Penny Arcade Expo 2010! I took point on organizing the indie games presence at PAX. The whole thing was pretty last minute, with no official support. We just grabbed a room, called it ours, and tried to keep games running in it.

In the end it all turned out pretty well. I ran something like 8 or 9 games of Fiasco, which was by far our most requested game. After a while they all blurred together; I know I played a game with some people but I can’t remember what happened in the game. There was one game of Fiasco that took off so well I think they played for well over 2 hours, just because the scenes were playing out so well. Another game of Fiasco self-started, with people just grabbing the book and figuring it out as they went. We even had people just stick their heads into the room, ask where they could buy Fiasco, and then run off to try to buy it.

Talking to Jason Morningstar (the author of Fiasco) online afterwards, he sold 47 books, the entire stock at the show. I have no idea how much I contributed to that, but it’s pretty amazing to see an indie game sell that many copies at what’s primarily a video game con. Numbers like that would sound good for a small game at GenCon, at PAX it’s phenomenal.

PAX was definitely my game of the con, in terms of both quality and quantity, but Dungeon World made a decent showing too. John Harper even called it his game of the con (at least before his Saturday night Apocalypse World game), he ran two sessions and everyone had good things to say along with some great feedback. I managed to run a short game of Dungeon World, along with some Burning Wheel, but both were on Sunday and suffered a little from low energy on my part.

We even had a couple of celebrity cameos. Wil Wheaton stopped by to talk to Will Hindmarch, who was playing Dungeon World with John Harper. I know it’s a longshot, but hey, Wil Wheaton might know something about my game. Mike/Gabe from Penny Arcade also walked through the room, but I didn’t recognize him in time to talk to him. Oh well.

Overall, a pretty amazing weekend for indie games. Now to plan for next year.