Who's Yer Con 2017

Who's interested in running demos at Who's Yer Con 2017

March 31 - April 2

Register at: http://whosyergamers.org/

Russ and I are considering creating a slate of Events as well as posting people in the free-play area. GtG have offered possible demo games/promos/prizes (TBD).

If you're interested, share which games you would like to demo, whether it's a game you already know how to demo or not, whether or not you have a copy to use, and how many demos of each you'd like to run.

For example, for me:

• SotM (5+), know how to demo, have a copy, but would prefer to get some of the expansions to make a complete demo copy rather than use my personal set.
• Tactics (1-2), know how to demo, have a copy
• New Bedford (1-2), kinda know how to demo, have a copy
• Spirit Island (1-2), have played, don't really know how to demo, don't have a copy
• Fate of the Elder Gods (1-2), have played, don't really know how to demo, don't have a copy
• Bottom of the Ninth (1-2), have played, don't really know how to demo, have a copy
• Deck Building (1-2), have played, know how to demo, have enough for six players
• Traitor Mechanic, (1-2), have not played, have a copy
• Trick-Taking (1-2), have not played, have a copy
• Time Management (1-2), have not played, have a copy

I wouldn't want to do _ALL_ of the above, and I'm not sure which of the above I'm most interested in.

Once we have a better idea of who wants to do what, we can organize who will actually do what, when, and where and then I'll work w/ GtG on possibly getting demo games, promos, prizes.

I'm interested!

I'm not quite sure what your numbers mean, but I'm totally prepared to demo Spirit Island, SotM, and New Bedford. I hope and expect to have the official version of Spirit Island by then, but in any case I have the copy I've been using for playtesting (which I also used at GenCon). I also have Brew Crafters and know how to demo it, altohugh a little less confidently. And I'm also happy to demo all the smaller games.

Looking forward to it! 

I initially thought Andy’s numbers were how comfortable he was with demoing it (on a scale of 1-5). I finally realized it was how many times he would be willing to demo it. 

• SotM (∞) -- Know how to demo, have a demo copy, (but would like to get a copy of K.N.Y.F.E. for it).
• Tactics (1-2) -- Know how to demo, have a copy
• New Bedford (1-2) -- Know how to demo (turns out the instructions I got for demoing it before Gen Con were... flawed, but I think I got them all addressed :confused: ; will want to review rules to make sure), don't have a copy
• Spirit Island (1-2), have played, kinda know how to demo (suggest reading and using grysqrl's demo instructions if we're going to do this), don't have a copy
• Bottom of the Ninth (0), have played, don't really know how to demo, don't have a copy
• Deck Building (0), have played, know how to demo, don't have a copy

Need to see how time with kids will work out after my new job kicks in week after next. (Good bye 90-minute commute each way; hello having a life again). Definitely willing to come over Friday night & stay through end of day Saturday if it works out.

• Sentinels: Own everything currently available; plenty comfortable demoing.
• Spirit Island: Have pre-ordered, but likely won't own by then. Haven't been able to run full game, not sure how to demo yet.
• Compounded (1-2 times): Own, Have played about 2x; not positive how to demo but could get it worked out with advance notice.

Might consider coming if the kids are with me, but at that point we'll be standard attendees and I won't be available for demoing. (My kids are 11 and 7; not comfortable leaving them unattended on the kids' track. He might be OK; she definitely wouldn't be.)

I would love to come down but at this point it's pretty unlikely! If I did, I'd happily demo New Bedford. My boyfriend and I were playing that nightly for a while; it's such a solid little game.

I also have Tactics wave 2 stuff that I could playtest, which I feel is subtly different to demoing. ;)

Thanks, y'all.

What are your thoughts on what we should do? I'm vaguely thinking:

• Schedule one (or maybe two) event(s) each for Tactics, New Bedford, Spirit Island, Fate of the Elder Gods, Brew Crafters, and Compounded (if Jeff's available).

