My Tabletop Scotland 2022

With the last Tabletop Scotland event being held in 2019 I had a feeling of apprehension coming into this year's event.

• Not about attendance levels. Our pre-sales had blown the doors off 2019's pre-sales.
• Not about whether people would have fun. Put gamers in front of games and that's largely a given.
• Not about whether our exhibitors would have a positive experience, especially those with us for the first time. Again, put gamers in front of games and other adjacent things then they're going to explore and investigate it, especially if it was something new to them.

The apprehension was one driven by having not done it since 2019, and likely in part due to fatigue thanks to catching COVID post Gen Con.

So what was the apprehension about?

• Was all the hard work put in to prep and plan for the event going to pay off?
• Had I considered every possible scenario and made sure we had an answer to resolve it?
• Did we have enough volunteers? - It's worth noting that there is no such thing as _enough_ volunteers...

Until we opened the doors there was no way of actually knowing.

But there were two other things which I don't think I really appreciated until the event got closer.

1. Was I going to enjoy it?
2. Plus perhaps crucially, would I want to do it again?

To understand number 1, you have to go back to the 2018 and 2019 events.

• 2018 was hard largely because it was the first one we did, but also because this was the culmination of a vision I had which was refined by the others in the team to the point that we knew what the event should be. The problem was that I didn't relax throughout the weekend, which meant I didn't get a chance to savour and enjoy what we'd achieved until afterwards.
• 2019 was hard primarily because we doubled the floorspace and perhaps jumped too soon into that additional complexity. We also had a lot of last minute stuff to deal with.
  As with 2018, I didn't relax during the 2019 con to be able savour and enjoy it.

2022? Well, other than a few tech issues, the occasional decision and some "have we done this?" moments, I didn't actually have anything specific to do during the convention other than chatting to attendees, our charity partners, volunteer & event team, press, guests and exhibitors. In other words I relaxed and was able to enjoy my / our creation. This freedom was largely down to the efforts of the rest of the yellow team and our amazing volunteers, plus of course we'd done it before so certain things just click into place.

The time I was able to spend with folks at the convention was invaluable, especially those friends that I haven't seen since the last event in 2019 and many for even longer. Ultimately the freedom provided me with the fuel I'd been running out of during the preparation.  Which leads into number 2.

To understand number 2, you have to factor in a few things...

• I have a full time job which is very busy at the best of times.
• I was ill from late January through to early May, which was energy sapping. This impacted a chunk of our planning for the con but we muddled through.
• Then I get COVID early August after being at Gen Con.

Alongside those, I think I'd forgotten how much time and effort is spent on planning the convention. In the 2-3 months prior it essentially becomes a 2nd full time job. A lot of that is of my own creation, I obsess over the little things and like to respond to questions immediately. I like to think that obsessiveness helps make the event work as effectively as it does, but who knows right?

As a result, when combined with the above, I felt drained physically, mentally and emotionally going into the convention. All of which had me seriously wondering whether I wanted to do it again.

There's a kind of expectation that Tabletop Scotland will happen every year. An assumed state that obviously we'd want to do it etc etc. I'll be honest and say that it wasn't until the Monday after the convention that I really felt the desire to do it again. That's because everything largely worked as planned, and as a result I was able to relax and even enjoy the convention. But it's also because I've missed doing it, missed the people, missed the thrill of opening those doors and seeing friends old and new come in. 

So, Tabletop Scotland 2023? That's the plan. When we have something to share, we'll share it.

Days and Weeks

This time next week I'll be at Gen Con. Fly out on the morning of Tuesday 2nd August and then get home again on the 9th.

Plus it's less just over 4 weeks to Tabletop Scotland 2022.

As I said in my previous post, I'm more than a little bit excited to be returning to Gen Con and Indianapolis.

