[Conpulsion, Edinburgh] Indie Games Track post-con review

[Malcolm Craig]

This was the first year that the Indie Games Track was running at the Conpulsion convention in Edinburgh and, overall, I would say it was an unqualified success.

Prior to the convention, the IGT was touted heavily on the convention website, local games society fora and so forth, all helping to generate interest and enthusiasm. Furthermore, on the opening day of the convention, the IGT was the first thing you saw when turning to the 'roleplaying games' section of the booklet. It was obvious to the casual reader that this was part of a large, organised event spread over the weekend. At the sign-up desk for con games, the sign-up sheet for the IGT were differentiated by being 1) Much larger than the other sign-up sheets (all the games for one day were consolidated on a single A3 sheet) 2) By having the logos of the games being played prominently on display and 3) By having guidelines for the IGT appearing right next to the sign up sheet.

There was also a great deal of enthusiasm on the part of the GMs who volunteered their time for the event, enthusiasm which communicated itself to those taking part in the games. Handily, we also managed to use a distinct area of the one of the con rooms as a dedicated 'Indie Games Track' playing area, complete with banner hanging over the table, comfortable couches and plenty of room for everyone. We had also made up a leaflet detailing where to get various indie games to be handed out to players at the end of a session.

Finally, there was a range of games chosen to appeal to a wide range of tastes and interests, with numerous styles and genres represented. The games run were:

Covenant
Dogs In The Vineyard
Dust Devils
Inspectres
kill puppies for satan
The Mountain Witch
Polaris
The Shadow of Yesterday
Sweet Dreams
With Great Power

As an adjunct, Joe Prince was also on hand running games of 'Contenders' and 'Piledrivers & Powerbombs', to great acclaim from those who took part.

So in conclusion, the event was a great success: all the games ran to time, the slots were all full, GMs were happy, players were happy, enthused and enjoyed the games. In all honesty, the entire thing ran without a hitch, so there are already plans in the works for a bigger and better version next year!

Thanks to Per Fischer, Gregor Hutton, Matt Machell, Joe Murphy and Brian Nisbet for giving their time to run games at the IGT, it was very much appreciated.

Cheers
Malcolm

[Matt Machell]

I really enjoyed myself. Key points for me:

Lots of signups - No game went without players, we could easily have catered for more.
Lots of Enthusiasm - players constantly surprised me in cool ways and everybody threw themselves into things with great gusto. People left the games saying stuff like "I wish I'd got round to playing that sooner!"
Cool moments - a couple of those "light goes on" moments as something clicks for players

There were a couple of things I'd do differently next time:

One less player in the Covenant demo (5 is too many)
Mountain Witch could have done with more prep
Not getting a very early flight on Friday that left me shattered for the rest of the Con.
I could have played more!

-Matt

[Joe Murphy (Broin)]

I could have run a couple more games myself, easily. We had games running, what, every 90 minutes during the two days of the con? Next time, it'd be cool to have two or more games going on simultaneously.

I was very pleased that two people went away to buy copies of the games. I think we could even have sold people on the games, if we had more time to explain how self-contained the games were, or how little prep they required.

I was surprised the slots all filled. I really expected to have to go round and yell at punters.

Joe.

[Malcolm Craig]

I really enjoyed myself. Key points for me:

Lots of signups - No game went without players, we could easily have catered for more.
Lots of Enthusiasm - players constantly surprised me in cool ways and everybody threw themselves into things with great gusto. People left the games saying stuff like "I wish I'd got round to playing that sooner!"
Cool moments - a couple of those "light goes on" moments as something clicks for players

There were a couple of things I'd do differently next time:

One less player in the Covenant demo (5 is too many)
Mountain Witch could have done with more prep
Not getting a very early flight on Friday that left me shattered for the rest of the Con.
I could have played more!