• In the free play area, have Sentinels and the smaller games (Bottom of the 9th, Deck Building, Traitor Mechanic, Trick-Taking, Time Management) available and play it by ear as to what to play depending on who's running games and what the players are interested in.

How much time should we schedule for each game? I'm thinking 90 minutes for Tactics, New Bedford, and Spirit Island. Maybe 2 hours for Fate of the Elder Gods. No idea for Brew Crafters and Compounded.

I can also run demos of Compounded, I did that at GenCon too (and narrowly avoided giving a demo to Jeff there).

Agree on 90 minutes for Spirit Island. That allows for a full introductory game, unlike what we did at GenCon.

Brew Crafters would be 2 hours if we want a full game, I think? At Gen Con we ended up stopping part way through; that was actually fine, since it gave players a good taste of strategies, while recognizing that it's hard to play well on your first game.

I'll look up how long was scheduled for each of those games when I get a chance.

Spirit Island will be the only one of those that will be just released at that point. I'm happy to run as many demos as there is demand for.

It looks like all the events were scheduled for 60 minutes at Gen Con. I think Compounded fits within that time (perhaps with a slightly shortened game). Brew Crafters, New Bedford, Spirit Island, and Tactics definitely run longer. I have less experience with Fate of the Elder Gods.

I looked at the State of GTG post from Paul, and was reminded that Lazer Ryderz and Exoplanets are "in mass production", thus likely to be ready with printed copies by then. Nobody has mentioned those yet. I'm comfortable running demos of Lazer Ryderz. I'll be getting a copy of Exoplanets as well; I haven't actually played it, but could doubtless learn it well enough to run demos.

A look at the updates/comments on the Fate of the Elder Gods Kickstarter doesn't make me optimistic that it will be released by then. (GTG was saying they want to be sure to have it ready for release at Gen Con.) We could do demos off play-testing copies, but it might be better to hold off.

You can absolutely play a New Bedford in an hour, in my experience!

Including teaching? This is one of the games I have less experience in teaching.

Depending on the player count, I'd say yes! I suppose if you're teaching people who have never played a worker placement game it'd be a bit harder, but if they have some modern game literacy you should be fine.

If I remember correctly, the New Bedford demos we did at Gen Con weren't full games, running only 6 turns instead of 12. It was plenty of time to give everyone an idea of how the game works but short enough to ensure it didn't take too long. Those demos generally ran around an hour.

That’s how they played it at PAX when I played a demo. The short game worked really well; got a good handle for the game, and got me to pick it up!

There are various natural ways of shortening all of these games, mentioned above. These make a lot of sense for a demo. (For Brew Crafters, I'd play through 2 years rather than 3 years. I think that would fit in an hour.)

The question is what players at Whosyercon are likely to want. Will people be looking for demos or complete games? Maybe we can decide based on who shows up to a particular event. For demos with the shortenings mentioned, 60 minutes generally makes sense, I think.

In general, I envision running full games and being conservative on scheduling -- I'd rather have more time and not use it than run out, both so I don't feel rushed in trying to finish (or cheated in failing to finish) and so there are some built-in breaks between games to rest/recover and find players, if needed.

I have no problem running pre-release versions of games that might still change, assuming GtG doesn't have a problem with it and (of course) we can get ahold of a version that looks at least halfway decent.

I have playtesting copies of Spirit Island and Fate of the Elder Gods that I'd be happy to contribute (presuming GtG gives permission). They look fine, except that the glorious sculpts for both games will look much more pedestrian.

Andy, do you have the information you need to start submitting events?

My next step will be to propose a schedule and see if y'all are on board.

It would be helpful to know _when_ people want to run games. For instance, I don't really want to run games Fri afternoon or Sunday.

I likely won't be able to be there until after dinner Friday, but should be available the rest of the weekend. 

