The view from GenCon 2015

Y'all want to hear updates of what we see and do at GenCon? I'm not even volunteering w/ GtG at this convention, but I'm lurking around and think it would be fun to write up a few reports. I encourage anyone else here at the show to share what they see and think, too.

The GtG team and Jeremy from Handelabra arrived in town tonight. They will start setup tomorrow. This year there will be a large booth (20 by 50 feet) _AND_ a side room that's even bigger, just outside the exhibit hall in rooms 144/145. The booth will have demos of various games, including the video game, but not, actually, Sentinels of the Multiverse itself. There will be demos of multiplayer for the video game, though I'm not sure if those will be at the booth or in the side room.  The side room will have the Sentinel Tactics qualifying and championship tournaments as well as a bunch of ticketed (though still free) events. Events will include Tactics on the new maps, demos of the not-yet-released Sentinels RPG, Villains, and, I think, Spirit Island. They're all listed in GenCon's event catalog, so anyone who likes can go find out what they all are, though don't hold your breath that there's a lot of spaces available. Much apologies if I got any of those details wrong!

I'm not sure any of that is news that you wouldn't have been able to learn from official GtG posts and the event calendar, so I suppose I don't have a whole lot to add. I was pleased to get to see folks tonight. Sounds like they're mostly planning on turning in early and getting an early start tomorrow on setup. They have two large trucks worth of stuff to setup, plus whatever Handelabra shipped.

I managed to get a spot in one of the SotM RPG demos and am really looking forward to that. I'm also looking forward to watching as much of the Tactics tournaments as I can, in-between other events, particularly the finals on Sunday. I've got a noon-4pm game, but I'm thinking of ditching it so I can watch the finals live.

Have fun Andy.   I would certainly like to hear your impression of the Sentinels RPG

I hearby request as many pics of character sheets, dice pools, and subsidiary material as humanly possible.  

I request pics of people having fun playing it.

I request a hug.

*Hug*

Aw, thank you. *hugs back*

Day -1: GenCon doesn't actually start until tomorrow, but I've already been so engrossed that it's hard to remember life outside of GenCon.

I helped GtG zero today. I feel a bit guilty about that, but Craig, Jodie, Jen, Jeremey, Andrew, Trevor and others seemed to have the booth, Tactics broadcasting, and side room well in hand w/out my input. The big push for volunteers seems to be during the show itself when lots of games and demos need to be run and lots of people are needed to keep the Tactics tournament and broadcasts running smoothly.

It is crazy to think back to the ten by ten booth at GenCon 2011 or just the three of Christopher, Rabit, and me manning the booth at Origins 2012 and compare that to what's happening now. For the volunteer dinner tonight GtG rented out the downstairs of Rock Bottom Brewery. There were a _TON_ of people having a great time, playing pool, and having great food and drink. I got to hear Adam hold forth on his opinions of various super hero franchises and hear from some of the people in the world championships for Tactics talking a bit about how they might approach the upcoming matches, as well as lots of getting to meet folks from the forums or not from the forums, but still passionate about GtGs games.

I got to play New Bedford for the first time today and really enjoyed it. It's not really in my wheelhouse, but it's clear that it's a really tight, surprisingly fast resource management game. I think of it as being similar to Puerto Rico, but adding some interesting twists. If you like that sort of thing, I recommend you give it a close look. I also got to play Deck Building: The Deck Building game a couple more times and really, really enjoyed it. It is a very short, but surprisingly 'deep' game, by which I mean it takes some real thought to think through how to do better than your oponents given what you have and what they have and what you're likely to be able to acquire. I didn't back this kickstarter but think I'm likely to pick up a couple of sets here at the con.

I haven't seen the GtG booth in its finished state yet, but it's impressive. The whole thing is on a hardwoodesque floor that stands out compared to the rest of the show room. There's a massive six-sided GtG logo hanging from the ceiling. They've got a 20x20 ft room for warehousing inventory. The rest of the 20x50 space is more geared towards being a store than a demo space. People can pick up items from shelves to take to the counter, rather than having to wait for people to dig out items from the stocks. The side room is shared with another company (Asmodee), but has at least eight tables for Tactics tournaments and other games, plus the production, broadcast, and main stage sections for the Tactics broadcasting. 