My plans for Gen Con fall into three categories:

1. Fun: Play games, enjoy the experience of being there and have fun.
2. Writing: I'm attending several seminars / panels that related to self publishing. Mostly D&D centric but a few generic ones in the mix too.
3. Tabletop Scotland: Mostly from the perspective of picking up new releases and titles that are hard to get in the UK. These are both for my own collection and for the Tabletop Scotland games library. The BoardGameGeek Preview is quite useful for that, although you do have to keep in mind that some of the games that are new at Gen Con are already available in the UK & Europe. There's also an unofficial list of all the RPG products coming out over on RPGGeek. As always I fully expect to buy a mix of stuff from those lists and lots of impulse buys too.
   I'm sure there will be photos galore taken too.

Event wise this is what my schedule currently looks like. It will almost definitely change between now and I arrive.

If you're going to be at Gen Con and you want to meet up, let me know.

Once I'm back from that we're into the final prep stage for Tabletop Scotland.

Safe to say, August is going to be busy!

The Oxford Articles - A Call of Cthulhu adventure.

As per a previous post I signed up to take part in the Storytelling Collective's RPG adventure writing workshop during July, this time opting to write for Call of Cthulhu after previously writing a DMsGuild module - Unsettled Ground.

I wanted to capture some of the thinking that went into The Oxford Articles and how it might lead in to other things I have planned.

Firstly though, what is the adventure?

What connects a fire at St Michael At The North Gate Church,

a series of missing books and The Order of the Green Gate?

Visit Oxford, England in 1953 and help uncover the truth.

As I said in that previous post, until very recently, like a few days before the workshop started, I have never owned any edition of Call of Cthulhu nor have I ever played or ran Call of Cthulhu.

That said, I had the Starter Set on PDF and the Keeper's Rulebook (and PDF thanks to Bits & Mortar) to work from. Plus I understood the environment that the game operates within and also had a handle on the basic mechanics of the game before jumping into the workshop.

But of course the first hurdle in anything like this is - "What are you going to write?"

So I already had an idea that I'd started to draft but I didn't want to use that for the workshop. Instead I wanted to write something completely different and something that challenged me.

The only thing I kept from the other idea was the name of a secret society, namely "The Order of the Green Gate". I fully intend to publish that other adventure in due course, November hopefully, so I won't give too much away but this specific secret society and the history of its members is something I plans to write about in general, potentially up to ten different adventures. But we're getting sidetracked...

The workshop asked participants to brainstorm different ideas for what to write. From that list the idea is that you choose one then start to work on it, with the others either being ones you'll revisit in the future or exiled to the writer's bin.

One of those ideas a strong theme started to come through; books, and more specifically university libraries. I didn't want to write something in 'standard' Cthulhu country and so I started to narrow it down to UK based universities that would have old books. That's quite a long list so I picked three universities and then started to look at real world connections to the unusual or perhaps events that could be leaned towards the unusual in a work of fiction.

Two things started to shine very brightly through my 100+ Chrome tabs:

1. Oxford University has a loose but real connection to The Smithsonian in Washington D.C. thanks to one James Smithson who attended Oxford University in the 18th Century and his fortune and collection is what established The Smithsonian.
2. St Michael At The North Gate Church in Oxford had a fire in October 1953.

Two seemingly unconnected things suddenly became connected.

So I began to create those connections and weave a series of events that would result in someone requesting aid from 'investigators'.

It's worth noting that I wasn't born in 1953 nor have I ever been to Oxford never mind the University. So this presented several challenges on a research front.

The workshop suggests that you aim for 3,500 words for the adventure and the recommendation is that you write a one shot.

Going into it after the experience of writing Unsettled Ground, I was wary of falling into the trap I did last time. Namely, I wanted to ensure that what I was writing didn't grow out of control and become largely impossible to complete in the time frame of the workshop.

It's safe to say that I failed at that!

Around the 20th of July I realised that I wasn't going to finish the adventure within the month, I also knew that my plan was to playtest the adventure on the 28th July... Which was almost identical to what happened with Unsettled Ground. So using that learning I set about constraining the scope of the adventure, using techniques and outputs from the workshop to help me do that but also just simply binning content that whilst added more flavour also added about 1,500 - 2,5000 words and time I no longer had... 

