the theme of hope.

- Climb to Power: This narrative focuses on a group of characters with a positive agenda to go out and make changes to the setting, and face down all the opposition waiting to rain down upon their heads. Foci: different kinds of character motivation, motivation and selfishness, heroism and anti-heroism, how to track the changes in power structures in a game, endgames, relationship to the theme of hope.

- Mercenary Life: This narrative focuses on a group of characters working together to perform a series of missions. Foci: strengths of a mission-based game, ways of establishing mysteries and behind the scenes plots, setting up moral conflicts, developing story arcs, endgames, relationship to the theme of hope.

Characters are strongly discouraged from being 'Man With No Name' style outsiders. The defined setting means characters can't come from an unidentified 'town beyond the mountains', but have necessarily come from a specific place within the confines of the City. People identify strongly with the burgh or area they come from and this influences character development, interactions with others and social and cultural attitudes.

The a|stateLite download will, I think, give you a flavour of the setting itself. Hopefully any game which I could run for you would give a fuller, more rounded flavour of the game as a whole.

Apologies if I appear to be hijacking this thread a little.

Cheers
Malcolm

[Malcolm Craig]

Oh!  NM!  We found your 'lite' version.  We'll check it out and let you know if an evening is kewl.

-Eric & Lisa

Eeeek! This reminds me, must make a mental note to update our preview download!

Cheers
Malcolm

[DP]

As posted on another thread, I'm up for running a game or two of a|state if anyone is at all interested. I'll try to keep my Scottish accent to a minimum whilst doing so!

Cheers
Malcolm

[Unless you're from the very sewers of Glasgow, your accent shouldn't be a problem.)

Digressive historical sidenote: it's been 10 years since the last great Scottish Invasion, when several Scottish goths lurched through Milwaukee supporting SLA Industries, and the American thralls of another outfit ran demos of Tales of Gargentihr.

The stars are right!

[Malcolm Craig]

As posted on another thread, I'm up for running a game or two of a|state if anyone is at all interested. I'll try to keep my Scottish accent to a minimum whilst doing so!

Cheers
Malcolm

[Unless you're from the very sewers of Glasgow, your accent shouldn't be a problem.)

Digressive historical sidenote: it's been 10 years since the last great Scottish Invasion, when several Scottish goths lurched through Milwaukee supporting SLA Industries, and the American thralls of another outfit ran demos of Tales of Gargentihr.

The stars are right!

Nah, no sewers. Well Falkirk (where I come from) has often been described a such, but it's not that bad. Heavens, treading in the footsteps of the SLA boys! They wore much bigger boots than me.

Hopefully the stars will be right! I'm becoming increasingly excited about attending GenCon this year.

Cheers
Malcolm

[Andrew Morris]

How about Wednesday evening?  I'm assuming most people are checking in the night before the convention actually starts.

[Malcolm Craig]

How about Wednesday evening?  I'm assuming most people are checking in the night before the convention actually starts.

Not too sure about Wednesday night. I'm getting up at some hideous hour of the morning, travelling to Edinburgh airport, flight to Brussels, flight from Brussels to Chicago, then travelling down from Chicago to Indianapolis. Not sure what time I'll be arriving.

However, not wishing to be disruptive, if people would liek to state a time that is suitable for them during the con, I shall try my very best to be available.

Cheers
Malcolm

[Eric Provost]

Wednesday night might be just great for Lisa and I.  We'll be flying in from RDU sometime that day, and I don't expect we'll have to be up all that early.  If no one else wants to run something that night but we've got potential players for either of my games I'd be glad to GM that night.

-Eric

[Andrew Morris]

Eric, I'm definitely up for some gaming on Wednesday night, because otherwise I'll just be sitting around watching TV, waiting for the con to start. I'd also be happy to run a game. Alternately, we could do something GM-less, like Capes or Universalis.

Malcolm, how about an a|state game on Sunday? I'm not doing anything before 11 a.m. or after noon.

[Mike Holmes]

I too have not scheduled any games outside of booth shifts, so I'll be looking for pick-up games too. I especially want to play some more HeroQuest/QuestWorlds with Mike Holmes.

And I want some more Burning Wheel in return, too! I will run HQ until I drop, for anyone interested.

I think that the planning in this thread is all well and good, but here's an easier plan. Come to the Forge booth (are the indie games all in one room - that might end up being a congregation location, too). Grab extra Forgies like me hanging out and crowding the space, and play games with them.

I haven't actually scheduled an event to play in about eight years. If you can't find good gaming at GenCon, you ain't trying. :-)

Mike

[Matt Gwinn]

I believe the Indie RPG Explosion games are all being played in room 207 which is near the front doors of the convention center.

,Matt

[Mike Holmes]

I believe the Indie RPG Explosion games are all being played in room 207 which is near the front doors of the convention center.

,Matt

Thank's Matt, that's what I was looking for.

Mike

[Eric Provost]

Oh, we're certainly gonna be a couple of the flys buzzing around the Forge booth. I've got some Fanboy Gawking & Slavering already inked into my schedule.  :D

But I'm also a bit on the paranoid side.  I didn't get nearly as much RPGing as I wanted at Origins (mostly due to those damned pirates...), so I wanna make sure that I know that my cravings will be fulfilled at GenCon.

So who else is up for Wednesday evening?

-Eric

[Malcolm Craig]

Eric, I'm definitely up for some gaming on Wednesday night, because otherwise I'll just be sitting around watching TV, waiting for the con to start. I'd also be happy to run a game. Alternately, we could do something GM-less, like Capes or Universalis.

Malcolm, how about an a|state game on Sunday? I'm not doing anything before 11 a.m. or after noon.

That would be grand, I'd be up for that on Sunday. Wednesday night is a possibility, just depends when we get to Indy after the trek over from Scotland.

Cheers
Malcolm

[Lisa Provost]

Oh, we're certainly gonna be a couple of the flys buzzing around the Forge booth. I've got some Fanboy Gawking & Slavering already inked into my schedule.  :D

But I'm also a bit on the paranoid side.  I didn't get nearly as much RPGing as I wanted at Origins (mostly due to those damned pirates...), so I wanna make sure that I know that my cravings will be fulfilled at GenCon.

So who else is up for Wednesday evening?

-Eric

I'm up for Wednesday.  ;)  I've got to book our flights but I was hoping to get early flights so we can be there by the early afternoon.  

Lisa (of Eric and Lisa)

[Ron Edwards]

Hi guys,

Tell you what. The booth is a wonderful center for meeting up and setting up play of all kinds. If you are posting to say "Sure, I'd love to," then let's save the public arrangements for then. If you want to make more concrete arrangements before the con, then take it to private messages or email.

Best,
Ron