Looking forward to seeing how everything goes this week. I get to try the SotM RPG preview tomorrow at 1 o'clock. I'm looking forward to trying the multiplayer version of the digital game, perhaps tomorrow. I know there's disatisfaction with the fact that nonplaytesters will get to see that before playcasters. I empathize, but do want to also share that in hanging around the GtG folks the last couple of days and overhearing the odd conversation here and there, it is very, very clear that everyone at GtG (and Handelabra!) is busting tail to do a ton of stuff all the time. That doesn't necessarily excuse them from being responsible if things go poorly, but please, at least, be satisfied that no one is kicking back and phoning it in.

Also, in non-GtG news, I misunderstood and went to a nearby bar today for a friend's birthday only to discover that the party is tomorrow. It was a happy accident, though, as I ended up meeting people who are taking their plastic dinosaurs all over the place and taking pictures of them. We had a fun conversation about the difference between t-rexes and allosauruses.

It’s the number of fingers (among other things), yes? If it has two fingers, it’s a tyrannosaurid, I believe.

Ooof. So. Tired. Only four hours last night.

Big GtG news for me today was trying the RPG.Liked it a lot. We mostly got to experience a battle. There are comic-book like elements used for ongoing leveling up, I'm told. My interest in role playing leans heavy towards being a method actor, and this RPG isn't necessarily best for that, but the mechanics of the action today did a fantastic job of capturing the individual characters (I was Absolute Zero), without taking me too much out of my method acting.

I saw a reasonable crowd mustering for the 2nd qualifying tournament this afternoon. I'm not sure if they went ahead w/ the first qualifying tournament, as there was some talk of cutting it if not enough people signed up. Didn't see any of the matches, but did get to see the board. Though it was interesting that the volcano was right in the middle.

Only got a glance at the new 'Minions' maps, as I was running from event to event all day. Looking forward to taking a closer look. I went by the booth for just a short period. I enjoyed hearing from Jeremy and John a bit about the further enhancements they have in store for multiplayer. One cool surprise at the booth is that they had stand up, small tables for teaching Tactics. A single character and a small number of hexes are printed on the small table service. It's just enough to teach some rules w/ou getting in to a larger game.

Ugh. Eyes won't stay open ...

Thanks for finding time for these updates.

After some sleep, some more thoughts on the RPG -- one of the things about it that seems wonky to me is that many of the 'kickers' one might have access to only become available when the stress level of your character or the stress level of the scene reaches a certain point. Absolute Zero, for instance, can't do a thermal shockwave until he or the scene reaches 'Red'.

I kinda get why the mechanics work that way. It forces a build up of the 'drama' of the moment. Emphasis, though, on the 'forces' aspect. There are some things that make more sense to have a forced wait -- like Omnicannon. 

I think the best enjoyment of the action scenes in this RPG is going to come if a group of people have a shared understanding that you're creating a compelling narative as much as you are trying to defeat the bad guys. It just wouldn't do to walk in and immediately use your most potent weapon to simply win.

Thanks for the updates Andy.  

I think this answers one of my questions over in https://greaterthangames.com/comment/115530#comment-115530 - which was "Define a kicker". So, a kicker is any of the powers listed in the Status sections? Or is it just the ones under Green, i.e. "kicked in" at Yellow and Red levels?

That reminds me of the real reason behind this scene from Iron Man 2.

https://youtu.be/Nx2mhPEr7kA?t=2m9s

ALSO: Yesterday I bought three copies of Deck Building: The Deck Building game, AND got to see the minions & more Tactics minis in person. I'll need to go back and look at them again in order to see anything but The Deputy and The Broker. I'm still walking on sunshine a little bit at the thought of a mini being based in part on me.

Thanks for the updates Andy! Very sad I can't make it over there this year, but it sounds like it is a blast!

Watching the replay on twitch but I hope your Sentinel Tactics team did well Andy

Must be quick. I have an 8am event tomorrow.

