Well, we're back in the office now, or at least most of us are - some staff members have taken advantage of the lull in the office immediately after Indy so take a quick vacation and visit friends and family. Until our pallets (where most of our paperwork and notes from the show were packet up) from Indianapolis arrive, we're kind of in a holding pattern. Then we'll dive into wrapping up the show and getting geared up for 2009.

Until then, though, we're resting up, relaxing and recovering from our mad dash to the show. What have I been doing? Flipping through the books I picked up at the show.

I was able to snag a copy of the much sought-after Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide and it looks pretty cool, though what I'm really waiting for is the player's companion - I want character options. In other D&D news, I got a physical copy of the hard-to-find Pathfinder BETA playtest. It's available free online in PDF format, but the physical printing sold out incredibly fast at Gen Con and Paizo's new Pathfinder Society organized play program had an amazing launch.

I didn't just pick up D&D stuff, though, another of my favorite games (Shadowrun) had a few new releases I grabbed: Unwired and the Runner's Companion. I was also able to finally find a copy of CthulhuTech, something I'd been trying to hunt down since last year's Gen Con. As an added bonus, I got the new, prettier printing and got the author to sign it.

Another hard-to-find book I managed to track down was Delta Green: Eyes Only, a reprinting of the older Delta Green chap-book-things with some additional content. I was only able to get the softcover edition, though. I think I'll need to pre-order their next book if I want one of their super-low print run hardcovers.

Fantasy Flight had a new RPG at the show: Anima. I've seen the card game and miniatures game floating around but had no information on it, but when I was told that it was an anime-styled RPG by way of Spain, I knew I had to at least check it out. I also picked up a starter set for the pre-painted miniatures game Confrontation so I could finally check that out and see how it plays.

It wasn't all news stuff that I picked up, though. I also got some older White Wolf books I'd been meaning to pick up for a while, Requiem for Rome and Fall of the Camarilla. I've been itching to run a Vampire game again and I'm hoping the historical Rome setting will lure some of my friends away from D&D long enough for them to realize they can enjoy another game too.

I grabbed a handful of indie games that looked interesting for a friend, picking up 3:16, Darkpages and Hot War. They all looked pretty cool and came highly recommended from Mssrs. Hite and Sorenson. I also grabbed 2 copies of Hite's Tour de Lovecraft (one for me and one for another friend).

I did have one thing I wasn't able to get, annoyingly. The Maid RPG was apparently pretty popular, 'cause when I finally found it on Sunday it was sold out. Frustrating. It's supposed to be the first Japanese RPG translated into English and I'm curious to check it out (and anxious for the other Japanese RPG in process - Tenra Bansho Zero).

So I just wanted to pop on and pimp some games I was able to grab at the show. Next time I'll try to give some of my impressions on how Indy ran this year, and maybe a few things I want to try differently next time.

Well, I'm finally here on site. After a cascading flight delay in Seattle, I've arrived something like 6, 7 hours later than I had originally planned. My head's stuffy with that feeling like you just got blind-sided by a big truck who ran off with a whole day and you have no idea where it went.

I was hoping to have a chance to write something actually useful tonight before I went to bed, but that ain't gonna happen. I've already stayed up too late answering emails. I've got meetings way too early tomorrow.

I'll try to post something Monday night. Is anyone still around then? It's hard to tell, sometimes. I leave so early for the show it's easy to forget that Gen Con isn't a 10-day event for everyone else.

It's been a bit from my last post. But I've got an excuse called event review and placement for over 4500 events. I know I might sound like a broken record, but it's insane that actual event placement is already done for almost all events. It may not seem that awesome on the outside but it puts me months ahead of the ball...

Anyway, it's been a long night. Bear with me. My dinner was a Butterfinger ice cream bar, a box of nasty-tasting "citrus twist" tic-tacs and a bottle of apple juice. Oh, and some Smartfood popcorn.

Why am I still here? Well there's this little thing called "event registration" happening on Sunday. Maybe you've heard of it. Even though the "final" event catalog was released late on Wednesday there was still plenty to do: there were last-minute submission to go through (like stuff from WizKids), events that had been returned for correction, and generally lots of little bits here and there that needed to be patched up. Events that had slipped through the cracks and hadn't been made active yet. I think I've taken care of most of them and I've urged EOs/GMs to take another look at their events and make sure everything is in order.

The event catalog is effectively "complete." I say effectively because stuff is going to be added right up until the last minute, I'm sure, and because there are some large gaps from companies that have not submitted their events to me for review - but it's got everything that came in before the deadline and it's about as "final" as it's going to get before event submission goes live. If it's not in the list now, then it wasn't submitted and I just won't have time to process anything else that comes in at this point.

At this point it's starting to almost feel like the night before Christmas. Except I've got another whole day to wait.And my presents will all be phone calls from frustrated attendees who run into some problem during registration.

I also went through and added GM badges for everyone who submitted badge requests forms so that they could go buy tickets on Sunday. That was nice and smooth. I think people might actually get it this year.

I even managed to put up the tentative Wednesday events. I had been planning on dealing with those after event registration when I could confirm specific locations, but people wanted 'em up earlier and most of them were pretty much good to go. We'll still need to have another post explaining/promoting that someone soon.

There is such a huge weight off my shoulders now that this is done. I can actually go back to doing anything other than event review/placement. You know, like the rest of my job. My pet projects of anime, film and video games need some attention.

