Indie Games on Demand at Origins 2014

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Indie Games on Demand at Origins

We Want You!

Origins Game Fair in Columbus Ohio is my favorite game convention of the year. Why?

It’s super laid back and fun, and I actually get to hang out with people, eat delicious Columbus food and drink delicious Columbus drinks, and play all of my favorite indie games with all my favorite indie people without running around like mad like at a gigantic convention like Gencon.

Evan Torner Jim Crocker and I are organizing Indie Games on Demand again this year!

We’ll have:

– A new streamlined signup process

– An amazing team of GMs and players

– The hot new small press and independently designed games you want to try

– Support for people new to gaming and GMing

– Jeni’s Ice cream

– The awesomeness that is the indie/storygaming/people that like edgy and new games community

We could use your help!

If you’re interested in GMing:

If you run four games you can get a free badge!

Fill out this survey: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?usp=drive_web&formkey=dFdnR2dJaWNhd3hIb3cyYzJEa0RLakE6MA#gid=0

If you’re interested in attending:

Check out the Origins website, and Indie Games on Demand site on Facebook!

https://originsgamefair.com/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/213959718621943/

One of my goals is to even further diversify our GM team this year, and if you identify as a woman, POC, or are LGBTQ, I would love it if you would consider helping us out!

Alternately, if you can’t make it, and I understand life and things, please help us spread the word by sharing this post on your social media, and asking friends you might know are going to check us out.

Thanks friends! Game on!

Indie Games Explosion at Dreamation 2014

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Dreamation 2014 is being held in Morristown, NJ from February 20-February 23, 2014. The convention page is: https://www.dexposure.com/d2014.html

This will be the tenth annual Indie Games Explosion at Dreamation. Since 2005 we have presented one of the finest slates of scheduled events, including indie RPGs and American freeform games. We have grown from hosting fewer than two dozen events in 2005 to nearly a hundred in recent years.

Here’s the link to the current schedule of events, which includes details on how to register to run games: https://ipressgames.com/igx/pmwiki.php?n=Dream14.Schedule

We are still accepting new events until January 10, 2014. GMs who run at least two events get a free badge to the convention. Hope to see lots of faces both new and old!

Lets talk about #gaspcon2013 !

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Lets talk about #gaspcon2013 !

GASP (Gaming Association of Southwestern Pennsylvania) organizes GASPCon – the annual convention held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

GoD at GASP started last year when after a great Origins/Gencon Games on Demand Nick Wedig  and I started discussing bringing it to GASP, and Jason Godesky stepped up to volunteer to organize it.

GASP brings out roughly 200 people. We lost the RPGA room this year (conflict schedule with MarCON) and we clocked in over 260 folk (the con grows by about 50 people every year). The con had to move to a bigger space this year.

GoD last year had 2 assigned tables in the open RPG room (separate from the Pathfinder Society and RPGA spaces). We over-ran our space frequently (at one point Nick had 7 people signed up for Inspectres so we split the tables and he and I each ran a table) grabbing open tables as we could get them.

This year was even better!

Folks that ran games and manned the table: Jason Godesky (if you see our sweet digital display? Yeah he organized that), Michael Godesky,  Giulianna Lamanna, Brianna Sheldon, Pete Figtree and Nick Wedig!

We were given 4 tables to run on. We ran 21 games, which had 75 total players (I stress players. Think in terms of Tickets for the bigger cons), of which 29 were unique (lots of people liked what they saw and came back for another game or two!). 

Four our small local con this was a good success. More than 10% of the people who attended the Con stopped by GoD!

Now if you’ve made it this far here are a few thoughts and lessons I learned about running a con at a small convention.

1. Make sure you have signs up. Having clear directions to GoD helped.

2. Work with the Organizers. GoD is a flexible event that fits organically inside other schedules. If you can make it into the informational booklet – great. Not everyone reads those. If you can get announced at the beginning of the Con this is even better.

3. Talk to the other GMs or make sure the info is available to other (non-GoD) GMs. If their table is full (and some games are popular and have wait-lists) let the folks know that a zero-previous-knowledge RPG is available at GoD. Cancelling a game because not enough players showed? GoD probably has games to fit a few people into.

4. Make sure to bring games of various lengths and skill/knowledge level requirements. Sometimes folks don’t understand your 4-hour game-slot delineators, or have a game in 2 hours and just want to get something quick in.

We have the advantage that one of the Con organizers is an indie gamer and has helped us navigate whatever we needed from the Con organizers (big thanks to Dan Cetorelli).

Local cons are definitely a great place to showcase indie games (you get a much higher visibility than at giant conventions where it’s harder to get noticed).

Escapist Expo 2013

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Another Escapist Expo has come and gone, and Games on Demand was a success again this year.  Ten awesome volunteers covering a room with 4 tables for 24 hours of gaming. By the end, the team had run 27 full games or demos for around 100 people. Here’s the list of games that were run:

5 x 13th Age

4 x Fiasco

3 x Infinite Earths

2 x Astropocalypse

2 x Carolina Death Crawl

2 x Quiet Year

2 x Tenra Bansho Zero

1 x Beyond the Wall

1 x Cortex+ Chronotrigger

1 x Dungeon World

1 x Fate Core – Fight Fire

1 x Land of Yeld

1 x Shinobigami

1 x Torchbearer

Many thanks to our volunteers David Artman, Mark Causey, Ryven Cedrylle, Clinton N. Dreisbach, Andy Kitkowski, Sarah Perry-Shipp, Bryan Shipp, Ray Watters, and Peter Williams for putting on a great event, as well as to Jonathan Bolding and Greg Tito from the Escapist for providing support to make it happen. We’re already looking forward to next year!

https://www.indiegamesexplosion.org/2013/10/08/escapist-expo-2013-the-games-we-played/

#EscExpo   #GamesOnDemand  

https://escapistexpo.com

Escapist Expo 2013: The Games We Played

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The Escapist Expo has come and gone too quickly! We played a lot of games, attended panels, and ate great Durham food.

Games on Demand stayed busy, with tables full most of the day on Saturday. We had 10 awesome volunteers covering 24 hours of games on 4 tables. By the end, the team had run 27 full games or demos for around 100 people. Here’s the list of games that were run:

5 x 13th Age
4 x Fiasco
3 x Infinite Earths
2 x Astropocalypse
2 x Carolina Death Crawl
2 x Quiet Year
2 x Tenra Bansho Zero
1 x Beyond the Wall
1 x Cortex+ Chronotrigger
1 x Dungeon World
1 x Fate Core – Fight Fire
1 x Land of Yeld
1 x Shinobigami
1 x Torchbearer

Thanks to all of the volunteers who brought their enthusiasm to the event, and to all the players who joined us, many for their first experience with tabletop RPGs. Finally, many thanks to the Escapist staff for putting together the Expo and inviting us to join in on the fun!