Thus says Robin Laws

Perhaps it's because I've been listening to KARTAS for so long. Or perhaps it's because Robin Laws is a clever cookie. Either way, I'm taking up some vocabulary from him and swapping it as part of the Great Leap Forward that our hobby is in the middle of.

There shall no longer be the NPC, there will be the GMC.

He mentioned GMC in passing and didn't explain it. The context was enough for me to get it. I might be well behind the curve in adopting the term but I'm definitely an enthusiastic supporter.

Swancon Wrap-up

The title is something of a misnomer since I was there only for the Saturday. At least 75% of the rest of Swancon happened without me there and has its own bards to tell those tales. However, what I did manage to witness transpired thusly.

I delivered a seminar (An Introduction to Story Games) early Saturday morning. The audience, though small, were engaged with the topic and listened intently. If you weren't there you missed out on the following:

• Story games occupy the intersection between the mode of production of fiction, the mode of performance of fiction, and the mode of consumption of fiction. To put it another way it's writing, improv and audience all in one activity.
• Good story games are structured to drive the players' consciousness back into the fiction with temporary detours into rules.
• My mind is currently chewing over the notion that good game design gives the tools for creating problems in the fiction so that the players can respond (solve?) those problems

All of that was decorated with examples from the forge, Vincent Baker's model of clouds and boxes, Robin Laws' analysis in Hamlet's Hit Points, as well as a host of other games and luminaries.

After this was said and done I set up a demo game of Fiasco in the gaming room and ran it several times before taking a break for lunch and a quick tour of the rest of Swancon, followed by a non-demo game of Fiasco. There were the requisite number of fedoras to qualify as a writer's convention, sufficient numbers of cosplayers to make for a presence, and at least one kilt. The dealers' room was mostly about fiction, including a significant collection of works by Gail Simone.

Speaking of Gail, I had hoped beyond hope that Fortuna would allow us to cross paths in between our scheduled activities but alas Fortuna did not smile on me that day. My copy of Wonder Woman #36 shall remain unsigned for now.

Kudos must go to Terry Chilvers for his organisation in the gaming room. He was organised before and during the event. I knew what was expected of me and had all the resources I needed to make it happen. It seems clear that I owe this man a game of Fiasco sometime.

And there's no con without networking. My aging business cards came in handy and may serve as the gateway to the next thing I contribute to in the Perth gaming scene. Watch this space for more.

Iconic and Dramatic

It took me too long to figure this one out.

I'm running a game of Star Wars using the FU RPG system. It's almost a no-brainer to run. The system is easily brought to bear on the universe and all I need to do as GM is continually develop an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Star Wars universe. No problem, right?

As it turns out, that's not what I had to do at all. I have two or three players, depending on personal schedules, and they've got their own styles of play. I tried several different categories to help me understand them and bring a good game to the table. At first I thought it was FU that was letting me down. I think what I wanted from FU was a Burning Wheel experience with character development and challenged beliefs. FU doesn't do that. It can approximate it, but it'll never be Burning Wheel.

No, the actual problem was not understanding my players. Robin Laws put it best (as is often the case) with his astute categories of iconic and dramatic characters[1]. In my words, the iconic character doesn't change but is perceived to change by virtue of their exposure to different environments and encounters, whereas the dramatic character changes regardless of whether they are in the same environment or a series of different ones.

What I have in my group is at least one player who wants the experience of the iconic character and one player who wants the experience of the dramatic character. I'm not sure what the third player wants, but I'll figure it out after another game session. When this penny dropped I immediately knew how to make the games more fun for all. I need to include elements of both in each game session, in order to let the players get enough of the experience that they want from the game.

And in the last game that's precisely what I did. And it worked.


Notes
1. I choose to believe that it was Robin who invented these categories, despite all evidence you may offer.

An indie summary of Gencon Oz

The first Gencon Oz was, for indie games, a good experience. We had games from Australian designers being launched, we had seminars on indie game play and design, and we had full registrations for all tables of the Indie Games Explosion. Best of all, the organisers are enthusiastic about our contribution and are keen to give us more space for larger events in 2009.

And now for some details.

Seminars
There were two seminars for indie games across the four days. The first was on Thursday night, with a panel of Nathan Russell, Michael Wenman and Robin Laws (and I got to be MC for this illustrious group) and the topic was "Steal This Trick - The indie games you should play at least once". For an hour the panelists spoke on the topic and took questions from the audience.

The second one was in the last day of the con, and wasn't actually advertised in the programme, but we still managed to get people to come. It was intended to be a session on indie game design, primarily with the guys who were launching games, but we turned it into a Game Design Roundtable as was done at Dreamation. Two games were thrown on the table and dissected by the assembled group. Both of the designers set themselves goals to have ashcans ready in six months, in time for Melbourne's Arcanacon.

Indie Games Launched
Michael Wenman came up from Sydney to launch The Eighth Sea, his game about time-travelling pirates with a penchant for making money from temporal disturbances. He ran two or three sessions every day, and was fully booked (and over booked!) for each one. The pre-orders list grew quite well, I hear.