But for now, I think it's time to head home and try to relax a bit tomorrow (except I think I'm spending much of it helping a friend move...). Man, it's so cold in this office at night...

So the event placement process continues. I'm still neck-deep in reviewing and placing events. Just about everything from cycle 1 is done, but I need to get through cycles 2 and 3 in about a week or so. Should be fun.

The whole process has been very different this year. In the past we've reviewed all the events in a big batch just prior to event registration and didn't place them until later, when locations needed to be prepared for the program guide. This time, we're trying to get confirmed locations for everything for eache event before we make it public and viewable to attendees. It's an amazing feeling to be taking care of a lot of this now instead of a few months down the road, but I've had to take a closer look at a the space we assign events to be as efficient as possible. That can slow things down - and make me worried when it seems like I'm able to fit more events in half the space we used last year (hey TCG and LRP event organizers - check your space assignments for me, would ya?).

The other totally new things we've been doing is releasing event details as we are able to confirm them. Every year, lots of people ask for event details earlier so they can pour over them and plan out their schedule. We also wanted to try get people to visit the site more often and kind of ramp up the excitement for the show, so we figured we would release incremental event updates, weekly batches of the events we were able to go through and review. That has caused its own problems and confusions, though, as many attendees have searched online or downloaded the event charts and are worried when they don't see what they were looking for.

We've tried to clearly explain that more events are continually added and that the list wasn't final by any means but it still caused a lot of confusion and concern. It's kind of catch-22 - we want to release events but we don't want to cut off event submission any earlier and if we release only blocks of events not everyone is going to be aware that it isn't complete. Not everyone floats around the forums or sees the explanation/warning text.

So it's a tough question. I just wanted to vent about it a bit (do me a favor and if you see someone asking that question, remind 'em the event list is always changing) and start y'all thinking about it. What's the best way to get events out to everyone? Is piecemeal better? Should there be fewer chunks? Is it better to just have one big dump before event registration?

Obvsiously it's too late to change things for this year and I'm not promising that we'll be able to make any big changes next year either, but I just want to ask people to take a moment and think about what might be the best way to release event details. But not just the best way for you to get the details, but the best way for everyone: for the EOs and GMs who want more time to submit everything, the attendees who want to get all the confirmed details ASAP, and for the poor Gen Con staff that needs to wade through everything to get it ready for public consumption.

Ponder that for a bit and get back to me. I'm sure someone out there can think of a Better Way. 

Every year people ask for event details to be released earlier and this year we have to keep a much tighter eye on space, so we tried to kill several birds with one stone by kinda of combining event review with event placement and just try to take care of all of it much earlier than we have in the past. That's what most of the point of those event cycles were - to get people to submit event data much earlier so we could go through everything and release event details sooner. Looks like it's working so far...

I spent much of the week placing more than 1000 RPGs. My Sunday was eaten up banging my head into Excel trying to do fancy stuff and making no progress so I just gave up and went with a simpler method, but that still kept me in the office past midnight on Tuesday. It's quite a feeling now that it'd done, though. This is something that we would usually be doing months down the road on a much tighter schedule. Having it done now (and having a realistic view of our current space usage in the RPG rooms) and being able to clear up any placement issues with groups and companies now is going to be a huge weight off my shoulders down the line.

I'm not done, though, of course - I just finished the RPGs. I still have to go through LRPs, TCGs, and miniatures. At least I don't have to worry about boardgames and seminars/workshops. Still gotta work on my anime, film and video game stuff too...

But anyway, as I mentioned at the start, the first batch of event locations are done and you can view them by searching within the registration system or downloading our usual Excel charts. I've only bothered to put up the overall charts - once we've gone through more events I'll break it out into the individual day and event type files (but you can do that yourself in Excel anyway - filters are your friend).

Please remember that the list if neither final nor complete - this is only the first cycle of a single event type. There are still cycles 2 and 3 as well as all the other games out there. If you don't see what you're looking for yet, check back later or - better yet - send a message to your favorite publisher/gaming group to ask about their plans for the show.

We'll be releasing updates as frequently as we can, and I'll try to give everyone a heads-up when a big batch of new events have gone live. 

 

Now I want to share what might be the coolest event I've come across so far:

RPG01232 - Now We're Troubleshooting with Portals - Paranoia, XP edition - Fantasy Aspirations - Friday 9 pm - 3 hours

Good news citizen! Your permanent record and behavioral log have pre-selected you for exciting and glorious service to The Computer! You will be joining other candidates just like you as you form a brand new troubleshooter team. Just one thing: you are to receive a highly experimental device that will allow for instant transportation across space. do not let it fall into commie mutant traitor hands! Do what you must, because you can. 

It's one of those wonderful gaming mash-ups that are just so perfect you have to wonder how come no one did it before. Paranoia and Portal were clearly made for each other. The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!

No event placement update this week yet - expect a huge dump next week, though. Big stuff, I hope. I've got my fingers crossed.

 

This week, though, I figured I'd give a few quick examples of games that caught my attention during the review process. This is hugely slanted towards RPG and is totally influenced by my personal idiosyncratic taste in games, but basically it's a quick list of the games I'd be registering for if I had any free time at the con.

I used to wait until the show itself to figure out what games I would play (mainly because I'd spend most of my time running games and would rarely end up with time for a con game anyway). I'd grab a program book and just go through circling everything that looked interesting, then I'd see if I could fit it into my schedule.

