Indie RPG Explosion

[Michael S. Miller]

The Forge presence at GenCon was more than just the Booth and the seminar track. It was also the Indie RPG Explosion, a collection of scheduled events for the games we were selling, often run by their creators or devoted fans.

This year, the Explosion was pretty small--small in number of events, lacking in publicity, and light on organization. I know there are plenty of things that *I'd* like to see changed for next year. But right now, I'd like to hear from both the GMs that ran the games AND from the players who participated.

As in the other GenCon feedback threads, please do not respond to gripes or start problem-solving. Please just stick to these three areas:

What did you like about the Indie RPG Explosion? Why?

What did you NOT like? Why?

What do you feel needs to change? Why?

[Luke]

Hi Mike,

I liked that there was organization and super-structure to our games this year. You told me what I needed to do and where the tickets needed to go. That left me a little breathing room so I could concentrate on running my games.

I had no particular gripes about the IGE. When I looked around the room each night, I saw WGP, Kayfabe, and tSOY being run. That was cool.

The things I'd liked changed aren't going to change anything. Advertising scheduled games at the booth? It's pointless. All the games fill up in February or March. Maybe a schedule with SOLD OUT plastered all over it would help folks decide to buy our games, but it's not going to help everyone who is complaining that we need long form demos elsewhere in the con. (Which is what the IGE was).

great job, sir.
-L

[TonyLB]

What did I like?

This is an absolutely indispensible part of our GenCon presentation.  Being able to say "So, you've run the demo, here's when you can jump in on a full-length game" is a selling point not to be missed.  It must be capitalized upon and expanded.  I didn't see the selling-out problem that Luke points to, probably because I'm less popular than him:  There was plenty of room for people to jump in with Generic tickets in most of my games.

What did I NOT like?

I won't do it again.  Signing up for it was the worst mistake of my GenCon plan, by far.  It took me away from the gaming at the Embassy Suites.  That's just not acceptable to me.  It also meant that I was mentally in a place where I was selling 24/7, rather than just during booth hours, which meant my energy levels weren't what they could have been.  Dumb, dumb, dumb of me.

What do you feel needs to change?

Michael does it the right way:  He has Kat to run some of the sessions, instead of him.  Presenting the game is not something that one person can do alone.  The game designer needs to be on booth, and have somebody that they've trained and trust (hi Eric!  Thanks again!) out in the world running longer sessions.  Then both of those people need to do the other things they want of their GenCon experience after hours.  When the exhibit hall closes we need to stop selling.  This is about the basic issue of recharging people's creative batteries.

That will take more logistics (particularly on the part of designers who now have to travel with and train a team!) but I think it's an unavoidable step in the evolution of the booth.

[Judd]

What did you like about the Indie RPG Explosion? Why?

Loved having someone to organize this all and all I had to do was PM Michael a blurb.  Very nice.

Loved running these games.  People have read them and are often hungry to play them for the first time.  Every session I ran was amazing and I always saw those who didn't own the game back at the booth later purchasing the game we had played.

What did you NOT like? Why?

I had no idea I was getting a GM's Badge, none.  That could have been communicated better.  Michael and I discussed it (and I forgot to hand in my tickets, Michael.  shit.)

I'm not crazy about the fact that everything sells out months before the con.

Someone didn't show up to their games and it was seriously pissing people off.  When you don't how up to an Indie RPG Explosion game it really tarnishes the rest of us.  I don't want these games to get a rep for no-showing (I should've handed in my tickets.  Shit.).

What do you feel needs to change? Why?

Maybe we could put some of these games up for early registration so that half of our games are open for pre-reg and half are still open on the first day of the con?

Is there a way to free up some game designers from the booth for four hour blocks so they can run their games at the con?  It is a cryin' shame that Luke only got to run BW twice and Keith only at the Embassy.  These are games that PLAY well, couldn't we make the space issues I'm reading about in other threads better by sending some of these folks off in shifts to run their games for 4 hours?

[Andrew Morris]

Like

The chance to play more indie games, of course. I would never have gone to GenCon (or Dreamation or DexCon, for that matter -- gaming cons never appealed to me that much) if not for the indie games.

Dislike

I never knew if there was a specific room where the indie games were running. At one point, I looked around and saw about three other indie games, but I had no way of knowing whether or not I could hang out in one particular place, and jump in on any unfilled games. A central point would be great -- someone who you could just ask, "hey, when's the next indie game starting?" and get the time, location, and number of remaining open slots.

