Damn. There's no going back. No way.

[Andy Kitkowski]

NOTE: This is NOT a rant.  But it IS a ramble. Read only if you have time to kill.

I had NO idea where to put this topic, but since it involves "play", I put it here.  There's no "Mad props for indies games" forum, so I'll have to make do here.

Trinoc-Con 2002. Raleigh, NC.

Been there all three days.  Played a total of two games, ran one game myself, and ran a discussion panel on SF RPGs.

I did a lot of thinking about games that weekend. A lot about a lot of things. RPGs (my biggest "mental hobby") in my life and my future. Whether I should (or even can) try to publish my own game or not. That sort of thing. I also kept my eyes on the other gaming tables.

My first game of Sorcerer folded- It was early Friday afternoon, and only the hardcore RPG folks were there. Most were RPGA members playing "Living D&D" sessions, advancing their favorite characters at another convention. Couldn't get anyone to sign up.  This happened at 75% of the tables that period, so I'm not bitter.  I saw some folks running 7th Sea (a big gaming group from Greensboro who run an area "Living 7th Sea" kind of thing). I gave that a shot. Two hours for two of us to make characters, 2 hours of adventure.

Interesting system.  I remember the effort the other dude put into spreading his 100 chargen points around. The GM and other player were showing him how, using the core book and splats, he could make his "Spanish" character more effective at what he wanted to do. Drop the whole "Noble" thing and "Scholarly Past" bit. You can load up more on skills and combat powers that way. That sort of thing.

I ran through character creation in about 10 minutes. I found it a little tedious to go through and spread those points around, but I tossed them in a way that let me create the kind of guy I wanted.  I picked shit out of the book that sounded cool without looking at the "abilities" that they affected. After about the third time I politely refused to edit my character to make him better at something, the GM just sat back and let me spend those points around.  I could tell he was picking out the "wasted areas" of my sheet. Could have been more acrobatic or attractive if I didn't make my Russain mercenary into an armchair scholar. Could have been better at my sword if I didn't take that background as a recognized military hero.

Oh well.  I don't remember the details of the adventure anyway.  The rules had some REALLY cool twists, but it came off to me as D&D with some nifty rules stapled to its ass. No offense to the GM, he really knew his stuff. Still, I don't recall that much about it. We grabbed some sort of artifact in a cave and sold it to someone else.

When we were poring over characters, in a silent moment, I overheard a quick rules argument from the other table ("clarification", actually- Just the GM and player tossing justifications about before they reached a conclusion some minute or two later). They were arguing about how Attacks of Opportunity would come into play for a player action in that round of combat. 4 people, not really excitedly, were kinda slumped in their chairs as the GM and the player had the exchange. Miniatures on the table, little cups and stuff simulating terrain and the like. One of the players, a little girl, was using a stick to measure distances, so that on her next round (when it would come after the argument, a few minutes later- Each of which consisted of a player saying "I fire" ... "I shoot"...etc) she could get the modifiers to hit right.

It took me a few minutes to realize they were playing Star Wars.  STAR. F*CKING. WARS. Attack of the Very Bored Looking Clones, perhaps.

Anyway, the 7th Sea adventure was over. I had fun, for a new game and all. Still couldn't quite grasp the damage system, though.  I realized a couple hours later that I couldn't remember the names of any of the characters, or why we were doing what we did.

I remember _EVERYTHING_ about the game of Dread I played with Rafael and the three folks he got to play (their game was cancelled). Incredible game?  Dunno, haven't gotten my copy to read through yet. Incredible concept, though. And it got my mind racing like I had sucked coke through a funnel and grabbed an electric fence at the same time. I made my character in FOUR MINUTES, and I can still tell you his name, what his past was, why he became a disciple, and everything that happened in the adventure, especially the bits he took part in.

