attended local gaming con this weekend

I attended a board-game convention this weekend, in DC.  It was my first time ever attending something like this -- in all my years of gaming, I've never gone to an actual con.  Very well-attended -- maybe a thousand people over 2 days.  There were family games (kid-friendly), euro-games in great abundance, social/party games intended to get people mingling, role-playing games, card-driven games (like Magic the Gathering), and even a light scattering of war games.

I met one fellow in particular, who lives in my general area, whose focus is on RPGs.  He plays online, using a system (d20?) in which a web server keeps track of all the stats and I guess they play via voice chat and/or text.  He remembered the PBM days and was interested in hearing of new developments.

As a number of us sat at one of the many tables and played several euro-games, a guy dropped off a leaflet advertising another upcoming local con.  It occurred to me that we ought to have some sort of presence at these gatherings.  We ought to have a few leaflets ready to hand out, a newbie-friendly web page to welcome them, and some good games to direct them to (galac-tac comes to mind).  Maybe even arrange a live demo of games in which turns can be run by the moderator "on demand".  It would be wild to see a "live" game of Alamaze packed into a 2-hour window!

Never been to CON either, of any kind. The D20 game sounds really interesting. I'm not sure how they'd manage the stats on the server without spending a lot of time tracking data-entry. Unless the web-server itself is providing a level of DM service as well? It does sound like it beats the old days when I hand-moderated some D&D 3rd edition questing. It was a lot of fun, because it was completely free-form. Players said what they wanted to do and I kept trying to come up with adventures to fit. It was extremely time consuming though.

My brother ran an RPG by mail for a couple of years. Based on The Fantasy Trip. It was a TON of work, done on an ancient computer. I've been trying to get him to write some articles about it for the zine.

[quote='ixnay' pid='136197' dateline='1473787605']
My brother ran an RPG by mail for a couple of years. Based on The Fantasy Trip. It was a TON of work, done on an ancient computer. I've been trying to get him to write some articles about it for the zine.
[/quote]

That sounds like something I'd like to read about.  I'm unfamiliar with The Fantasy Trip, but if somebody was willing to put that kind of effort into running the RPG, there has to be something compelling about it.

It's a shame that the new technology has dragged us the gaming world away from this sort of immersive environment.

The new games are beautiful and exciting, while you're playing them, but once you turn the game off - you forget about it.

I agree with Angerak. When I turn off Fallout 4, I dont think about it until the next time I turn it on (and only then because I am waiting for my latest PBeM results).

I am the kind of PBM player who actually enjoys sitting on the patio with my coffee (read: beer), pouring over the previous week's turn results, making notes, flashing off diplomatic e-mails to other players, conversing on the game forums, and plotting the next turn's moves over a week or so. You just dont get that level of "passive entertainment value" from these flashy graphic games.

I long for the day when PBeM or even PBM re-captures the imagination of the gaming community....because, that's exactly what these games extract and distill...imagination.

[quote='ixnay' pid='136195' dateline='1473699664']
I attended a board-game convention this weekend, in DC.  It was my first time ever attending something like this -- in all my years of gaming, I've never gone to an actual con.  Very well-attended -- maybe a thousand people over 2 days.  There were family games (kid-friendly), euro-games in great abundance, social/party games intended to get people mingling, role-playing games, card-driven games (like Magic the Gathering), and even a light scattering of war games.

I met one fellow in particular, who lives in my general area, whose focus is on RPGs.  He plays online, using a system (d20?) in which a web server keeps track of all the stats and I guess they play via voice chat and/or text.  He remembered the PBM days and was interested in hearing of new developments.

As a number of us sat at one of the many tables and played several euro-games, a guy dropped off a leaflet advertising another upcoming local con.  It occurred to me that we ought to have some sort of presence at these gatherings.  We ought to have a few leaflets ready to hand out, a newbie-friendly web page to welcome them, and some good games to direct them to (galac-tac comes to mind).  Maybe even arrange a live demo of games in which turns can be run by the moderator "on demand".  It would be wild to see a "live" game of Alamaze packed into a 2-hour window!
[/quote]

Thanks for the report Ixnay.  Attending Origins or GenCon as a PBM purveyor was expensive in 1987 for Alamaze (won) and Fall of Rome in 2004 (won).  For Fall of Rome, we had a big booth, a projector, speakers, thousands of flyers, a 9 foot vinyl poster, a life size standup figure of a Frazetta warrior, and you need to fly and put up a couple friends: one person can't do it.  And they hit for everything: it might have been $50 to rent a folding chair.  It was over $10,000. 

So, wandering around and talking to people, just paying to be admitted and sneaking in flyers (they frown on that: avoiding all the other fees) and talking to people playing sophisticated board games is probably the way to go at a convention. 

