I attended Multiverse Con 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia as a vendor. This geek convention was a great opportunity to realize what Egg Embry Publishing needs if I want to be a successful RPG convention seller: an RPG freebie to entice fans. Why was it a perfect space to learn about convention vending? Because Multiverse is a literary con with non-literay elements such as tabletop roleplaying games. On the floor, I’m pushing against the prevailing content, offering counter programming compared to what convention fans are expecting. As such, I had some revelations about how I should approach convention sells.
Multiverse focuses on science fiction, fantasy, and horror literature as well as art. In addition, there are gaming, crafting, and cosplaying elements, but the vendors and fans are keyed towards prose and graphic novels. Occurring along the north side of Atlanta, this convention attracts a fantastic group of enthusiasts including a visible percentage of under represented voices. Seeing black, female, and LGBTQ+ vendors and fans in attendance, seeing them make up healthy percentages of the population, points towards the pluralistic experience that many conventions are aiming for. Multiverse offers publishers an opportunity to connect with fans that they may not have reached yet. The floor is a fun experience offering books, comics, and panels by creators from a variety of backgrounds. Atlanta’s geek convention scene is dominated by Dragon Con, MomoCon, and Anime Weekend in Atlanta, but Multiverse and JordanCon are able to find an audience eager to participate in their shows by focusing on under represented audiences combined with mainstream media.
I attended Multiverse in 2019 and again in 2022. In 2019, I was there with Craig Campbell of Nerdburger Games and the Indie Game Developer Network (IGDN). This year, I attended with novelist, John McGuire. John and I split a table, he sold his novels, graphic novels, and the comic we collaborated on, In Our Dreams Awake. My half of the table included the RPGs I’ve published or wrote for such as POWERED by the DREAMR, Love’s Labour’s Liberated, Love’s Labour’s Liabilities, and HUMAN… ALMOST as well as Harrowings #01: From the Rime! and Tales from Vigilante City – Short Fiction Collection for SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City.
Despite bringing RPGs to sell, my goal for the convention wasn’t monetary, it was connecting with fans. Specifically, I wanted to get more copies of my newest and free (and well reviewed) playtest, HUMAN… ALMOST, into the hands of potential gamers. My measure of success would be expanding the number of gamers that indulge in tabletop roleplaying games. Demos and free games can help to make that happen.
As convention attendees came by my table, I would ask if they roleplayed, and the vast majority were lapsed gamers, or interested, but didn’t have a group to try it out. To help spread the word, I did a demo of my post-cyberpunk police procedural, HUMAN… ALMOST, but I needed to do more to reach a wider audience, especially the lapsed and interested fanbase.
For the demo, I ran the game, provided a free copy of the RPG, and free dice. I had four players join in, which was a good number for the session in which they chased an AI driven car bent on revenge against a chop shop that carjacked its auto companions. It was fun, but I would have been better off running more demos; unfortunately, that was not an option.
As I’ve talked about with HUMAN… ALMOST, the cost of printing wasn’t high. When printing it, I had to meet a deadline and went with my preferred printer. However, the cost wasn’t zero, instead reaching $2.13 a unit (two heavy cardstock pamphlets and a printed envelop). I’m not unhappy with that cost as an experiment, it generated a great product and experience from which I’ve learned a great deal. But, because the per unit cost wasn’t, say, 50 cents or less, I can’t hand these out to every attendee. That constriction led to a revelation during the con about what I want to create next, which drove the writing of this article.
Knowing that I want to reach more potential gamers (as well as existing gamers), the biggest lesson for the convention is that I need an RPG that I can give out for free. Something that has a low cost of printing so I can hand out copies to modestly interested passersby without worrying about my out of pocket expense.
To that end, let’s talk about the genius of Operatives and Civilians, a Lasers & Feelings one-page RPG based on the TV series, Burn Notice, by Bammax Gaming. Not only is it the best one-page RPG I’ve ever seen because it is a complete game that feels like its source material, it is also a genius RPG pamphlet. Done in the brochure style, it’s an 8.5″ x 11″ page printed as a tri-fold pamphlet with six panels of which two of its panels, the front and back, are mocked up as an envelop. From my point of view, it’s a work of inspirational genius. It does exactly what you want it to do: offers a full game that could be mailed for the cost of one stamp. If printed on the right type of paper, the per unit cost might be under 40 cents per, cheap enough that someone saying they *might* be interested in possibly thinking about maybe one day trying out roleplaying would warrant a free copy.
That’s the goal coming out of Multiverse, to have a one-page RPG pamphlet where the front has room enough to act as the face of an envelop. Something cheap to print so it can be given away or mailed at minimal cost. Something that could be dropped off at a game store so they have a free RPG to give out to potential fans every day, not just Free RPG Day.
Multiverse Con ended up being a good show because I was able to connect with gamers. More importantly, it showed me that Egg Embry Publishing needs a single page RPG, something that can be mass printed and given out as a gateway product. If I can publish something like that, it will change my conventioning experience in 2023 and beyond.
HUMAN… ALMOST: A Post-Cyberpunk Police Procedural Roleplaying Pamphlet – PLAYTEST VERSION is free at:
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