The next morning, I ran a game of heavily modified Sorcerer (like Urge meets Mad Max) with 4 strangers. I was a little nervous, having never played through a full session of Sorcerer before, and never having ran this game. I _guess_ I did well, as the people playing in the game (a woman who hadn't played RPGs for 10 years, a friend of (Dread's) Rafael's, a college Freshman and one of the guys running the 7th Sea games stopped the action no fewer than four times to tell me how cool this game was, to get more info on Sorcerer and Urge, and to ask me more about the background of the world. I was exhausted when it ended, but it was so satisfying to hear their compliments again when the game ended.  Hadn't felt a people-sponsored rush like that since I was a techno DJ in the "Rave Capital" of the midwest back in college.

I've only been to four gaming conventions: GenCon, GenCon, GenCon and Trinoc-Con. That's about 30+ convention games I've played. These two were hands-down the best.

If I played D&D or Star Wars with any of the GMs (well, not so much the GMs as the other players) there, the con would have sucked for me. Period. I couldn't bring myself to run D&D again, unless I used Dread's "Cool Rule", as well as stuck about 5 other mechanics into the game to make it more to my tastes.  Same with the other games I own and love, like BESM, Aberrant and Tribe 8.

I stuck to Indies games, action-packed products of luuuve, and it really did make all the difference. Kicked my ass into further developing my game. Made me go home, look at my gaming shelf, and start clearing another 3/4 of a shelf to put up on eBay (the fourth such "culling" to happen since I got back from Japan almost two years ago). Got me into focus... somehow... with what RPG-ing means to me, and what I'm going to do about it in the future.

There's no going back to normal RPGs for me. Especially not for conventions. I'm an Indies Man now, and all future games, my own, indies, or "regular off-the-shelf" RPGs will never be the same.

That's all. Maybe some of you have had experiences like this.

-Andy

Edit: BTW, expect Actual Play writeups of the Dread game and my "Kyuseisha"/Sorcerer game this week sometime.

Edit Edit: Didn't mean to sound like I'm dissing D&D too much. I grew up on it. I can still run it and get into it.  But NOT "as is", not anymore. Which is all I can expect to see at a Con game.

[hardcoremoose]

Andy,

Cool post.  Sounds great, and I totally empathize with you.  Not that people sitting around looking bored is necessarily a bad thing; if they like it, more power to 'em, but it aint my thing (anymore).

I would have loved to have seen your Sorcerer session.  Something about the game provokes people to say things like "this is the best game ever", even when you feel like you've done a half-assed job.  And you always feel drained afterwards, thinking that a nice bout of catatonia - just for a day or two - would do you good.  But then everyone wants you to run it again right away, and it becomes a viscious cycle.  Strange, strange game.

- Scott

(eagerly awaiting Dread...perhaps it'll be here today)

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Andy,

I've had the same experience, and I want to focus on the organizational, convention aspects in my post. I think that the traditional idea of a big, signed-up, get-enough-people model is going to favor games with a lot of setting-recognition + title-recognition, not games that necessarily are going to be the most fun.

The more I think about it, the more I'm determined to change the way that (some) people are going to experience con play, with this past GenCon's Forge booth being the foundation. A bunch of small tables, with a few people around them (and yeah, a couple of times they bloated, but that's OK as a factor of demand); people observably having fun playing a variety of games across these tables; other people hangin' out and willing to chat and sell.

In other words, blend the commerce with the play, and have the play be as-nearly-spontaneous as possible in con terms. Few if any sign-ups, no sense of "gotta get six people or I fold" - instead, "When I get three people, we go!" without a deadline. And have lots of games be associated with this activity, not a whole ton of isolated games who happen to be occupying the same space.

As for your comments about play, I agree. The very same things happened around our off-booth play at GenCon and Origins - we were leapin' around with The Riddle of Steel, and I'd look over at a [name withheld] game with everyone kind of slumping and glazed-looking, and I'd look away because it was too painful.

I look back on hours and years spent with certain games and say, "OK, that's what we did, and I must have wanted to do it, but I've changed, now." What's especially interesting is that now I think I'm more diverse as a role-player than I was before, not less.

Best,
Ron

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Ron,

Since you've given this a lot more thought than I have, how might one get players for the lesser known games when one isn't inside a cavernous huckster arena?

Here's the set up at the local L.A. con: Sign up tables at the lobby level, and then a gazillion rooms rented out for individual games.

