Hehe, good stuff. Do you reckon it did us any good?

The fact that the placards raised £70 at the auction was excellent! Great work Graham!

I know Graham really enjoyed it!

How was the con for the Collective?

I woke up this morning to a number of messages on my CCG messageboard asking me about this flyer that people picked up at Dragonmeet and why my name is on it and what this Duty and Honour thing is about....

Neil

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

Sounds great! Wish I could have been there, but I just couldn't manage *two* London trips this close to Christmas.

Ash

Overall it was good, though noticeably quieter than last year. New games did a lot more business than old ones, which is a bit concerning for the long tail indie model.

Umlaut was hands down the success story of Dragonmeet, gamers love their metal!

+++
JoE
+++

Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....

I was concerned about the quiet. Two years ago you couldn't move in the trade hall for punters. This year, well, at some times, punters were outnumbered by traders.

The dearth of Dragonmeet advertising didn't help either as I imagine nobody attended this year who wasn't there last time. Umlaut was the only game I bought this year because I, or my group, already have all the other indie games. It's not so much about long tail as market saturation.

A bigger market is the answer. Angus has taken note and is convening a team to get next year's done, starting in January rather than August.

...were about a quarter of what they were last year (7, as opposed to 31 in 2006 for print and CD sales). And quite a few customers already had the book from last year.

Oh, I did sign a copy of Best Friends that had been bought at the Leisure Games stall, so I was pretty happy with that. If retailers keep ticking over with sales then they'll keep re-ordering through IPR.

Big sellers were Umlaut and Piledrivers & Powerbombs. Then it was Mob Justice, Best Friends and the Cold City Companion all at about the same number from what I remember.

Generally, the con...

* was quiet in the trade hall, but we still took in £500-£600.
* slightly frustrating on the organised games front (we had to make our own sign up sheets, something that wasn't clear at all... especially as we'd handed in our info)
* good on the goodie-bag (and flyer) front
* poor on the website, advertising and promotion of sponsors front
* had better seminars apparently (though we didn't get a scheduled seminar as we were supposed to; the Traveller seminar was also a one-person panel which was tough on Gar I think)
* suffered from the lack of programme, as it contained a lot of adverts (ours included) and nice content (such as Chapter 1 of Jonny Nexus' book Game Night).
* seemed a lot quieter and there seemed many empty gaming tables (no CCGs?)
* was a bit haphazard in the simple things: no entry badges to prove you had or hadn't paid, no staff clearly marked (i.e. staff t-shirts), etc.

Those that were there had fun and the game I ran went well. Didn't run any Best Friends demos though, and the con seemed to fly by.

Oh, the Goat after the con was good though and I think we should make a tradition of this for sure.

I think within the convention-going indie-game buying UK gaming community there is going to be a pretty rapid saturation when it comes to sales of games. Its natural that new stuff is going to sell more upon release.

The trick I suppose is convincing those players that fall outside the subset above or indeed who haven't heard of the games that they can use them and enjoy them. Whoever thought of the protest should be well proud. Thats excellent stuff. Maybe even something that could be continued and go viral?

Neil

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

I felt it was a lot slower. There were very few moments when we were rushed off our feet, even though we'd taken care to make sure the stall was never overstaffed.

I did think we should have gotten in on a few more of the seminars though - surely one of us should have been in on the "rise of indie" or the "state of the UK" panels? I know Tim got on one (good work!) but that was by accident rather than design! So maybe next year we should investigate that a bit more?

I didn't run any demo games at all! They were repeatedly offered but no one wanted to take us up on them. My theory is that there was quite a lot else going on - more so than usual maybe - which kept people off the trade floor.

My scheduled game went well, and I had 4 enthusiastic players. Half were fans already though, and I think Steve already owned it! So no sales there, but it was a really good game and I think everyone had fun!

I sold about a quarter of the copies I did last year - 4 compared to 15 or 16 last year. I think it was no coincedence that the new stuff sold - people owned the books already or were familiar with them, either from our fairly heavy con presence or the ever-increasing amount of retailers who sell our stuff.

Dave from Fanboy3 came to talk to me too, on that note. He bought a pile of stuff too. I asked how we could help him sell our stuff and he just said "make sure I have stuff to sell!" I wonder if it's worth touching base with the other retailers who've bought our stuff before?

My demos went well. Last year at DM, although they were fun, they didn't really showcase the games. With help from this forum and LJ comments, I think I've got a pretty good pair of games now that show everything that Esoterrorists and Fear Itself are about in 30 minutes.

I've tried to get it down to the 15 minute demo loved of the indie crowd but there seems to be just too much to squeeze in in that time.

I'm going to share my demo pack with Neil Ford so he can have a go too. We'll see if it's good enough for someone else to use.

A friend once told me of an endeavour called 'Instant Crowd' or something, where you could get random people with nothing to do to come and help do stuff just for a giggle, and maybe help out with other people's instant crowds too. Is this the same kind of thing?

Yah. It would have made sense for CE to have been invited to send a rep to the rise of indie/PDF one, which was the last of the afternoon. As it happened I got co-opted by the panel and audience!

The previous one was about the state of the industry more generally, but ended up talking quite a lot about small press stuff because of who was on it.

Those were the two I was at, and I should say the audience wasn't exactly huge... Then again it's a bit of a poky room.

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

The stuff you are talking about Ash is flash mobbing. Loads of people are contacted using social networking tools and then they all appear at one place at one time and do ... something. Like read a newspaper or sing a song from the Sound of Music or hop on one leg.

