Oh, in case you wonder why I keep posting about this topic is the hotel situation at Gen Con is was a nightmare. Either you fought like the devil for a room downtown or you stayed at some distant hotel that required a car or cabs. Distant hotels are cheaper, but whatever savings you get from staying outside downtown are probably offset by the extra hassle and expense to travel to and park downtown.

That and after a long day of gaming and shopping, a five minute walk back to your hotel is preferable than a long drive.

Trask

Trask

Sweat dripped, muscles tensed and initiative dice rolled. Both cowboys fired on the same round. Guns blazed!

As the smoke cleared, both killers lay dead in pools of blood. In a cruel twist of fate, the last two players killed each other on the same turn!

No problem, said I. We had a plan to use the person with the most kills as the tie-breaker. Both the same. Friend Ando came up with the idea of using the least dead person (in hit points)  as the winner. Both tied again.

Determining that the universe wanted a tie, we split the prize package from Kenzerco between the two players. A randomly determined first pick chose the base “Aces & Eights Player’s Guide”  rulebook and the second place got the “Shootist’s Guide” and a module “Trouble on the Sequoyah Star.”

Congratulations to the winners!

Dan Gent of Salina, Kansas and Rebekah Green of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Great fun was had by all and I will run the same event next year. I hope to see you there.

Trask

Livingdice.com sponsored its very first event this year at Gencon 2010, the “Aces & Eights: Last Man Standing Shootout.”  Using the “Aces & Eights” rules set, 24 players do battle for survival in the Old West. We have maps, pre-generated characters and lots of guns! I expect plenty of carnage in this single-elimination event. To make things more interesting, Kenzerco supplied some “Aces & Eights” books as prizes for the winner and Gamingpaper.com kindly supplied 12 rolls of their gaming paper for the last dozen cowboys going to Boot Hill.  All this cool stuff from a free event. Yes, because the event is on Wednesday before the convention proper, it is free!

Sadly, it also sold out on the first day of registration. Still,  I urge anyone interested to drop by and see if we get the full 24 players for the event. I am anticipating some no-shows, so we may have a slot or two available on a first-come, first-served basis.

This is also your big opportunity to meet me in person, either to shake my hand and congratulate me on all my great work on the site, berate me for my low and ignorant opinions or serve me with legal papers. ;-)

Here are the event particulars:

Game ID: RPG1013044

Start Date & Time: 08/04/2010 01:00:00 PM – 5:00:00 PM

Location: Union Station : Edison North : 1–4

Hope to see you there!

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Gen Con convention center visit

Gen Con staying until 2015

I did find it interesting that Gen Con is the 4th largest convention in Indianapolis. It is such a zoo that I wonder what number one is like? The hotel situation alone is enough to make one cringe at the thought.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

UPDATE: They sell out fast. Anything marked through is sold out!

Hampton Inn Downtown $156.00

Staybridge Suites Indianapolis City Centre $159

Comfort Suites City Centre $159

Hilton Indianapolis $147.00

Indianapolis Marriott East and Conference Center $109.00

Quality Inn and Suites at the Airport $89.99

Springhill Suites Indianapolis $159.00

Fairfield Inn and Suites Indianapolis Downtown $149.00

Canterbury Hotel $164.00

Crowne Plaza at Historic Union Station $170.00

Embassy Suites Indianapolis Downtown $183.00

Hyatt Regency Indianapolis $183.00

Omni Severin Hotel $170.00

Holiday Inn Express Hotel and Suites City Centre $156.00

Conrad Indianapolis $245.00

Courtyard by Marriot Downtown Indianapolis $169.00

This post is a public service by:

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Badge Pre-Registration – Opens January 24th
Housing – Opens January 26th
Event Submission – Opens January 13th

As usual, badges are easy to get, but good hotel rooms are more valuable than your first-born child. After you buy a badge you receive a code to purchase a room from the Gen Con block. The block is basically every hotel in reasonable (by my standards) walking distance of the event. Rooms sell on a first come, first served basis, so be online ready to get a room the instant the room sales open on the 26th. Miss this window and you are staying at a distant hotel. Check out the Gen Con site for further information.

Consider yourself warned. See you in Indy!

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Here are a few items I thought needed improvement at the various company game demonstrations I attended.