Fri

       3:30-5           Spirit Island, Dylan            Free space: Andy

 

       7-8:30           New Bedford, Russ               Free space: Dylan

       8:30-10          Fate of the Elder Gods, Andy    Free space: Dylan

 

Sat

       10-11:30         Compounded, Jeff                Free space: Russ

 

       2-3:30           Fate of the Elder Gods, Dylan   Free space: Jeff

       3:30-5           Brew Crafters, Dylan            Free space: Jeff

 

       7-8:30           New Bedford, Andy               Free space: Russ

       8:30-10          Spirit Island, Russ             Free space: Andy

 

Sun

       10-11:30         Tactics, Russ                   Free space: Andy

1. Do you agree with the timeslots chosen (both number of slots and length of slots)?
2. Do you agree with the distribution of which games got more slots?
3. Are you happy with the times/games you've been assigned?

One more time on that formatting:

Fri

• 3:30-5           Spirit Island, Dylan            Free space: Andy
• 7-8:30           New Bedford, Russ               Free space: Dylan
• 8:30-10          Fate of the Elder Gods, Andy    Free space: Dylan

Unfortunately, there's a colloquium here in Bloomington that Friday for which I know the speaker, so I won't be able to be there early on Friday. I could run an event starting at 7:00.

Should work for me, although I'll want to borrow your New Bedford sometime before then, Andy, to refresh myself on the rules. I'll _definitely_ have to refresh myself on Spirit Island, as it's been quite a while since I played... 

Is this something you want to do? I'm totally happy to run both demos of Spirit Island. Playing or demoing Spirit Island is basically my favorite activity. (But it also sounded like I was the only one comfortable demoing Brew Crafters.)

New proposal. I've cut the times down to 7, cutting out Fri afternoon (I'm the only one who could be there) and Sunday (Jeff will be gone and by then I think we might be out of steam). I've cut out Tactics and Brewcrafters from the scheduled events. I can see us doing Tactics demos in the free space area. I think it's more important for us to have fun then to worry about demoing everything. In fact, we might want to simply have everyone demo whatever they most want to run during their scheduled slot.

Fri

• 7-8:30           New Bedford, Russ               Free space: Andy
• 8:30-10         Fate of the Elder Gods, Andy    Free space: Russ

Sat

• 10-11:30        Compounded, Jeff                Free space: Russ
• 2-3:30           Spirit Island, Dylan            Free space: Jeff
• 3:30-5           Spirit Island, Dylan            Free space: Andy
• 7-8:30           New Bedford, Russ               Free space: Dylan
• 8:30-10          Fate of the Elder Gods, Andy    Free space: Dylan

1. Are you happy with your timeslot?
2. Are you happy with the games your assigned to run?
3. Are you ok with cutting Tactics and Brewcrafters?

I'm totally happy with this!

How will the games in the Free Play area work? There's a bunch of games we'll want to be able to offer, right? (SotM, Tactics, meta-games, ...) Where will they go when nobody's in charge of that area?

I think we'll need to make sure that there's always someone there. I was vaguely thinking that during gaps the two people on either side of the gap would split the time.

Let's go a step further. If you are next to a gap, you are responsible for being in the free space area during the gap. We'll have at least two people during those times.

Hmm, I'm going to want to get dinner sometime between 5 and 7 on Saturday. (I'm scheduled to run a demo of Spirit Island until 5, then be in the free area starting at 7 through until 10pm.)

Could we get a big storage tub for the games so we can easily put it in a car if we need to? That way the people on either side of the gap can coordinate. We just need to be sure it's in a correct car (so that we have access when needed).

Assuming that scheduling works (which I'm not really going to be able to work on for a while, as my ex-wife has her craziest work month of the year coming between now and the end of February), I'm good.

Sounds great to me!  Thanks for setting all this up for us, Andy! 

Good point. Middle ground: Both people are responsible, but they can still work it out to take breaks, go get food in shifts, etc.

As for a big tub to hold the games – not a bad idea, but I'm  enamored of the idea of grabbing a prominent table or two and being a constant presence.

Hmmm … I'd like to get the events in sooner rather than later. I don't think anyone else is comfortable/interested in running Compounded. Is there another game you'd like to run? We could simply run Sentinels in that slot.

SENTINELS!!! 

Oh, did I not say that? I'm comfortable and interested in running Compounded. (Jeff and I met briefly while I was demoing Compounded at GenCon!)