The seperate rooms are great for actually playing, but bad for drawing new folks just walking by.  

Any thoughts?  Anybody?

Christopher

[Mike Holmes]

The seperate rooms are great for actually playing, but bad for drawing new folks just walking by.  

Um, don't run in the rooms? Move out into a common well attended area. Open gaming, or whatever is available.

If you have to be in a room, step out into the hall, and accost passersby. Wave signs. Shout at the top of your lungs. Whatever you can make work.

Most importantly, be a part of a larger organization. Want to run something like Little Fears? Have three GMs ready to go, and be shanghaiing people constantly. The people who have entire rooms scoped out for themselves seem to do pretty well. As in the Cthulhu groups like Rougue Cthulhu, or What the Puck Productions.

Wear costumes. The Run out the Guns demo does well because they dress like Pirates and act obnoxiously (we actually did shanghai players into playing in one game), and noisily (few louder than Jason "Hawk" Hawkins).

For those small, poorly attended Cons, you may just be outta luck. A lot of the attendees will be there for their favorite game, and nothing else. As such there may just not be much you can do. But it's always worth a try.

Oh, and one more thing. Get to know the con crowd. Nothing like being able to waylay some of the other Forge gamers into playing a session if you need to round out a group. If we're not there, maybe you can get one of the many other common Con goers to play if you've met them. Like the InSpectres game this last GenCon in Ron's room where they co-opted Jeff Dee into playing.

We almost got Ken Hite to play Universalis at Game Day a couple of weeks ago, and there were only like twenty people at that.  :-)

Mike

[Christopher Kubasik]

Ummm,

Thanks, Mike.  I guess.

You should know that not only do I know how to make a spectacle of myself in costume, but I've also done it naked.  This I don't need more pointers on.

I was looking for more organized methods to the madness.  Ron seems to have an eye for that.

Thanks for the reply though.

Christopher

[Andy Kitkowski]

If you have to be in a room, step out into the hall, and accost passersby. Wave signs. Shout at the top of your lungs. Whatever you can make work.

Yeah, I admit that we got people to play Dread when I told Raf that he should go over and nab three people at a table of an obviously cancelled game.

They had so much fun that they came back for the next and final session.

Afterwards (I spoke to one of the three the next morning) they realized that if it weren't for Dread (or alternately, Rafael mosey-ing over to them to drag them into a game they'd never even heard of) the convention would have been a bust.

So there you go.  Drag folks in!

Personally, I'd be put off by Ren-faire costumed pirate grognards accosting me to play anything, as I'm much more timid.  I'd go for the humble and sincere approach.

Y'know: Hands clasped; "Say, if you folks are free, we're playing a game over here and we could always use a few more folks... Would you be interested?"

That sort of thing.

[Mike Holmes]

You should know that not only do I know how to make a spectacle of myself in costume, but I've also done it naked.  This I don't need more pointers on.

Well then, lordy, man! I can't imagine why you are having difficulties. :-)

Anyway, perhaps we need to look at the idea of creating a corps of players (again) to support play at smaller Cons, etc. Y'know, a list of people who all list the Cons they'll be attending. A sort of alternative to the RPGA, if you will, that would be all about trying to get together with likeminded Indy players to support sessions like Andy's. Make plans online to meet before the Con, and get organized about setting things up. That sort of thing.

Could be done here, I suppose, but might not be right in line with The Forge's mandates (OTOH, maybe it would; you'd have to ask Ron and Clinton). Anyhow, easier said than done to get such a group going. You tend to get a small core membership, and few other dedicated members. Given that players will probably mostly only attend local Cons of the size we're discussing, this would be problematic. Still, it might work with enough dedication or a charismatic leader or something.

Can anyone else think of another way to organize?

Mike

[Paul Czege]

Hey Ron,

The more I think about it, the more I'm determined to change the way that (some) people are going to experience con play, with this past GenCon's Forge booth being the foundation.

At GenCon, in the dealer room, I played Sorcerer for a half hour, Dust Devils for an hour, Riddle of Steel for an hour, Universalis for an hour, etc. It was a lotta lotta fun. But, y'know...those games all felt like demos...in pretty much the same way that hors d'oevres feel like appetizers.

