[Deptheads] Guest of Honor/Special Guests for Gamex

[DB]

>Paul, Sarah and Denys - correct me if I'm wrong.

You¹re not wrong.

Money is better spent on rpg rooms vs. rpg celebs; the rpg side of the hobby
is in flux so that we have D&D dominating everything (as it¹s always done)
but the indie-game/story-game movement has really eaten into the more
traditional mid-tier titles. Talking about Hero, Shadowrun, even Gurps to
some extent.  In the L.A. Area, folks who played those games don¹t show up
to the con anymore ‹ I had Gurps games at this past con struggling to fill
available slots and that¹s *with* Steve Jackson being a guest of honor and a
well known Gurps GM running the event.  This is in contrast to some indie
games which had 5 to 8 alternates each waiting to play.  Don¹t get me wrong,
certain traditional titles still draw in folks, it¹s just that we need more
games of those ilk being run rather than celebs.  Let¹s spend some cash on
³roleplay² prizes to hand out to folks in our games, specifically our
tournament games which are currently supported by Robert Lionheart buying
prizes with his own money.  I mean... We spend thousands of dollars on
prizes for board-gaming and we spend five $20 raffle prizes on rpgs.
Board-gaming is the biggest draw of strategicons so we¹re doing something
right there but me and Paul have DOUBLED the amount of rpg attendees since
we took over.  And that¹s just us doing that on good will and reputation.
Sarah adds management competence into the equation and our rpg folks are
having a lot better experience than they used to.  Throw some cash at prizes
for our players and food and space for our GMs, not some rpg celeb that a
handful of people would be interested in seeing (and can usually chat with
online for free).

For that reason, I think minis could use a shot in the arm.   I¹m singling
this out because I was at Gaming Empire (Pasadena) on Saturday and there
were 50 to 75 folks, SRO, waiting to play the big two 28mm minis games
(Warhammer and Warmachine).  Contrast this with the minis room at OrcCon
which was looking pretty empty.  We need something event-oriented, like the
Warhammer Broadside Bash, to get folks to come out to a game con and lay
down cash to play vs. going to their local game store for free and finding
an empty table to play.

One idea -- Try to bring Matt Wilson, creator of Warmachine and creative
director of Privateer Press, down to Gamex or Gateway and spin a bunch of
Warmachine/Hordes tourneys out of it.

Also, let¹s make sure we¹re spending on prizes for the minis events.  Let¹s
put our money there to inspire competition.

Just some thoughts.

 - Denys

On 2/25/08 5:52 PM, "Eric Burgess" <erburgess at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think we've already gone around and around on that before. RPG guests not
> much of a draw. The RPG team has already pretty much agreed to that
> previously.
>  
> If you can get local people or there is something really big like the 4e D&D
> stuff, perhaps, but mostly, they won't add any attendees. Reiner brought many
> people from other states and encouraged locals to that don't normally come to
> Strategicon to try the show out. Jay did the same (many would-be designers
> loved the chance to meet with him). Board games just has more 'celebrity'
> people that cut across the entire swath of enthusiasts than RPGs do (which is
> more fragmented by the games individuals play). That's just the way it is.
>  
> I honestly don't think the RPG fans will think themselves ill-treated as long
> as they have the space for their games and our crack team of RPG folks
> continue to bring out the 'celebrity' GMs that run good games. That's far more
> important than designers. I'd wager that they'd rather spend any money on
> securing good rooms, perhaps finding small ways to encourage the best GMs to
> keep coming back than spending any money to bring out some RPG 'celebrity'.
> Paul, Sarah and Denys - correct me if I'm wrong.
>  
> On the other hand, it's good money spent on board game guests if we pick the
> right one.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mordred.punk.net/pipermail/deptheads/attachments/20080225/9d0c0f53/attachment.htm