Convention report from a free-RPG pov - UK Games Expo

[malladin_ben]

I thought I'd spend a few minutes putting togetehr a report of a convention I went to last weekend from a free RPGs person.

UK Games Expo is quite a large con for the UK - people I went with went on the assumption that as there was no gencon this year it would probably be the biggest con in the country. Whetehr it was I don't know. Having limited experience of cons it was bigger than ones I'd been to before - bigger than Gencon UK 2005 anyway.

That said, it's not an RPG-centric convention, and the RPGs weren't the best organised or advertised events running at the con.

However, where RPGs had the edge was in the sat evening session, where I think most games filled up. I filled up my time running or playing RPGs for every session I was there for, with a little time for walkingteh trade hall and chatting to people, so I'll startwith an overview of the RPGs.

There was a fairly good spread of RPGs available, but many failed to fill up and run, including my Qin: Warring States game and my game for my Savage Worlds setting (soon to be a free rpg). However, Midgard (ran on the sat eve slot) was maxed out with 6 players, so a result for the Free RPGs there. I'll tell you more specifically about that later.

In terms of playing games, though, I had great success, playing three excellent games with excellent GMs. Fortunately when my Qin game was cancelled they gave Keith Baker my table to run a game of Eberron, which I got a place on - the man is a fantastic GM andit was a really fun adventure - it even started to crack my resistence to 4e D&D a little. Next morning was a Hellas game, not full but with 4 players we had a nice balanced party. I'm not sure how close to rules cannon we were, but the game was a lot of fun. Finally on the sunday morning I played a game of Necroplis (a Savage Worlds setting) run by Triple Ace's demo GM, Shane McLean. Shane was the best GM of the three, and it was tough competition - I'd strongly recommend anyone given the opportunity to play a game ran by him to take it up!

There was also a reasonable presence of UK insustry types there: Cubicle-7, Mongoose, Collective Endeavour and a few othe smaller guys. Knowing some of the CE crowd and have reason to speak to cubicle-7 (they're going to publish one of my adventures), I had some really interesting chats on the state of the industry and publishing and the like. INterestingly speaking to successful people making plenty-o-money from their games didn't shake my belief in free RPGs. I'll post more on that later.

Cheerio,

Ben

[Rob Lang]

I'm fascinated by this! Such a bummer I couldn't go. Next year I will - armed with Icar 4.0.

I went to GenCon 2008 and it was really difficult to fill my Icar game, even though I had canvassed and put up A3 posters and everything.

I didn't realise you had a resistence to 4e! Is it to all D&D or just 4e?

I'd be really interested to hear more on how you planned/advertised/organised your Midgard game, how it went and what you learnt from it.

I'd also be really interested to hear more about you thoughts on Free RPGs in the industry.

[malladin_ben]

I think the sat eve was a definite winner for the rpgs.

I promise to post in more detail soon, but just to answer your point about 4e/d&d: I started on basic then 2nd ed d&d but really moved away from that style of gaming at uni. When 3rd ed came out it felt more like a "proper" roleplaying game, whist 4th ed seems like a step back towards 2nd ed

Anyway cheerio for now, more to follow,

Ben

[malladin_ben]

Midgard game
After my Qin game failed to run on friday evening I did whatever I could to plug Midgard around the convention. I'd not thought to print out some posters to put up, so I just had to cope with word of mouth. I took some of my copies to the con on saturday and mentioned the game and showed off the books at the gaming tables and mentioned that I was running it that evening. However, no one I showed it to played. There was essentially two groups of players, one pair and one gang of four, who booked on it, and I think it was the choice of games left available that meant they picked mine. I think it was down to Midgard, GURPS traveller or Maid. Demand certainly outstripped supply on that saturday evening session.

The game itself was a real hoot. the guys playing, all male between mid 20s to early 40s (at a guess) and drinking (some quite heavily) so they really got into the spirit of the game. One guy was lumbered with the village "wise woman" character and played her with real vigour, demanding that the other party members provide her with components for her magic, often quite gross - the shieldmaiden's moon-blood for example. There was a lot of banter at the table and it was great fun to play, but didn't manage to finish until 1:30 am!

In terms of what I learnt from the session itself I thought I'd add in some components rules for the magic rune gifts, and that in futue I might stick to 5 players max, or maybe even 4. Again people seemed to mostly get the complex dice rolling system after a few rolls had been made. The one difference between this group and my playtest group, though, was that my playertesters were keen to buy off any merkstaves on their rolls (penalty results), whilst this party liked to keep them their to ensure their action was successful. Following the game the chap who played the wise woman has posted some comments on my blog forum, one suggestion included allowing players to come up with and roleplay their own merkstave penalties. I think I will definitely add this idea in to the game. He also suggested that some of the minor fights that don't include a "boss" could run on a quicker fast-kill system, which I think also might be a good addition to the rules, although I'll have to think a bit harder as to how such a sysstem shoudl work.

Industry insight
I was staying at the con with my FLGS owner, who has been involved in the industry for a number of years an knows a few people and I got involved with a number of interesting conversations as a result (I say "involved with" - listened in on is perhaps more accurate). One such conversation involved Dave (my FLGS owner), Angus Abranson (Cubicle 7) and Rich Stokes (from collective endeavour). It was really interesting to see the interplay of ideas and philosophies between the retailer trying to persuade small press guys into going through distribution so that he can get the supply he needs to meet the demand he has for some of their poroducts, the small press guy who says that distribution is too much work for no extra reward, and Angus, who suggested his (and cubicle-7's) role within Rebellion is to look for and help develop small press products (not sure about this entirely, because Angus largely sat back as Dave and Rich had their discussion, so forgive me if I got the wrong end of the stick).

As a former small press guy, this debate really reinforced my decision to "go free" as it were. The argument boiled down to work over reward, and what the point is about small press publishing. Both parties agreed that the point of smal press is to get your workout there, not really being concerned with the amount of money you make from it. I have really found going free liberating in terms of the work I now have to do. I can spend more of my time designing, writing and laying out my books (all three jobs I enjoy) and less time editing, plugging them around the internet, dealing with customer complaints and managing files on download sites. Free for me very definitely means less work than small press and I am liberated as a result. I've not written as much, nor enjoyed my writing as much as I am now, and that is why I moved to being a freebee publisher.

Cheerio,

Ben

[Rob Lang]

[malladin_ben]

I in't really do much to pitch it other than let people have a flick through a couple of copies of the book at the en of a session I was playing, and put a blurb on the website, which was pretty similar to the blurb on the back of the book. I think it just filled out due to demand outweighing supply for that particular session.

The setting wasn't much of an issue as it was all fairly self contained within the scenario, and I guess that the UK viking history basic background is a help.

I think I will do more to promote all the games I'm interested in running next time. I might avoid trying to run on a friday evening unless and pick teh morning slot rather than the afternoon. I'd also take some flyers an business cards just to pass around. I thought having buiness cards would be quite pretentious so I instead just told people my web address and/or email, which led to a lot of "how do you spell that?" etc. Business cards would just be so much easier.

I wasn't looking to sell any a I'm having a few problems with the cover atm and have ome changes I want to make to the game as well.

Cheerio for now,

Ben

[Rob Lang]

I used moo cards from moo.com when I was Gencon this year and they were really handy. I handed them out to just about everyone.