But there did seem to be some enthusiasm for Sentinels…

Either way, go ahead and submit the events.

Can someone be in charge of taking and/or posting photos?

I'm going to go with Sentinels. Why would I disregard Russ' ALLCAPS excitement?

Re: Photos: No promises, but I like photos, so I'll see what I can do. We're going to be stretched thin.

Off to make event submissions.

Events have been created. Schedule changed because even submission required games to start on the hour and to last for increments of whole hours. I decided to err on the side of caution and put everything in for two hours.

ALSO, with this schedule there are only two food breaks: Lunch and dinner on Saturday. How about Russ and I, as the person handling the free space before the food break and since neither of us have commitments right after the food break, stay in the free space an extra hour.

Fri

• 6-8pm, New Bedford, Russ (free space: Andy)
• 8-10pm, Fate of the Elder Gods, Andy (free space: Russ)

Sat

• 10-noon, Sentinels, Jeff (free space: Russ)
• 1-3pm, Spirit Island, Dylan (free space: Jeff)
• 3-5pm, Spirit Island, Dylan (free space: Andy)

• 6-8pm, New Bedford, Russ (free space: Dylan)
• 8-10pm, Fate of the Elder Gods, Andy (free space: Dylan)

1. Y'all okay with this (perhaps finalized) schedule?
2. Russ, I'll give you my copy of New Bedford
3. Dylan, will you be up in Indy any time soon to give me your copy of Fate of the Elder Gods, so I can study it? I'll also check w/ GtG to see if they have something they can send me.

On another note, I was contacted by one of the WYG organizers who expressed interest in us possibly running demo games of Tactics for their tween/early-teen program, because they're looking for a miniatures game. This is someone who played on the winning team in the tournament at WYC 2015. I'm following up with him for more information but haven't made any promises.

Works for me! The Spirit Island games won't last the full 2 hours, I don't think, so I'll have time for a break in there.

I'm driving up to Michigan through Indianapolis on Friday evening. Do you want me to drop it off then? It's not 100% up to date, but I think the modifications were things like tweaking the artifacts. But they've been sharing great new art on Kickstarter, so we might be able to snag that.

Thanks, Dylan.

Re: Tactics demo for tweens/pre-teens. For anyone who would like to run that, what time would you like to run it?

I'm happy to be involved. Looks like I'm pretty open between noon and 6 on Saturday, and I could probalby do something Sunday.

I've said we can do something at 10am Sunday, because I was sure that if nothing else I could make that time. I'm reluctant to schedule this during the times we have other events scheduled because I'd like us to be able to enjoy hanging out with each other in the free play area.

My ex and I had a brief conference with each other yesterday as we started to try to talk calendars, since the kids get to spend weeks with me again (yay!). As part of that, we were projecting calendars out roughly through the end of March, and so I'm cleared to spend the whole weekend in Indy.

I'll still work a full day Friday (it's turning out to be an important prep day, as it's one of a few days where there aren't many students in labs and so I can focus on prep & arranging for chemical waste disposal), and so will probably arrive late-dinner or so that night. (I'm done at 3:30 Central. If I do a cheat drive/bus to work, I can probably hit the road by 4 and be in the Indy area around 7 PM Eastern).

If it's not too late, feel free to put a Compounded demo on for the 8-10 on Friday night.

I'm going to add a demo for 8-10 on Friday of Compounded, per Jeff's request.

I'm going to let Matt know that Russ can run Tactics for the tweens on Sunday at 10am.

Event registration just opened. We've got a few people signed up already. Current counts:

• Compounded, Fri 8pm, Jeff, 0
• Fate of the Elder Gods, Fri 8pm, Andy, 1
• Fate of the Elder Gods, Sat 8pm, Andy, 0
• New Bedford, Fri 6pm, Russ, 2
• New Bedford, Sat 6pm, Russ, 1
• Sentinels of the Multiverse, Sat 10am, Jeff, 0
• Spirit Island, Sat 1pm, Dylan, 1
• Spirit Island, Sat 3pm, Dylan, 1

http://whosyergamers.org/

Bwah! What? They aren't supposed to actually sign up for the events! Now what do we do?!

