ConQuest San Francisco

[thwaak]

Hello Folks,

I'll be attending ConQuest San Francisco (www.conquestsf.com) in early September and am eager to try my hand at some of the indie RPGs being played 'officially' there (Dogs, With Great Power, and so on).

My question is...Is anybody from the Forge (and by that I mean, indie RPG publishers) attending in an official capacity as a guest, just for play, or as a retailer. I've love to pick up some games that are hard to find via normal gamestores, and am hoping that indie press has some kind of presence there.

Thanks.
-Brent

[thwaak]

OK, so I found a list of exhibitors at ConQuest, and no indie presence. Disappointing, although hopefully someone will still carry some iRPGs.

This does bring up a thought (and perhaps this is the wrong forum for it)...how can iRPGS have a better presence at local - not big name - conventions, beyond simply going to the one that you live near?  I find that at cons, most gamers are willing to experiment and branch out. It's the perfect time to grab new fans, but if there is nothing for them to buy or no advertising at "LocalCon", then iRPGs have lost out.

Perhaps a network could be set up via IPR (for example) where they can have an exhibitor cover a geographical region for conventions, stocked with the best of iRPGs.

-Brent

[EndGame]

Hi there,

Chris from EndGame here. We will be there with as much of the full line up from IPR as we can bring. We have been repping the indie scene at local cons this whole year. We have a fantastic relationship with Brennen and IPR, so stop by and we will be happy to help out as best as we can.

We are hoping Conquest is even better this year, so see ya there!

[thwaak]

Hi there,

Chris from EndGame here. We will be there with as much of the full line up from IPR as we can bring. We have been repping the indie scene at local cons this whole year. We have a fantastic relationship with Brennen and IPR, so stop by and we will be happy to help out as best as we can.

We are hoping Conquest is even better this year, so see ya there!

Excellent. Thank You!

[EndGame]

No worries, we are all about supporting the Indy scene whenever we can :)

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

This makes me wonder if, perhaps, a sort of "pseudo-rep" for iRPGs would be a good idea.

Just spitballing, but.... suppose someone starts a thread (or whole forum?) that lets us post local cons? Then, repliers can volunteer to run a booth or just do pick-up games or what-not for any iRPGs that would like to be represented. Or, likewise, a "local" could post a "willing to rep" thread and designers could make arrangements within that thread (basically, promote oneself as a volunteer rep, or announce a con and request a volunteer rep).

I see these issues:
o Game to Play - Obviously, if someone is volunteering their free time at a con to help demo a designer's game, the designer really should be good enough to get a copy of it into the pseudo-rep's hands, no?
o Games to Sell - Maybe a form of consignment or just a plain-old distribution and debt model could put a some additional copies of each represented game into the hands of the pseudo-rep.
o Dealer Fees - If the con requires dealers to register and pay for space, then pseudo-rep could charge a variable percentage of that fee to each designer (i.e. if I rep five games, I split the fee 20% to each designer).
o Demoing Priority - Unless Dealer Fees come into play, we'd need some way to prioritize or present demos: one demo for each game, demos chosen by attendee vote, whatever. Obviously, anyone sending product would have some say in this prioritization scheme.
o Selling Logistics - As above, if the revenue model for the pseudo-rep is not consignment or dealer-distribution, then some means to compensate the designer (or rep?) would have to be resolved.

Assuming we don't want money to enter the picture, vis a vis actually representing games, then it could be that the "best" way to do such small-scale representation is to just comp the pseudo-rep a copy of the game you want demoed (including copies of a sell sheet and contact info) and then let sign-ups or whatever the con supports dictate the Demo Priority. Basically, we'd want to figure out issues of (a) compensation for rep, (b) money for product, (c) costs of rep presence, and (d) marketing goals for the given con.

Anyone else think this is a workable way to extend iRPG exposure out of the MegaCons and into the local and college scenes?
David

[cdr]

I heard someone's running Dogs in the Vineyard Friday at ConQuest SF.  I'd be glad to run Dogs in open gaming for as much of the con as there's anyone interested in playing, and can demo Dogs and possibly Polaris if there's interest in that.