 

First off, I'm gonna say I'd be most excited about playing Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition. I used to be a hard-core D&D hater but my friends eventually got me fully invested in 3E. I've played a brief sample of 4th and everything I've heard about it damn near perfect - so I can't wait for that and I'm glad to see a fair number of people have already submitted 4E games.

There are also a number of other games I'd love to try out in the convention environment:

• Rain of Fire and Catalyst Game Labs are both running a ton of Shadowrun 4th edition games and I still haven't had a chance to really try it out.
• Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy also looks very interesting, though I'm much more into the background and the world than the system. I had an... interesting experience with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
• I've always had a soft spot for Vampire and the World of Darkness so I like it when I come across those submissions too. I'd like to see someone running Wraith or Mage: The Ascension using the new rules set.

As for specific games.. let's see...

•  Infinite Imaginations is running 2 RPGs (RPG00902 and RPG00903) using the Hero System based on the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries The Lost Room. I've never messed around with Hero, but the show was great.
• An independent GM (James Blaze) is running a Dune game (RPG00629) that promises some intrigude: House Olin hosts a planet wide celebration and trade delegation every 10 years. Only 5 major houses are invited to determine which house will be given trading rights with House Olin. House Adici is sending delegates to negotiate in their interest. They bring a gift of a 1200 year old kindjal blade that was used to assassinate an ancestor of Olin's current Viscount. The assassin was from House D'murjzin. A rival house of Adici's at the delegation.
• Ron McClung submitted a game that's short on details (the description is just "Players investigate the disappearance of a Hawkwood noble thought lost to the jaws of a space kraken.") but it's Fading Suns and that's always worth a look.
• Infinite Imagionations is also running an Inspectres game (RPG00884 Things That Go Bump in the Night Thump! Thump! What could be making that noise in old Ms. Richardson's house? It's up to you and your team of investigators to find out. Inspectres is player driven storytelling, rules light, with role playing & fun emphasized. "We fight the forces of darkness, so you don't have to!"), which is something any fan of indie-type games should not miss.
• One of my favorite games of all time is Nobilis, even if I've never been able to get enough people together to finally pull it off. 13 Oak Lane Productions is running 2 sessions of it over the weekend (RPG00593 & RPG00596, Pandora's Key "They say that Pandora's Box contained all the woes and evils of the world, and until they were released, Man lived in a golden age of glory. What if someone simply closed the lid again? Could humanity survive in a perfect world? Betrayal and mystery lurk on every side, and the fate of all the worlds rests in the hands of the Sovereign Powers. (Pre-generated characters only.)"). I can't recommend Nobilis highly enough for anyone who likes their RPGs a bit werid and pseudo-philosophy/metaphysics heavy.
• My other favorite game is probably Unknown Armies and as luck would have it, there are two sessons of that submitted so far by Todd Furler (RPG01341 & RPG01342, A Hole in the World, "Victor Kjeldsen always gets what he wants. Always. Now he wants the only thing you can't do without."). It's an amazing, flexible game - another good game for those who like to idly ponder metaphysical symbolism as much as they like to shoot bad guys.

 

So those are some of the RPGs that caught my attention, mainly because they happened to be games I already have a knee-jerk pre-disposition to love 'em anyway. I wasted way too much time with my old gaming group pouring through some of those gems and it always warms my heart to see 'em come up again. It can be very hard to find people who have read Nobilis or Blue Planet and even harder to get enough of 'em to play it. One of the things I'd always loved about cons in general and Gen Con in specific was that you could almost always count on at least one session of even the weirdest game.

So gimme more of that, folks - more weird games, and more old games brought back! Let's see some more Planescape and Dark Sun stuff in the new 4th edition rules. Play around with stuff and indulge in those games you never get to play at home, for whatever reason.

That's what Gen Con's for. 

Let's try something shorter and simpler this time around. Maybe I can keep up with that a bit better.

So I've spent pretty much the entire week wrestling around in Excel, making the new event grid for 2008 that we use to place all the events. Yup - the magic happens in Excel. You submit your events via the system, we review 'em in the system, export to Excel and to do a ton of visual manipulation of tables and schedules, then manually create another Excel file to export back into the system with location information. It's a prety involved process that involves lots of copying-and-pasting merged cells.

This year I've taken it upon myself to try to improve scheduling and space management by creating an Excel file with some additional functionality, allowing for filtering and making it a bit easier on the eyes, as well as adding in some additional information for reference. I spent Monday and much of Tuesday figuring out how to format and arrange data so Excel would know what to do, then the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday was spent putting all of our space details into the structure - and then double-checking everything to varify contractual confirmation. Still need some tables counts for some rooms, but it's largely done.

I've already put in some of the major events and tested the functionality with chunks of last year's schedule and the more I use this new form, the more I like it. I think it'll make this whole placement and space management process easier, especially when combined with how much earlier we're going through all this - which is especially important because I'm fully confident that we'll need whatever help we can get in dealing with the space crunch this coming year.

I'll prolly spend a fair amount of my weekend reviewing the last batch of events that came in just before the deadline for cycle 1 event submission and then starting to place them. What does that mean? Well, aside from some extra-curricular work for me, it means that we should be able to release event information much, much earlier than we have in the past - and not just what events are happening but also where they are going to be held. Further, we won't be dumping all the events on you at once, but instead will be rolling out approved and placed events as they are confirmed. We'll have more details on that as it gets closer to actually happening, but I figured I'd give everyone a sneak-preview-heads-up-insider-info-hint at what we have planned.