One of those items that landed on the cutting room floor was a fictional expansion of the tunnel network underneath Oxford. Something I might revisit in the future.

It was during this cutting exercise that my 'draft' was done. It wasn't actually a complete draft though but it was enough material for me to run it and for friends to 'tear it apart in a nice way'.

The 'draft' even with chunks removed was easily a two-session if not three-session adventure, ultimately depending on how deep into the investigation the players go.

The playtest was invaluable both as a Keeper and from the excellent feedback I got from those who played. Adding that together with the 'tear apart' feedback gave me a good solid steer on what needed to change to improve the adventure and ultimately finish it.

Oh, and I forgot to say that during the month of July my laptop died. Fortunately everything was stored in the cloud so no data was lost but I was largely without tech for a week.

Ultimately though, The Oxford Articles was published on the 3am BST on the 5th August and has since gone Copper (51+ sales) and seems to be quite popular too!

I have to add, the RPG Writer Workshop and Miskatonic Repository communities are amazingly helpful and encouraging. They really are communities that celebrate each others success. So if you get the chance to be part of either or both communities, go for it. You won't regret it.

UK Games Expo 2016 - Summary Thoughts

Summary

I had fun, met some great people, played some great games, bought some games, drank beer (some good, some not) and all in all had a great time.

Highlights

• Travel there and back went smoothly. No real delays and we made good time despite some crazy drivers on the road at times!
• RPGLifeUK TweetUp - Will cover that in a separate post, both the tweetup(s) themselves and the outcomes I am considering, but all in all it was fantastic to be able to meet up with folks.
• Seminar on Games in Education - Also a separate post but at a high level the seminar was a) overly focussed on those who want to work in the industry (negative) and b) great at providing an insight into the Game Jam process (positive).
• Using the NEC really gave the con a feeling of scale and of course fantastic presence with general public.  What it also enabled was a fantastic amount of game space in the Hilton which removed the need for what must have been an expensive marquee from last year.  There are niggles with the split site (see below) but overall the UK Games Expo team delivered.
• Trade presence. Good balance between small press <=> publisher <=> retailer and but still some notable absentees. Someone needs to kick people like Wizards Of The Coast to make sure they know how big a deal this convention is becoming. 12,500 unique attendees (current estimates) is a huge deal.  Last year the Origins convention in Columbus Ohio reached 15,938 unique attendees with a turnstile attendance of 43,791 over 5 days (versus an estimated 25,000 over 3 days at UKGExpo).  This isn't to be sniffed at as Origins is a flagship event for the hobby.
• Food trucks were fantastic serving some fantastic food at great prices.  I can't compliment them enough.
• General ambiance of “comfortable happy” with added sprinkles of fun. It was a more relaxed experience compared to last year where the whole con felt rushed and compressed.  There was room to breathe this year.

Lowlights

• Split site…  Ok so I always knew that this was going to be a grumble topic. 2 perspectives of the split site arrangement between the NEC and the Hilton.
• The NEC set up - Hall 1 is pretty big. What that meant was that on the Friday the hall felt bigger than the con needed, on the Saturday that was less the case though as the masses turned up. Is that emptiness a bad thing?  Well no but it sends a signal (to me at least) that the event wasn’t necessarily getting the industry support that it requires.
  Now to be fair(er) the leap in space from single site is significant but at the same time there were areas of non-use in the hall and areas of “poor” use in the hall.  By non-use I mean there were cordoned off areas that were actually empty.  Devoid of content.  Not small areas either. Unsure if this was a necessary evil or something else was at play...
  Poor use elements would include the seminars being in a cordoned off area that struggled to cope with the background noise of the wider hall - or at least they did in the case of the 1 seminar I attended.  Not exactly a representative sample I know.  I would have thought that seminars would have been better served in the Hilton OR if they'd used / created an actual room in the NEC for them...
• The dual site nature - It’s a short walk which is absolutely fine. I’d almost go so far as to say it was a good thing to encourage attendees to take in some fresh air and move (other than round the trade hall) as the temptation is to sit and play games all day.  The kicker is though that by having the con split it breaks the ambiance and atmosphere a little. It also breaks the attendees into 2 distinct groups.  Those who are there “just to shop” and those who are there to game throughout the con.  If I’d been playing in RPGs all weekend or even the Heroclix events I wouldn’t have done as much browsing in the trade hall never mind any actual shopping.  Plus given that 99% of all the ticketed events were at the Hilton I don't really understand why the ticketing was at the NEC...
  