Endgame's booth last year had an excellent selection of Indie Games and I'd hope they'll have a selection of the new hotness from Gencon, for folks that don't get out to that.

If anyone's interested in playing Dogs at ConQuest SF feel free to PM or email me at cdr AT telemancy.com.  No experience necessary, I'm always happy to teach new dogs old tricks.

--Carl Rigney

[cdr]

In the grand Forge tradition of "He who speaks of the cat should bell it" I've set up a Wiki for coordinating Indie games in open gaming at ConQuest 2006 <http://www.avalonconventions.com/conquestsf/> at http://www.flick.com/wiki/IndieRPG/ConQuest2006 . I'm willing to run Dogs for anyone that's interested, especially people who haven't had a chance to play before.

Or you can sign up to run something officially, although the event submission page doesn't seem to say when the cut-off date for that is.

[Thomas D]

how can iRPGS have a better presence at local - not big name - conventions, beyond simply going to the one that you live near?

I'm planning on running a game of PTA and a game of something else (Lacuna?) at our local convention in November (TusCon 33).  One thing I'd like to see is if the various game designers (or IPR) had a short advertising pdf I could print out that I can hand out to the players at the table.  I doubt that any of the dealers at our small con will have any indie games.  Providing the players with a takeaway of where they can purchase their own copies of the game might get a few more sales and some more exposure to the world of iRPGs.

Heck, why not advertising flyers for the Forge itself for con takeaways?

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

Thomas, IIRC, sell sheets are all-but "standard" for both booths and demos for iRPGs. It's pretty much the only non-electronic advertising channel available to (typically small budget) iRPGs.

Refering above, to the pseudo-rep idea, these sell sheets would either
(a) come with the demo copy of the game (or with the sell copies) or
(b) be compiled by the pseudo-rep from those games to be demoed.

I do not think a sort of "default" sell sheet will work that well, because it might pitch games for which the pseudo-rep got no designer support. That's unfair to those who take the effort to equip the rep, in my opinion; never mind if there's actual compensatory money on the table for the rep from some designers (ex: fees to be in the vendor's area).

HTH;
David

[Thomas D]

That's exactly what I'm getting at, David.  I'd like to get a sell sheet so I can had one out, but I don't know where to get one.   I'm not affiliated with IPR or any of the game designers apart from having played their games, but I'm totally jazzed about playing some of these games for others.  All I'll be doing at the con in question is running two games -- no booth, no selling.  If the players enjoyed the game, I'd like to send them home with information on where to purchase the game. 

I could create a flyer to hand out at the end of the game session that points to IPR, RPGNow, or the designer's website.  But for that, I'd grab the 72dpi logos off the websites and the graphics on my flyers will wind up looking chunky and unprofessional.  There's also the chance that the copy I put on the flyers might not be what the designers or sellers would want on them.

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

If the players enjoyed the game, I'd like to send them home with information on where to purchase the game.
...I'd grab the 72dpi logos off the websites and the graphics on my flyers will wind up looking chunky and unprofessional.  There's also the chance that the copy I put on the flyers might not be what the designers or sellers would want on them.

Ah, je vous comprende, maintenant.

Yes, you will want to get buy-in from the designers, if you are going to actually promote a game. It's only fair to them, as they have a right to control how they are represented. Of course, that said, there's nothing about playing a game at a con that requires designer buy-in: Wizards isn't exactly endorsing every d20 game played, right? In the grand scheme of things, there's nothing stopping you from printing out some web contact and buying info onto some simple paper strips (i.e. twenty "handouts" per sheet). Should take about ten minutes in Word and cost about 7¢ a sheet at even the most expensive copy center.

Of course, there's a really good chance that you'd need only e-mail each designer, and they'd already have a sell sheet or other handout(s) ready (ex: for GenCon). For example, if you were pimping my game, I'd mail you a package with freebie shotGLASS rules, business cards, and even sample spell packets, Object cards, and character cards. Basically, I believe a designer who wants his or her game well-represented should eliminate all variables and just provide his or her own giveaways to a demoer/rep.

Have fun with it!
David