On this episode, Ken recaps running ShadowDark, Mothership, and Gaslands Refueled at a local RPG convention. We also delve into how to support your local conventions (MEPACon in the Pennsylvania, and Who’s Yer Con? in Indiana).
Chapters
0:00 Intro & MEPACon Setup
2:10 Venue Upgrade & Con History
4:00 ShadowDark: Morka Norden Recap
7:00 Learning from Live Play & Light Mechanics
9:30 Mothership Funnel: Decanted Breakdown
13:00 Emergency Decanting & Medical Mishaps
17:00 Engineering, Design Tweaks, & Player Strategy
22:00 Gaslands: Straight to Hell Tutorial
26:00 Concrete Jungle & Advanced Play Challenges
30:00 Why Local Cons Matter & Final Reflections
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Show Notes
MEPACon RECAP
- What is MEPACon?
- MEPACon stands for “Mid-Eastern Pennsylvania Gaming Convention”
- Located near Allentown, PA
- About 30 minutes from Ken’s house.
- Held every six month, in spring and fall
- Not sure on the exact head count, but Ken’s thinking 150 people. Probably more.
- Moved to Delta Hotels by Marriott, which is a MUCH better hotel than the previous one (which is being torn down)
- Ken ran four games:
- Decanted: A Mothership funnel … that failed at being a funnel. Except, maybe not?
- Morka Nordan: A ShadowDark adventure ripped from Ken’s lunchtime adventure
- Got used to the digital tabletop handling all the light stuff. It’s harder to do in the real world.
- This is the game where Ken realized just how many ShadowDark mistakes he’d made with his lunch time game.
- Two Gaslands Refueled games
- Straight to Hell: A 2-hour intro game
- Concrete Jungle: A 2-hour race/battle royal game that probably needs to be 4 hours. And maybe I just need to run three 2-hour slot tutorials during the weekend to build up a base of experienced players.
Supporting Your Local Conventions
- Importance of local conventions for playtesting, community, and outreach
- Thoughts on prepping for Who’s Yer Con and leveraging past games
- Reflections on building in-person player communities post-pandemic
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An old-time ariel map of Allentown, PA.