[GenCon booth demos] My life as a player

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

During the exhibit time at GenCon, I participated in one or more demonstrations each of Infinite Armies, Capes, Shadow of Yesterday, Breaking the Ice, Kayfabe, Sweet Dreams, A/State, Under the Bed, and The Imp Game. Regretfully, I didn't get a shot at SNAP or Death's Door. Also, I didn't demo in games I knew well (e.g. Chimera Creative, PTA, The Mountain Witch) and/or that were experiencing good sales and constant demos (Burning Wheel, With Great Power, Polaris). My goals were to learn what a customer might be told about the game and to help the designer to tighten up the demo, if necessary. I also tried to push as many demos of as much variety as possible except on "Sorcerer day."

Anyway, playing Capes, Sweet Dreams, and the Imp Game let me help the designer with the demo, or with aspects of demoing in general. Almost entirely, my advice was to stop playing the game and start showing it off. I admit I kind of enjoyed the way Dave (NevtheDeranged) and I pretended we were ignorant grognards sitting down to play Capes, just to give Tony an extra workout.

The games Infinite Armies, Under the Bed, Breaking the Ice, and A/State were joys to behold and really blew me away. In each case, the designer was already honing the demo finely and my game with them was just another step along the way.

I'll detour for a minute here with each.

Infinite Armies floored me. It was the first demo I tried, the first moments of the exhibit hall opening, on Thursday morning. Wow! I don't even like wargames very much, even in their card game form, and "army men fight army men" is definitely on my list for prompting "washing my hair that night" responses. But this was different - this was really, really cool. All I can say is "buy it, try it." All through the con, a bunch of us were looking at each other and saying, "That Greg Porter, he knows how to design games." (pause for mutual realization of how stupid it was to say that) "Well, I knew that, of course."

Juergen and I played Under the Bed with Joshua, and fortunately we were both in the zone of "modern German setting, fairy-tale elements," because I don't think I could play the naturalistic form of the game that others discovered at one point. I felt awfully sorry for the toys and spent some time afterward thinking about all the toys I had as a kid. This game is very, very strong liquor.

I played Breaking the Ice twice, the first time with my artist-bud Ed Heil. I was under the mistaken impression that the players were required to play off-gender, and so swiftly changed my pregen character from George to Georgette. Emily went "OK" and we continued, but I think I must have given the impression that I wanted some sort of prurient lesbian romance to enjoy as a guy spectator, or something. As it turned out, during play, I felt really really sorry for the two gals! It's hard to get that chemistry goin' in this game!

A bit later, Em and I essentially hit the same table at once for a demo of our respective games, and I decided to support BtI and said, "I'll be in your demo." Little did I know that the guy she was demoing for was a mid-40s grognard on the make. He spent the game staring smolderingly (he thought) at Em and delivering teeth-grinding one-liners. She handled it in stride; Em, I now think I can identify your "ha ha, I'm totally on to you, but now, this is the die we roll next" laugh. I decided that making the sale was the main thing and bore it out while I died a thousand deaths, saw the sale made, and then went to take a not-especially needed bathroom stop ... i.e., the closest I could get to a sense of taking a shower.

Make no mistake, I love female attention and put forward all sorts of signals of minor attraction when I interact with women. It's something I do and I see no shame in enjoying it on all parties' parts. But the utter lack of class exhibited by this guy was an embarassment. Jasper, I call upon you, my demon, to descend upon yon grognard and rend him utterly.

A/State was a real source of dread for me. I'd hoped Malcolm had revised the game prior to the con, and he hadn't. We had umpty-ump copies of this monstrous hardback to move, and the game was not too removed from GURPS, mechanically. What to do? Answer: Luke Crane busted out an amazing demo design with Malcolm before the con itself, and the demo rocked hard, steadily and profitably, all the way through the con. One great demo + excellent cover art = solid sales. I'd played Infinite Armies, then A/State in the first hour of the con, and I was a happy man.

Finally, Kayfabe was a mystery and a frustration for me this year. Bear in mind: this is an awesome game. As Tony and I discussed with Matt a little later, the whole point of play is to deal with the crises implied by the phrase, "The Show Must Go On." It's like a carny or a theater-troupe drama, with the climactic decisions about whether to promote yourself at the expense of the opponent, or to go with the show's script, or whatever else, wrapped up in the matches themselves. It's high on my list for play and extensive posting so people can grab a damn clue about how well-done it is.

But Matt couldn't get people to demo it with him to save his life! It was bizarre! I'd say, "cool pro-wrestling game," and people wearing elf-ears, no less, would look at me like I was an unspeakable lowlife who'd just said the Wrong Thing. (Jared may now step in and say that was bad targeting, and I retort, hah, it didn't happen, but 'twas merely colorful, fictional hyperbole.) But seriously, you'd think that it'd be a bigger draw.

Add to that the exceptionally weird experience of talking to a guy, and Matt says, "Do you like pro wrestling," and he says (get this) ... "Naaah." (pause) "Except for the masked Mexican guys."

I resisted the urge to scream HOW CAN YOU SAY YOU DON'T LIKE PRO WRESTLING BUT YOU DO LIKE LUCHADORES, MORON?! Which is a lot like saying you don't like handguns but you love the .357 magnum. We practically armlocked him into a demo and he bought the game.

So anyway, this is a blanket call to everyone to try out Kayfabe and post about it. This game deserves far better.

So that's my booth demo time, for others' games! Thanks to everyone for letting me in. Let me know how your impressions compare with mine.

Best,
Ron

[Jasper the Mimbo]

Jasper, I call upon you, my demon, to descend upon yon grognard and rend him utterly.

I'm sorry I missed my chance to ruin the poor shmuck's day, and possibly make Em's. Consider him rent.

What the hell's a grognard?

[Meguey]

Jasper, I had the same question, but I glorked the overall pluggendisp from context. Also, I got to hear this story from Ron when it was very, very fresh, and his skin was still crawling.

[Kesher]

A/State was a real source of dread for me. I'd hoped Malcolm had revised the game prior to the con, and he hadn't. We had umpty-ump copies of this monstrous hardback to move, and the game was not too removed from GURPS, mechanically. What to do? Answer: Luke Crane busted out an amazing demo design with Malcolm before the con itself, and the demo rocked hard, steadily and profitably, all the way through the con. One great demo + excellent cover art = solid sales. I'd played Infinite Armies, then A/State in the first hour of the con, and I was a happy man.

I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of Malcom's demo; it was fantastic, and if Luke helped him put it together, he deserves equal praise.  I had no intention of buying the game, but after talking a bit with Malcom and sitting down and playing the demo, well, that was it.  The demo materials were even attractive!  And man, he is one frenetic Scotsman...

I agree about the mechanics, too.  I'm a sucker for the dark cyberpunk thing, and the idea that bringing hope to people in the community drives xp gain was, I thought, great.  However, reading the mechanics more fully later, well, that's all that "hope" did: Give you points to raise your skills.  I've worked out a more proactive reroll mod for when I finally play it, but it woulda been nice if it was in there already...

Aaron

[Ron Edwards]

Way ahead of you, Aaron. If I'm not mistaken, Malcolm worked out an alternative Hope/Despair set of mechanics on a napkin about halfway through the con, in the wee hours of the morning at the Embassy Suites bar. He'll be posting about that soon, I'm sure.

Best,
Ron

[Gordon C. Landis]

What the hell's a grognard?

(Because it's always fun to reply with a link)
http://www.grognard.com/grogfaq.html