I subbed in for a team that unexpectedly made the semis for the qualifier tournament for Tactics. Had to skip two events this afternoon to do it, but it was very exciting. We did ok in our semis game, squeaking out a win, though perhaps only because the dice were in our favor. In the finals, out first game wasn't great, but not so bad, and I had a killer combo w/ Kusirigama into two hazards even though we lost. The second finals game was pretty rough. Honestly, I was so mentally and physically exhausted by then that I was far from my best. I'm not sure if we lost that in the ban/draft or in our play choices or what, but it felt like we were way behind the whole time and got crushed.

Even so, it was great to play. Sadly, even though my team qualified for Worlds, they won't be able to play. They are running and/or have costumes designed for a LARP tomorrow that would conflict.

Let's see ... other stuff ... I went by the booth early in the day for a bit. I'm still struck by just how professional it all looks. Looked like a steady stream of playtesters and purchasers. In the side room, there were often twelve tables of games going at the same time while ~15-20 people watched the twitch feed for Tactics that was being displayed/broadcast out in the main drag. I caught a little bit of Christopher and Peter's broadcast and thought they were both doing great. Good thing I'm not single or attracted to men or might just have to tackle Peter after listening to his sexy Aussie accent.

This evening brought the Concert Against Humanity. Four hours of music and comedy. Fan- Friggin'-Tastic. If you're ever at GenCon, don't miss this! It's basically Wootstock. It's the first year they did it for GenCon. Hopefully they'll be able to do it again. Right after my spouse got done showing off her new belt which provides pockets, since girl's clothes are stupid, she took a Wraith pin out of the swag bag they were handing out at the concert and put it on. Utility Belt for the win.

Ok. Now everyone who watched today's Tactics stream tell me all the things I did wrong in my three games.

Also, I had a few spare moments, so sat down with a couple who would otherwise have been teaching themselves Deck Building. Taught it to them quickly and they seemed to really like it. I'm telling you folks, this is a sweet little game.

ALSO, I went to the GtG state of GtG panel. Christopher, Paul, Adam, Jen, Chris Kirkman, Jeremy from Handelabra, and the three guys making the Sentinels RPG were all there. I don't recall learning a whole lot -- they've all been pretty open about what they can tell us about what's going on before -- but let's see if I can remember anything ...

SotM video game multiplayer will be cross-platform. Steam multiplayer release expected in about two weeks. Lots of the artwork and gameplay for Spirit Island is close to finished. Probably going to be Kickstarted ... ugh I don't really remember what they said. I think by the end of the year, though. Minions and More maps didn't quite make it to GenCon, so will probably be mailed out in a couple weeks. Lots of Dice Hate Me Games that have been out of stock are due to get reprints. I think they gave a rough timeframe for Bottom of the 9th, but don't remember what they said. Broken City and For Profit will probably be coming out in the first quarter of 2016. The _last_ expansion of Sentinels as well as, I think, one or more mini-expansions will be coming out in 2016, along with a pack of 'ultimate' promo cards. Handelabra would love to make more games from the GtG catalog, but one thing at a time. They've had preliminary talks about multiple titles. Jeremy would love to do a simultaneous release of the final expansion, but that will depend on how quickly they can get through the other expansions -- particularly Vengeance format villains. The RPG will absolutely include methods for creating one's own characters. They'd wanted to do that when they designed for Marvel, but Marvel had explicitly told them they couldn't. GtG, conversely, told them they explicitly had to. The feedback from previewers of the RPG has been overwhelmingly positive (and I believe it). When asked about Kickstarters that had to be relaunched, they underscored that they only bring games to Kickstarter if they believe in them. If they don't fund, then they consider the feedback and look for a way to get them funded, but it is NEVER the case that they're throwing something out there just to see if it _might_ be good. The economics of comic books make them hard to get done. It's a ton of work for small amounts of dollars that not enough people are willing to spend. Look, however, to the RPG books for _LOTS_ of background story, as they will need to give enough information to RPGers who've not played the other games for players to know how the world and the characters work/think/do. They've considered using the SotM engine for other genres, but it's not high on the priority list.

ALSO, without naming names or describing anything involved, I've seen the GtGs folks taking a few meetings, and those are just the few I happened to be near. It's clear that they have LOTS of irons in the fire or are at least exploring lots of different possibilities for new things.

