Hey all,

Matt Snyder and I are organizing an Ashcan Front booth for Gen Con again this year. The main changes are:

• Gen Con raised its booth prices by quite a bit, and so we had to raise the buy-in cost by a little as well.
• And we're partnering with The Playcollective on a two-booth endcap. It'll be a clearly divided space, with separate shelving and everything. But the Playcollective shares our enthusiasm for ashcans, and so we'll have some of theirs on our shelves and Matt and I will have My Life with Master and Nine Worlds in with their other games. (We're excited about this partnership, because it means Matt and I can represent for our core titles without diluting a stand-alone Ashcan Front presence with them, and because it means Ashcan Front participants will be right in with the community of designers, working together, making connections, feeding each other's enthusiasm, and talking about design.)

A 2008 FAQ has been posted at http://www.ashcanfront.net/2008faq.html. Give it a look.

Paul

Good move on the booth partnership, guys!

Hello everyone,

I've been developing my game unWritten for some time now. So, I'm seeking playtesters. Here is a little bit about it...

unWritten is a game that attempts to create the types of stories and experience found in film and literature.
Lead Players frame scenes for their own protagonists as Support players create or present complications/conflicts to get resolved. The roles of Lead Player and Support Player revolve. Everyone gets a chance to play their own protagonist.
The setting and the protagonists of the story develop through play, thus a story emerges. So the players end up being the audience as well as the authors of the story.
Finally, it uses a paired down bastardized version of the 5 act structure/play and the hero's journey to facilitate a literary feel and story arrangement. However, it does not needlessly constrain nor force the story to go in any particular direction. Thus, you can create stories like Star Wars, When Harry Met Sally, or Pulp Fiction. I also believe it can do such things as Modernist Literature, but I haven't been able to playtest that, nor am I sufficiently educated in modernist literature such that I could give it justice.

Email alex.duarte@mac.com
blog http://unwrittencontinuum.com/

Thanks a lot Alex!

I'm interested.  I'll have an Ashcan of my new title Blood Red Sands available for GenCon.

BRS is competitive, in-your-face, roleplaying set in a dark sword and sorcery setting.  Players take on the role of a hero seeking to overthrow one of the five Witch Kings of Abalone, soul stealing sorcerers who slew the gods and founded a thousand year reign of terror. 

Only one hero is played at a time with the other players playing rival factions who are poised at each others throats viewing the hero as enemy or ally to be defeated, recruited, and manipulated.

All players score points through play, and the hero player also earns Legend for their Hero.  One by one the heroes drop out of play, fading into history.  After 9 ordeals (scenarios) the last hero will take on the Witch King played by the player who scored the most points. 

There is a winner, there is a loser, and there are many alliances and betrayals some informed by the ingame fiction, some informed by the metagame position of the players.

Issues still needing to be perfected include:

1) play length.  Currently each ordeal is coming in at 3-4 sessions.  These are short sessions interspersed with alot of rules talk, but still too long.  I'd like each ordeal to be playable in 1 session.

2) As a competitive game getting the balance right and ensuring there aren't any useless strategies or gamebreakers requires more eyes.

3) The scenario generator is designed to be used collaboratively at the table, but this is taking up nearly a full session.

Hey Ralph,

I've heard good stuff about Blood Red Sands through the grapevine. Welcome to The Front!

Paul

Hey Paul,

We talked about this a bit back ... what do you think of offering the old ashcan versions of now-finalized games with them, as part of the purchase?

I think it would be amazing to get the printout of the original, late-2002 My Life With Master along with the finished book; or the original playtest version from of Dust Devils along with the Revenged book. Both of those saw a lot of play and discussion here at the Forge, and that would really showcase the process that the Ashcan Front is all about.

Best, Ron

Hey Ron,

After playing Shadows Over Camelot a while back I <a href="http://www.paulczege.com/archives/13-Will-you-be-searching-eBay-for-this-years-ashcans-next-year.html">blogged about wanting the chance to play the iteration of the game that prompted Days of Wonder's decision to delay publication for more playtesting and development.

So yeah, I agree there's value in the ashcans. I've been toying with the idea of doing a "design odyssey" package when Acts of Evil is done and published. I still have a few copies of the ashcan left, up for sale at halfmeme.com because playtesting and design isn't done yet. But if I still have some left when the game is done the "design odyssey" package would include the final game, the Gen Con ashcan, and a stapled booklet ashcan of the earliest playtest text.

Paul

Great news on the booth partnership!

Just an FYI that the http://www.ashcanfront.net site still has the '07 FAQ on the front page.

Regards,

Matt

Fixed. Thanks Matt.

