Phenomenon in Canberra (ACT) needs games and writers

[Anestis]

Hi all,

For you roleplayers, Phenomenon happens on and around the Queen's Birthday Long Weekend every year.

I know this is short notice, but Pheno is still looking for writers and games. If you're interested, please see the website for more information: http://pheno.org.au

If this is the wrong thing to do/ask, I apologise. let me know and I'll delete the post.

[Anestis]

OK, looks like the website is still a work in progress for this year.

If you are interested in writing a game for Pheno let me know.

See the below for more information:

We require blurbs by Monday 17th January 2011 so we can put them on our website by the Australia Day not-really-long-weekend. If you think you’ll have trouble getting the blurb in on time, just let me know – we’ll sort something out.

This year we will be allowing you to change your blurb up until a week before registration opens at Easter. We know that games often evolve as they’re written, particularly after they have been playtested, and the blurb you originally wrote may no longer fit the game. So, I still need a blurb by the 17th January, but if you need to change it after it’s been submitted, let me know.

Speaking of playtests; a heads up to let you know that I’ll be organising playtesting weekends in the lead up to Easter (so that you can change your blurb if needed before rego opens). Therefore, if you could have your game at a playtestable stage by March that would be great. More details will follow. Playtesting does not apply to large freeforms, and interstate writers are not expected to come to Canberra to playtest unless they want to.

Now, back to the urgent stuff:
If you need any assistance designing your blurb, please email me – we are more than happy to work from text only with a few notes on how you’d like your blurb laid out.

Your blurb submission should include the following:
1. Writer/organiser’s name and contact details. The name (or design group name or whatever) will appear with the blurb. The contact details won’t unless you want them to.
2. Game/activity name. This will appear on the website, entry form and trophy.
3. System/rules. E.g. D&D 3ed, GURPS Space, Werewolf, Freeform, Systemless.
4. Genre/setting. E.g. Greyhawk, modern fantasy, World of Darkness, thriller, pulp action. This is especially important for systemless games, as it helps the players work out what you’re on about.
5. Number of players. This is especially important for freeforms. Tabletops are assumed to have the standard five players unless we’re told otherwise.
6. The blurb itself. There is some art to writing a blurb: it should be long enough to cover the essentials, while short enough to keep the interest.
The blurb should say something about the characters, about the setting, and about the focus of the story. If it says nothing about the game, you are effectively asking players to play it on trust alone, which is never a good look. Blurbs on novels or DVDs are good models. You may provide links to other sites if you want to give players access to more detailed info.
7. The ratings for the game. Pheno uses a rating system to help players choose games, and to help them anticipate how you’re going to judge their performance. Rate your game from 1 (little or none) to 5 (really important) on the following categories. Please give us a number for each category. Long descriptions, while amusing, don’t fit in the little boxes…
Characterisation — portraying the characters… 1 (play the stats) to 5 (bring out the deep insights)
Story/plot — telling a good story… 1 (A-Team) to 5 (Nabokov)
Genre — knowing the genre, staying in the genre… 1 (post-modernist parody) to 5 (Tolkienesque total immersion)
Seriousness — romp (seriousness 1) to concentration camp (seriousness 5)
Rules knowledge — do players need to know the game system (5), or is this a good introduction to it (1)?
Adult content — violence, horror, naughty bits. Just to buck the trend, please rate this like a film: G, PG, M, MA, R.
8. Images. If you want to include images they should be jpgs or gifs of 10K or less. Larger images will be trimmed to fit if necessary. Please don’t submit your blurb as an image; they are a pain to read. Images to support the blurb are fine, but the blurb itself should be in text form.
9. Your designer biography. A short biography about the designer is also appreciated. This gives the players some background on who you are, and what you’ve done in the past. If you don’t give us one, our illustrious web designer may well write one for you. However, while his backgrounds are entertaining, they’re not actually very useful for players who don’t know you but would like to.
Example designer bios are on the 2009 website: http://pheno.org.au/2009/crew.html The bios for Ken Carcas, Belinda Kelly, Dan L’Estrange, Mark Somers and Mike Walker are the sort of thing I’d like you to provide.

[xombiekitty]

I didn't know that you were involved in Pheno!
Totally cool to post stuff like this here

I hate GMing. I think I'm awful at it. ZenBubble disagrees, but seriously, I think he's just being nice because he feels he has to
I hope you get some bites here though. Gaming conventions need more love

Are you an ORG, GM, or PC... or all of them?

[Anestis]

Org/Volunteer/Helper, but next year, that and Writer/GM

Before I moved to Canberra I was a Con Org for Conquest for two years (2007 and 2008)

[ZenBubble]

Gonna launch off on a Tangent here:

How come I can't go to a convention in Australia and a game of D&D or Shadowrun?

Not picking on Pheno - Conquest and Arcanacon are both guilty as well - but out of the twelve tabletop games being run at Pheno, nine are systemless. 75%!

The others are two OWOD games, and a game called Archipelago, which I've never heard of so is actually pretty tempting.

I miss the days of going to Conquest every year to play C-Punk 2020 ...

*Sigh*

I'm old, arent I?

-Chris

[Anestis]

Well, it's not on the website yet, but we (we as in Uncle Wes) are going to run the Convention only Pathfinder Society Game - the same one that ran at Arc whose name I can't remember.

Character Levels 1-11.

OUr miniatures guys decided to go their own way and run elsewhere on the same weekend, so no miniatures at Pheno either.

I'm running Systemless because I can't be bothered statting up NPC's. Besides, it's easier to free-flow a systemless game (for me anyway :-).