It gets worse, you're on the hook at 10am on Sunday to teach Sentinel Tactics to kids.

You probably shouldn't slice your head open in front of children.  

But it's a great trick... 

Things are already filling up!

• New Bedford, Fri 6pm: 4/4
• Compounded, Fri 8pm: 4/5
• Fate of the Elder Gods, Fri 8pm: 2/4
• Sentinels of the Multiverse, Sat 10am: 1/5
• Spirit Island, Sat 1pm: 2/4
• Spirit Island, Sat 3pm: 3/4
• New Bedford, Sat 6pm: 4/4
• Fate of the Elder Gods, Sat 8pm: 1/4

They must have heard about the secret cloaked Romulan Bird of Prey on the fourth open ocean tile.

I just realized that I really screwed up. Somehow I failed to notice until just now that that weekend, April 1-2, is the same weekend that I'm organizing a conference for work in Bloomington. I'm not sure what to do here.

I can probably come up more than I earlier said on Friday. But that doesn't necessarily help so much.

Work conference at Who's Yer Con?

I wish I could!

I've been really looking forward to both of these events for months. Somehow I never thought about them at the same time. I think the fact that I was organizing the one conference meant that it never made it on to my calendar.

Changing the topic slightly for a moment:

Would some of the Indy residents suggest a restaurant/bar near the hotel that might otherwise be suitable for a meetup from a different circle of my life? I'd prefer not excessively loud so that we could actually, you know, talk to each other. If a bar, pool by the hour is a plus but not mandatory.

Since editing posts doesn't always make things view properly here, a follow-up:

• There are other Sentinels games listed on the "Modern Boardgaming 101" track, in case we want to reach out to the person in charge there & offer extra support staff.
• On Saturday evening, I'm now planning to meet some fellow Redditors at the Elbow Room pub. I'll be around to help fill out games or handle pick-up sessions of Sentinels/Compounded/a couple non-GtG things until c. 5:30 or so. Anybody else who's interested in attending is welcome to come along, IMO. (I know we've got the New Bedford & Elder Gods demos running later that night.)
• Saturday AM, before the first actual event starts, I'd be open to an OblivAeon playtest if any of the playtesters - I'm not one - wanted to bring things along & playing in our space wouldn't violate NDAs.

Can you get your copy of Spirit Island to me? 

If so, i'll ask for help about the best way to teach it and should be fine.

The two SotM events under Modern Gaming 101 are run by someone I know well (Jaclyn Kaufman) who is very experienced at SotM and is on the board of Who's Yer Gamers, in charge of organizing volunteers.

The Sentinel Tactics for Tweens is the event that Russ is going to run.

Elbow Room is great. Don't think I can join you. Russ will also be running a game and Dylan's not coming, so I'm afraid we won't be any company.

I'll pass on OblivAeon Sat morning. Too complex to dig into on a day where I want to have energy for a lot of other things. In fact, I make no promises about being there before noon.

Absolutely! I'm pretty sure it's the nicest copy of Spirit Island currently in existence. Would it be OK to drop it off next Sunday evening (March 19)?

All sounds good. My stuff starts at 10 that morning, and I'm staying at the hotel, so I'll be there bright & early.

On my behalf, maybe let Jaclyn know that if her SotM events that don't conflict with ours have a waiting list, she can tap me to help her with setting up another table if I'm not needed in our pick-up area?

Have you seen what we used at PAX East last weekend? Because it had the actual Explorer, Town, and City molds! 

I'm jealous, and I stand corrected!

That will work. Please stay in close contact as I sometimes have a gaming meetup Sunday nights, but I'm sure we can work things out, I just might direct you to a different address downtown. In fact, if you want to sit down for a game Sunday night and we're actually meeting, you'd be welcome to join us.

I've sent her a message.

I got a chance to practice teaching Spirit Island today and it went reasonably well.