I think your highlights are shared by the other GMs, certainly by me. In addition, your points regarding stuff that could be done differently next time around are well made. With more games running, there would be less of an emphasis on providing space for players in an individual game. And thanks for stepping in to run MW. I know Iain was very keen to run it, but as he had never run the game before, he wasn't too sure about making it a positive experience for the players. So, you saved the day there!

I could have run a couple more games myself, easily. We had games running, what, every 90 minutes during the two days of the con? Next time, it'd be cool to have two or more games going on simultaneously.

I was very pleased that two people went away to buy copies of the games. I think we could even have sold people on the games, if we had more time to explain how self-contained the games were, or how little prep they required.

I was surprised the slots all filled. I really expected to have to go round and yell at punters.

Indeed e could probably have run more games. It was great that Joe (Prince) stepped up and ran two games as well, great to see the enthusiasm generated by them. In fact, playing in 'Pilesdrivers & Powerbombs' seemed to be the highlight of the weekend for Stuart, who is a huge wrestling fan and was massively enthused about P&P.

I think more people will buy games based on the IGT. There were certainly a couple of players from the DitV game who commented to me that they would be ordering it based on their experience. Not having to actively rustle up players was great, the slots just filled themselves. Next year we can almost certainly say that the IGT will get bigger and better.

Thanks for commenting on the event and even bigger thanks for taking the time out to run some marvellous games.

Cheers
Malcolm

[Joe J Prince]

I had such a great time at Conpulsion, it was fantastic.

24 minute RPGs are the way of the future.

I reckon I had as much fun running Piledrivers & Powerbombs as Stuart did playing, I've got to do an actual play post of that game. I'm left with a fleeting image of Joe Murphy's zombie wrestler running off to the frozen north with pygmies clinging to his back! (Joe left to prep his Polaris game).

I wish I could have played a few more games, but there's just not enough time to do everything.

Bring on the Scotch mini-con!

Cheers
JoE

[Jonny Nexus]

This was the first year that the Indie Games Track was running at the Conpulsion convention in Edinburgh and, overall, I would say it was an unqualified success.

Yeah, I'd just like to say (in fact, I registered here just so that I could say it) that I think it was a great idea, superly executed, and to those who know you and me and who might be shouting "fix" right now I'll add that I'm not just saying that because we're mates.

Not only were all three games I played in well run, but I think that the format itself aided my enjoyment. I personally found that I very much enjoyed the one-hour slot. In one afternoon, I managed to play three different, really enjoyable games, do some shopping in the trade hall, and nip out for a bite to eat. I'm pretty certain that I wouldn't have got as much fun out of a single, traditional, three-hour game. For a con, these kind of "bite-sized samples" work perfectly, IMHO.

Is there any chance of putting the scenarios up on the web somewhere? Having bought one of the games, I'd quite like to try running one of my groups through the scenario I played. (And I do realise that being mini-scenarios, they probably won't consist of anything more than the character sheets and a one paragraph premise).

I was very pleased that two people went away to buy copies of the games. I think we could even have sold people on the games, if we had more time to explain how self-contained the games were, or how little prep they required.

Well I bought one of the games, Shadow of Yesterday, and would have bought Dust Devils too if the stall in the Trade Hall had possessed a copy. I'm definitely going to try and get hold of a copy.

I think that not only did the demos hightlight the quality of the games concerned, but I think they also highlighted the qualities of Indy games in general. I have to confess that I might, in the past, possibly on only a few unfortunate out-of-context examples, have slightly, perhaps, maybe (can I stop throwing in qualifiers now?) have bought into the common misconception that the Forge is a place where elitists gather to discuss esoteric theories that have nothing whatsoever to do with the games that real people play. I'm not saying I was a hard-core believer in that stereotype, but my thoughts towards the Forge were pretty much, "Meh! Whatever."

But having played these games I realised how wrong that stereotype was, because my immediate thought was, "Wow! If this is the sort of stuff that's coming out of the Forge then I want me some of that."

So here I am. So if part of the motivation behind the Indy Games Track was to evangalise not merely the games being demoed themselves, but the Indy design movement itself, then score one success, because here I am.