Nathan Russell decided to only run his game - Space Rat - through the IGE, and was handsomely rewarded. I sat in on an hour of one session and enjoyed it immensely. Due to a delay in printing from Lulu he didn't have any product to sell, but he handed out stacks of postcards and flyers. He generously left me with one of his few pre-release copies to add to my library. Thanks, Nathan!

Indie Games Explosion
According to the registration table, all sessions were fully booked and even though about 10-20% didn't turn up, we had gamer after gamer approaching us and ask about empty spaces at the table. We estimate that about half of them had never heard of any of the games, and were still keen to play. We also estimate that about two-thirds finished the games and asked, "Where can I buy this game?" Unfortunately, the only thing we could do was point them to the IPR online store. We hadn't really expected people to try and buy these games from us, but they were keen. I would have loved to point them towards one of the retailers, but none of them were carrying indie stock either.

In short, the indie gamer crowd had more demand than supply and the organisers noticed. I suspect that we left our mark partially through the registration database and partially through the periodic visits from Robin Laws, Peter Adkison and the Gencon staff. I need to give a big thank you to Scott Vandervalk, Nathan Russell and Michael Wenman for bringing content to the con. I also need to point out the great support from Peter Ball and the rest of the con organisers for squeezing a non-standard event into the programme.

And now... go plan the next one.

Editorial Addition
In my original post, I forgot to thank the folks who came to the round table. Thanks to Scott V, Louise, Lon, Michael (and his wife), Craig and Danica. We'll do it again next year.

Halftime at Gencon

So it's halfway through Gencon and I have to say that the con is exceeding my expectations in almost every way. The gaming has been great, but the best thing has been the response to the Indie Games Explosion. When internet pre-registrations closed (the Monday morning before the con) we had 47 places left from our 90 places available. At that point I thought we would have a lot of flexibility, and perhaps half-full sessions that we could use to run games that were more focused on a smaller number of characters. The reality, after just one day, is that we have had every table of every session full. Even overflowing at least once. I couldn't have expected it. Over and above this, I heard yesterday that all our sessions for today (Saturday) are full already, and that we might be offering one final session on Sunday. It's not in the programme right now, but at this stage anything seems possible.

This is largely due to the great work by Peter Ball. He looks tired, but he is still happy and works hard to make it all happen. I'm glad he's involved in this because he's supportive, helpful and friendly. Great work, Peter.

To close, I'm going to give a very quick summary of what I've been up to so far.

Thursday
- Met Nathan Russell in person for the first time. And from that point, I met a bunch of people from the Newcastle gaming scene, and frequenters of Imbercorvus.
- Bought some Campaign Coins. Wow. These things are great. They have good heft and are already in use for my Don't Rest Your Head games.
- Played a demo of Heroclix, and was soundly beaten by my friend Mat. 3-0. Ack! He's a great tactical player who didn't even use one of his minis.
- Played a game (or part of a game) of Cleopatra. This looks like an interesting strategy game and it has some great supporting plasticware for game pieces.
- Hosted (was MC of...) the Steal This Trick seminar, with Robin Laws, Nathan Russell and Michael Wenman. This was a great seminar, with about 30-40 people.
- Had dinner with Robin Laws. He's a great guy with interesting things to say on a wide range of topics. My only regret was the "Vietnamese" restaurant we chose wasn't all that Vietnamese. Ah well.

Friday
- First session of the IGE: I played Spirit of the Century with a great group. That adds 6 to my count of new people to game with. Some of these guys had played SOTC before, and most were from Brisbane. If I can find my notes from the game, I'll add their names.
- Second session of the IGE: 80% of the group demanded Don't Rest Your Head. So that's what we played. I don't feel that it was my best game, but the last hour of game play was pretty good, and I especially like the epilogues that the players created to close off the session. Fantastic.
- Played Grey Ranks with Peter Adkison, Robin Laws and Luke (no surname, just like Prince and Madonna). This was shakey at first, but after the first round of learning, the second and third rounds were fantastic. I hadn't played it before, but now I want to play it again. I also have to say that Robin is a great gamer, showing great rhythm between silence and speaking, between plot development and plot resolution. I learnt a lot. Thanks Robin!

And now... time to embrace Saturday at Gencon. See you there.

Secret Gencon Oz Project Revealed!

If you will be at Gencon on Thursday night, come to this seminar.

Steal This Trick: The Indie Games You Should Play at Least Once
Small games often contain big ideas, pushing the boundaries and testing mechanics that more established games can't. Join our panelists as they discuss their favourite small-press/indie games and the fresh ideas that drive them. Featuring Robin Laws, Nathan Russell, Michael Wenman, Andrew Smith

Yes that's right. I will be sharing a stage with Robin Laws, talking about indie games. remember, it's Thursday night at 6pm in Seminar Room F1.