Paul

Hi Paul,

I don't think I was entirely clear. What I'm asking is, have you considered offering exactly such a design odyssey package for My Life with Master? I know that the original playtest document didn't have a nifty hand-crafted design; it was just a printout. I still think it would be cool and valuable, as a co-purchase item when buying the game itself.

Best, Ron

Hey Ron,

Y'know, I don't think there'd be much value in it for My Life with Master. There were basically two stages to the game prior to publishing. The text I used for the 2002 Gen Con playtest, which was maybe six or seven pages long. And then the text that I circulated for independent playtesting in late 2002 and early 2003. And if you follow the development of the game across those documents and through the published text, you don't find any re-designing. All you see is the addition of missing stuff. The 2002 Gen Con playtest document doesn't have rules for Master creation, doesn't have examples of play, doesn't have good explanations for the Intimacy, Desperation, and Sincerity dice, doesn't have GM advice, doesn't have the sixth Epilogue Constraint, and doesn't have the Horror Revealed rule. But the dice mechanics, the formulas, the rules for More Than Human and Less Than Human, and the Endgame rules are all pretty much intact. And then the text that got circulated for independent playtesting includes all that stuff, except for the Horror Revealed rule, the long Sebastian and Carlotta example, the chapter of GM advice, and the sixth Epilogue Constraint. You just don't see the game getting torn down and put back together. Mostly you just see me filling out the text with explanation and examples.

Now Acts of Evil is an entirely different story. My design goals are consistent across all iterations, but early iterations experiment with dramatically different rules for trying to achieve those goals. And across the iterations I get ruthless. "Watch Paul Czege kill his darlings, and cry yourself to sleep." I kill them before the ashcan. And you'll see that I rather brutally kill some survivors before the published version.

Paul

OK. I got the okay from my IPR masters to use my couple of hours of free time instead hawking wares at the Ashcan Front booth. So, I'm in for Bullseye. The game is 90% finished (though I only have about 20% of it up on the wiki). I'm hoping the ashcan will help me hammer out the few niggling details related to genre-building generally and genre-specific qualities (e.g., magic, superpowers, etc.) in particular. I'm swamped right now with my Tokyo Rain development, but I'm convinced I can get a proper ashcan done in time for GC. Looking forward to it.

Hey Justin,

Welcome to The Front. I really like what you're aiming for presentation-wise with Bullseye.

Paul

When do we get to send you our money?

Hi Gang,

I'm excited to be bringing Black Cadillacs to the 'Front.  I've got some changes that came out of my last round of playtesting that need validation, mostly to do with reward cycles.

I'm also very interested in seeing how others handle historical setting integration into their games.

Cheers,
D

Darcy, welcome to the 'Front.

Ralph, I'll start collecting buy-ins next week.

Paul

I'd like to bring an ashcan copy of "Silence Keeps Me A Victim." It won't be at the 90% level as I think I really need to gather some outside impressions. I don't think I'm getting quite what I want from it, although the play has gotten much better. This isn't to say it won't be playtested, I'm playtesting right now, just that I don't think it will be 90%. I think I've talked to Paul and Matt about this but can't find the email, so if this isn't acceptable... no hard feelings on my part.

Hey Clyde,

I think an ashcan makes a ton of sense for Silence Keeps Me A Victim. I think your game, more than any other in development, really needs input from beyond the indie design community if you're going to achieve your goals. Welcome to the 'Front.

Paul

Hi all,

Okay, we're ready to take payments for buy-ins for the 2008 booth at Gen Con. If you've posted interest in participating to this thread, send payment of $185 ($120 for the buy-in and $65 for your exhibitor badge) via PayPal to paul +at+ halfmeme +dot+ com, with "<the name of your game> for The Ashcan Front" as the subject.

And if you haven't posted interest in participating because you're still thinking about it, get in touch. We're not full yet.

Paul

1) Will you be providing some sort of formal receipts?  For tax purposes.

2) Just to crow a bit, here's the introductory text of the Propaganda Edition of Black Cadillacs.  I'll be bringing the PE to CanGames in (holy fuck!) four days.  I'm pretty chuffed.

Black Cadillacs has gripped me, in one way or another, for about five years.  You're holding a work in progress.  I'm calling this first printing of the game the Propaganda Edition for a good reason.  It's really rough around the edges; it's missing huge, bleeding chunks of text; it's far from perfect; it takes a certain amount of "I'm lying through my teeth" jingoism to pull shit like that.

Here's the thing; I'm not charging you money for the book.  That, I'm giving you for free.  I'm charging you money for your commitment.

Yeah, you heard that right.  I'm charging you for your commitment.  "That takes some fucking nerve!" you say?  Damn skippy.