Ok. Bed time. For real this time.

Haven't watched all three games it but I watched the first along with the second.   The only choice that really stuck out to me for your play was attacking Operative for the last incap.   Unity was close by and is a much squishing target.    The guy who played Omnitron had three actions available to him but often didn't have enough abilities to take advantage of it.

Have fun at Gencon today Andy.  Thanks for taking time to give your viewpoint on it.  

Thanks for the reporting, Andy! I'm so jazzed I'm in a smoky bar.

This may seem an odd question, but since I'm missing all the major cons this year instead of making it to one like I normally do, I'd like to know this...

What's the full crop of promos available at the booth this year?  I assume that after the merger, it's expanded greatly to include things from the Dice Hate Me stable, yes?

I don't think they really 'do' con promos? Unless you count early access to things that aren't promotional. Seeing the SotM RPG, getting your hands on Deck Building Game, looking at Videogame Multiplayer, so on.

That's all pretty awesome, to me.

Thanks. When the YT vids are available, I hope I'll remember to review that moment.

I don't recall seeing any new promo cards for Sentinels or any promos at all for any other properties, but I didn't look very closely. Perhaps I'll take some time Sunday to look more closely at what's in the booth.

The big GtG news today was the upsets in the Tactics tournament. Both of the winners bracket teams for the World Championships lost twice in the semi-finals and got knocked out. Both teams going in to the Finals came from the Secondary bracket.

The qualifying map was Insula Primalis with a volcano in the center. For the semis and finals raptors and a T-Rex were added.

For Worlds the map was megalopolis, but with three buildings having special properties: Take damage to get attack tokens; Take damage to get defense tokens; or Give tokens to heal. I didn't get a good look, but for the semis I believe they added soldiers as hazards. Given the changes in maps so far, I'd be surprised if the Finals map wasn't somehow new.

I've found that I've not been following the tournaments very closely. I'm super interested in them, but there are so many other things I want to do, I keep having my attention drawn elsewhere. I'm really looking forward to going back and watching the videos. That being said, I want to share the most brutal attack I heard about. The Operative walked through three hazard spaces to drop down to 2 HP (thus invoking Dragon Frenzy) and collecting six damage+1 tokens. Operative also had out her card that generates hazard spaces. Two opponents decided to charge her?! They each hit the hazard space and suffered massive blows.

Other things: I noticed at some point that just one of the nine current mini-expansions had sold out: Wager Master. Kinda surprised me. I spent some time teaching various people how to play New Bedford. There seemed to be some mixup in the booth today, and volunteers were scarce. I noticed a few people showing interest in New Bedford, but no one being available to teach, so went ahead and did so. Later, in the side room, I befriened a couple of the Tactics players who were about to start a game of SotM. One of them had never actually played SotM before! It was like old times, teaching Sentinels at a con. Rabit and I were sharing his copy and he was teaching another table at the same time, using Baron Blade. I decided to run a game against GloomWeaver. Curb Stomp! No relics or cultists came out before GloomWeaver was knocked down to zero HP.

One of my highlights for the whole convention occured this morning. (Wow, this morning feels _very_ far away) I played with four friends and five other people in Escape Room. You have to solve a whole bunch of puzzles to find a way out of a room. We came SO CLOSE. We would have gotten out if we had about 15 more seconds.

More general observations on GenCon: I've noticed that there seem to be far fewer big decorations around the halls. In past years I remember 15+ foot statues and decorated frameworks in various places. I simply have seen nothing like that this year. Every room is tables and gamers, tables and gamers. There's less to distinguish the various halls from each other. The masses of people are massive. This doesn't feel much different from recent years, but is a huge change from five or ten years ago. There are just _SO_ MANY PEOPLE. 

One more day ...

Fixed that for you.

Tactics Tournament just finished, but there is a bonus game. Check it out.

Bonus game was awesome and ended in one round.

Finally a Proletariat sighting! (Of course it took Christopher playing him to see it, but still)

Proletariat is the worse character. Thanks to him, the other team were able to get an incap. Terrible!