For anyone following along, with Dylan not able to make it, I don't think we'll have enough people to maintain a presence in the free-play area, so if you're looking for us, please try to find the games we're running. I don't know yet if those are going to be the same table over and over again or spread around.

Actually, we do have the table numbers. All of our events are at GP-17, except for the Compounded event, which is the same time as one of the others, at GP-18.

I'm glad to hear it went well! I really like that game. Very much looking forward to having it in hand.

Thanks, Andy. Is the Teen Tactics event also at GP-17, or somewhere else?

I'm glad to hear it went well! I really like that game. Very much looking forward to having it in hand.
[/quote]

Same, here! 

Not at GP-17. I'll ask, and see what else I can learn about it. I'd imagined that there was a specific area set aside for kids, but I realize I don't actually know.

Re: Tactics for Teens:

"It's in Nic's. (down by the restaurant) we have one or two in the system but people don't always sign up their kids for games."

"Nic's"? Uh...  Okay. Guess I'll do some recon early Friday afternoon...

Thanks! 

Nic's is the room where the Sentinel Tactics tournament was the first year we did it -- 2015.

It looks like the way the kids/teens program works is that kids come to the room and then can play whatever games are available, so if you're running Sentinel Tactics you can decide how many you want to handle. Mind you, we didn't request any particular size table or number of chairs for this. I figure I'll come along and offer moral support if nothing else. 

Well..... bad news is that my 2-month review at the new gig was about as bad as it could possibly be, with anything you want to speculate about the outcomes probably being true.

However, that means I'll be capable of arriving earlier in the day on Friday, and plan to man the free play area except during the Compounded event and the scheduled Sentinels event that I'm running; minus meeting people at the Elbow Room on Saturday after dinner.

I will have a couple non-GtG things with me if folks from here are interested in playing them at some point - specifically, I'll have Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle and the Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game with me; the former because I'm still getting my ass kicked by game 7 and the latter because I've gotten it to the table exactly once and need to explore it a bit more.

:( Sorry about the job review and its outcomes.

And because Ra is in it.

But a different Ra!

In case folks are interested and haven't seen it, yet, the event program "teaser" is available. (It's the program, but with a specific announcement redacted.)

Thanks, Dylan.

It represents the first time I've really been absolutely unable to work with somebody. He'd been there 25 years; I was at 2 months. Doesn't take much logic to figure out what happens next.

I'd love to attend (I met a couple of you folks last year when I volunteered at the Handelabra booth), but I've decided to stay home and watch my daughter so my wife can head over and play SOTM, among other things. She didn't get to do Gen Con last year due to being 8+ months pregnant, so watching the kiddo while she heads to WYC is the least I can do.

Hope you all have a great time.

Minor timing update: I'm now committed to staying in Urbana until roughly 10:30 AM Central Time in order to pick up the Chromebook my son has been saving money for since before Christmas on his behalf & drop it at my ex's before leaving. (Store opens at 10:00 Central; need to purchase item & get it to her house before I can leave.)

Accounting for the time change, I'll be at the con between 1 and 2 PM Eastern time.

bolnerap, you could always come over after she comes home. 

I'll likely be there ~3:30pm Friday, myself.

Jeff, we can’t find you!

Don't worry, folks -- we found him.  (Or, more accurately, he found us.)

Indeed. There were more free play areas than I realized, and even when I looked in the room he was in, I didn't look very well. Jeff played a bunch of Sentinels in the afternoon. Russ ran New Bedford to a group of four who seemed to really like it. Jeff and I then ran concurrent games – Compounded for him and Fate of the Elder Gods. Not sure how Jeff's game went. Mine was interestingly different than other games I've seen: The first time the game ended by someone having ten elder signs. Players seemed to like it.

There's an official podcaster for the con and my friend Jaclyn, who organizes volunteers for Who's Yer Gamers, was invited to be interviewed and teach a game. She chose to teach Sentinels of the Multiverse! We suggested she stack Baron Blade's and Insula Primalis' decks to make the game as fast and exciting as possible and apparently the podcasters, one of whom had played Sentinels many times, loved it. I didn't hear what happened specifically, but the person who'd played before was gushing that it was his favorite play of SotM ever.

