So here’s my take at demoing my game BARBAREN! at Spiel fair in Essen in two weeks. The idea is picked almost one on one from an early playtest of the game. General thought: The demo should be about wooing, since that’s what’s really special about the game.

After having pitched the game and got two or more people to a demo table, I explain briefly about the in-game situation. The player characters are of a clan named Goldwater-Thevaren, because they live on the shores of Goldwater lake, and because they trace their line back to famous Thevro Dragonslayer. The tribe is in an ongoing feud with the Welsheimer clan, with whom they used to share the Goldwater until they decided the lake wasn’t big enough for two clans. The Welsheimer claim they were there first and a mystic giant catfish (“Wels” in German) gave the lake to them, to which the Thevaren usually respond, “So what?” (To the players: “Normally, we would have made up that backstory together.”)

The Frame for today’s adventure is a tiger hunt. (To the players: “Normally, one of you would have picked that.”) The player characters and a few NSCs from their clan are tracing a huge tiger through the wooded valleys surrounding Goldwater. As a savage thunderstorm is brewing, they decide to spend the night at Cedar Springs, an ancient temple run by beautiful and hospitable priestesses. As the PCs arrive, they spot horses outside the temple, and inside they find a bunch of Welsheimers, led by… ta-daa, the rival of one of the PCs. Of course, ancient laws forbid bloodshed in the temple, and so both fractions must grit their teeth and share mead, bread and roast, and, well, the priestesses.

That should be about two minutes introduction. Then I hand out one character sheet for the Welsheimer leader, and one for the PC who is his rival. The participants play these two (if there are more than two participants, they need to share). I keep the head priestess, a real Beauty wearing almost nothing, for myself. Then I give a little color about how the temple looks inside, what they are eating and drinking (handing out an illustration in the process), and launch play. We do a little free play, in which hopefully the players engage in flirting with the priestess.

When one of them does something that looks like an advance, I call for a break and explain the wooing rules. Then we play through the wooing contest between the two rivals and see where that leads us. Heck, they might even at some point go outside to fight it out, and standing up to accept the challenge might be just another advance… Who knows? Even if we don’t finish the scene in fifteen minutes, that should give a good impression of the game in action.

Anybody see any pitfalls? Got any suggestions to make it work smoothly?

- Frank

You're demoing BARBAREN? Cool. Can I demo Eleanor's Dream, too?

I suggest stripping that background down a bit. The way I'd run it, it'd be "You're brave warriors from rival barbarian clans. Usually we'd have all kinds of colorful detail like maps, history and stuff, but let's just say that you're from clan Goldwater-Thevaren and you're from clan Welsheimer. Here's your character sheets. You're both on tiger hunt with your peeps, and both hunting parties ended up at this same temple. I'm interested in demonstrating the wooing system, which is a pretty fun subsystem in this game. For that purpose, let's say the temple is cared by these pretty priestesses, whose leader is a real Beaty by the name of X."

At this juncture, after the initial explanation, frame the scene, do two sentences of free play, and explain the system of Aggro and Horny to the players. The latter is important, because then you tell them that they get Aggro by wooing the priestess, establishing their motivation as players. By all means tell them to describe how they open up the wooing, don't wait for them to hopefully go to the right direction. Just make it clear that wooing is what this demo is about.

Put some choice tricks on cards and deal them to players. I've found that cards are good in demos, they're punchy and easy to use, because you can write what they do on them. A fun trick for this demo could be "Deceitful Tongue" which can be used to think up a religious (or other) pretext for wooing. Or "Real Man", good for when you want to impress girls by starting a fight with somebody.

My best advice is get to the meat of it. Explain the concept, dish out characters, hit the situation and go straight to the stuff that's unique. Freeplay is nice, but it's not really showing off the game, and that's what you've got to do. It'll happen naturally around the situation anyway. I tended to incrementally introduce rules in my 15 minute demos, this may or may not work for you (I've only scanned Barbaren!, so have no idea how easy this might be).

I'd be tempted to prime the situation more, use something that'll really kick in the conflict straight away and make it important to win. So maybe make the priestess somebody who's previously turned down both characters, show there's a history there to build engagement.

I'd also go for stopping the demo just as the violence (or at a similarly interesting event) is kickign off, that way you've (hopefully) left them thinking "to find out what happens I should buy the game."

-Matt

Eero: Yes, you can demo Eleanor’s Dream, if the game is already at a stage where demoing it makes sense. That would be one “share” in booth costs (demo but not sell).

Thanks both of you for your suggestions. Maybe I can test the demo before Spiel. I also thought it over and believe it’s better to give the priestess to the players and keep the rival, since that way, I can drive for conflict.

- Frank