Next week's blog post should be after I've placed the bulk of events, so I'll try to give some insight into how quickly space is going.

 

Event submission began on February 3^rd and in almost 2 weeks we’ve already received more than 1300 events. It looks like our new cyclical event review and placement schedule has really worked at getting people to submit events earlier this year. I don’t have the numbers on hand, but I’m almost positive that it took us more than 6 weeks to get to this point last year.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? Confused by “cyclical event review and placement cycles”? Wondering why so many other people submitted their events early? You might want to take a closer look at the Event Host Policy (and this forum post explaining the submission process).

 

I’ve spent the past week reviewing almost all of those events. In fact, I spent all day yesterday reading events while listening to 101 different cover versions of “Stairway to Heaven.”  It made for quite the surreal experience.

A lot of events have come in already but I wanted to take a quick moment to go over some common mistakes and give some quick tips.

 

Changes to item… & Returned for Correction

First off it should be understood that I have to make minor (or not so minor) tweaks to a fairly large number of events. When I go through and review events, I’m basically checking three things:

1. Is everything filled out properly?
   Are all right fields filled in the right way? Is round 1 of a tournament an entry round and is the final round advancement-only? Did you fill out your name and mailing address if you asked for special pricing? Stuff like that.
   
   
2.  Is everything clear and is there any repetition/redundancy?
   Do you say the same thing or duplicate information across multiple fields? Is the description clear enough to understand?
   
   
3. Is everything spelled correctly and is the grammar intelligible?
   This is pretty straight-forward.
   

If I can make quick, simple changes to fix any apparently problem I find, I do so and you’ll get an automatic notification about what I tweaked. If it’s more complicated, affects a large number of events, or I’m really not sure what you originally meant I’ll send it back to you for correction.

 

The important thing to remember is that I’m not always right. Sometimes I didn’t quite understand what you were trying to say or I don’t know the game well enough or I wasn’t clear enough in my explanation to you about what was wrong. Just because I changed something in your event doesn’t mean it’s set in stone or how you did it “isn’t allowed.” Make sure you’ve read the EHP and event submission form instructions to see if any rules have been broken but if you don’t like a change I’ve made or are confused about a comment, don’t hesitate to email or call me to find out what’s up.

 

Maybe I changed the game system to something I thought was clearer and I was wrong or I removed some duplicate information from your description that you really wanted there because lots of people miss it.

 

Sometimes I’ll also see something that seems like a problem but I won’t change it, I’ll just send you a note about it. Usually this happens on something I’m unsure about or isn’t a big deal, but could be clearer.

 

Again, just remember that the event submission process is basically a dialogue between me and you (the event organizer). Feel free to speak up.

 

 

 

Alright, let’s move on to common problem fields.

 

Gaming Group/Sponsor

If you have a sponsor or part of a gaming group, put their name here. If you don’t – just leave it blank.  It’s not a required field, so you don’t need to put in your own name, Indie, or None if you don’t have a group or sponsor.

 

Title

If you’re running an RPG or LARP (or anything similar) do not put the name of the game in the title. Seriously. Don’t.

 

If you’re running “Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil,” then that is your title – not “Dungeons & Dragons: Return to Temple of Elemental Evil.” Similarly, “Werewolf: the Forsaken – Let’s Go Kick Some Vampire A$$” is not acceptable.

 

Don’t put the GM or scenario author name here either. This is the title of the game session – and that’s all that should be in it.

 

Event Description

Don’t list the game system here either – that’s what the Game System field is for (more on that below). Aside from spelling and grammar problems (double-check that before you submit your event!) the biggest problem with event descriptions tends to be duplicate information.

 

Don’t include your gaming group or sponsor, or your GMs. Don’t include the game system or rules edition. Don’t list age or experience requirements. Don’t say “materials provided.” Don’t say “advancement only.” Etc.

 

Basically, don’t duplicate information that another field specifically exists for.

 

There can be exceptions to my “don’t duplicate!” rule, but they’re relatively rare. Sometimes you do need to really re-iterate something that you’ve had problems with in the past. I usually just remove as much duplication as I can, though. If I cut something you really, really want there, email me and we’ll figure it out.

 

Game System & Rules Edition

These can be the two trickiest fields. First off, if you’re running  a game, they are required. Just because you’re running a board or card game and the title of the session is just the name of the game doesn’t mean “N/A” will be accepted. Where this can get complicated is with Rules Edition and RPGs/LARPs (or any custom game).

 

As a general rule of thumb, try to use official form as much as possible and think of those two fields are reading “_____, ______ edition” (with Game System being the first blank and Rules Edition being the second).

 

Game System is pretty straightforward except with RPGs or a game where you use a rule system from one game to play the setting of another. Things can get a bit wonky then. I recommend that you use Game System for the actual system: Dungeons & Dragons, d20, Vampire: The Requiem, Nobilis, etc. If you are running a specific setting, like Planescape or Forgotten Realms then include that information in the description.

 

That’s a guideline, however. Game System is a common field people use to search for and sort events, so put what you think your players are most likely to look for you event under. If I change the system in your event and you’re concerned, just let me know.

 

You don’t need to include “edition” in the Rules Edition field and I very much prefer absolute and official edition numbers: 1^st or 5^th or 3.5 instead of “current” or “old.” Relative edition terms (like “new”) aren’t as clear and can potentially confuse a player who isn’t following the game’s releases – and with D&D this can cause a lot of confusion. If you submit a D&D game with “current” as the edition people will register for it before Indy – but by then a new edition will be out. Be as exact as possible.