[O. Rodriguez]

What did you like about the Indie RPG Explosion? Why?
I had no idea that this was going on. I did notice that there were a few indie games being run in the same room I was playing BW or TSOY and thought it was great. I wish it was more clearly advertised as I might have left my evenings for these games and actually run one or two session of my own favorite indies during the day.

What did you NOT like? Why?
I don't mean to bitch. I certainly don't want to belabor the obvious, but you have to be ready to run your game.

I played in TSOY game on Saturday night and it was one of the worst experiences I've ever had at a con. The GM and his friend were creating characters as we arrived at the table. The event was scheduled to have upwards of 10 players at two tables and the GM was a bit soft spoken. I might have overlooked all of this if I wasn't ignored at the table for 20 minutes. When the GM finally got around to acknowledging me, he took 10 more minutes to get back to me. I was stunned. I remained silent when he finally attempted to get me involved. I eventually tuned out and just walked away. If I had not already purchased TSOY I certainly would not have done so after this experience.

Although I don't personally know Clinton, I know the GM running it was not Clinton. My friends both thought they were playing with the creator. I've salvaged some hope that I might be able to get them to play a TSOY game in the future.

What do you feel needs to change? Why?
Play. I don't see nearly enough indie games on the Gen Con schedule. I'm positive that I am not alone in having knowledge of a game but no experience playing these games. Write catchy or interesting descriptions for the schedule. Have friends who you trust to provide the intended experiences organize a game or two during the con. Plan on two extra players for generic tickets and advertise the games being run at the booth. I can't speak for others, but when I have a solid play experience I will likely purchase the game.

[rickr]

What did you like about the Indie RPG Explosion?
Simply the fact that it was there -- having some Indie RPG events are better than having none, and I'm glad I got the chance to play in one. It was handy, when looking through the list of events that you could pre-register for, that there was an "Indie RPG" tag next to the games that were represented in the Forge.

What did you NOT like?
Boy, talk about stealth marketing -- I had no idea the "Indie RPG Explosion" was an organized series of events until after the convention was over.

What do you feel needs to change?
More events and more publicity... running a successful demo may sell a couple of games, but runnning a successful event will demonstrate to the players how to run a game, and can transform the players into GMs for your game.

[Paul's Girl]

This was my first attempt at running a scheduled event. And..

Like- all of the players that showed up were forge fans. The first group of guys brought out a huge pile of dice and I got to say "we're not using dice in PtA." and they totally grooved on it. I would have been ok with non-forge types, totally, but I didn't have to redesign the wheel, if ya know what I mean.

Dislike- I had an opposite experience to others, I had four players not show up. In they Saturday game, one was absent (totally ok though, the three who did play were uber-fantastic) and only one showed up for the Sunday game, he was accomidated for at the booth. Thanks Andy!

Change- don't know. I'm conflicted between two notions: 1- running demos for a game I totally like and run well, which is for sale at the booth or 2- leaving the booth during the open dealer room hours and being support staff. I guess that's more of a personal conflict rather than something Michael can work on... meh.

-Danielle

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I played in TSOY game on Saturday night and it was one of the worst experiences I've ever had at a con. The GM and his friend were creating characters as we arrived at the table. The event was scheduled to have upwards of 10 players at two tables and the GM was a bit soft spoken. I might have overlooked all of this if I wasn't ignored at the table for 20 minutes. When the GM finally got around to acknowledging me, he took 10 more minutes to get back to me. I was stunned. I remained silent when he finally attempted to get me involved. I eventually tuned out and just walked away. If I had not already purchased TSOY I certainly would not have done so after this experience.

Although I don't personally know Clinton, I know the GM running it was not Clinton. My friends both thought they were playing with the creator. I've salvaged some hope that I might be able to get them to play a TSOY game in the future.

Who was this? I wasn't even aware of a TSOY event being run, and had I known that one was, and it would be a bad experience, I would have shown up personally and run it.

EDIT: Found the listing. Don't know the guy. Please PM me.

[Kat Miller]

Liked:

That there were events.  I really liked running the 2 hr events.  It feels like you can reach more prople that way especialy if your game runs best for 4 people.   There were so many people who wanted to play the new games.  I also really like teaching games that I love.  That we had our own room, I could see other Indie games going, and I knew right where I was going when it was time to game I ran from the same table at all but one of the games in the same room which was nice.  It was also tremendously cool to run WGP and get people as excited about this game as I am.

