Hey all, after thinking for the last year or so that there was no way I could get to GenCon... Things changed, and I will be there. :-)

This is my first time in about 12 years that I'm going there as a regular Joe: Looking forward to getting my game on day and night in unorganized events between online friends and random strangers.

I recall that two years ago (and perhaps last year as well) there was a "Games on Demand" area: People volunteer to just show up and run stuff, other people come in and (I dunno if they present tickets or not) sit down and play, and the games that are run are pretty much up to the GMs.

Is this going down this year?  If so:

1) Who's the organizer, and
2) Is there already a thread on this thing?

Thanks-
Andy

Yep, there will be Games on Demand.  Kat and Michael Miller are running it. There's an earlier topic with much more information about it here: GenCon 07 Games On Demand / IGE.

Julie

Thanks!

Also, looks like there's an LJ community as well that combines both the IGE stuff and GoD stuff:

http://community.livejournal.com/ige/

-Andy

Andy,

Games on Demand is kickass.  I spent practically the whole Con in that room last year.  I ran lots of session and played in lots of session.  I highly recommend this activity.

Andy's plan mirrors my own. I also am going as a regular joe for the first time in... well, a few years, anyway. I don't think I'd even heard of GenCon 12 years ago.

I didn't manage to get signed up for ANY of the scheduled games I wanted, or even my second and third choices. I had asked some questions about some of them and never got answers, and by the time I decided to just sign up and hope for the best, they were gone.

So, it looks like I will be in the GoD area for much of the con as well. What I'd like to know is, how easy is it to get something going there? How exactly does it work? I've gotten various answers in the past and still don't feel like I have a good grasp of it. I'd just hate to end up not playing all con, in addition to not working all con. If I have specific games I want to try, what are my chances of getting them together?

As I understand it, I just go to the GoD room, hail a moderator, and say "hey, I'd like to play Game X, how 'bout it?" and... they make it happen? Do I need to track down other players myself? Do I need to say "I'll be by at X time", or do they say "come by at X time", or what? Basically, what's the difference between GoD and me just grabbing some people and a spare table and playing whatever?

I really, really want to game my ass off this year. As a *player* mind you, NOT a GM. I'm tired of being the guy trying to wrangle people to try a game and then not even being sure if I'm doing it right. I don't want to have to twist anybody's arm. I don't want to have to pore over the book for weeks and then still feel underprepared. I Just Want To Play. Dammit.

*pant*pant*

Sorry. Lot of frustration built up over the last few years. I'm fine now.

Nev,

Here's the way it happened when I was the GoD Custodian last year.

I was sitting there with a bunch of Indie Game books on the table.  These were the books for the games I actually knew how to run.  People would start coming to the table and asking about games.  Once I got a crowd, I figured out what games were wanted.  Let's say some people wanted to play Dogs in the Vineyard and some people wanted Great Ork Gods.  I say this because this happened last year.  So, I looked around and found Mike Holmes sitting at a table and I asked if he could run Dogs.  He said yes and I sent the Dogs players over to him.  I took the Great Ork Gods players and ran a session for them.

I ran or had someone run the following games last year: Dogs in the Vineyard x 2, Capes, Universalis, Great Ork Gods x 2.  I never had a problem finding a game to play at the GoD tables.

Hey Andrew: This thing runs off of Generic Tickets, right? There's no "event tickets" for GoD, correct?

-Andy

According to the schedule, RPG events 01590 - 01593 are listed as "Games on Demand", and the cost is listed as "6", whatever that means, except for 01593, which has a listed cost of "3".

For whatever that's worth.