Indie Games Exploding I-Con

[Judd]

I really watched Dexcon and Dreamation change in a great way from '05 to '06 and I am sure people who have been going for more years than that can say more on the matter.  The con is packed with indie designers and indie RPG's playing in every time slot.

Not to mention that everyone from last year went home, told their friends and brought buddies to this one.  The web is growing.

I credit Michael Miller's effort for this but I am not sure what that effort entails or what exactly he did other than post a thread here and make a schedule sheet on his web-site.  I have no idea what went on behind the scenes or what he specifically did to make the IGE happen.

But it happened and it was cool.

So, how do we cause an Indie Game Explosion at a new con?  I am going to run two games of Sorcerer and two games of P.T.A.  I know Luke and Jared are attending, so there very well might be another Indie RPG Roundtable, which was really cool at Dreamation.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

A lot of the good response, I think, can be credited to Dreamation and how well they treat the designers that come to the con.

I have this wild idea that I'm not sure would work, but would be a great way to sort of seed an area. I call it "Indie Speed Dating." Every interested designer or GM who likes indie games that is coming makes a 30-minute demo of their favorite game. Get a 4-hour time slot and then have the games rotate. Optimally, someone interested in indie RPGs who doesn't know where to start could experience 8 indie games in one time slot. That'd be amazing.

[Thor Olavsrud]

I have this wild idea that I'm not sure would work, but would be a great way to sort of seed an area. I call it "Indie Speed Dating." Every interested designer or GM who likes indie games that is coming makes a 30-minute demo of their favorite game. Get a 4-hour time slot and then have the games rotate. Optimally, someone interested in indie RPGs who doesn't know where to start could experience 8 indie games in one time slot. That'd be amazing.

Aaron from Nerdnyc must be sharing your psychic space or something, because he's been working on this very concept. He plans to have an RPG speed dating round in March, I believe. He's talking about 15-minute slots.

[Dregg]

Indie gaming at I-CON falls under my domain (Gaming Demos) so I am willing to Badge any Forge member who wants to come out and run games. I spoke briefly with Clinton and I am going to ad him to the Guest list and enter him in the Indie Designers awards we are having for the first time ever. I want I-CON to have a large indie gamer focus, and I am even giving Abzu a table in the dealers room so the Indie games can be sold. The I-CON dealers room has over 6,000 visitors so getting the word out there is not too hard.

So what I would like any Forge members to do is shoot me an email at demoteam@iconsf.org and tell me what you want to do. I will send you an event template and make sure you are badged. If you want in on the dealers table contact Abzu and see what his plans are for it.
Time is running short and I want to get all events finalized by mid Feb so they can go on the web site for pre reg.

Those wishing to do panels (this is including Abzu and jared) need to contact Cherise at gamingguests@iconsf.org so she can work with you there. I am currently in the process of building a Indie games library for gaming demos so a indie book can be checked out and played in a open gaming area. This way if they like it they can run it at the con for their friends and then go and buy a copy from the dealers room. Any indie press company wishing to donate for the library or add to the prize support should contact me as well.

I will try may best to make this all happen

Thanks

[Jared A. Sorensen]

I have this wild idea that I'm not sure would work, but would be a great way to sort of seed an area. I call it "Indie Speed Dating." Every interested designer or GM who likes indie games that is coming makes a 30-minute demo of their favorite game. Get a 4-hour time slot and then have the games rotate. Optimally, someone interested in indie RPGs who doesn't know where to start could experience 8 indie games in one time slot. That'd be amazing.

Aaron from Nerdnyc must be sharing your psychic space or something, because he's been working on this very concept. He plans to have an RPG speed dating round in March, I believe. He's talking about 15-minute slots.

That is the best idea ever. This reply has very little in the way of content except to say that I'd be interested in participating.

[Dregg]

I wish I could partake, I-CON duties keep me a bit busy. If this becomes a regular thing mayhaps Dexcon 9 where I plan to help more with the booth and things.

[nerdnyc]

I have this wild idea that I'm not sure would work, but would be a great way to sort of seed an area. I call it "Indie Speed Dating." Every interested designer or GM who likes indie games that is coming makes a 30-minute demo of their favorite game. Get a 4-hour time slot and then have the games rotate. Optimally, someone interested in indie RPGs who doesn't know where to start could experience 8 indie games in one time slot. That'd be amazing.

Aaron from Nerdnyc must be sharing your psychic space or something, because he's been working on this very concept. He plans to have an RPG speed dating round in March, I believe. He's talking about 15-minute slots.

great minds and all that

yeah, sometime soon NerdNYC is going to host an RPG speed dating. it won't be at a con, but if it goes well i guess we can take the show traveling. this was what i was thinking:

Concept:
People play a 45 minute RPG demos, get up, go to the next table and do it again. After 3 demos, a break, new GMs take old GMs place and another round of 3 demos takes place.

Personnelle:
Each round would need 1 GM for every 4 players. I don't think you can demo to more than 4 people at once:

4 GMs - 16 players
5 GMs - 20 players
6 GMs - 24 players
... and so on

Total time:
6 hours + break(1 hour?)

Logistics:
Sign up sheets at the beginning of each session with 4 index cards with the game info- that way the players don't have to write down or remember what table they're going to next. I don't like the idea of everyone getting up and going to the table to their right. I don't want people stuck with the same people for every game. The other added benifit to a sign-up would be that we could have a greater GM-to-demo slot ratio, giving players the option to pick only the games they really want to demo.

[Brennan Taylor]

Judd,

I am trying to get something like this organized, and some systematic way of getting people together to run a lot of indie games at local cons would be great for everyone. Since I have this thing called IPR, using that to bring people together might help. Alexander had some great suggestions for setting things up to reward GMs with some kind of rating system. I will be exploring that as well.

I set up a forum on my site, and I'd love anyone to post calls for GMs there and talk about what local cons you are trying to organize an indie press explosion for: http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0

[ptevis]

I have this wild idea that I'm not sure would work, but would be a great way to sort of seed an area. I call it "Indie Speed Dating." Every interested designer or GM who likes indie games that is coming makes a 30-minute demo of their favorite game. Get a 4-hour time slot and then have the games rotate. Optimally, someone interested in indie RPGs who doesn't know where to start could experience 8 indie games in one time slot. That'd be amazing.

Or even better, designers couldmake their own 30-minute demos and put them someplace that interested GMs can access, like Tim did with The Mountain Witch in this thread. A few of us are trying to do something like this at a con in Los Angeles next month, and we could use all the help we can get. Making it easy for folks to demo your games makes it easier to generate interest.

--Paul

[Kat Miller]

So, how do we cause an Indie Game Explosion at a new con?

I think there are two areas that are important in the explosion.  The Booth and the Events.  TonyLB did an amazing job with the booth and can't be thanked enough I don't think.  

Will there be a booth at ICON?  
An Indie Booth needs Demo space.
How far apart will the booth be from the RPG events?
The person in charge of this needs to find out what kind of deal we can expect from the con.

Who will organize the events?
How many of us are attenting and how best can we scedual events so there is always something to do, without gluts or holes where there are too many cool games offered in one slot (=not enough players) and then no games offered in the next slot.

-kat  

[TonyLB]

Will there be a booth at ICON?

Well, I'll be there, and the I-CON folks are giving me a booth and demo space.  So the answer to that one is "Yes."  Because I'll demo (and sell) anything, and I intend to convince Brennan (and Paul and Vincent) to let me take huge swaths of their stock and act as their representative.

[Dregg]

So, how do we cause an Indie Game Explosion at a new con?

Will there be a booth at ICON?  
An Indie Booth needs Demo space.
How far apart will the booth be from the RPG events?
The person in charge of this needs to find out what kind of deal we can expect from the con.

Who will organize the events?
How many of us are attending and how best can we scedual events so there is always something to do, without gluts or holes where there are too many cool games offered in one slot (=not enough players) and then no games offered in the next slot.

-kat  

1.Yes there will be a booth that will be given to Abzu in the dealers room, Suny Stony Brook is very anal about selling on the campus so the dealers room is the only place.

2. Demos are in the Ballrooms in the Student Activity Center, a bit of a walk from sales, but nicely located.

3. I have offered Tony LB, Abzu, Jared, and Clinton all guest badges and of course the table (I have a budget and have to really not over extend it), I am also setting up defined space in the gaming ballrooms for the Forge to run their games. Also I am badging anyone that is coming to help run games.

4. I am buying Indie games from IPR and Jared to start a Library of games to offer to Con goers who play an Indie game and want to try it for themselves. It will be a lending library for the con, and I might take it to other cons so those who want to run a Indie pick up game can.

5. Who ever is organizing the events needs to get them to me by early February so they can be pre-reg

[nerdnyc]

Clinton - if you want to talk about doing the Speed-Dating at ICON, let me know. I can host/run so you can GM.

Emukt=a=nerdnyc.com

[Josh Roby]

So, how do we cause an Indie Game Explosion at a new con?

Jesse, Paul, and I are hitting up OrcCon in LA next month -- it's a smaller Con where I'm hoping to get my feet wet and see how this works in broad strokes.  I plan on taking the lessons learned there and applying them elsewhere -- my eyes are on GenCon SoCal, poor younger sister of Indy.  You Midwesterners can't have all the fun.

In any case, we're each running two full-on, scheduled games, and manning a perpetual demo table in the Open Gaming Room.  That's our plan -- we'll see how it fares after contact with reality.

[Nathan P.]

Awesome.

I should be able to make it out, and would definitly be down with running some games for speed gaming.

One question - will there be a hotel room (or whatever) provided for us drifters, or do we need to make our own arrangements?