  Obviously this is all a learning curve for the organisers as the inclusion of the NEC has added some extra funkiness.
• Bring Buy - I think this has become too big to be something that can be adequately managed. It's almost become one of those "big cons don't do it" things.  To give it the space that it would need to make it work better & smoother and avoid it being disruptive to surrounding traders I think the con would reach or breach that point where it made sense financially.  Yeah it raises a fantastic amount of money for charity, truly a fantastic amount but there must be a tipping point where the square feet it would need would cost more than the money involved.
  Or an alternative is found... 

So there are more bullets under Highlights than Lowlights and in reality the Lowlights are more about the challenges that scale brings to any event.

There are other things I still want the con to do that it isn't and other things that I'd change / seek to improve on but those aren't Lowlights per se...  I may re-visit my evolutionary steps post from last year to look at what I’d change for future years but in reality there's very little wrong with UK Games Expo and that is something to celebrate.

Winning isn't everything. Fun is.

So in my gaming principle post "Is everyone having fun?  Including you?" I touched very briefly on the competitive side of the hobby. That sparked a conversation with a friend - Just how important is winning?

The thing is that all formats of tabletop games tend to involve "winning" and "losing" of one form or another; including in cooperative games where the players win/lose together.  This is fairly obvious I suppose given that if it's a game surely there has to be a winner and a loser.  Right?

When I first tried out Magic I knew I was never going to get into the competitive element of the game.  By that I mean I never expected nor intended to enter competitions other than during the latter stages of the 1st Chapter which was only to even up the numbers at Friday Night Magic or whatever.  To play any game that is by design a competition you have to consider whether winning is important to you or simply playing to have fun is enough.

I won't deny it, I don't enjoy losing and when playing in a competitive game I am trying to win, after all that's a large part of why you play competitive games.  Where the balance lies is in whether you're equating "the need to win" with "having fun".  If these are one and the same for you when it comes to playing tabletop games then I think you're missing out on what makes tabletop games great.

Playing tabletop games is about having a shared experience with other players and to quote a friend of mine "it's all about telling stories together".  Ok so that's maybe a little highbrow but I also think it's true.

"I don't want to play X because I'll never be able to win." This is something I used to hear a lot, not just with respect to Magic but in relation to pretty much all of the formats of tabletop gaming including cooperative style games.  The fun comes through playing, if you win then that's simply an added benefit.
Whilst the emotional experience of losing, especially if that's losing more than winning, isn't likely to be pleasant the only true way to learn and improve your game is through playing and the best way to learn what's not working is to lose.  So chalk it up as a learning development opportunity and learn from your mistakes.

As I've said before, not every game is for everyone. I'll go further and say that not every environment for gaming is for everyone. Me?  I'm never going to be a good Magic player because I don't have the deck building skill to do it.  I don't see the best card combinations that can be used to create a great deck. In some respects that may also be why I've steered clear of wargames too.  When I play Magic I create a deck that I think looks cool and be fun to play. That places me in the "casual gamer" camp for Magic which is entirely accurate. I've played many many games over the years where I've lost and played RPGs where all the players have lost (total party kill type events) but each of those games have been fun for a variety of reasons.

All I'm saying is that winning isn't what should be driving you to play tabletop games, having fun is what it's all about.