Personally, I'm not interested in a consensual preferencing of half- to one-hour demo style games entirely at the expense of more substantive, and in my mind, exponentially more rewarding three-hour games. To me, the dealer room stuff serves a different purpose. For someone with narrativist interests, the convention is a fantastic chance to have some substantive games in a concentrated environment of like-minded individuals that I don't often otherwise have a chance to experience. Can we clarify just how much of the con experience we're planning to change?

I'd actually like to see people hooking up electronically, using conference calling and stuff to have discussions and chargen pre-convention in preparation for after-hours games. It seems to me the place for the spontaneous stuff is during the day, and after-hours stuff calls for a different kind of effort to reconstruct the experience.

Paul

[Andy Kitkowski]

It was a lotta lotta fun. But, y'know...those games all felt like demos...in pretty much the same way that hors d'oevres feel like appetizers.

Totally agree. However, the power of the demo cannot be underestimated :)... Hmmm...

"Hey, did you like that game? Well, I'm running a FULL session of it tomorrow afternoon in slots 13 and 14.  Here's a flier. Feel free to stop by."

The Indies booth at the convention could be the "Gateway Drug"  ("Gateway Game"?), as it were.

I'd love to start a Noble Order of Indies Gamers.  That would be cool. I see shirts. I see mini demos leading to longer demos and game sales.  I see Indies contingents, like RPGA, at every convention in the world.

But most importantly, I see hockey jersies!

[Jeffrey Miller]

Personally, I'd be put off by Ren-faire costumed pirate grognards accosting me to play anything, as I'm much more timid.  I'd go for the humble and sincere approach.

Y'know: Hands clasped; "Say, if you folks are free, we're playing a game over here and we could always use a few more folks... Would you be interested?"

That sort of thing.

Depends on the game, doesn't it?

[jrients]

Depends on the game, doesn't it?

I don't know.  I'll have to agree with Andy on this one.  Me dressing up in an eyepatch and saying "Arr matey!" a lot may be viewed as enthusiam.  Or it may be viewed as just another fatass fruiting it up at the con.

But then my local con includes a large number of quiet, staid wargamers.

[Jeffrey Miller]

Depends on the game, doesn't it?

I don't know.  I'll have to agree with Andy on this one.  Me dressing up in an eyepatch and saying "Arr matey!" a lot may be viewed as enthusiam.  Or it may be viewed as just another fatass fruiting it up at the con.

Isn't there a nicer way to say that? :(

I think it depends heavily on the game.  If someone dressed in chinos and a polo shirt tried to recruit me for a game of something like "Flaming Harley Wheels of Heavy Metal Thunder" I'd be less interested.  Its all about marketing - if over-the-top slightly goofy game-play is the premise of the game, why shouldn't that translate into the way the game itself is staged?

[jrients]

Isn't there a nicer way to say that? :(

Yes there is.  Sorry bout that.  I was not trying to offend.

[Mike Holmes]

[quote="jrients']Yes there is.  Sorry bout that.  I was not trying to offend.[/quote]
Hey, that's cool, you're point is well taken, actually. Consider well your audience in whatever staging you decide to do. That makes complete sense. And try to do it well, too. That last seems obvious, but I think there's a tendency in gamers to feel that they can get away with whatever sloppy camp they like, and it'll attract players. This is, of course, not the case (I myself have mentally commented on "fruity gamers" before).

For example, when we shanghaied the player we did, it was a well choriographed scene. I had an important line that I declared when we entered the room about who we were loking for and why. In fact, the whole thing was a rather historical re-enactment of how pressgangs (to be technical, we did not Shanghai the player so much as Impressed him; for what the distinction is worth) operated in the Carribean. The idea of the scene was to get player from that room. And it worked. As people finished up that game, lots came over to where we were, and checked out the demo (which I was helping run, sans costume).

Anyhow, given the circumstances (Origins) and the crowd in the room (RPGers), it was a well designed stunt. Shoulda seen the look on the guy's face as we dragged him off. :-)

In another time and place we'd have been arrested for assault.

Mike