GenCon is over! (Well, mostly. Tomorrow I'm having lunch w/ people who came to town for GenCon).

Let's see. Someone asked about promo cards available. The cards one could buy (or use Sentinel Points to get) were the Prime Wardens, Rogue Agent KNYFE, and Super Scientific Tachyon.

So much fun stuff today. I did not see much of the two finals games, but I caught the very end of the second one. Although they ultimately lost, one of the teams rolled three sixes on three dice for defense to stave off the loss momentarily. The killing blow came on a gutsy move by Legacy to Flying Smash both Unity and one of her bots. The initial hit brought Unity down to one, then the bot being destroyed caused an explosion. Since Legacy was himself down to two hit points, there was a chance that Unity would defend against the explosion but Legacy wouldn't, ultimately having killed himself.

It was SO cool to see Adam, Paul, and Christopher sit down to play a game against the champions. Seeing Christopher's Proletariat spawn and spawn again when attacked by Blade, then use Overwhelm to push Blade around and into hazard spaces was just super fun. I think the GtG founders won that game in the ban/draft.

The charity auction at the end of the show was a lot of fun. Christopher is a delight to see working a crowd. Every promo card that's been released was auctioned, except for Kvothe. A lot of them went for a minimal amount -- a few dollars each or maybe as much as $5 or $7. The bidding started getting more heated with the Freedom Six. Freedom Six Tempest (quite surprisingly, I think) went for quite a bit -- more than the others in the F6, I think. Per usual, Beard Ra and Redeemer Fanatic went for a fair bit. I think they were around $60/$65. Sleulth Wraith was hotly contested, but I don't remember her final price. The real fun of the auction came with Young Legacy. There were two serious bidders who were up over $100. I decided to pitch in for one of them -- I didn't mind donating to charity. That started other people also pitching in, picking sides (though it was mostly one-sided). I don't recall the final price -- something like $250.

I took a turn at the multiplayer video game table, handily defeating the Ennead with Legacy, Ra, Bunker, and Tempest. The game worked pretty smoothly. I think people are going to like it. With all the computers in the multiplayer game right next to each other, it was easy to see that some screens temporarily got ahead of each other, then needed to wait for the other copies of the game when a group decision was needed. People who want to get input from their teammates in the form of seeing on-screen votes for decisions that aren't required to be unanimous will have to sort of guess if someone hasn't offered a suggestion because they don't have one, or because their copy of the game is just behind.

I also sat in, very briefly, on a Villains game. Didn't even get to my first turn, but it was fun to read through all the things that the villains do. Yes, I've seen most of them in the playtester forums, but I've not had a chance to playtest Villains much, so I don't know them very well.

While chatting with Adam, he commented that the wiki has found a lot of the references made in the cards, but not all. I noted that I would probably not be able to figure out most of the references. He responded that all I needed to do was read a few thousand comic books, and I'd be fine.

Rabit, Pydro, and I got together to take a group photo. Will try to remember to share it at some point. We cogitated on what one would call a group of Moderators. A Module of Moderators? A Mayhem of Moderators? A Mole of Moderators?

I'm now the proud owner of a trophy from GtGs, in recognition of having been on a team that made it to the finals of a tournament. Sure, I was only an alternate that won a single game, and then lost two, but I'm still proud of that trophy.

A propos of little, I got a close look at the mini for Decoy Projection. SO. PRETTY. It is a dark shade of pink/purple. Other random fact: I bought a couple of spin down D20s. I've finally admitted that when Rabit uses these to track things like Setback's Lucky Pool, I am envious.

Whew. I am dead on my feet after this week. Lots of fun stuff, but my ability to am is running low. My feet hurt, and I didn't even have to stand up for nine hours at a time working the booth. I've got no spoons. I've got a massive sleep deficit. I can't believe I've got to go back to work tomorrow. It has, however, been a really excellent week. When my spouse told me she'd gotten a job in Indiana and wanted to move there, I never imagined being so grateful to live in Indianapolis.

Oh, hey, another thing: I got to see a bit of Bottom of the 9th being played. At the risk of becoming a broken record, I really liked it. Looking forward to playing it more, hopefully.

Though I said it before, thanks for all of the updates this weekend! 

