And we’re back. Great time, saw and played with many great folks. We’re working on decompressing a bit, and then expect some more posts to be queued up here. Thanks to everyone who made it great!
Wow, this snuck up on us! Gen Con is happening in a little over a week. We’ll be there, all four of us! No booth this year, but we’ll be at Games on Demand playing and running our games and others. Come find us!
So a thing came up on the Googles (over here) and it reminded me that we had not, in fact, posted about our experiences running a booth at Gen Con. This oversight will now be remedied, if only to pay homage to my feet.
Running a booth at Gen Con was simultaneously exhausting, exhilarating, manic and fun. Much like game design, actually. Also, like game design, it’s difficult to relate the experience—like an idea that’s just too big to convey all at once. I happen to love lists, so here’s a list of the top ten things (in random order) we learned by doing. Fair warning: this is all based on our experiences, and may not match other people’s experiences for the matter. Also, it’s based on running a first time, 10′x10′ booth for selling RPGs. So, caveats in place, here’s our list. Continue reading »
Gen Con was fantastic. Thanks to all the people, too many to name, who made it awesome. We sold well, we played well, and we had a great time. Particular thanks to Ryan Macklin, Jason Morningstar and Allie McCarthy for their help with advice on how to sell and pitch.
For anyone who bought the book and didn’t give us their email (I think that there are one or two of you), contact us so we can get you a PDF copy.
Thanks for a wonderful year, and we hope to see you all next year!
Well, there’s one more day of Gen Con, and Transneptune Games has had—and hope to keep having—a great time. I’m taking a breather from the gaming, socializing, selling and accidental game designing, to recuperate.
If you’re here, and you’ve not said hi yet, come by booth 1745 in Entrepreneurs’ Avenue. Unless you find us tonight, we probably won’t be able to run Becoming Heroes for you this year, but hopefully we’ll see you next year and we can play it—and whatever games we’ve produced between now and then.
We’ve been talking a bit about games without GMs, particularly as we work up Lucid for the con. (Quick teaser: it’s an RPG about lucid dreaming. We think.) In so doing, it’s exposed an interesting point. The idea of what a “game master” is depends on the system you’re playing. Adversary? Guide? Prompt? All plausible roles. All different in how they play. The part that has me going is that this is a different distinction than who has control over which elements of the story. It’s not concerned with how, but why. Why has always been a more interesting question to me, if a bit troublesome.
Great news! We finalized our print layout and are ready to accept orders for Becoming Heroes. You can pick it up here. We’re still working on the PDF/digital formats—we’re hoping to create a full-size and tablet version, and should have them soon. This is the culmination of a year of work for us and we’re very pleased with the results; I hope that you all feel the same.
In other great news, we will have a booth at Gen Con! Number 1745 to be precise. We’ll be in the back right of the dealer room in the space reserved for first time exhibitors. You’ll be able to pick up print copies of the book, sets of beads, art from the game, and a copy of our free leaflet RPG Lucid. (What’s Lucid, you ask? Swing by to find out!) Alas, we’re still playtesting some changes for Piece of Work and have decided not to rush the game for the convention.
If you’re going to Gen Con, you should also stop by the various indie booths on display. Of course, the DriveThrough RPG booth (767), but also the amazing folk over at Margaret Weis Productions (1619); we are uncertain if Evil Hat or Bully Pulpit will be in attendance. [Edit: Bully Pulpit will be there. Rejoice!] All of these people have been a huge influence on us and we owe them all collectively a beverage of their choice. (Feel free to swing by and collect—we will make time for you!)
Expect traffic on this blog to drop during the con. Until then, look for several posts over the next few days!
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