[Conpulsion, Edinburgh, March 2006] - The Indie Games Track

[Malcolm Craig]

Morning all,

A suggestion I've recently put forward to the organiser of the wonderful Conpulsion games convention in Edinburgh was to have an "indie games track", a continuous run of 1 hour indie games taking place across both days of the con. My reasoning behind this was twofold:

1) Indie games are under-represented at the con (the usual suspects of D&D, Vampire and so forth dominate) and much less well known on this side of the Atlantic than in the US and elsewhere.

2) There are precious few events which just allow the casual gamer to play for an hour and not be committed to a lengthy 3 - 4 hour game that they may never even have heard of.

With these points in mind, I made the following post to the Conpulsion forums:

"OK, so last year I threw ideas for stuff for Conpulsion at Shevy and she was kind enough not to turn down all of them. So, thinking about different things for this year, how about the Indie Games Track? What? OK, what I'm thinking of is a series of 1 hour sessions of indie games, the kind of stuff that is normally under-represented at cons, running throughout the day. We'd need a bunch of good GMs who really knew their stuff and could run a short session in an hour. Here's how I'd see something like this panning out (the games are just inserted for completeness, not meant to be my actual recommendations for games):

Saturday

11am - 12pm : Conspiracy of Shadows
12.15pm - 1.15pm : Dogs in the Vineyard
1.30pm - 2.30pm : The Mountain Witch
2.45pm - 3.45pm : Sweet Dreams
4.00pm - 5.00pm : 3:16
5.15pm - 6.15pm : Polaris

Sunday (starts laters due to Saturday night partying)

12pm - 1pm : Primetime Adventures
1.15pm - 2.15pm : Dust Devils
2.30pm - 3.30pm : Best Friends
3.45pm - 4.45pm : The Shadow of Yesterday
5.00pm - 6.00pm : Under the Bed

Number of players per game: 2 - 5
No single players should be allowed to participate in more than 2 games in a row, unless there is free space, in which case, go for it.

So this would allow Conpulsion delegates to sample 11 games that might not otherwise get run over a 3 hour con game timeslot. And there's also the possibility that the games designers would be willing and able to provide adventure materials to allow the GMs to run proven sessions.

Pros

Exposes gamers to a lot of new and interesting games that they might otherwise never have heard of.
Allows people with time on their hands to drop into a game without dedicating themselves to a three hour session.
Increases the breadth and depth of games being run at Conpulsion.
Liam will shortly be stocking many of these games and will be able to meet the buying needs of the public if they are enthused by a particular game!

Cons

Actually getting people to sign up for games they might never have heard of.
GM-intensive, would probably require a minimum of 3 dedicated GMs.
Requires a fair amount of sign-up coordination.
Plus other stuff that escapes me.

So, opinions, comments, critique? As I said, it's merely a suggestion at this stage."

The feedback from those involved in the con has so far been very positive and we already have volunteers for a selection of games (so far The Mountain Witch, Dogs in the Vineyard and Dust Devils).

I'd be interested to hear others opinions of this potential con event, the practicalities and pitfalls, the good and the bad. In essence, the games would be extended demos fitting into the hour timeslot assigned for each game. And if any game creators either:

1) Would like to see their game included

or

2) May have materials which could be used for a game lasting no more than an hour

I'd be delighted to hear from you.

Cheers
Malcolm

[Ben Lehman]

I would very much like to have my game included.  I can give you materials to run 20-minute demos.  An hour might be pushing it.

yrs--
--Ben

[Keith Senkowski]

Malcolm,

Blood Opera could definately be used to run an hour long demo of Conspiracy of Shadows.  On the page is a link to the game I ran at GenCon and it would be real easy to just pick up the action in a scene very similar to those and run with it.  If you need anything else or got any questions let me know.

Keith

[Malcolm Craig]

Thats great guys. Thanks to both of you for the assistance.

Ben: Would you be able to send me the demo materials, if that's convenient for you? My email address is: malcolm [at] contestedground [dot] co [dot] uk. Also, do you think there is any way to extend the material that you have so as to fit the game into an hour slot? I'll have a think about this when I get a look at them, I'm sure it will all be grand.

Keith: Thanks for the link, that would be ideal.

We've been discussing this event over on the forums for Conpulsion, and it certainly looks like it's going ahead, which is great. There is already enthusiasm building up for it, so I'm really looking forward to getting things rolling.

Cheers
Malcolm

[Matt Machell]

Malc,

if you need assistance with this, I'm happy to take a trip up to Edinburgh. Got a link for Conpulsion details?

-Matt

[Gregor Hutton]

Conpulsion is at http://www.conpulsion.org/ but they don't have the 2006 details up there yet.

[Blankshield]

Malcolm,

The Death's Door demo you sat in on at Gencon could easily be expanded to an hour, just by giving each person a go at their goal.  I can send you PDF's of the demo material; beyond that it's just dice and pencils.  PM me if you want to put Death's Door on the track.

thanks,

James

[Malcolm Craig]

Malc,

if you need assistance with this, I'm happy to take a trip up to Edinburgh. Got a link for Conpulsion details?

-Matt

Thanks Matt, that would be great if you could make it. We'd be very keen to have GMs experienced with a variety of indie games, perhaps we could even get you to run The Agency from the No-press Anthology?

Malcolm,

The Death's Door demo you sat in on at Gencon could easily be expanded to an hour, just by giving each person a go at their goal. I can send you PDF's of the demo material; beyond that it's just dice and pencils. PM me if you want to put Death's Door on the track.

thanks,

James

Cheers James, that would be great. The broader spread of games we can have the better.

Thanks Malcolm

[Joe J Prince]

Indie games at Conpulsion

Sounds coool, I'd really like to run some of my games, and it'd be great to see Liam, Shevy and my old GEAS mates again.

It'd rock to have 3:16 and Contenders both running.

Where do I sign up?

cheers,
Joe

[Malcolm Craig]

Indie games at Conpulsion

Sounds coool, I'd really like to run some of my games, and it'd be great to see Liam, Shevy and my old GEAS mates again.

It'd rock to have 3:16 and Contenders both running.

Where do I sign up?

cheers,
Joe

Yeah, that would be great. The more the merrier as far as I'm concerned.

I think by the new year, I'd like to have an actual list of games tied down, in order that I can presented a more fleshed out proposal to Shevy. At the moment, it looks like we have GMs/enthusiasm/offers of assistance for:

3:16
Best Friends
Conspiracy of Shadows
Contenders
Deaths Door
Dogs In The Vineyard
Dust Devils
The Mountain Witch
Polaris
Sweet Dreams

I'm sure the list will expand further. I suppose it's a matter of sorting out GMs, timings and so forth, but I think it's looking pretty good at the moment.

Cheers
Malcolm

[Gregor Hutton]

Sounds coool, I'd really like to run some of my games, and it'd be great to see Liam, Shevy and my old GEAS mates again.

It'd rock to have 3:16 and Contenders both running.

Yeah, it was pretty cool to see GEAS so well represented in the Ronnies! We were looking through the membership book the other week and you're still in there from back in the day.

Shevy ran the con last year and will be doing it again this year, so you'll have to be there.

Rock!

[Malcolm Craig]

Unless anyone has any further suggestions or offers of help, I think this thread has now very much served its purpose. Thanks to all those who have offered materials and help, whether it be through offers of materials or offers to attend and help run games.

Once I've had a chat with the con organiser, I'm sure further threads will be spun off from this one.

Cheers
Malcolm