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

[contracycle]

Did you give them a shilling?

[Mike Holmes]

Did you give them a shilling?

I can't remeber precisely (this was four or five years ago now), but I do remeber that Jason had a spiel about what the conditions of the term of service were. They seemed authentic (he knows his stuff, and is maybe the best BSer I've ever seen), but they were also, IIRC, tongue in cheek. Stopped a whole room of gamers (50?), and got a lot of laughs.  

As you might be able to tell, it's a fond memory.

So, Andy, since it's you that wants more support for the small cons, are you going to volunteer to captain the new group? As usual, finding people to be those driving core members is often the first stumbling block to starting such a group. I'm tempted to sign on, but I'm a bit overextended gamingwise as it is (and I rarely attend small Cons). Makes me feel hypocritical for suggesting it.  :-(

I'd be an enthusiastic charter member of NOIG, however.

Mike

[GB Steve]

Andy, I hear ya.

I went to Gen Con UK and the organised game was so putrid that I really, really am not going to play anymore Raven/RPGA games. That and Steve Darlington (snide aside) remember him, he actually finishes his articles(/snide aside) wanting to run a game tempted me into organising SteveCon 2002.

It took 8 days to organise and we had about 15 players. We used a Yahoo group and RPGnet to get everyone together. We played Dying Earth, Buffy, Delta Green, Starchildren and Original D&D.

All the games were written by the DMs and if I'd had enough time I'd have surely squeezed in a game of Donjon.

And it was a blast. I'm doing it again in February, SteveCon 2 will be no bigger and no better.

Do Your Own Con, it's not hard.

Cheers,
Steve

[Andy Kitkowski]

And it was a blast. I'm doing it again in February, SteveCon 2 will be no bigger and no better.

Do Your Own Con, it's not hard.

This is, Indeed, a Very Cool Idea. Could you tell me where you held your Con?  Was it at someone's house, or at a conference room at some hotel somewhere, pub or what?

I could get at least 8 people in the area, I think.  Way more if I held it in DC (get the Gentry and the Antunes in on it), but that's a little far, maybe.

Other thoughts I had in the past few days since this original post:

1) Local Indie RPG conventions, once a season or so, very small. Start by trying to score like 10 people, work up from there.

2) National organization of Indie game designers/publishers.  Con presence. Demo games. Hockey. Friggin. Jersies. ;)

3) Dunno if this already exists, but how about a yearly "Indie Awards" for several categories in the RPG design/publishing field?  There's RPGA Awards, Ennies (for d20 stuff), even RPGNet's People's Choice.  What about indies folks?  I think that that would go another half-step further to promote great indies games.

For each of the above three, I'd like to go ahead and open a new thread on each to get feedback here (I'd even host the Indie Award thing on my server if there was enough interest).  What forum topics would be best for each?

Also, have these topics already been addressed here?

[Valamir]

Hey Andy, if you know people in the DC area, you might want to consider contacting NoVaG (Northern VA Gamers).  They're mostly wargamers of the paper map and cardboard counter variety, but they set up small local cons in the area frequently and may be able to give you some tips.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Hey guys, this is all well and good, and I am an enthusiastic advocate for "build your own mini-con" activity - but let's all check out that opening post and get this thread back on-topic.

My post to Andy concerned how con play militated against the kind of experiences he was talking about, but it seems to have spawned way more thread-jacking than I'd anticipated. I'd like to keep the focus on Andy's point.

Best,
Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Ah hell, scratch that. We're on topic, and Andy seems OK with it.

Andy, #1 and #2 are enthusiastically under way already. "Apartment cons" pre-date the Forge and are highly encouraged; one might even say that some gaming groups resemble an ongoing con more than they do a traditional group. DemonCon, an activity of a campus gaming group, began last June; the last two years of Origins and GenCon represent a kind of "con within a con" for playing creator-owned games, most especially the gonzo play at the booth, but also the longer games that went on in the evenings.

The more of all this stuff, the better. Organize it yourselves, get hockey jersies or what-have-you to back it all up, do it, and f'God's sake, advertise and promote the hell out of it before it happens.

I'm not too interested in #3, myself. The Forge is a site, not an organization, and its policies walk a tricky line between Ron's Stuff and everyone-at-the-Forge stuff. (I didn't ask for things to be like that, but that's how it's played out over time.) Who'd give the award? Me? Or would it be a big vote-y thing? If anyone can suggest a painless solution to these issues, I'd like to hear it.

Best,
Ron

[Andy Kitkowski]

Back to the topic (again, though, if someone could provide me direction as to which topic to post those three ideas above on, I'd be much obliged.  You could even PM me.):
Edit: Nevermind.  Thanks Ron.

What are the issues that we need to deal with if we want people to try new games at cons?

I'm just going to throw out ideas here.  Many aren't rooted in anything but observation. If I look like my observations are incorrect, feel free to call me on it.

1) Con goers are adventurous in the first place, for they plopped down the cash to go to the con in the first place.  Even the most enthusiastic conventioner knows that some cons are going to be a bust, even if they stick to one game they know and love.

2) There's a lot of people who go to try new games, whether it be Board, Card, Clix or RPG... these days, it seems to be in this order as well ;)

3) Still, though, a large number of people just want to stick with the games they know, and are looking to play in variants of that system, or various adventures for that system: C.I.P., the number of alternative D&D games that go down.

4) Indie games, as I noted in the original post, are often a blast once you start playing them.  However, especially for the ones that don't have a lot of standard rules to them (You can easily imagine the following: "Huh?  Where are the Skills and Attributes?  And what's "Cover"?), it's hard to get people in that first time because they're very different to what they're used to.

Again, what can we do to get more people involved?

Great suggestions up to this point.

I again like the idea of an organized "Indies Union", with a display table at local cons (and jersies.  Sorry.), as well as running games. This not only shows indies games as more than just random lone whackos with untested home rules, it also gives a name to The Cause, as it were.  Get people at least hearing about other games out there.

More thoughts?

Oh, on topic #3 (Indies Awards), I'll drag this one over to RPG Theory.
HERE'S THE LINK, IF YOU'RE INTERESTED:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=36483#36483

-Andy

[rafael]

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.

Man, I am so glad you enjoyed that.  I have decided that I just love con games.  Total strangers, element of risk, uncertainty -- it was just great.

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.

Yeah, I'm there.  My last few purchases have almost all been indies.  Can't say that they're just better, as a rule.  I mean, better?  What is better?  It's just that you don't have to unfuck them, that's all.  They're exactly what they should be, I've found.  No tweaking necessary.  This is a good thing.

For me, it's like Nirvana in the early nineties.  You know, then that whole indie rock anti-corporate thing, and suddenly, it was so refreshing to turn on the radio (for a lot of people).  That's how I see the indie RPG scene.

Trick: get it out there.  Pimp it.  I'm going to be running some indie games at my FLGSs this winter.  Saturday afternoon pick-up games with some prep time and pregens.  Convert some peeps to tha cause.

Join me or perish by the sword.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi guys,

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back.

Other people clarified my concern about being to "big" in grabbing people for a game.  My style for a Sorcerer game's going to probably be soft and moody, so coming on like a carnival barker's probably going to send the wrong signal and attract the wrong crew.

However, the idea of demos in an open gaming area and then full sessions later makes a lot of sense for me.  At one of the three big L.A. cons, demos on a Friday night or Saturday morning would spread by word of mouth for actual play the rest of the con.  That's a model I want to give more thought to.

Also, an apartment-con sounds tempting.  Calling planet Jesse...?

Christopher