At Alamaze we are nearing completion of a conversion from HTML to  SQL, which will have several advantages: for increased versatility with color and fonts and graphics in turn results, and the implementation of the legendary "Ready Button" we introduced in Fall of Rome.  Just weeks away.  The Ready Button means instead of having a deadline (and in Alamaze, turns are due various days of the week no later than exactly noon Eastern USA and are available within 5 minutes after the deadline), a game can process as soon as all players have hit the Ready Button.  Players will choose whether they want this faster format or stay with the traditional deadline in any particular game forming.  But our Duel format: just two players on a smaller map with a light fixed fee for a game of no more than 18 turns should really enjoy the Ready Button.  But most players accustomed to the old style PBM with 2 weeks turn around take awhile to get used to two turns a week, although there is no waiting for the mail to be delivered.

Even so, I think players' heads would explode trying to play even a Duel game of Alamaze in a couple hours, but 9 turns in each day of a weekend, or for bingers a 12 hour day could be a fun new experience.

[quote='Rick McDowell' pid='136201' dateline='1474414650']

At Alamaze we are nearing completion of a conversion from HTML to  SQL, which will have several advantages: for increased versatility with color and fonts and graphics in turn results, and the implementation of the legendary "Ready Button" we introduced in Fall of Rome.  Just weeks away.  The Ready Button means instead of having a deadline (and in Alamaze, turns are due various days of the week no later than exactly noon Eastern USA and are available within 5 minutes after the deadline), a game can process as soon as all players have hit the Ready Button.  Players will choose whether they want this faster format or stay with the traditional deadline in any particular game forming. 
[/quote]

Rick,

I'm curious about your comment of a conversion from HTML to SQL.  They're not actually related are they?

And - I applaud the idea of the Ready button.  The style is not for me, but I know lots of PBM players that would have loved it.  Those that just couldn't get their turns in fast enough.

I think this also helps get new players into the genre too.  Most gamers couldn't comprehend the idea of running 1 turn every 2 weeks.  This is a nice way to get them in and get them acquainted with the real way PBM should be played.

If I ever take a few minutes to lift my head from building Cohorts, I'll have to come by your site and check it all out.

Cheers,

Paul

I mis-typed:  it should have said the conversion from XML (not html) to SQL. 

When we find old time players that rediscover us, it is an adjustment for them to get used to two turns a week when they remember one turn every two weeks.  But there is no time waiting for mail to arrive.  So in Alamaze, the standard is nine turns a month (for $19.95 at the base level of one game at a time), instead of two turns a month for about the same price that many PBM charge.

There is a bit of a problem for younger players that are not familiar with PBM, that I'm sure all PBM companies have experienced: they are used to just clicking on something and seeing graphics and explosions and things moving around.  But we do have some college students that joined in the last year that are completely engrossed, playing eight games at a time.  As most PBM would also admit, there is a significant learning curve in our genre, but a long lasting reward where we have had players playing for decades, where most "video" games get played for a couple months and then put on the shelf. 

It would be nice if PBM companies could form some sort of consortium to help spread the word, but previous efforts in that direction have not been successful so everyone is on their own.

[quote='Rick McDowell' pid='136203' dateline='1474422932']
It would be nice if PBM companies could form some sort of consortium to help spread the word, but previous efforts in that direction have not been successful so everyone is on their own.
[/quote]

What would such a consortium look like?  What sort of efforts were made previously that didn't work out too well?

My guess is, companies looked at each other as competition in a small market.  If so, I would suggest that such an attitude is very short sighted.  We are a very small fish in a very big pool of gamers.  So small, most gamers don't even know we exist.  If a consortium helps to raise public awareness, then we all benefit from good exposure.  It may still breed competition among the PBM companies, but competition breeds excellence.  That should also be a good thing.

I'd be a willing contributor to such a consortium.

Good for your bravery.  As I said earlier, the encouraging part is beyond first, retrieving the absent PBM players, then gaining the next generation, and we have had some success with that but it takes mentoring from existing players to do that.  It's just a strange thing for people under 30. 

Maybe a good start for a Consortium agenda would be to retain a spokesperson of some notoriety and good voice to do a Youtube to introduce what PBM is.  Somewhat awkward, since its not PBM anymore.  But the idea being to explain in a couple minutes the multi player (not massive player) strategy, turn based, text based genre is like and why you should try it.  Maybe the companies offer a free game that participate?  If we had ten companies each contributing $1000 and having their links there shown, with maybe production values like graphics and sound behind it, and link with Facebook, other social media.

Anyway, like I said, other efforts like this have not gotten anywhere.

Editing for clarity: I mean a celebrity voice that is recognizable, not one of us. So something like Morgan Freeman to do a 3 minute voice over an agreed upon script, and then graphics as well.

[quote='Rick McDowell' pid='136205' dateline='1474604380']
Maybe a good start for a Consortium agenda would be to retain a spokesperson of some notoriety and good voice to do a Youtube to introduce what PBM is.  Somewhat awkward, since its not PBM anymore.  But the idea being to explain in a couple minutes the multi player (not massive player) strategy, turn based, text based genre is like and why you should try it.  Maybe the companies offer a free game that participate?  If we had ten companies each contributing $1000 and having their links there shown, with maybe production values like graphics and sound behind it, and link with Facebook, other social media.
[/quote]

I have no idea what celebrities cost, but I'm pretty sure that there is no way to get somebody of worth in on that budget - even for just a voice over.  The exception might be one of the game-loving celebrities who might do it for the good of gaming.