Disliked:

Didn't learn until sunday how vastly different the 2 hour "workshop" of WGP was different than the 4 hour game.  The 2 hour is much better, players come away with a full understanding of the elements of the game AND they are more invested because they made their oun characters AND more able to run the game for their group at home.   Being bullied by a player.   

Needs to change:

we need more qualified gms to run some of these wonderful games next year.  I could have run more games but I also like playing and larping and visiting the dealer room.  I think there should be more games being run in the 8am - 2pm slots.  and don't bother running anything after 2pm Sunday.  Sundays are hard days to get players anyway.  I learned that the 4 hour games unless your running for say 20 people, (or even 8 people) are costly in time for the benifit of only a few people, 2 hour demoes are shorter and you can reach more people that way.

anyway this was a great Gen Con
-kat

[daMoose_Neo]

Liked:

Ease. Rock on Michael! I had done all of the registration brew-haha last year, and having someone on point made my con-prep a lot easier. I also have to thank Michael in being easy to work with and handling a pair of first morning issues. Awesome.

Disliked:

Total lack of branding. I was under the initial impression the point of this was to get a single room for our games, which had me thinking of the tracks we see for the likes of Nintendo, "Kids Track", etc. Instead, we did have a more central area, but my GMs were bouncing between two rooms, which just seemed a little odd. At what point do we get support from GenCon for the branding (room marker, cool notes in the event catalog, etc)
Oddly, we also had an interesting situation regarding attendance. ALL of our games sold out, and Thursday night in fact we had so many people show up, between registered players and Generic tickets, we had to grab a second GM and run two tables. But then, there were a pair of events where no one, or only one person, showed up. Of course, for several of the events one or two people didn't show, which isn't too odd considering some games run over or folks overbook themselves.

Needs to change:
Hm. I was overall fairly satisfied, especially as I understand it this being a first attempt for GenCon. Pull some things together, tighten it up, get a little more branding so we can say "Hey! Check out whats here!", and we'd be cool.

[Judd]

Oddly, we also had an interesting situation regarding attendance. ALL of our games sold out, and Thursday night in fact we had so many people show up, between registered players and Generic tickets, we had to grab a second GM and run two tables.

This also happened with the Dogs in the Vineyard game I ran, a whole table's worth of players showed up and Karl, who was hoping to get into the game I was running on Generic tickets, grabbed them up and ran a game.  Great stuff.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

That was the Sorcerer & Sword, Charnel Gods game, right Judd?

Which I knew nothing about, didn't know was happening, and only found out about the next day, when people came up and told me "my GM" for "my" demo had failed to appear. Twice, in fact.

This was a very, very aggravating moment. I've never enjoyed scheduled play at conventions and don't especially like the idea of selling games through several hours of play. I don't sign up to run them unless it's absolutely required and probably never will. I might well have disallowed any of my games to be in it, except for the whole independent-solidarity thing which I've helped to create in the first place. People don't show up, leaving the GM high and dry; GMs don't show up, leaving people high and dry. Events like these make me look bad through no fault of my own, and I fuck up enough by myself to want to deal with others' fuckups in my name.

Now, all of that is purely my little thing and doesn't diminish my support for the Indie Explosion, my appreciation of Michae's efforts, or my commitment to see whether the event might get a little better branding/etc both through GenCon LLC and through the Forge booth itself. All of those are substantial.

My off-the-cuff solution at the time was to make a special effort to fit everyone who'd been signed up into demo time at the booth, which is one reason why some of my demos went so long - they weren't demos, they were games for people who'd paid for a game.

My suggestion for next year is to make sure that publishers know they are being represented by these scheduled events, so that we can contribute to their organization and have solutions ready when the screwups occur.

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

My suggestion for next year is to make sure that publishers know they are being represented by these scheduled events, so that we can contribute to their organization and have solutions ready when the screwups occur.

My two thumbs: in the air. Yes.

Michael does an awesome job, but I'm totally embarrassed about the TSOY game that I knew nothing about and sounds like it went poorly. If I'd known about it, I'd have checked in, and even run it if I saw there were too many people.

[Judd]

Hello,

That was the Sorcerer & Sword, Charnel Gods game, right Judd?

The real bummer of the AWOL Charnel Gods game is that I almost made my way over there to stop by and see if there was either an extra seat or extra players to run on Dictionary of Mu.  If I had, I could've saved the day.  Bummer.

A few of those gamers were in my Dogs in the Vineyard game, so at least they got to get their game on and enjoy themselves with the Indie Games Explosion.

A link between the GM's and the Game Designers whose games they are running would certainly be neat.