In less than 2 weeks, tens of thousands of gamers will descend upon Indianapolis, Indiana for what is arguably the biggest and most important gaming convention of the year. GenCon Indy offers 4 full days of gaming, almost 7,000 events, vendors, demonstrations, debuts and panels. But it also offers something else... Opportunity.

Conventions such as GenCon may be the biggest chance that aspiring writers and artists get for one-on-one face-to-face connections with potential employers and networking contacts. While there are definitely ways to get more in-depth quality time with various people of import in the industry, GenCon is a quantity-heavy situation, a target-rich environment, if you will. Even after several years of working in the industry, I still found that my own career in the industry really blossomed after attending GenCon (and other "face time" type conventions).

However, such opportunities are a double-edged sword. Face-to-face contact may be a great career tool - if you're prepared for it. It also offers the chance for the unprepared to totally flummox their chances as well. Since I'm frequently asked about how to get your proverbial foot in the door in the industry, I thought I'd spend some time pre-GenCon to share some advice on how to make the most of your convention attendance, if you're interested in working in the industry.

Today's blog is "The Basics", Part One of "GenCon For The Aspiring Professional", a four-part series on making the most of your convention for aspiring industry professionals. The series will run between now and GenCon, and I'd be happy to answer individual questions about the topics covered here either by email or at the convention.

Part One: The Basics

The Ultimate Basic

This is so basic that it shouldn't even need to be said, but it does.

One of the projects I worked on for White Wolf Games has just been released. City in the Sand is the first Live Action Role Play (LARP) scenario that White Wolf has published in 14 years, but it is so much more than that.

Available as a four-part .pdf product, CitS contains over 50 pre-made characters, each with a complete character sheet and background, including background ties to other characters in the game. These characters include just about every archetype a player could want to portray in a larp, from the steamy femme fatale to the monstrous tunnel creeper. There's bruisers and bible-thumpers, artists and anachronists, politicos and party animals. I also included every clan/covenant combination (with multiples of many combos) so that chances are any player can find something that really matches what they want to portray in the game.

In conjunction with the fully developed character sheets, CitS also contains support materials for distribution to the players of each character, detailing information they would know as a member of their particular clan, coterie or covenant, to facilitate "ready-to-play" LARP immersion. These, and the characters, were my parts of the project, and I'm tickled pink with how they came out. They're beautiful, elegant, and if I may say so myself, easy to use.

One of other awesome parts of CitS is the New Player Handbook. In 9 concise pages, we've abbreviated all the information a new player needs to know in order to participate in the LARP - even if they've never played a RPG. It contains a concise introduction to the concept of roleplaying and of LARP, a mini summation of each of the clans, coteries, disciplines and other vital concepts, and quick reference charts for some of the most common actions that characters might want to take during the game. We're so excited about how useful this tool is, that White Wolf has bent their normally strident rules about copyright for this portion of the product. This blurb is from the bottom of the DriveThruRPG page about City in the Sand:

Note: There are four files in this product. Customers are allowed to print and circulate as many copies of the New Player Booklet file as they need -- this is a special exception to our usual policies for this product. If you have questions about our PDF policies, check our Alternative Publishing FAQ.

Last but not by any means least, is the scenario itself. A three scene mystery designed to pull each and every character into the game, City in the Sand is a one-night LARP game just waiting to happen.

As an avid LARPer, I am unbelievably excited about this project. It would be an awesome introduction to LARP or kick off for an ongoing chronicle, but it's also perfect for use at conventions or other events. It takes away 99% of the prep work that can make running a LARP session challenging for Storytellers, and provides the support material to maximize fun and involvement by the players. Check it out, if you get a chance.

The Viking and I spent 2 hours yesterday organizing a massive day-planner schedule for my work. I'd begun to get a bit overwhelmed, and was starting to slide into the "too much to do, don't know what to tackle first, thus not getting anything done" avalanche that can be the death of freelancers.

I'm feeling so positive about this scheduling system! I'm currently writing this on my second of three "Email and Social Networking" breaks, and so far today I've already gone for a half an hour walk, showered, cleaned the bathroom, run 2 loads of laundry, answered emails, updated my webpage with some non-fiction book reviews I did for Renaissance Magazine a few years ago, and wrote more than 2K on one of the two projects I'm currently penning into my daily schedule. I also had an hour of time set aside for lunch with the family, and I used the last half-hour of it to fax off the last bit of information for getting the Valkyrie set up in the virtual homeschool program, and to fax off a NDA form for a really intriguing game project I'm hoping to work on later in the year. My 2-5pm slot is scheduled for working on a SUPERsekrit project that I hope to be announcing later this week (as soon as the contracts are received by the company) and later tonight, I have FLEX TIME scheduled in for fun stuff like playing Sims 3 which the Viking bought for me during PJCon!

My "social networking" time is almost over, so I should wrap this up...

Oh, and on a closing note... Voting for the ENnie awards is only open through Friday. If you haven't voted yet, please do!  I would be most grateful for your support for my products (The Rose-Bride's Plight in the category of Best Adventure, and Hunter: The Vigil in several categories) but even if you don't vote for me, please vote. And consider spreading the word.

The ENnies Twitter account just posted this: "As of 20 minutes ago, we had 4687 individual voters for the 2009 @ENnies. Last year, we had a TOTAL of 5309 voters. You guys rock!"

That is fantastic news, but more voters also means that any winning product needs a higher number of individual voters in order to succeed, so each vote is a precious thing. Show support for the games and creators you love, by voting and spreading the word on their behalf to bring in other voters.