Didn't you hear? In order to prove how AWESOME and EPIC! he is, Graham ran a 10,000 player GUMSHOW game, which is still ongoing....

But in all seriousness, the only news that has sneaked out seems to have been the Indie RPG and Diana Jones awards. I haven't checked the ENnies yet.

EDIT: ENnies appear to be an almost clean sweep by the usual suspects - White Wolf, Paizo, Green Ronin and WotC. After the 'great indie hope' of last year, the only blips on the publishing megapower's sweep was Trail of Cthulhu for best writing and best rules Silver awards.

Neil

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

Much as I don't wish to devalue any Ennies that anyone here might have won, but as a consumer I have a hard time giving a fuck what a D&D fan site thinks of RPGs.

Since it's an open vote, I can be pretty sure that 99% of the voters are voting based on having not read all the nominees in every category. So essentially, it's a popularity contest and always has been.

In other news though, GC has been over for less than 12 hours, I imagine very few people are home yet. Give it time, by the end of the week you won't be able to move for GC news...

There's not often "news" on the indie front from Gencon because, unlike the traditional publishers, there's no real drive to announce things at conventions. So any news, such as new releases, got announced before the con.

Grey Ranks winning both the Indie RPG Awards and the Diana Jones Award is great though! Well deserved!

I couldn't agree more. Any award that's left to open vote by the public will almost always be a landslide for the most popular company with the best advertising and the largest fanbase. It's a pretty lame way of doing any award because the people making the 'decisions' aren't bound over to even look at all the possible entries, much less read them in an unbiased fashion. As such I have no respect for any of the common RPG awards.

As nice as it would be to win an award, the eNnies mean absolutely nothing to me, and that goes for most of the other similar awards out there. It's enough for me that people enjoy what I do. I just think that it's a shame such awards only serve to give bigger advertising to the people who don't need it.

Urgh, that felt like a big derailment :( sorry guys. Mind you it sounds like there wasn't much happening at GenCon anyway.

Ash

Yes ... you can't derail a thread with no content, can you?

I am not sure I agree about the Ennies. Irrelevant to us, yes. Worthless? no. I mean they do what they say on the tin, tell you who is the most popular in that group of people at the moment, which is interesting, and valid enough.

If anything about them is suspect to me it is the categories for art and innovative design and so on. Since it's just a popularity contest then they should probably just stick to the few main categories of 'best'

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/ - http://cubicle-7.com/starblazer/

For a taste of what went on at Gen Con, you can do a lot worse than go listen to the "This Just In From GenCon" podcasts by Paul Tevis and Ryan Macklin over at DriveThruRPG.

If you prefer, the feed can be found at http://feeds.feedburner.com/ThisJustInFromGenCon

- Neil.

Games Co-ordinator
Dragonmeet 2008

"There is no place for Messiah here - it`s only hobby" - Deckard @ The Burning Wheel Forums

For a taste of what went on at Gen Con, you can do a lot worse than go listen to the "This Just In From GenCon" podcasts by Paul Tevis and Ryan Macklin over at DriveThruRPG.

If you prefer, the feed can be found at http://feeds.feedburner.com/ThisJustInFromGenCon

- Neil.

Games Co-ordinator
Dragonmeet 2008

"There is no place for Messiah here - it`s only hobby" - Deckard @ The Burning Wheel Forums

News just in tells me I sold 18 Solipsist .... meanwhile Gregor sold 112 3:16! Yes that's right .... 112!

Wow .... just wow

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/ - http://cubicle-7.com/starblazer/

Wow indeed! Well done Gregor!

Well done Gregor, that is phenomenal.

Did I read right that Trail of Cthulu won best rules silver award?!?!? I hates me the gumshoe.

Look forward to hearing more reports once everyone gets back.

Cheers

Iain

'The Giant Brain': 'Revenge of the B-Movie' out now!

Mob Justice now available!

Hutton and Craig amongst others tell us things!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=espIQxIgtkc

Cheers

Iain

'The Giant Brain': 'Revenge of the B-Movie' out now!

Mob Justice now available!

Congrats on the sales Gregor, that's awesome news.

That video was fun, now I know what some of the people I only know online look like.

- Neil.

Games Co-ordinator
Dragonmeet 2008

"There is no place for Messiah here - it`s only hobby" - Deckard @ The Burning Wheel Forums

Wow, she was totally gay for Hot War.

Nice one, guys. Fun vid.

A very brief roundup for now:

3:16 = Indie hit of the con, easily outselling anything ever (for reference, The Mountain Witch sold 92 copies the first GC it was available). No one can enumerate the number of game that were run. It was a lot.

Hot War = 60 (+/-3 or 4) copies sold, not sure until we've tallied all the receipts.

The play Collective booth was a great success, exceeding taking for lat year. The credit card machine helped. Design Matters also looked to have great success.

That is all for now. Tired.

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

Well done Gregor and Malc!

I know from talking to people at Continuum seeing the amount of actual play, that 3:16 is a run away hit and Hot War is not far behind.

Regards

;O)Newt
D101games -An Imaginary Company

Congratulations to Gregor and Malc and indeed, to David too.

It's nice to see that Gregor's innovative marketing tool of including a free hooker with each game worked a treat!

Neil

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

Impressive results there, chaps.

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

GenCon was very cool and John Harper was like a relentless beast running 3:16 all con at Games on Demand and in the Embassy Suites. He got awarded a medal for his efforts (something like 15 or 16 planets all con, he either ran or played in).

Fred gave me the IPR numbers and Nate just sent me the Design Matters numbers, so I can total up the sales into a more accurate number.

So, 3:16 sales in total (IPR, Design Matters and direct sales to Arkenstone and booth people) came out at 114 sold with 18 complimentary copies given away (entering it in next year's Ennies ate up a hatful of copies, but I think it's worth doing after speaking to Epidiah Ravachol about it).

Some early reports say I have sold 4 copies of the game, would like to have done 10. Some of the boxes sound like they took a bashing enroute which ain't so good.

On the upsids Jason really liked the game and demoed it a bunch of times to people.

'The Giant Brain': 'Revenge of the B-Movie' out now!

Mob Justice now available!

Not quite the same levels of sales for me (13 Pulp! Rough & Ready Edition, 3 Covenant) but still an enjoyable con where I made many useful contacts and played some great games.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

So Collective Endeavour aside, what were the games of the convention?

Zombie Cinema by Eero Tuovinen was the big hit from the Forge this year. It did really well and outsold Spirit of the Century and 3:16 on the IPR/Forge booth.

My final sales numbers for the BoxNinja books are:

3:16 = 114 (42 at IPR)
Solipsist = 18 (5 at IPR)
Best Friends = 15 (7 at IPR)

Although you asked about non-Collective Endeavour games, it's worth reiterating that 3:16 was absolutely the hit of the convention. In the Embassy Suites after hours, there were sometimes two 3:16 games running at once.

Zombie Cinema was hugely talked about and deservedly so. It's great. I've got a copy. We should play.

Tony Lower-Basch's game, Misery Bubblegum, was the most talked about game-in-development. I played it twice and it's a lovely game. It's about high-school heartbreak, pretty much, but it's nasty heartbreak, not saccharine. It's very well done.

Grey Ranks won two awards: the Indie Game Award and, well, half of the Diana Jones Award.

How To Host A Dungeon, a solo game in which your dungeon develops over time, did very well on the Forge booth. Thou Art But A Warrior, Anna Kreider's hack for Polaris, was also much talked about.

Graham