Free GMs Can Be Expensive

I fully understand that companies often use volunteer GMs for convention events to save money.  Many of them are quite good, some are…not as good. While free is a very tempting price point for some help running games,  one must look at the true meaning of “free” when using volunteer GMs. Releasing a new game into the hands of a free, but sub-standard GM will cost far more long-term than recruiting  better GMs with swag, free hotel rooms or cash. Vetting your judges is time consuming and costly, but worth it to give your players ( and prospective customers) a great gaming experience. An idea is to recruit good GMs from games at Gen Con that plan on attending next year. Yes, this means you have to plan a year in a advance, but at least you can see the GMs skill before approaching them. As an extra bonus, it is my experience the best GMs tend to be leaders in their local gaming community and can really excite their groups about the new game.

Finally, get your GM army together for a couple of hours of training on the convention’s first day. Verify they have all the supplies needed and understand how you want the game run.

Plan Every Event to the Minute

Give all of your GMs a guide with instructions how to introduce the game world and rules. Do not give them a script, but some bullet points of critical information that players need is fine. Assign time limits to each section (world, rules, combat, etc) to maximize play time and keep the game moving. Explanations are not fun, so try to keep them to a minimum. Before the convention let a GM unfamiliar with the system run your demo event and observe how it runs. Tweak times, explanations or encounters as necessary.

Simplify the Rules

Demo games do not require the entire rules set. If you can do a couple of role-playing encounters and two combats with 50% of the rules, then only use 50%. Tell the players this is a simplified version and if they want more rules to consult your rule book. Never mention rules that are not used in the demo adventure. All they do is add unnecessary complexity and I promise some player will try to use them. At Gen Con this year, a demo GM stated “we are not using the magic rules for this adventure”…then spent ten minutes talking about the “cool” magic rules. Argh!

Bring Amazing Character Sheets

Demo players often appear with only a pen and some dice. Be sure that you bring everything to play the game. Primarily, bring character sheets THAT THE PLAYERS MAY KEEP. I hate going to a demo and leaving with nothing but a fond memory. After the convention is over and the players unpack that character sheet your game bubbles to the top of their fuzzy, post-convention memory. Character sheets are business cards, so include contact information. As regular readers  know, I am not a fan of “Wizards of the Coast.” That said, they do a very good job with convention marketing. Here is a shot of their pre-generated characters at Gen Con 2009.

WOTC Pre-Generated Characters

WOTC did not give out these character sheets, so they only got it half right, but they are very well done. For the low-budget publisher a clean black and white printout is also acceptable. Print brief rule descriptions and key ideas on the back of the pre-gen.

Simplifying character sheets is a good idea as well. This is especially true with complex games that use esoteric acronyms and long skill lists. Clarity over complexity is the only goal here.

I understand that some of these suggestions are burdensome to small publishers, but implementing one or two of these ideas will increase the fun factor for your demo players and that will directly translate into more sales. It is worth the effort.

Update: Great minds think alike, Nitessine over at “Worlds in a Handful of Dice” has a related post.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Our first selection  combines a modern film with ancient horror. I present…..

Brokeback Mountains of Madness

Time slot: Sat Aug 15 8:00 pm – 11:00 pm

It’s the vacation of a lifetime, girlfriend. You and a bunch of your pals taking off on a dude ranch adventure into the remote Brokeback Mountains. What could be more fabulous? You just had no idea the horrors that were waiting for you there. So the question now is who’s going to miss their sanity check first — you or the monsters? It’s Cthulhu meets Rupaul in this “Tell me you did not just go there” game.

Truly terrifying.

The next candidate reached the final selection on the strength of a single sentence. See if you can guess which line of prose disturbed me the most.

Hentai Dubbing

If you’re interested in seeing what it takes to be a hentai (adult anime) voice actor, stop by Dick and Buster’s Hentai Dubbing Extravaganza. This event is hosted by the King and Queen of adult anime Dick Tripwire and Buster Highman. Audience participation is STRONGLY encouraged–ladies and gentlemen most welcome. Hilarity and fun galore! Come on down and rock out with your…ahem…out, or just hang out with your wang out. Not for the shy or easily embarrassed; check your shame at the door and get ready for some serious adult fun! And who knows, this could be you big break in the adult anime industry.

Though Brokeback provided some stiff competition (yes, I said it), I selected “Hentai Dubbing” as the most disturbing Gen Con event award winner. “Hang out with your wang out” should never be spoken at a game convention…ever! Gamers….nude…argh! The horror! The horror!

I planned on giving a joint award this year, but an accident of printing pushed the dubbing event over the top. On page 115 of the Gen Con 2009 program book is the entry for “hentai dubbing,” directly beneath an advertisement for “Grave of the Fireflies.” A film noted for its seriousness and an ending so depressing that viewers want to commit seppuku. It is like putting an ad for a XXX movie next to the “Old Yeller” poster. That is just wrong.

I am open to other submissions as well, just post them in the comments.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer