Indie Games Explosion at Gen Con06

[Kat Miller]

The Indie Games Explosion at Gen. Con. was rather successful last year, and its time again to submit events for Gen Con 06. New changes in Gen Con Event Registration make it important for us to register early.

New People! Play More Games! Have More Fun!  Volunteer to run games for the Indie Games Explosion!

New This Year- Games On Demand.  2 to 4 hour unregistered game sessions for those times when a longer introductory game is desired.  Generic Tickets will need to be collected for the Games on Demand sessions and then Handed into Kat Miller who will act as “Handler” for the G.O.D. Volunteers and the IGE Gms.

If your interested in running Registered Games as part of The Indie Games Explosion at Gencon, or interested in being a Games On Demand volunteer pm Kat Miller.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

I'm not familiar with the Indie Games Explosion.  Can you tell me some about it?

Peace,

-Troy

[Kat Miller]

Hi Troy,

An IGE is an organized set of Indie RPGs being run at a con.  Throught the organizational efforts of my husband Michael S. Miller, Tony Lower-Basch and others there have been Indie Games Explosions at Dreamtion and Dex Con in Jersey, and Gen Con.  Here's Michael's post from last year explaining the benifits.

While anyone can submit an event at these conventions, what we had noticed at smaller Cons was that new and cool games seem to always run back to back.  Often both games would fold or one game would swallow the players of another when if they had just scedualled cooperatively then the games could have both gone off to the joy of the gms preparing those events and the even joy players.

This is not such a big deal for Gen Con since Gen Con is Gi-normous.  At Gen Con organized cooperative game schedualling is a way of further marketing your game, or further supporting the games you love. And ofcourse its fun.
if you run enough events you can even earn a complimentary GM badge.



-kat

[Michael S. Miller]

C'mon, people! We've got to get on the ball with this! If you want to be involved in an organized series of scheduled, ticketed events at GenCon Indy 2006, SAY SO BEFORE FRIDAY, MARCH 17. You don't need to know exactly what you want to run or when (we'll delve into that next week), but we do need people who are willing to run scheduled games at GenCon.

Let me reiterate some of the pros:

• An organized group of events creates a second center of Forge activity. Being active in more physical locations around the con means being seem by more people. This year's new Game On Demand will aid in this immensely.

• Having designers, booth ninjas, and others run scheduled, ticketed events gives them somewhere else to be during a few hours of the day, and helps relieve the crowding issue at the booth that many people have complained about.

• It's a way for fans of our games to help out (by running events) without requiring them to purchase an exhibitor badge. In fact, if they run 96 player-hours worth of games, they get the cost of their GenCon badge reimbursed. This does NOT apply to exhibitor badges.

• It reaches players who comb the event listings looking for new things rather than primarily cruising the exhibit hall. How many times did someone tell you "I can't sit down for a demo, I've got a game in 10 minutes"? With scheduled events, your game will BE the destination.

• Many folks have already bought the game, but want a more in-depth look at the mechanics, or just the thrill of playing with the designer. As a fellow game enthusiast, and as good customer service, you generally want to run your game for these folks. But you also don't want to lose a potential sale, or take up a demo table where someone else could be demoing their game for a quick sale. Ticketed events, particularly those after booth hours (like Luke does) handle these folks nicely.

The event coordinator for this year's Indie RPG Explosion is Kat Miller. She and I will be doing most of the work of dealing-with-GenCon, but we need people interested in running games.

[LordSmerf]

I meant to chime in on this earlier, but...  I definitely want to be involved in the IGE at GenCon this year.  The Games on Demand track really excites me, and I definitely want to be involved in that.

Last year was my first GenCon, and there were a couple of games there that I really, really wanted to get a longer look at that I didn't end up buying.  So, count me in.  If I can do anything to help organize stuff or whatever please let me know.

Thomas

[Eric Provost]

Hiya,

Lisa and I are already signed up to GM a bunch-o indie games at GenCon this year.  On our list are The Mountain Witch, Dogs in the Vineyard, The Shab-al-Hiri Roach, and My Life with Master.

Let us know what we can do to help out.

-Eric

[Andrew Cooper]

I'm volunteering.

I can run Capes, Sorcerer and I could help out with a Burning Wheel game that someone else ran.  I'm just not comfortable enough with BW yet to go solo.  I could also do FATE or the Pool.

[Kat Miller]

Eric.

If you've already submitted your games thats great.  If they come back for review add 

Indie Games Explosion

in the very first field where it says Gaming Group/Sponsor.

I believe I'm supposed to complie and submit all the other entries for the Explosion so that they all have my ID number as the  Event Organizor ID- but thats just important in counting the game hours for complimentary badges.  The important thing is to run the games and get people excited about them.

Either way pm me with your schedual of events

thanks
-kat