Free RPG Day 2016

[ritt]

Wow. I just spent almost twelve straight hours playing, running, or talking about RPGs.

I feel completely exhausted, yet also regenerated.

[scottenkainen]

Huh. I didn't even hear about Free RPG Day this year until the day after.

[ritt]

As far as I know there's only one store in my hundred-mile radius that even participates in it, although that store does a great job with it and turns it into a kind of one-day mini-con. I asked another local game store about it and they had never even heard of it (Although admittedly that place had few RPGs and was mostly selling board games about running railways. BORING.).

Anyway, I had a blast and got a big stack of game stuff and even a few miniatures, all of it free. Hopefully the owner still turned a profit from the twelve bucks I dropped on energy drinks.

[tog]

I played Svengar the elven glassblower in the local store's Dungeon Crawl Classics game, and, other than dropping a lantern and just missing setting myself on fire, managed to keep my 1 HP butt intact for a whole THREE combat encounters! WOOT

And I bought a copy of Greg Stafford's Pendragon. It's something I never looked at before, but somehow it called to me this time.

[ritt]

Keeping a 1HP character alive through a DCC funnel gives you a very special feeling of accomplishment. "Let others hold their manhoods cheap...' to paraphrase The Bard.

[tog]

Jun 19, 2016 12:40:52 GMT -6 ritt said:

Keeping a 1HP character alive through a DCC funnel gives you a very special feeling of accomplishment. "Let others hold their manhoods cheap...' to paraphrase The Bard.

Admittedly most of my accomplishment was done by hiding and chucking bricks from safety; the one time I tried to run out and bash the monster was when I fumbled the lantern.

[smubee]

I have 3 (*F)LGS and none of them were participating. Devastating.



(* the F is questionable, depending on who's in the store at the time)

[Finarvyn]

The problem that I see with "Free RPG Day" is that stores have to buy an expensive ($80-ish) bundle and I think a lot of stores don't feel like they get much return on their investment. Instead of drawing new gamers into the hobby, I mostly see folks who already play who go to get the newest freebies. Several stores near me used to participate but the owners told me it just wasn't worth it to them. (I had considered offering to pay part of the cost of a bundle if I could pick through it first.)

[scalydemon]

I attended at a game shop north of Seattle.
Got my copy of Mayfair Games - Sanctuary the board (1982) game out for a play. Then ran a B/X one shot, with 7th level characters. I ran a short adventure I had written and published in AFS 1 called 'Captain Zhudo and the Last Crown of Atlantis'. The Cleric got killed by a Ziege Man , but everyone had fun. This game also included the use of some variant classes from Barrataria's Companion Expansion book. Got Slugs and Derelict Ship copies for free.

[ritt]

My FLGS had a *Lot* of people going in and out that day. Now, I was DM'ing so I didn't see how many of them were actually buying stuff, but I suspect that overall it was profitable for them (Albeit probably more from snacks and pop than games). The joint was hoppin'.

But yeah, if someone was running a very small game store for a small customer base I can see how that eighty-dollar buy-in would be a losing proposition. Which is a shame, because as a promotion for gaming FRPGD is a great idea.