 

If your game has only ever had one edition, just list 1^st. It is the first edition, after all. Sometimes a number just won’t work, though, like with Vampire: The Masquerade, Revised edition. Sometimes you’ll want to list rules variants or options added on, like a GURPS supplement you’re using or a Hero System version. Maybe you’re running the d20 edition.

 

Just try to use the official spelling/terminology whenever possible and remember to read the two fields to yourself – “(game system), (rules edition) edition” – to make sure it sounds right and you should be fine.

 

Tournaments: Round Type

This is the most common mistake when submitting tournaments, so make sure to double-check this field.

 

If you want people to be able to register and buy a ticket to this round, choose “Entry Round.” An entry round should also be designated as round 1 in Round Number for this Submission.

 

If they need to have completely a previous round before they can play, choose “Advancement Round” (and the round number should not be 1 unless this is a special invitation-only event). This will automatically set the price to $0 and prevent anyone from registering for it.

 

 

Biggest piece of advice: Double-check everything!

Man, that got long. Hope you’re all still awake.

 

The last thing I want to say is: double-check your event and if you have a question, ask. Gen Con isn’t a faceless corporation whittling your round event to fit in a square peg – it’s just me thinking something doesn’t seem quite right and tweaking as best I can.

 

 

Fancy that. I actually got a comment at my last post. People are reading this during the off season? What's more, it's actually a request to cover some stuff in the blog. I am shock-ed.

 

So let's get to it, or at least try. It's obviously too early to really talk about what events are cool at Indy 08 yet (watch this space next spring), but I figured I could talk about how I found cool stuff when I wasn't working Gen Con and some generally cool areas.

 

I used to run games for Eden Studios and a GM's weekend at Gen Con is pretty damn busy. You have to set up your schedule of games before you really know when anything is, so I was never really able to plan around going to some big event (I've still never been through True Dungeon...). I used to just schedule from 10-2 and 4-8 so I wouldn't have to wake up that early and so that I wouldn't be workin' too late. Usually there would be a few days where I had to run two games, which left little time for anything else, but I can usually breeze through the exhibit hall real quick (here's how: walk through the whole hall real quick, just noting things that look interesting - then go back and check those later. Don't try to look at everything the first time you see it - this helps save you some money too), so it was never a big issue.

 

I don't think I ever looked at the schedule of events before the show - I saved that for on-site. I'd pick up the program book the night before the show and relax from traveling by flipping through the event charts, circling everything that seemed half-way interesting (pretty much just RPGs for me). Then I'd narrow things down if there were conflicts, check to see if my friends had any plans, etc. Eventually I might end up registering for a game or two (usual Wraith or something that I can never find outside of a con).

The event charts were the primary way I figured out what I wanted to play, though I always made sure to ask exhibitors about demos of a new game that looked interesting. An actual play experience is always a better way to gauge quality than a sales pitch.

 

There's always downtime at a show, though. You know, that period you feel a bit bored, a bit restless. You can't pin it down, but you're sure you're missing out on something awesome just around the corner. If only you knew what it was you were missing...

In those cases, there's a few things you can try (and all are, of course, much more effective when you've got your gamer posse to back you up. Friends don't let friends go to a con without some companionship).

If the exhibit hall is open, you're almost guaranteed to be able to find something to amuse yourself with in there, even if you've already done the full circuit like I mentioned above.

The other all-purpose solution is to grab those event charts again and just pick the most interesting sounding game going on right then. It doesn't matter if it's your normal kind of game or if you actually end up playing it. Just pick something and start walking to it. You're bound to find something fun along the way or enjoy the game itself.

Things get a bit tougher as it gets later, though. Everyone usually wants to wrap up their games around dinner and while that's when the LARPs come out in force, they aren't for everyone. That's probably the best time to wander around for random fun, though. Video rooms are always at their best after 6 or 7 pm, I think. That's when the weirder films and videos start coming out and people start filling up the rooms. So wander by there and see if something catches your eye. That's also about the time people settled down a bit. They've had dinner, they're full, and they pull out the new games they bought that day. Most people would be more than happy to bust out the new boardgame and try it out with con strangers late Saturday night. Random late-night pick-up games of some weird RPG are easily among the best con games I've had.

 

So that's the general advice on how to find cool stuff to do at Gen Con: check the event charts early and often, and don't hesitate to wander around the exhibit hall/film rooms/open gaming area whenever you get a wee bit restless. Bring 2-3 friends and you're pretty much guaranteed to find something fun before long.

 

 

The other question the commenter brought up, however, was about how to get involved with volunteering at Gen Con. That's a completely different department (coordinated by the Wonderful Wes and ultimately under Aleta's responsibility) and I strongly encourage anyone who is even vaguely interested in getting involved "behind the curtain" at Gen Con to email volunteers@gencon.com.

I'll be honest with you, ever since I started working at conventions, I couldn't go back. I just can't enjoy a show anymore without that mix of insanity, exhaustion, and constantly running around trying to stomp out fires. I thrive on trying to juggle a half-dozen crises and the comfort of the crash that comes after spending 22+ hours on your feet running around all day for 6 days.

Volunteers don't get a schedule like that, but since I love it I try to grab as much work as I can until I'm runnin' myself ragged for a week or so.

You get involved with Gen Con simply by volunteering, though. You help out during the show doing whatever we need, filing gaps and helping in emergencies. After you work with us for a bit, we can find another position helping out with specific departments or events. Check out the volunteer page for more information.