I'm sure no one would mind if Adam staring throwing out some of the references in the wiki.  

I saw the match on twitch and I also think that team lost to GtG because they didn't understand Proletriat.   Two of their turns were spent just taking him down.  The opening attack allowed Christopher to start off surrounding Baron Blade.   I just wonder if that impact seeing Proletriat more in the future or not.  

Thanks again for posting this Andy.

I was pretty upset with the series of events that prevented me from going this year, but reading your accounts makes things a little better, almost like I didn't miss anything at all.

Looking forward to watching the Tactics tournament when I get the chance to see where the meta game was at. The new map layouts sounded amazing.

The map for the Worlds Finals was like 65% lava. The characters start so close to each other, that it becomes an immediate scrum unless the characters are willing to retreat across the lava or run around the outside of the map. With only a total of three games played on that map, we didn't get to see much development in the 'meta' for ban/draft or strategy of play for that map. I wonder if taking AZ and making one's team immune to hazards, then backing up over the lava might have been a good strategy.

One more thing about GenCon: It is a whirwind and my energy level bounced around wildly. If I was less then perfectly friendly to any of you at any point, my apologies. It's always fun to get to meet other people from the forums, but I don't always have the presence of mind to enjoy it in the moment and behave accordingly.

One glaring example of this I happen to recall is that I met Chaosmancer like right before I was about to play in one of the Tactics matches. Maybe you were even on one of the opposing teams?! It's all a blur. I was so focused on playing those matches and trying to quickly come up to speed on a strategy with my new teammates, that I hardly even noticed the other team.

ALSO, also, over the years it is all too easy for me to meet someone at a convention or something, then run into them again many months or years later and not remember it. Please try to jog my memory, and I'm really sorry if that fails!

Ooh, Lava map?  Dawn-AZ-Beacon would be my initial thought on ideal teams, terrain could cause that to change though.

Baron-Legacy Lava shenanigans are so much fun too.  Oh man, I want to play in a tournament so much.

Get some sleep Andy.  Thanks again for all the updates.  

Agreed. If anyone has impressions on Villains of the Multiverse from the con, though, I would be interested to hear them.

I had a blast demo'ing it!

We had Miss Information, Plague Rat, Citizens Hammer and Anvil, Greazer, and Ambuscade in Magmaria out for the demos. The heroes were KNYFE, Legacy, The Scholar, Fanatic, and Tachyon, I believe.

EDIT: There was no Ambuscade; instead we had The Operative. Apologies for the faulty memory.

What, none of the new VotM heroes?  

How did people respond to the games?  I personally love this coming expansion.

Looks to me that all the new VotM heroes were used.

Mostly positive! I could sometimes see people getting overwhelmed by the interactions, since the official demos were all 5-hero games. I also ran some unofficial 3- or 4-hero demos, and those went more smoothly. Braithwaite showed me the technique of having the demo leader just run all the villains; I wish I had thought of that earlier. I will have to try that in games with friends, as well.

I didn't make it into the >G for long, but made it just long enough for a Sentinels Tactics game on the Mobile Defense Platform (Operative and Omnitron vs. Absolute Zero and Bunker/me).  My partner's dice rolls were about the worst I've ever seen, but everyone had fun, which is what mattered.

I did catch a glimpse of the Sentinels RPG, which has piqued my interest severely....I may need to send off some emails. :P

Hello all!

I played in one demo of VotM, and another game on my own with my buddy and another con goer.I got to see in play:

* Citzens Anvil & Hammer

* The Operative

* Plague Rat

* Miss Information

* Greazer

They all had interesting things going on. To be honest, though, I was most impressed by the art but least impressed by the play of The Operative. She just didn't seem nasty enough. She was okay, but all of the other villians I demoed gave me more reason for fear than she did. I still liked her, though. 

Welcome to the forums Animus.  

What did the other villains do that made you more fearful of them compared to the Operative?

I also saw these villains demoed for VotM, to much excitement. Wish I had gotten the KickStarter but will be happy (glee!!!!) with the retail purchase later.