That being said, I think this is a major step in the right direction and something I'd be happy to participate in.

I think there are a number of challenges to be overcome to make this happen, not the least of which is trying to adequately describe PBM gaming (a rose by any other name would smell as sweet) inside of a 3 minute window.  I have trouble explaining it to people in a 30 minute window! LOL

It might be worthwhile to create a PBM portal site too.  A launching pad to the various games that the video can direct viewers toward.  Trying to hit them with a list of URLs might be challenging for the viewer.

[quote='Rick McDowell' pid='136201' dateline='1474414650']
At Alamaze we are nearing completion of a conversion from HTML to  SQL, which will have several advantages: for increased versatility with color and fonts and graphics in turn results, and the implementation of the legendary "Ready Button" we introduced in Fall of Rome.  Just weeks away.  The Ready Button means instead of having a deadline (and in Alamaze, turns are due various days of the week no later than exactly noon Eastern USA and are available within 5 minutes after the deadline), a game can process as soon as all players have hit the Ready Button.  Players will choose whether they want this faster format or stay with the traditional deadline in any particular game forming.  But our Duel format: just two players on a smaller map with a light fixed fee for a game of no more than 18 turns should really enjoy the Ready Button.  But most players accustomed to the old style PBM with 2 weeks turn around take awhile to get used to two turns a week, although there is no waiting for the mail to be delivered.
[/quote]

In Galac-Tac, we have considered a "ready button" effect numerous times, even back in the days of paper mail, as Galac-Tac is a game well-suited for that sort of approach.  But we've always decided against it (except for "solo" games).  I feel like the variable timing could be a stumbling block for players.

For example, let's say that you're playing a game with a two-week turnaround, and the due date lands precisely on Christmas day.  But you have to be out of town and away from your mailbox (or computer) for about 10 days before and after Christmas.  No problem, grab the before-Christmas turn as soon as it comes in and quickly write up a turn and get it submitted.  Now you're good until well after Christmas, so when you get back in town you grab your turn and get that one done, in time for the next deadline.  All's well.

Now, assume the same situation as above but the turns process whenever everyone has their turn in.  Also, everyone wants to avoid Christmas so they ALL submit their pre-Christmas turns right away.  Now the game processes more than a week ahead of the usual schedule, and the next due date is shortly after Christmas day.  But when the new due date arrives you're still out of town, so you miss the turn entirely, you didn't even get any warning, and you're NOT happy!

Thus, I've tried to keep a fixed schedule of due dates for Galac-Tac because being able to run turns sooner than scheduled may actually cause players to miss turns unexpectedly.  Don't you agree that would be a good reason not to have variable processing dates?

[quote='Rick McDowell' pid='136203' dateline='1474422932']
It would be nice if PBM companies could form some sort of consortium to help spread the word, but previous efforts in that direction have not been successful so everyone is on their own.
[/quote]

A consortium for generic "advertising" sounds like a good idea, but I haven't got any funds (and limited time) available to contribute to such an effort.  I can certainly contribute some free play time for those that we connect with.

I think that the hardest part will be getting exposure to a fairly broad base of people.  Certainly formal advertising channels are far too expensive for this sort of thing (in addition to production costs), and YouTube might be handy and cheap, but how many people would actually find and play the video? If we can get people to watch, I think an explanatory video would be effective - I'm just not sure about the first step.

What about some sort of person-to-person dissemination (of text or video or whatever), where PBM advocates email/post it to their friends and talk them into sending it to their friends, etc.  You probably wouldn't get too many to forward it on at each step, but if you could get one or two to forward it most times it would still end up covering a reasonably wide base of people.  Facebook or similar might be an easy way to "like" it's way around the net.

I doubt there are 10 companies with $1000 cash sitting in their bank accounts. I'd be pleasantly surprised if there were.

I think we have met the Consortium, and it is us. Grim's Riders. The best and most cost-effective marketing mode these days is online/social-media. Grim has done the difficult work of starting the forum and the magazine. It does need constant care and feeding, so maybe we should all commit to contributing a little something -- to every issue of S&D, and to the S&D facebook feed every week, and most certainly to here on the forum. (I've been battling a cold for a bit, but am trying to get back into the swing of things.)

Perhaps the one semi-organized thing we could do would be to create a good one-page flier/brochure and a one-page landing-page on this domain, to which interested parties might be directed.

I certainly don't have a $1,000 to waste, but a friend of mine in sales/marketing told me a long time ago (just before he drove off in his Lamborghini), "Advertising doesn't cost. It pays!"

Well, it paid him well enough - that's for sure.