I've been actively developing Black Cadillacs since September of 2006.  I've beaten, hammered and mutilated the rules to get it to do what I want it to.  And it does...When it's me and my friends playing it.  We know this game inside out.  We know what I want it to do.  We fill in little gaps.  We literally are a crutch, and Black Cadillacs is the battle-scarred soldier limping along on us.

That's where you come in.  If I managed to get you to read this, you probably liked the game you just played.  What I need from you is for you to commit to playtesting this game without me, and then to get me some feedback.  That's why I'm charging money; if I handed you a freebie copy with a hang-dog look in my eyes and asked "pretty please with sugar on top, won't you playtest my game?" you'd probably take it just to shut me up.  And then it would sit on the back of your toilet for the next year.

So, if you want to make Black Cadillacs better, meet me in the parking lot in about five minutes.  I don't have a permit, so I can't sell stuff here on the convention floor.  Bring five bucks.

Thanks for playing!
Darcy

Hey Darcy,

A printout of your PayPal "transaction details" won't meet your needs? If that's the case, I'm sure we can figure something else out.

That intro text is badass.

Paul

Hi Paul,

Unfortunately, my PayPal printout won't say what the money's for.  Y'know: something like: "Membership at the Ashcan Front booth, GenCon Indy 2008".

Although Revenue Canada is a lot less strident in policing tax-dodgers (we're basically on the honour system up here) than the IRS, they are insanely sticky when it comes to tax deductions that you claim.

Essentially, their reaction to a PayPal printout will be "So, you sent this email address some money.  So what?"

It doesn't even have to be a "formal" receipt (as in from a receipt book).  Just a piece of paper with "blah dollars received from Darcy Burgess for blah de blah purposes" dated and signed by the owner of the booth (you?  Matt?)  Tax time is February '09, so I can wait until the con to get this.

Thanks!  I like it.  I'm really happy about the $5 in the parking lot bit.
D

Darcy,

Put whatever you need to as the subject of the PayPal payment. I'll sign and write whatever additional text is necessary at Gen Con.

Paul

Hey Paul,

Thank you. Do I have to have a pay pal account to send you money, or can I do like online places who use pay pal as an online credit card processor. I won't allow pay pal to have access to my bank account, because I don't trust them.

Hey Clyde,

You can create a PayPal account that isn't hooked to your bank account. It's just hooked to a credit card. It's called an "unverified" account. (They'll nag you every so often to "get verified" by providing your bank account information.)

But if you'd prefer to send me a check, email me and I'll give you my mailing address.

Paul

Hi all,

Anyone who hasn't posted to this thread but who's thinking about doing an ashcan of their game at The Ashcan Front for Gen Con should get in touch. The Gen Con deadline for paying for exhibitor badges is fast approaching.

Paul

Hi all,

The deadline for having your payment to me is this Friday, June 6th.

Designers who can't be at Gen Con, but who want to do an ashcan of their game-in-development for purposes of getting targeted feedback, should also get in touch. The rest of us who'll be at the booth would love to represent for a couple of such games.

Paul

Fellow 'Front-Mates!

I'd like to issue a personal challenge to each of you:

Let's actually hunt down folks with an ashcans-in-development who can't make it to the best 4 days in gaming.  Ideally, I'd like to see one "orphan-can" per Front-mate.

Paul, once the date for buying in has passed, could you post either a list of the Front-Mates, or at least a total number?

D

Hey Darcy,

While I'd love to have us representing for a few ashcans of designers who can't be at Gen Con (and I'm personally very geeked I'll be representing for Marshall Burns' The Rustbelt), I'm not sure I'd go so far as one per attending participant. An effort by a participating designer to represent for his/her own game's design goals as well as those of a non participating designer could be a recipe for disappointment for both of them. To do justice in your representation for another designer you'll want to know the game well, and trying to learn another designer's goals in advance of Gen Con at the same time that you're trying to finalize your own ashcan is not a trivial endeavor. So I'd rather participating designers not be subjected to social pressure to represent for any game design other than their own. I'd rather agreeing to represent for other designers be entirely voluntary, and derived entirely from an attending participant's personal enthusiasms.

That said, if you feel you're far enough along with Black Cadillacs that you personally can enter into a conversation with a designer, learn his/her game over the weeks prior to Gen Con and represent for it at the booth, then I say get on it :)

Paul

Hi all,

If you've bought in as a booth participant by sending me a PayPal payment, and your payment included the price of your exhibitor badge, please email me your name and ID number as it appears in the Gen Con system. I need this information for our badge list paperwork for Gen Con.

Go to http://registration.gencon.com/indy/index.cgi
and log in (or create an account if you don't have one). And then on the page that comes up it will list your name and ID number in the upper left. Mine looks like this:

    Welcome Paul Czege (ID: 10666) (Active regular member)

That's what I need from you. Today or tomorrow, please.

Thanks,

Paul