However, I do worry that those providing the demo were mis-informed on the rules (especially for new people to the game).  Specifically, several of the volunteers believed that, as a special case, villains and environments immediately played a card then performed all Start of Turn effects.  This drastically changes things from the published Turn Order, of course.  One informed me the order didn't matter, after all, which I disagreed with, but got through the demo game.

One senior person (I forget the name) did correct this when I inquired if the rules had been updated for this and where to find it so I could show to friends at home.  But it did worry me that the demo people were teaching new players this mix-up while being insistent on the company tag line of 'Play, then Power, then Draw".

It is possible that if on the first turn, they would have been putting out the villain cards from the Setuo from the character cards, in which case those would be put in play and then the villain turn would start, Start of Turn effect, etc.  If they were just playing from the deck you're right in that is not correct, of course.

I'll say from my experience demoing can be a little stressful even when someone know the game really well.  I have hundreds of games of SotM and I still missed a few Start/End of Turn effects while demoing at Pax South this year

In this case, I was informed by the demo person 'This is how we've always played it' during actual game play after setup, so no simple tiredness excuse there.   I know that can happen and can appreciate it.  However, I think having the volunteers playing a setup game with a knowledgable guru to either refresh the memory or catch these home rule gaffs would help the volunteers be more consistent and informed for the audience.  I do know, personal experience, that I do take away from demo's a sample of gameplay to use when I teach the game…so bad or misinformed rules that get shown get propogated this way.

I couldn't agree with this more

Greazer's deal was that he was a bounty hunter, and his nemesis was whomever had the highest HP. He did some other harrowing things as well.

Citizens Anvil and Hammer had a great synergy with their powers and immunities.

Plague Rat was all kinds of damaging nasty.

Miss Information messed with your cards and statuses like no tomorrow.

The Operative…did damage, and that was about it from what I saw. Don't get me wrong, she was okay, but I just wasn't as scared of her as I was of the others. 

Operative likes to try and snipe heroes with the lowest HP. That can get scary depending on the scenario.

Interesting, I would have expected her to have a lot of reactionary damage

There were gurus available, but we were not always asked when there were rules issues.  When we were asked, considering time constraints, I am not sure that both sides always understood either the question being asked as the asker saw it or the answer as the answerer saw it.  So mistakes can be made in translation!  Sorry for any gafs you guys ran into when being taught the games!

Operative is steady, she is easy to run and doesn't get complex, she will mess up low heroes, but mostly she is nice and uncomplicated, and straightforward.

It is important to remember her lore at this point, she's lost her organizational power, and is fighting for Zhu Long to pay off her debt.  Tactics Operative is fighting for herself, it is a very different thing.  VOTM Operative is Operative at her lowest point (of playable versions).

5 players is the worst format for tthe Vengeance style of play.  3 players is awesome, 4 players is solid, 5 just gets a bit too long with 11 turns each round.

Hi guys! I got to demo the VotM for most of the time I was volunteering during GenCon.

I got to agree about the number of players. It kinda reminds me of playing a play of Arkham Horror with 8 people (yes, my group tried to do this once) when playing the Vengence-style with 5 people. It just becomes too long, and too many things are happening at once that some things will become forgotten.

I found it interesting though that a lot of the people I did demos for were new to the whole multiverse. It was kinda cool to explain to them the multiverse and all the story behind the cards. Some were really excited by the time we got done with the demo. 

As far as how they play, the team setted up for the demos seemed to work "well" with each other. They balanced out each other from all the fighting amongst themselves and I think that helped make the game seem easier. I think once you start to mix and match the characters in this expansion, it will become more fun, and the Operative will become more…challenging.

I do think we need to have Sentinels of the Multiverse demo sets available at cons. There were a lot of instances of people wanting to learn the game but being (rightfully) intimidated by Villains. For example, we had a family with two youngsters (~6 & 8) who wanted to play but Villains was just going to be too much for them. 

Having said that, I loved the demo kits that had been created for Villains! It was quick and easy to know what to do and what to use. (Something like that for SotM in general would be shiny!) 

I believe there was a more standard set available for demos. We just didn't always have space or volunteers to run it.

FWIW Paul was sending people who wanted to play SotM over to the booth, to play the video game =)

The standard set used was Rabit's set.

