Dreamation ’07 has reached critical mass and there is a real problem here. There are too many fantastic people who I adore and want to spend time with. I didn’t even get to sit down with so many people who I wanted to talk with desperately, dammit.
All Hail Kat!
The Indie Games Explosion went off without a hitch with dozens of sessions filled to capacity. Even last year or last year’s Dexcon you could get into most games by signing up when you arrived at the con but this year it was dicy with many more people taking advantage of pre-reg. IGE rocked and Kat’s the mastermind behind it.
All Hail Vinny!
The IPR Booth rocked da house, not just as a kind of social focal point from which we could bullshit with Storn, Ralph and Keith about our recent and past gaming from Ars Magica to Pendragon to D&D 3.0 to Burning Wheel and not only where Jeff and I could stage guerilla interviews with Vincent, John aka Jenskot, Brennan and Thor and more but from which IPR could effectively sell our games.
Dreamation staff continues to rock.
There are too many damned cool people there. Did I even get exchange any words with *insert name here of awesome person who I regularly IM/E-mail/Talk to and didn’t get a chance to sit down with*.
Gaming is Fun, as always.
1st Quest went really well with a great mix of gamers who rocked the hell out of the World Tree Pack. This game is ready to be written.
Zombie Kong was an idea that was more fun to think about than to play for me but the midnight to four in the morning slot wasn’t doing me any favors.
Dictionary of Mu continues to rock. At the end of the game I asked the players to come up with definitions as per the book’s instructions and I got:
Father = Slaver
Garden – a place of peace where love can grow
History: Far, far bigger than you, so settle down!
Peace: A Fragil spirit on Marr’d that could not be eaten by its bloody history. It can still be Found there in places quiet and cool.
I can look at those definitions and see a sketch of what was important to the players about the game. Wonderful. Shane, Terry, John and Matthew…thanks! I am keeping the definitions in the back of my copy of the book which will some day be filled to bursting with scraps of notebook paper from con’s games past. Cool.
I will begin to compile links to blogs and AP threads but for now, check out Bret’s photo links.
Article in the Local Newspaper
Podcast Material:
Gamer: the Podcasting’s LARP roundtable
MP3 recordings of Actual Play: 1001 Nights, Shock:, Polaris, Bliss Stage and Primetime Adventures
Dreamation 2007 Indie Design Roundtable
Sons of Kryos interviews Thor Olavsrud, Jason Morningstar and some wonderful staff folk from Knights Realms
Sons of Kryos interviews Brennan Taylor and Vincent Baker.
Blog-o-sphere:
Michael Miller Burns Down the House: “Wow. Now that was a great convention! Dozens of events went off with barely a hitch to be found (at least that I heard about). Pick-up games and animated conversations scattered like snowflakes across several floors of the hotel. Double Exposure put on a great con, and the Indie Games Explosion was a great success!”
Kat (ALL HAIL KAT!) goes all AP on her livejournal: “The Double Exposure people, Vinny, Becca, Barb, all the friendly faces handing out our badges, taking our paperwork, or just pointing out things we might night were our guardian angels during the convention. Vinny himself brought cookies and chips to al the tables running games in the Indie Game room.”
Nathan take advantage of wireless at the con.: “So there is no wireless code needed for this year – so me and my trust PowerBook are free to throw up tidbits of Dreamation goodness.”
Bret breaks it down.: “The gaming was good, the people were cool, and the conversation was a year’s worth of awesome gaming-talk crammed into a weekend.”
Emily’s Back from Dreamation: “…and it was fabulous. Comedy was the name of the day, with some dark and serious moments.”
Russel takes out a contract at Dreamation: “That was fun.”
Ron Donoghue says his piece: “So, Dreamation. I had a pretty good time, though it suffered on a few points, many of which were on my head.”
Nathan breaks down Thursday and Friday in Dreamation AughtSeven: “I wish I had a cord I could plug into my brain and just download my experiences into this magig box, because to adequetely capture the weekend will take a whole lotta typing.”
Storn Speaks: “I went to Dreamation with the Jays…. Jeff, Judd and JJ.
And it was an absolute blast!”
Verge playtest at Dreamation : “I attended Dreamation this past weekend. It was awesome.”
Joshua talks about Dreamation in a post called canny row?: “At Dreamation, I got to run two games of Shock: Social Science Fiction.”
Giant Fighty Robots: Planet of the Geeks blogs about Mechaton: “This weekend Rick and I went to Dreamation, a gaming convention in nearby East Brunswick.”
Matthew hits us with part I of his west coast perspective: “
Pre-registration for my first convention really paid off for me. I reserved my schedule for Dreamation the same afternoon the grids were posted.”
RobNJ Sums Up His Dreamation Weekend: “Dreamation was amazing as usual. “
Storn “doodles” while he plays at Dreamation.: “This last weekend, I had the honor to play a couple of games with the authors of two games. And as per course, I doodled as I played. Both games were awesome and let me plug them.”