We found a vendor in the dealer hall who was carrying New Bedford and SotM, so gave him a bunch of SotM promo cards and promised to give him any New Bedford promos we had left over after Saturday. The lanyards GtG sent us have been a hit. WYC is using crappy string lanyards, so everyone's stoked to get an awesome SotM lanyard. We'll see if we can interest anyone in any of the art prints tomorrow. 

After just a couple hours teaching a game in a noisy hall my throat is nearly shot. Need to remember cough drops for tomorrow.

Wow! Sounds like a really successful day! Thanks for all the hard work, Andy and co.

Made it over after all! We decided this would be Baby's First Con, so I went with my wife and daughter this afternoon and I wore babygirl around for much of the time we were there. Played Tsuro of the Seas in the library room, ran into coworker and fellow Gen Con GTG volunteer Alex in the dealer room, then dropped by the big demo room to visit Russ and Jeff. Thanks for the chat, VG Mainstay preview, and promo stuff, folks! It was good seeing you again, hope to catch you at Gen Con this year.

Hey, bolnerap! Great to see you today – glad you stopped by! 

Today kind of sucked for me. I ended up with a massive headache. Overall, though, I think it was a positive day. I think Russ and Jeff both had a good time.

Jeff ran a SotM game with a bunch of experienced players in the morning. They got torched by The Dreamer. In reflecting on that, later, we realized that although it's fun to teach the game, it's not as much fun just watching experienced players, so if we're organizing an event where we're not going to be one of the players, we need to set the description to clearly state that it is a teaching game.

Russ and Jeff ran a bunch of ad hoc SotM in the afternoon, including an OblivAeon game. I taught Spirit Island twice. I think all eight players enjoyed it, but neither group were able to finish in the two hour timeslot or even get particularly close. I did my best to encourage them to spend a little time strategizing, but pick something before too very long, and I tried particularly in the second game to help them find and do useful things when they were struggling, but it wasn't enough.

Russ ran New Bedford at 6 and that group seemed to really enjoy it. The scores were 28, 25, 24, and 21. I finished off the night with another round of Fate of the Elder Gods, with three players. They were unable to finish the game in the two hour timeslot, though it came close. One of the players was at seven on the summon track _AND_ had eight Elder Seals. Again, they seemed to enjoy it. As far as I can tell, every person who played every one of our events enjoyed the game.

While I was wandering about in between events I happened upon a group that had checked out Time Management from the library w/out any prompting. One of them disliked it, but the other three were really enjoying it, with one of them remarking that they liked how different it was from other games. 

One of my players seemed really into social deduction games, so I asked if he'd heard of Dracula's Feast. He not only had, but had heard really good things about it.

I'm not sure I'm going to go back to the con tomorrow. I could use a day off. Russ will be running Sentinel Tactics for the teens program at the con and I think doing some more SotM in the afternoon. I think Jeff may run a game, too, before he heads out.

I'lll have to think about whether I want to do something like this again next year. I enjoy organizing and being a part of exiting events, but we didn't quite make an event out of this. I had a good time learning Spirit Island and Fate of the Elder Gods well enough to teach them, but didn't actually have a great time teaching them -- a combination of them being much more complex to teach than SotM, having to deal with the time pressure/length of time of the game/not liking them to the same depth that I enjoy SotM, and then also some of the annoying noise and headache, particularly for the last game. The whole splitting of locations between the scheduled events and the free play area was annoying -- having to deal with lugging things around and trying to make sure there was someone watching stuff. I dunno. Maybe when my head doesn't hurt I'll have a more positive perspective.

Podcast session from Who's Yer Con featuring SotM: http://gamingwithscott.libsyn.com/hotp-whosyercon-2017-sotm

You can do a full Fate of the Elder Gods game demo in about an hour if you start each cult with 4 elder signs and 4 summoning track tokens.  Sometimes a bit over an hour.