We have a society here at the Uni called the 20-Minute Club which does stuff like this. When you join you pledge that you will drop WHATEVER you are doing and join the organisers within 20 minutes to partake of their chosen activity. Which is, to be fair, usually drinking but it can be other stuff... like 200 students all going bird watching!

It wasn't exactly what I was thinking of, but kind of....

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

I sold 12 copies, via the Pelgrane stall. Happy with that.

Here's the text from the fliers we gave to queueing people:

BAN THE COLLECTIVE ENDEAVOUR!

We ask for your support against the Collective Endeavour, who are flooding the market with cheap roleplaying games.

Their games are a threat to established games we all love. Some of these games:

o Do not have a GM.
o Are about non-traditional subjects like wrestling and girlfriends.
o Are glossy and use art to make them look “professional”.

Yes, these games might be “fun”. But they ignore all the traditional roleplaying game values. They must be stopped.

We also ask for your support against their roleplaying “guide”, Play Unsafe. This book claims it can make your roleplaying “better”. Please take a stand against this book with us.

Help us stop them. We can do it together.

Gamers Against The Collective Endeavour

The only sad thing is that I bet someone else will do the same next year and it won't be as good.

Graham

But it just takes a bit more thinking the next time round. I definitely think having some (clearly manufactured) conflict between the protesters and CE folk - like a spontaneous battle with boffer placards - and maybe a conversion from protester to CE (or vice versa) as a couple of discrete events to work in would be great.

And if there is a competing group then we just out protest them. Or truss them up and throw them in the thames.

London based indie gamers - we try to get stuff rolling via here
http://www.sunnyblue.net/forum/

Nice meeting so many of you over Saturday and Sunday!

Maybe a website claiming to be the GATCE and promoting the stuff here might eb a good idea. If it was done right, and was obviously not real once you'd read it, then it might be a good way of getting word around.

I think some quotes from concerned gamers like Victor Spounge, 32, of Hammersmith would be great.

That's funny.

Graham

Verne Sudgate, 38, of Didcot agrees, "I used to buy book after book every month, without fail, but since I bought Contenders I've just been playing with that one book. It ain't right and I'm glad Mr Spounge has stood up against them. It doesn't matter how much fun I'm having with Contenders, the sooner I can get back to buying books that I don't need, or like, the better"

+1 hilarious.

Arthur Blunt of Tonbridge Wells wrote to us to express his feelings: "I would like to express my feelings about this 'Collective Endeavour' in the strongest possible terms. With all due respect, I feel that they are a cabal of charlatans, taking advantage of the innocent and good-hearted British gamer. I purchased the so-called 'Best Friends' and was shocked, shocked I say, to find that the game compels me to play a woman. It is well known that nobody in the Tonbridge Wells Action Trolls Society (our local games club, TWATS) would ever want to play a woman. Drow, orcs, ducks, mutants, all fine. But a woman? Have these people no standards of taste or decency? I think it's disgusting to force such gender-simulations upon unwary gamers. For shame, sir, for shame!

Your obediant servant,
Arthur J R C Blunt

'The Ramblings'
Wittering Way
Tonbridge Wells"

Cheers
Malc

Contested Ground Studios

Verity Spleen, 26, of Lower Farthing writes "I looked at one of these Collective Endeavour books and it wasn't even the right size. How can a little book like Dead of Night contain a real role-playing game? It might be fun to play, but it can't be right."

Recent Government studies have shown that playing Collective Endeavour games is not conducive to a productive and quiescent society. Indeed 95% of gaming enthusiasts have demonstrated boisterous behaviour, 85% are known to consume alcohol during these activities and 100% of games take place with little or no concern to Health & Safety regulations.

In a green paper out today, the Government have put forward a series of measures aimed at dealing with the issue of problem (or so called "indie" gamers).:
1- a gaming tax to be levied on all indie gaming material to ensure the the impact of gaming on NHS resources is supported by the gaming community;

2- ID cards to be issued to all indie gamers starting biometric data and GNS preferences. Production of the card will be mandatory before games to ensure nar players don't get stuck in sim games, a common source of problems (qv the GUMSHOE riots of '07).

3- an age limit of 25 to be imposed on the stronger indie games (Polaris, Koenig Hospital, Best Friends etc) to ensure that younger gamers are protected from this kind of material.

4- a holding area to be set up to hold enemy gamers until such time as they comply with the regulations and shop their mates. Such gamers will be outside normal jurisdiction and may be subject to certains administrative procedures to ensure compliance (Rifts, 4th Ed etc).

There's a poster on the metro in Newcastle at the moment with a line-up of some of the most unscary middle class teenagers trying to look slightly menacing with the headline:

"Do YOU know where your children are tonight?" and the strap "A lot of people who call us do..."

Its a Northumbria Police anti-chav campaign IIRC

You could easily parody it with a bunch of gamers and the caption.

"Do YOU know what games your friends are playing tonight?"

Oh and remember - indie games cause obesity.

Neil

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

This just in from a Mrs Trellis of North Wales:

"Dear Mr Gygax.

I would like to complain in the strongest terms about independant roleplaying games. As indie RPGs take up so little room, I'd emptied most of a bookcase, and had left the trad games by my front door for recycling. Little Tiddles came right through my flap and the heavy stack toppled on him. I expect a replacement cat."