Basically, if you want to get involved in helping Gen Con to actually run, email volunteers@gencon.com. If you have a very specific idea of what you would like to do, contact the appropriate department head directly to talk about it. Just drop a note and start a conversation. That's how it all starts.

 

 

So that's some very general, broad advice on how to find stuff to do at a convention (and Gen Con in specific). I'll try to give more details in '08 when more events are set.

 

Alright everyone, let's get back into the swing of things.

 

I haven't really posted anything in quite a while - I was super-crazy-busy just prior to Indy and afterward was filled with the post-con depression and all those boring wrap-up details. We've been counting tickets, having meetings, writing proposals. We've got a whole year ahead of us this time and it's a very strange feeling to already be trying to pin down some details for something 10 months away (and counting down!).

We've been counting tickets, checking time sheets, coding receipts, and getting all our paperwork in line. All GMs should have received their badge and/or hotel reimbursements and event payments should be going out shortly. I'm definitely glad to have all those firmly and solidly put to bed before 2008 starts - I don't want to have to resolve any lingering issues when trying to plan a new show.

I've got plenty more to do, though - there's still a big stack of mislabeled tickets (or simply not labeled at all).
 

 

When we aren't tying up the loose ends, we're laying the groundwork for 2008. The amount of time we have until the show gives us the luxury of sitting back and really reconsidering just about everything. Is there something we want to change? Did something bug us all year or cause a big problem that sent us scrambling? Now is the time to consider what we can change for the next time around. A lot of what I'm spending my time on now is following up with all those ideas I jotted down when I was going insane during the show to do "next time." You have to take those ideas and then hammer them out until you hate them, look at them from all sides and then if it actually seems to work, you gotta smash it around again for a while until you actually like it again. And throughout that you have to get everyone else to like it too.

Lots of fun, that is

 

Anyway, I just wanted to get back into the saddle a bit with this blog, get back out to remind people that Gen Con does work on this stuff year-round. I'm not sure how much interesting information I'll have to share for the next few months, but I'll try to keep this as regular as I can and remain accessible to anyone who has questions.

So it’s about two hours before I fly out to Indy. I’m leaving at the ass-crack of dawn to get in pretty early on Sunday afternoon. I’ll probably be worthless most of the rest of the day but I hope to get to email again tonight. Either way I should be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed come Monday morning. Or at least as much as I ever am in the morning.

 

Anyway, it’s time to get back to this blog, something that has fallen by the wayside of late – along with a number of other things, such as the forums, posting information on the web site and even answering email in many cases. Why? Because I’ve been in the hell of space conflicts.

Some of you may have noticed that a fair number of event locations (mostly events that were in the Omni) have been moved and shuffled around – sometimes more than once. I want to apologize for everyone about the confusion and consternation that may have caused any of y’all, I was trying to do the best I could with a constantly worsening situation. For a while there it seemed like every day I came into work got me another “So Derek… I’ve got some bad news for you. We don’t have this room/it doesn’t fit as many tables as we planned on…”

Needless to say this will not happen next year. I’m sure there will be another big mess, but it won’t be this again if I have anything to say about it.

 

So the past few weeks (seems like an eternity) has been me moving and re-moving events to try to fit into the limited space we have, shifting cells around on a deteriorating Excel sheet and then updating them all in the registration system. Not any fun at all and a system fraught with peril of all kinds.

 

The biggest problem, however, was that meant I had virtually no time for email and certainly no time to visit the forums and actually share a lot of the information I’ve been dying to get out. Video game schedule, anime events, film news, etc., I simply haven’t had time to tell anyone about it. I apologize for that too. These past weeks have been a big personal disappointment in that regard. I went into this year with a list of things I wanted to change and problems I didn’t want to repeat, but some of them came to pass anyone.

 

Either way, I’m gonna take a few minutes now in my half-conscious, stayed-up-all-night-for-my-ealry-morning-flight state and try to share what I can actually manage to articulate in this state. Maybe all of you out there who are actually reading this so close to the convention (all 5 of you) can try to spread the word a little bit and let your friends know what’s up.

 

I’d wanted to share excerpts from the program guide like I did last year, but unfortunately I don’t have easy snippets of the final layouts right now…

 

eGame Arena

The biggest big news to get out is some real details on the eGame Arena. This pet love of mine has been very nebulous and hazy for most of the year – so many things were in flux for so long that it was impossible to really release and reliable information about it.

 

It’s a big change this time around: the eGame Arena isn’t in the hall like it has been in the past, nor is it in a separate room. It’s in the exhibit hall this time, at the back of the new Electronic Exhibits area. That means we’ll basically be operating on exhibit hall hours.

 

Some of you may be say to lost that late-night gaming, but in return you get to play everything for free. You read that right – all events in the eGame Arena are free this year. You don’t need to get a ticket, though like a seminar it will guarantee you a spot if you show up on time. Now you have no excuse not to show up and throw down.

 

I’ve posted the schedule online in PDF form and the events are all also listed in the event system (have been for a few weeks, actually – sorry about not sending out a big notice)

 

Anime Avenue

I’ve talked a bit about this before and there isn’t a whole lot of new news to share, other than to pimp the Gen Con Voice Acting Contest again (you can win a real role in an upcoming production) and to drop that even though I’ve had  to cancel a few shows here and there I should be able to make up for it with some last-minute goodies I got from FUNimation and Geneon (like Hell Girl, the classic Slayers, Ragnarok, Rozen Maiden, and Saiunkoku).