Sorry about the rough day.

I suspect the biggest factor there is the fourth player. There are more players to interact with and more lands and invaders to deal with, making the search space much larger when planning your turn. Even with experienced players, four-player games tend to take longer.

Getting AP-prone players to focus can be tricky, as well. There's a tendency to want to stop the invaders on every front right away, but that really isn't possible (if it were, the game would be too easy). I try to encourage players to each identify the biggest fire on their board and try to deal with that - anything extra is just gravy. It doesn't totally solve the problem, but I find it can help a bit when there are too many options.

I wondered if that had been you two - before I found Russ & Andy, I'd almost ended up in a game of Hogwarts Battle with her.

My sympathies. Thanks for the report!

Final day! I lazed into the con around 11ish and by the time I'd finished chatting with a few people Russ had finished running Sentinel Tactics for tweens. I gather there was some minor tweenish drama, but all four of his participants had fun. The person organizing the kids track is one of the winners from our first Sentinel Tactics tournament two years ago and he ended up running a second game of Tactics for a kid that came late and that kids parent. Russ, Matt sends his thanks along to you for helping out!

Jeff, Russ, Isaac, and I played a fun game of SotM against Voss with three of the playtest heroes (Harpy, Akash'Thriya, and Mainstay) in the environment (oh, what's the name ... something like spirit of the void), plus me playing Prime Wardens Argent Adept. We almost completely routed Voss -- saw neither ship and no Forced Deployments. We ended up with a cluster of 10-12 people milling around a few tables alternately playing games of SotM or just checking out the playtest decks that Russ had brought. 

I took the remaining New Bedford promos over to the booth that had been carrying it. As mentioned (I think?) he'd sold out on the New Bedford games previously. By Sun afternoon he'd sold most of his SotM merch, too.

I wandered the halls a bit before leaving, including kibitzing with the folks running the Game Library. SotM is on heavy rotation from the Library, with two copies regularly getting used, in part because the people organizing the library like it and so often recommend it. Sounds like New Bedford get a lot of play as well and enthusiastic responses. In wandering the halls I also came across three different tables playing SotM. One of them was sort of the usual suspects, the other two were families that had picked up the game at the con.

So all in all a success, I think, despite my feeling crappy the night before. I'd mused about maybe not organizing something for next year, but I think I'll want to, just with some tweaks. I'd tried to create a 'slate' of GtG games to sort of showcase the range of products available, but I'm not sure anyone noticed. Better, I think, to simply let each person who wants to run games to run the games they want, and then create a joint schedule where we can help each other out / possibly holding down a regular spot in the free-play area.

I think that if we try to run a "slate," we'll need official GtG presence there - there's too much for the three of us to do, and maybe too much even with Dylan present. It would also help to do make sure that was clear by making it a series in the con booklet, much like Jaclyn's "Modern Boardgaming 101" series was.

Other things I think would be good:

• When you and I talked last night, you remarked that I seemed to have a definite niche/knack for teaching Sentinels to families. Accordingly, I'd almost certainly put myself down for at least one "Learn to Play SotM" event down in that same teen/tween area that this morning's Tactics event was in.
• If the RPG has been in people's hands long enough for somebody to be comfortable with it, I think a "slate" of GtG stuff would have to include the RPG.
• Based on how much it was requested for this year, I'd set up at least one 4-hour OblivAeon slot.
• Lanyards good, gameplay materials better, art prints didn't seem to go over so well - I offered them every time I did something, but nobody bit. (see note below).

The potentially complicating factor for me next year would be that my daughter might just be old enough for me to consider bringing my kids, which means I go into "dad mode" and not "con volunteer mode."

Those are my initial thoughts in the hours immediately following the con being over.

Note: I now have the art prints from Vengeance, Wrath of the Cosmos, and Villains (after this weekend). In each set of three, there's only been one that has really grabbed my attention, but there's art from other cards that would be neat to be able to add to them. I'd almost like to be able to order art prints for individual card art.

Thanks for the Dracula's Feast shoutout! :D