Dreamation AughtSeven, Part Deux: “Whew. I’ve actually been, like, working on games the last couple days (not to mention real life work), so my desire to get this post written has ebbed. But if I don’t get it down tonite, I’ll probably forget so many things that it won’t be worth writing.
Now, where was I?”
Jeff of Kryos kvells over his new toy.: “I picked up a new digital recorder last month and it came along with us on the trip to Dreamation. We used it for a number of interviews with Indie game designers, the Game Design Roundtable, and finally a con wrap-up with Gamer: The Podcasting. “
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AP threads:
[Grey Ranks] Dreamation Playtests : “If you played Grey Ranks at Dreamation I particularly invite your feedback here!”
[Shooting the Moon] Dreamation: Love’s Reflection, or The Daughter of Deception: “On Saturday afternoon at Dreamation, I got to play Shooting the Moon with Dave Cleaver, Matt Gandy, Michelle, Kat and Michael Miller. “
Dreamation: Quest for the Holy Grail: “The ‘Quest’ is pretty much a derivative of ‘The Sword’ scenario–characters start in the presence of the Holy Grail, they each want it for different reasons, and the question is, ‘Who gets the Grail?’”
[Ganakagok] (Dreamation) Her Tears Fall As Rain: “Her Tears Fall As Rain
Dave played a curious child.
Frank was a cursed youth.
Fred started off as a harsh truth-teller.
Matt was a brave javelineer.
Lisa was a misunderstood artisan.
Don was a burning prophet.
And Shawn played the crazy grandmother.”
[Primitive] Dreamation 07 : “On Friday in the 8:pm Slot I ran a game of Primitive for 6 wonderful players, who I had never played the game with before. “
[Dreamation '07] Dictionary of Mu: “I ran the Dictionary of Mu for a few years while it was still just a word document with red ink on it. It was at Dreamation that I met the book’s artist, Jen Rodgers and passed one such word doc on to her. It was at Dreamation that Luke and I went from online aquaintences to friends.
So, running it this year, when it has been selling well felt like returning to my hometown after winning the state championships.”
Don goes all multi-media with a blog post that has some AP recordings, so here it is in the AP section.
[carry] Dreamation Actual Play, Selling Out, & Other Fallout : “There’s some fallout(heh) from those two games that are influencing some more thoughts on errata for the game, mostly dealing with Endgame and three-player games.”
[D&D] (Dreamation) “Well Met in Mankara”: “After an ‘unfun’ experience playing D&D at DEXCON I determined that I would run my own D&D session at a convention that I would try to do ‘better’. So this is an AP report on an adventure titled “Well Met in Mankara” which I think came out as pretty fun. “
MP3 recordings of Actual Play: 1001 Nights, Shock:, Polaris, Bliss Stage and Primetime Adventures: Yes, I put it in two places in this space, both here in AP and above in the podcast section.
[Dreamation] [Unistat] Knights of the Living Dead: “Here’s the quick and dirty write-up of my Friday night game at Dreamation.”
Matthew goes in depth on our game of Mu.: “So I lied. As many a good story or role-playing session is told out-of-sequence, I’m breaking my Dreamation chronology to talk first about Dictionary of Mu. That play session inspired a lot of ideas.”
1st Quest: World Tree Pack : “So, when Dreamation was looming and I had to come up with a setting that would sound pretty in a convention blurb, I went with sentient norse wolves who walked through worlds. “
Forum Posts:
Dreamation 2007 Highlight Reel @ SG: “Your best moments!”
My Epic Dreamation Saga by James Nostack : “Wow, what an amazing convention! Believe me, if you didn’t make it to Dreamation 2007, you don’t know what you’re missing. And neither do I. I was there, but I didn’t attend! Let’s break it down, SG-style! Raise a glass, gentlemen, to the tale of StoryGaming Sisyphus!”
Don’s [Dreamation '07] Afterparty : “Wow, I feel like I have tons to talk about but I am going to kick this off with a few of the highlights and add more later…”
[Dreamation 07] Attendance Analysis: “So, people running IGE games, post your timeslot and game, whether it went off, and the number of players (other than yourself) you had. I’ll update this post as info comes in.”
NerdNYC weighs in on Dreamation: “We went in and immediately saw the IPR booth and spoke a bit with one of the indie authors manning the booth as we were waiting for one of Ayla’s work buddies and her husband (they’re both role players and awesome nerds). “
Ben talks about playtesting at cons: “I was talking with Nathan about this at Dreamation, and I think that in the indie games exploded world it’s a pretty big deal, so I want to have a talk about it. I have a few proposed solutions, but mostly I just want to hear opinions.”
[Dreamation 07] Attendance Analysis : “I’m trying to collect the data on how many of our rediculously many games went off, and with how many players. I have almost all the info…”
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