[Mechaton] - Why yes, it *is* Lego. And no, I didn't have to paint them!

[Darcy Burgess]

That was pretty much my elevator pitch about Mechaton at CanGames 2009.  I ran one game, and had a hell of a lot of walk-up traffic.  (Note to self and VB -- since your clever design includes no record sheets, there's no convenient place to put your URL.  This makes marketing difficulterer.  Next time, do not lose pad of notepaper.)

The game was super fun.  'nuff said.  Tense more or less up until the last turn, when the writing was really on the wall.  We had three factions, and two of the guys didn't clue into the fact that they were hammering too much on each other, instead of the guy who was running away with the game.  Tough noogies, losers!

Vincent, I did have one rules question crop up in play -- what do you do with tied initiative dice?  At the table, I spot ruled thusly: you break the tie when the initiative number comes up, preserving some of the tension.  It worked, although it meant that the flow of battle was interrupted a bit by tie-breaking initiative rolls.

Excellent good fun was had.

The minister of truth's hidey-hole was unearthed, and that dirty bastard is now in the tender care of the masters of Zyclon complex.

D

[lumpley]

Yay!

That's how we handle initiative ties too. We roll d20s for initiative but of course there are still tons of ties. "I go on 15." "Me too." "I go on [roll] 15 point 7." "I go on [roll] 15 point 13. You're up."

Someday I will sit down with myself and figure out some marketing things. Like: if people are running Mechaton at a con, they should at least have some Mechaton business cards with my url on them to hand to interested passersby, right?

I'm glad you had super fun.

-Vincent

[Darcy Burgess]

Hey Vincent,

I think we did initiative more or less the same, except that we didn't break ties until that specific initiative number (the "15" in your example) was up.

Business cards would be super-swank.

The best pitch I had that day was a rapid-fire back and forth with a nice fellow.  He was skeptical but curious.  He wanted to know where all the record sheets were (I pointed to the scrap scattered across the battlefield).  He wanted to know what the best part of the game was ("We'll finish our game, not like those guys..." [point at Battletech game].)  We went through a pile of questions.  By the end of it, he looked genuinely interested and asked if I was running another slot (Alas, no.)  He thanked me and his parting comment was something like, "Wish I'd invented this."

When he turned to walk away, I noticed that he was wearing swag from these guys.

I did have super fun!  And I wasn't even chucking dice!  It's a fun game to facilitate, too!
D

[David Artman]

Someday I will sit down with myself and figure out some marketing things.

I wonder if you could affordably make mini-kits using LEGO Digital Designer, with the info on the box (I *think* it lets you name the model and add another line, to the box design)? Or maybe you could approach LEGO themselves?

But those are more like product-line angles. For cheap-and-disposable swag, the flier or business card is the best bet. And if you do *that*, may I recommend a trick Looney Labs does? Make the front of a card (or the bulk of a given flier) about a particular game, and then list all your other products on the back of the card/flier. So you'd have a Mechaton-focused card--with Lego figure art, game name and slogan, and Mechaton-specific URL--and then the back would have DITV, IAWA, etc listed, with your "umbrella" URL for all your products. Ditto, for a DITV card, IAWA card, etc.

Also, another note: if you make a flier (three-fold, let's say) be sure to print one of the backs (the back after folded) with your physical return address, a postage stamp box, and a blank area for writing or printing a physical address. That way, your product flier(s) can also be mailers. Just a thought.

But the IDEAL would be to be able to print the game name and URL onto an actual LEGO, say a 2x8 brick. *sigh* No *idea* how much that would cost, once you found a printer that could do the printing... if you're curious, contact some local people who print on coffee mugs and frisbees and pencils and shit--they know SOMEONE who can setup a web press to pass LEGOs under it, especially if they're stacked together into large "sheets". Hmmm.... actually, that might not be so expensive after all, come to think of it. Most of that marketing giveaway stuff (the cheep stuff like lanyards and keyrings and pens) runs in the pennies-per-unit range.

...But wait until Mechaton Rebuilt, though.

[Mantisking]

I did have super fun!  And I wasn't even chucking dice!  It's a fun game to facilitate, too!

I've taught a couple of people how to play, moderating the games, and I agree that can be just as fun.