I had some great conversations about the American Hippodice contest while at the Gathering. I got strong acceptance from the publishers I spoke to, so the final judging looks good. They all wanted details about how the contest would work before committing 100%.
Which brings me to the incredibly helpful Mario Pulowski, who also attended the Gathering. I learned that he was one of the main organizers of the Hippodice contest a few years back and so asked him all kinds of questions. I have a very solid idea of how Hippodice is run, and have some thoughts on what we might want to do similarly and what we might want to do differently, and why. More on that tomorrow or so, after I've recovered a bit from my trip.
I also have a "Gathering from a hopeful designer" report I can put together, but... I think I wouldn't be comfortable posting it in the main forums here. A lot of it is stuff that I'd happily share with my buddies -- you guys -- but am not sure would be considered public information from Alan (R. Moon)'s perspective. Should I go ahead here?
Also, on personal notes, I got some awesome feedback and compliments on Elvencraft, with playtesting by other designers and, with some minor changes, will be submittting it for publication come July or so, submitting it to some companies that I hadn't considered (someone I greatly respect said it would make a great Alea big box game -- with a retheming -- and thought that Stefan would love it).
Oh, and I'm going to PowWow.
-- Matthew
So, let's get this discussion rolling.
First question is this: should we discuss it here or in public? I have some info about how the Hippodice is judged (rules and description separated, etc.) that probably isn't confidential, really -- Mario Pawlowski, who is interviewed in this Games Journal article, gave me the scoop -- but I don't know how public we want to end up being with our judging system.
Thoughts?
-- Matthew