So I ran demos of Agon and Umläut at Gaelcon. They went well and I want to try and consolidate what I learned before I forget.

These were one hour demos. With a game like Agon, I've had difficulty covering all the rules in even a 4 hour con slot, so I knew this was going to be a tough one to demo in one hour. It's fiddly as hell until you understand it, but getting players to that point is non-trivial. I decided to show off the bits I like best: The basic challenge resolution, Combat and the structure of Quests.

I handed out the pre-generated characters and lead the players straight into the first conflict. I pretty much said: "Normally you'll have a choice over what your characters do, but right now we're going to assume that you all want to be the first one off the boat and onto the island." I explained how the system worked and got the players to narrate what their characters were trying to use and why the attribute they were working was the one to use. From that moment on I think they rest of the demo pretty much ran itself. I gradually introduced the other mechanics like the Creative use, impairments and helping dice, then had a fight with some skeletons and explained the Quest structure as it unfolded. All in all it was a very good demo and I think I could easily have sold two copies had I been selling the game. One player made me write the details of where to buy the book so he could get one when he got home.

Umläut was more nerve wracking. It's one thing to demo a game you love and play a lot, but demoing one you wrote yourself is a different proposition! My advice to anyone working on their own game is to get out to some cons and demo someone else's game a few times before you try demoing your own. Practice with some you feel less pressured with.

I had created 4 bands for the demo, but had deliberately left members unnamed in them so that people could create their own members. I ended up with 8 players and divided them into 4 pairs to play the bands together. People seemed to take to the bands pretty easily, especially Kevin and Adam with Rock:AWESOME! (the Japanese metal band trying to make it big in the US). We ran for two complete turns, meaning each player got two scenes and every band had one gig. I didn't use NPBs. Gregor can say better than I can exactly how well the mechanics of the game came across, but I think things went pretty well. The Demo was very well received and quite a few of the players wanted to carry on into a full session.

A noticeable flaw was the fact that I handed out the bands and did a quick overview and then sort of left the first band to look over the cheat sheet and pick a scene type. I think that for the 15 minute demo a structure of pretty much pre-arranged scenes needs to be instituted. That is, I hand out pre-written Band sheets to the players and then run them through the scenes: You're doing a Work Scene. Now you guys need a Clash Scene, not you're booked into a Gig with these guys... The Demo needs to end with one song from a gig, that's the coolest bit of the game, so it needs to be part of the demo.

Thoughts? I really need to nail this 15 minute demo business.