Haven't seen any Ashcan Front threads lately. Just wondering if there was going to be one at GenCon this year.

Greg

Hi Greg,

We'll have the Ashcan Front banner and a rack of ashcans at our booth. Anyone who wants in, please talk to me about it.

I'll post a couple of ideas and policies about that over the weekend.

Best, Ron

Um, I should be clearer for other readers' benefit ... Greg is already signed up at the Forge booth, so when I say "our" I mean him and me.

Best, Ron

I'm having a lot of trouble getting this post up in full, for some kind of system/software reason. I'll indicate when it's complete.

OK, ashcan stuff! First, anyone who wants to put together an ashcan can still let me know and have it be at the booth. You personally do not have to be there, and I am OK if you (for instance) have your own booth somewhere else and have the ashcan there too. We already have about six and there's room for more.

Second, an ashcan should be more than merely a printout of your latest draft. It should be crafted to express your enthusiasm for this project. Some people do this with handcrafting and others, unskilled like me, merely come up with something clever like stapling a rubber centipede to the cover (for instance). You might also include notes or guides for playtesters.

Third, one point of the ashcans isn't a profit-making venture but rather a way to expand your circle of needed playtesting. I recommend only making a few copies and pricing them quite low. I'll be bringing only 10 each of my two and charging maybe $5.

Fourth, I should emphasize the real point of this idea. Here I'm channelling Paul and adding my support for his views. It is: a ton of people attending GenCon have ashcans of their own. Many even have them right there in their backpacks. We're doing this to turn them on to the idea that they can, in fact, expand their circle of playtesting and bring their games closer to published reality instead of languishing forever in the 'reality' of 'maybe submit it big company X one day.'

I think the Ashcan Front has run into the problem of simply trading around copies among a bunch of people who know one another already, merely promoting within a fatally-small circle. I'd like this year to break out of that.

Best, Ron

Done! Geez! I think it was censoring me regarding a certain word. I'll have to get Vincent onto that.

Is there a site / forum for the Ashcan Front any more? The former site seems out of date. If I don't have a forum of my own, is it advised I point people to the Forge Playtest form to discuss the ashcan, or what?

That's what the forum is for!

Unless Paul tells me otherwise, let's talk about the games in Playtesting here at the Forge. Well, you can do it anywhere, obviously, but I'm saying that forum is available.

Best, Ron

Hey Tony,

Yes, conversations about ashcan playtests in Playtesting here at The Forge.

My current plan for The Ashcan Front website is to transform it into an html archive of the booth project and links and forum discussions from the two years we did the booth, with a front-end blog where I can keep an awareness of wider ongoing unaffiliated ashcan doings. It'll be a "that was then this is now" site. (I'm pretty geeked by the ashcans folks are doing lately. Joel Shempert's Spectre of the Beast and Jackson Tegu's The Smoke Dream both hit my mailbox last week. I'm excited by them both. And Tim Koppang's Mars Colony is also blinking frenetically on my HUD.)

So, if anyone knows an easy way to export the Vanilla forums database as static html, email me: paul +aatt+ halfmeme +ddoott+ com

And if you have photos of the Ashcan Front booth from either of the past two years, link me to them, or send them along.

Thanks,

Paul

Hi Ron,

It isn't 100% clear from your ashcan policies whether or not folk who have material on the ashcan shelves are welcome at the booth in a demo'ing capacity.  Care to expand on that end of things a bit?

Thanks,
Darcy

Hi Darcy,

Good question. My stupid good-hearted side is inclined to say "sure, come on" in an irresponsible way. On the other hand, ashcan publishers are getting a sweet deal this year, with free shelf space and my commitment to promoting them. Free demo time would be very unfair to people who've paid for booth presence.

So to clarify, I've already said that display of one's ashcan at the booth is free. This is pretty much the same old booth policy from 2001-2004 or so anyway. But for demos, my take is that it's a big deal - very clearly a magnet site in the convention hall, and part and parcel of commitment to the booth and everyone else there. My thinking side says that running demos isn't free.

For people who want their ashcan at the booth and want to demo there too (Darcy, you're the first to mention it), I have to call that a standard buy-in at the standard rate.

Best, Ron

I'd like to trade PDFs with any of the other Ashcan Front folks who are interested. I'd love to read and possibly play some of the other games. I rarely get time to play beta and ashcan games through the year, and Gen Con is a great opportunity for that. Send me a private message with your email, and I'll send you the ashcan PDF of Principia.