Gen-Con Indie Passport Critiques & Comments

[Robert Bohl]

People coming up for stamps wound up in one of two situations, with me.

1) I asked them what I could help them with and got them talking about the games before I even knew there were there for a stamp (thus, mission accomplished).

2) They presented with a passport out or where they brought it up very early in the conversation. I said immediately that I'd be happy to stamp them and as I got it asked if they wanted to know about the booth. I cannot recall anyone saying no and only a couple of people making me feel like they were humoring me (and I think I have a pretty good bullshit detector). If anyone just wanted the stamp, and then to leave, I'd have happily accommodated them.

[TonyLB]

Or perhaps each booth gives them a question that they then get answered at a different booth.

Like, the Play Collective booth could stamp a question section with "In Stealing Away Jordan you play ..." and then direct folks across the way to the Forge booth in order to get the answer "Slaves."

I'd want more than just a single question, though, or else people are going to get REALLY sick of answering it.  I expect the cost of different stamps would preclude too many questions that way, but maybe address-label type stickers would work just as well.

[WildElf]

Like, the Play Collective booth could stamp a question section with "In Stealing Away Jordan you play ..." and then direct folks across the way to the Forge booth in order to get the answer "Slaves."

Hmm.  When I went to the Hollow Earth booth, and a question was mentioned, I was REALLY concerned it was going to be trivia thing.  So making you go to multiple booths to answer questions, especially when some of them might be remote, I think will be more likely to turn people off to it.

The most enjoyable part for me is going to booths I wouldn't have thought to go to.  Notably, Engle-Matrix, Keith Senkowski, and 7th Circle. And it wasn't really anything they did (well, except maybe Chris's quick demo of one of his games at Matrix), and was mostly striking up conversations about their stuff.  In Kieth's case I wouldn't have thought to enter the artist gallery, much less seek him out, even though I've loved his work in Conspiracy of Shadows and Hero's Banner (so much I bought a print). At 7th Circle I found out about a new space opera game they'll be publishing in a few months that's right up my alley.

There were a couple of booths I went to out of a sense of duty.  If "work" had involved anymore than a stamp and a very quick tour or look at product as the requirement, I would have passed them by entirely.

Most of the rest, I had already visited before I came by for stamping.

This wasn't my introduction into Indie games, although it did open up my eyes to how many booths were involved.  But as my first GenCon, it was a fantastic tourbook that prodded me to explore areas that were easy to pass on by in the crowded and overwhelming dealer's hall.

[thelostgm]

For the most part at the Ashcan Front I found the Passport to be a fun tool that helped me start a conversation with someone.  Meaning, they needed to talk to someone at the booth to be able to get their stamp.

For the most part it was quite positive, there was only one guy who came by and refused to talk to me about the booth until I stamped his passport.

[Robert Bohl]

For the most part at the Ashcan Front I found the Passport to be a fun tool that helped me start a conversation with someone.  Meaning, they needed to talk to someone at the booth to be able to get their stamp.

For the most part it was quite positive, there was only one guy who came by and refused to talk to me about the booth until I stamped his passport.

I know who that guy was, and he is a terrible person who should be no one's metric of what behavior is or ought to be. He's an outlier in every sense.

[Lisa Padol]

From a con-goer perspective:

I know one guy who didn't take the passport because he didn't want to have to "jump through the hoops", as he put it. This isn't a problem; he's opting out.

Josh and I each took one. I did not and never intended to hand mine in. It's my souvenir. It was also my guide to 11 places to make sure to visit. This is the first year I made time to see the art show. All of the art show -- I plotted a path to make sure I'd see Keith only after I'd seen the rest of the show.

Only one booth made me do anything to get the passport stamped, for which I am quite grateful. It takes a lot of time to do the dealers' room, and there are crowds to navigate through. I was exhausted as it was (and brought home a dang cold that lingered for a week).

The one exception was the folks selling Hollow Earth. Their question was, "Which of these characters do you think would be the most fun to play?" I was okay with this, partly because it's relatively non-invasive -- I didn't have to play a demo or anything long -- but partly because they were the only ones making me do anything. They wouldn't take Josh's answer, which was, "All of them, I would hope." I think he went with the Atlantean scion. I went with the movie director.

I didn't play any demos in the dealers' room. This wasn't deliberate, but I'm just as glad. I got tired easily during the convention, and I often feel a bit guilty if I take up a demo spot. And, while I thought of this as a "light" convention, gamingwise, I only played one fewer game than I did at Origins, even if my total number of hours was less.

The Games on Demand area was interesting. I had a problem figuring out how to actually get into a game, which is odd, as I don't think I'm the shy and retiring type. Fortunately, someone asked to get into a game of PtA or DitV, and I said, "Me, too!" Tony ran a fun game, "at speed", as he put it -- and I discovered that I was allergic to the hallway where GoD was. Well, more particularly, to whatever dust was getting stirred up one floor down. This wasn't so bad inside the rooms, which meant that I was not hacking and coughing during Full Light, Full Steam. Then again, my character in PtA smoked, so it was an in character thing. Yeah.

Anyway, for me, the real purpose of the passport was to make sure I got to see as much cool stuff as possible.

My buying patters were interesting as well. Looking at three gaming cons from this year:

Origins: I spent money at the IPR booth (about 300?), and I spent money on used and heavily discounted games. If I paid full price, it was almost certainly indie. (Or a dvd at Cthulhu Corner.)

DexCon: I bought Scion: Hero at a discount, and I bought indie games. Oh, and I got a mask for GenCon, for the Last Night in Carcosa Larp. Great buy -- it was inexpensive and it was on a stick, which meant a) my glasses didn't get in the way and b) I didn't get hot underneath, like the folks who had the gorgeous over the head face masks.

GenCon: I bought almost everything new. One bargain at the auction store (1st ed Mummy), a couple at Chimera, and some last day sales, but other than that -- over 300 at the various booths on the passports. I also got Dark Metropolis and the deluxe edition of Fairy's Tale. And, of course, Changeling: The Lost. Oh, and Chaosium monographs, because this is the only place I can buy them in person and flip through them first.

Yep, the vast majority of my gaming con purchases are indie.

I don't care whether you guys do the stamp the passport thing again, but I do want a guide to the cool booths.

Next year, I am still planning to do Origins. I am not planning to do GenCon, as it conflicts with Mythcon 39, to which Josh and I have already committed -- but we do hope to be back the year after that. And, if there's going to be a lot of construction next year, well, it's not a bad year for me and my sinuses to miss. I am planning to do Dreamation. I am torn about DexCon -- my allergies were painful enough to cause people watching me pain.

I do not know what my budget will be next year. I am trying to buy fewer games that I do not have real reason to think are up my alley. I picked up, I think, 2 games that, on reflection, I probably should not have. OTOH, this year, I discovered the joys of shopping by proxy for friends who don't get to these conventions.

-Lisa

[Thunder_God]

I liked the passport. I didn't like having to answer a question at the Hollow Earth Expedition booth, and I did do it just to humor them.

I actually referred to empty passports after I completed mine, because they were the easiest way for me to locate booths. I want to note one booth was very hard to find due to the placement it had, and even knowing its number it took me 10-15 mins to find it.

I am very sad in retrospect that I don't have my stamped passport as a souvenir.