 

We should also have several additional panels and live events too – so you better stop by the Westin event HQ (Anime & Film HQ) for the up-to-date schedule.

 

Film Festival

It took some wrangling, but we did manage to get a special sneak peek at the upcoming Dragonlance animated film – y’all better thank Tracy Hickman something proper for pulling that together for the show. Don’t miss the big event on Thursday at 6 pm in the Westin Grand Ballroom IV & V.

 

We’ve also got sneak peeks a few other films, like some midnight looks on Friday and Saturday at Fantasy Flight’s dark fantasy film Midnight. The creators behind The Force Among Us will also be at the show and I’m still working out some details for Brave New World as well.

 

And that’s before we even get into the always-popular Dead Gentlemen films and all the entrants in our fantastic film festival. So again, don’t forget to stop by the Westin HQ for an updated schedule to see what’s playing when.

 

Wednesday Gaming

Another pet project of mine this year, I haven’t had time to really publicize Wednesday gaming as much as I’d have liked. I’ve still got some stuff to work out for it – but if you’re in Indianapolis on Wednesday night, make sure to swing by the Hyatt. The Stink will be there in Regency A-D and we’ll be using Regency E/F for the special Wednesday gaming.

 

There’s more as well, actually. The local Indiana RPGA is running their pre-Gen Con events on the third floor in the Cosmopolitan A/B ballroom. With luck, we’ll have a special surprise for Harry Potter fans in Cosmopolitan C/D too, but that’s one of those things I still need to work out at this late hour, so I’m not committing to it yet.

 

Off to the Show

It’s about that time. I gotta finish my last-minute packing and take a crack at a few more emails before I leave. I’m hoping that saying up for almost 24 hours will mean it’ll be super-easy to sleep on the plane… but I can’t say I’m too optimistic. I’m making sure I bring a good book.

OK, so I've arrived in Columbus for Origins - and discovered I'm booked in the wrong damn hotel. Perfect time/place for a blog post, right? So I said I was going to talk about event placement, that I had a lot to say. Let's see if that's true. 

 

So how do we actually place events? It's a coordinated combination of juggling and grunt work. Initially we take the map of all available space and just kind of earmark different areas for categories of events
 (TCG, RPG, minis, etc.), usually based on last year's demand and what we know about any big changes due this year. Things are very loose and fluid at this point. There's lot of "Hey, what if we put that there?" and "That might work, but we'll have to double-check and get full details." Things tend to change a great deal once we actually have to start using the space we set aside for something. Inevitably, something just doesn't fit.

 

That initial pass, however, lets us get at least basic table-counts. After we take care of large-scale events and stuff that has really special needs (separate rooms, large open floor space, etc.) we just fill rooms with tables and get to work. We take an export of the registration system and create an Excel table with visual blocks for schedules (special thanks to Rennie for this, btw - he wrote a script to automate that step this year, something I'd been bitching about since forever). We use that to plot out table use in individual rooms. If a given room has 10 tables, obviously we can only have 1 games in there at any given time (assuming they're all only 1-table events). The visual schedule helps us sort out what rooms have availability at what times.

 

When doing these assignments, we try to keep events for the same gaming group together in the same rooms over the course of the entire weekend - if we can. Frequently things just don't work out that way, unfortunately. Rooms fill up very quickly and because we have to do place one group at a time, inevitably some groups' games get completely scattered around. Sorry if that happens, we tried to do the best we could on that. 

 

Sadly, it's not a particularly smooth process. It's all based on Excel files, so nothing's really fully automated and it can get quite difficult to juggle everything. I spent most of my time placing RPGs which is more tedious than anything else - it's much easier for TCGs but much, much harder for minis (pity Rennie - he had to handle most of those). Individual events are relatively easy to place, it gets complicated when people have special or specific needs or when we try to keep most of someone's events in the same location, or at least near to each other. Friday and Saturday afternoons fill up really fast and quickly make it impossible to give everyone their own space they can count on.

 

Then, when we inevitably find that there is some kind of conflict (a request we didn't notice, an accidental double-booking of a room, etc.) we have to try to juggle things again to adjust and find space where there sometimes really isn't any. Thankfully we have been able to place everything submitted before the deadline (and a great deal of what came in afterward) this year, though late events that wanted those packed Friday and Saturday afternoons may have to be turned away.

 

Once we've placed everything in our visual Excel grid, we take the big Excel list of locations and have that uploaded into the system so events actually get officially assigned a location, room number, etc. That's when you actually get to see it online. Right now only the building is being displayed online, but that's only because we're actually using the "Room Number" and "Table Number" fields now, instead of putting everything into "Location." We'll update things to display the full information as soon as we can. The priority the last few weeks was getting the program guide and event charts together for publication. That gets sent off the printer pretty far in advance (in the next few days, I think).

 

So that's how it's handled now - we take the entire event database (5671 active events when I just checked) and place everything manually in an Excel form. We take that info to build a list of locations associated with event IDs and upload that back into the registration system. As has become my mantra of late, I've got plenty of ideas on how to change that in the future, but that's down the road. Right now, Indy. And I wanted to give you some context on how stuff is placed.

I'm a bit rushed right now doing some last-minute preparations for my trip to Origins (I'm running games at noon on Friday & Saturday - stop in and say hi!) but I wanted to put up a quick note:

• A bunch of new events (including more anime & film ones) are online now, so check 'em out.
  