Agreed there were times we didn't have space or volunteers. I wasn't there all the time, so I can't speak for every instance someone expressed interest. I know some volunteers did demos when they weren't "on duty" just to make sure they happened, when folks came specifically asking about it. Most of the times when I was there we could find a table - it was those midday pain points when we had so many events all scheduled at the same time that we'd need to use one of the neighbor's tables (with their permission, of course). 

I can understand that - great idea! Hopefully it worked out well? 

Unfortunately, some folks aren't going to want to play the computer game to learn the card game (that family I mentioned being a prime example). I would have to weigh that against the folks expressing interest. For example, the folks who just want a quick, 15-20-minute demo, which is impossible to rig up with the computer version but easy enough if the volunteer knows the decks and how to set it up. Or the group of five folks who walked in asking if we could teach them a tabletop game they would like. They had no idea who we were or what we had - they were just friends who liked playing tabletop games. We asked them some questions, and SotM was definitely in line with their interests (one guy's face just lit up at "coop super-hero card game), but they weren't interested in a computer game - they specifically wanted tabletop - and Villains probably wouldn't be a good intro for some of them (they were definitely casual gamers).  

And I'd be concerned some of those folks would never make it to the booth.   I've done that myself, when someone directs me somewhere else. Too many things going on, distractions, etc.

Not saying we shouldn't do that, just that it depends on the situation. (Thursday, I offered to show someone the game on my Kindle, but they actually responded poorly enough I dismissed it. I probably should have weighed it as an option for other folks, though.)

And for clarity: When I ran Villains demos for folks who hadn't played Sentinels before, they were really overwhelmed by the amount of stuff going on. Folks who knew Sentinels were usually okay, as they knew the basics and could parse the complexities, but the new folks just couldn't track all the things happening, all the cards that were out, etc. 

I'm interested in the idea of the volunteer running all the villains, as that would probably have helped. Have to try that some time. Did anyone see that taking away from the players' interactions with the game? (Knowing me, I'd miss triggers right and left, though. Have to think about that…)

If I were wildly speculating (and I am) I would hazard a guess that demoing a line that is really, really close to finishing is not the best business decision in the world when compared to demoing new products.

Ummmm......lines go on forever. They don't finish.

In other GenCon related news ... A friend, who is only minimally familiar with SotM or GtG, but knows I'm a fan of Sentinels mentioned today that she'd been at the GtG booth at GenCon and had seen and fell in love with Bottom of the 9th.

With GtG's catalogue having increased so much, I think it's quite a challenge to figure out how to promote all of those games. I think the stand-up, custom 2-person demo tables were fantastic. Really stellar. Sadly, there seemed to be too many times when there wasn't anybody available and/or who knew a game to demo it. 

The crowed was just packed, packed, packed. On the one hand, that means that there was always lots of people walking by the booth, but it also meant that, at least to me, it felt less like a comfortable place to hang out and try a game and more like ... running with the bulls?!

The booth was always busy with people playing on the single-player demos and the multiplayer demo, though I didn't hear anyone specifically say they came from the demo room. Getting lost/distracted on the way is definitely a problem.

We aim to make it clear to people that it's the exact same game as the tabletop, and most are pretty happy to try it with that in mind, even if they are mainly interested in tabletop. There are definitely those who have no interest at all in digital, or appear to be filled with seething hatred for electronic devices, but you take what you can get =)

A 15-20 minute demo is easy to set up on the digital version, because it's already set up that way at conventions. The default demo goes through the tutorial with fixed hands & stacked decks for Baron Blade + Freedom Four + Insula Primalis. If it's not busy, we have extra volunteers, or someone needs help, we can turn off the tutorial and walk them through the game personally. We can also set up a custom game with whatever we like.

I definitely understand why GTG focused the physical demos on new products. Gotta keep moving! It might be an interesting experiment though next time to have a volunteer or two with a tablet to do pass & play SotM demos with interested visitors without taking up a table.

http://www.spatzel.net/gallery3/index.php/PicturesbyAndy/20150805-Misc/DSCF9726

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Man we missed out on a big opportunity as that means during Gencon there were no rules on the forum for a while.