  
• Locations have been added for most events as well, though some tweaking is still likely to occur. Don't plan everything on it yet, but it should give you an idea where most things will be.

I'll have a bigger post later this week, probably form Origins. I want to give some insight into what we go through when placing events and I'm sure I'll have plenty to say from the show itself as well.

Just wanted to pop in with another quick note to try to bring myself closer to the every-Friday schedule I’m shooting for. So pretend it’s June 15^th with me for a bit.

 

It’s still Program Guide Crazy Time here for the Events team. It’s gonna loom over us for a while yet, I think. Program Guide > Event Placement > Event Review is basically the priority hierarchy right now. But I do have some news for all the anime fans out there. I don’t have all the details yet, but I do have some more details and a big change to tell everyone about.

 

As I mentioned before, FUNimation was kind enough to join the team and sponsor the Anime Avenue for 2007 and they’ll be bringing some big shows. Specifically, big as in “enormous robots beating the crap out of each other.”

 

I’d already mentioned ROBOTECH: The Shadow Chronicles (also: Anime News Network & Wikipedia links) before but I’ve got more details now. The DVD is already out in stores, but we’ll be having some of the production crew at the show to give you a peek behind the scenes. Specifically, you can meet Tommy Yune (director), Ford Riley (writer) and Scott Glasgow (composer). Those links should give you plenty of background on everyone – so no excuses if you show up without awesome questions for the guys. Once we have specific times for screenings and panels, I’ll let y’all know.

 

That was the new info – the change? Well, it looks like we won’t be bringing Shin-chan to Gen Con this year (Yeah, I know. Dry your eyes  - you can still play “elephant” in the privacy of your hotel room.) – instead we’ll be showing you the upcoming giant robot show Aquarion (again: Anime News Network & Wikipedia links). It’s a pretty… unique show. What sets it apart from all the other millions of giant-robots-fighting-weird-alien-invader anime shows out there? Well, if the general melodramatic, almost operatic atmosphere of the show isn’t enough, there’s the rather suggestive robotic transformation/combination sequences or the fact that just about everyone is a reincarnation of some ancient Greco-Roman god and the lines of lost loves, familial ties and tragic betrayals are too complicated to unwind. It’s an homage to those old-school passionate robot adventures with amazing animation quality and a winding plot that would make any self-respecting soap opera blush.

 

So yeah, make sure to at least stop in to check that out.

 

That’s about all the news I’ve got to share right now – as always, let me know if you have any questions or want to hear about something. Otherwise I’ll just keep talking about what seems to be going on at the time.

Well, Star Wars Celebration IV was something else. Something else indeed. I think it ate something like three weeks of my life, leaving me with just blurred memories of stormtroopers, long lines, and chocolate milk chug-offs to show for it.

 

I have to admit that I was very surprised by how much being there on site and seeing everyone’s intense passion for the show (and the amazing costumes) really rekindled my own interest in the franchise. I’ll be honest, episodes 1 through 3 (and the video games and the novels and the comic books and…) aren’t really for me – they’re for my little brother. I’m more a fan of the older movies that had a wider appeal – they were kewl and awesome when you were a kid but you still love ‘em just as much when you got older (but didn’t necessarily grow up). As I was walking the halls trying to put out fires, however, it wasn’t long before I really wanted to sit down and watch ‘em all again.

 

Very simply, lightsabers and stormtroopers are some of the coolest things ever and stuff like the Darh Vader Helmet Exhibit clearly demonstrated just how far Star Wars permeates modern culture.

 

So yeah, I enjoyed myself. It was super crazy insane most of the time (two words from Friday night: “security risk”) but I ended up having a blast. It was all worth it just for the chance to hang out with my volunteers. I wish we had more shows throughout the year so I’d have more excuses to work with them…

 

But now it’s back to Indy. With a vengeance.

 

Usually we are busy with Indy, tear our hair out on that show, then come back to the office and have to turn right around and jump into So Cal without much time for a break. Coming off Celebration IV is kind of like that, but instead of a smaller, lighter show we’ve got the biggest Indy ever (40^th anniversary anyone?).

 

Working on Celebration IV unfortunately ate up time and pushed back timelines for a lot of Indy projects so we’re trying to work as fast as we can to catch up. The big priorities right now are program guide content and event placement. Both of those need to get done realsoonnow before we’ll have attention for anything else like late event submissions or some of the specialized programs we’re experimenting with this year, such as Wednesday night gaming. There are going to be a lot of 12-14 hour days in my future for the next few weeks at least.

 

Program guide content is a challenge for a lot of the programs I’m directly responsible for because unlike most of Gen Con the anime and films (and eGames) aren’t all run by other groups, companies and individuals. The central core of those programs has to be set up and managed directly by us (or another group, such as how Hades Pro handled it for us in the past) and the big SWCIV happened right in the middle of when all that juggling was supposed to happen. It’s the need to try to coordinate the whole schedule of events that’s making it hard to put together the program guide content for anime this year and the film track simply hasn’t gotten the attention I wanted at all this whole year. I still need to revise the film contest timeline and details.

 

This means that pretty much all our (or at least my) attentions are going to be focused on those two goals: program guide & event placement. Events that were submitted late and haven’t been approved yet will have to wait a bit before being addressed and everyone who is curious about where their events will be should get an answer on that before long. We’re workin’ on it.

 

That’s probably enough for now – hopefully I’ll have some more new concrete anime & film news for everyone by the end of this week. Stay tuned.