Scott Tepper: Origins 2008

I’ve worked trade shows in other industries before, but none were ever as exhausting as a game trade show.  Maybe that’s because at the other trade shows, working the booth meant trying to lasso attendees in to hear your spiel.  Periodically you’ll have someone interested in your product, but for a good percentage of the time, as a small business, manning the booth just means standing there trying not to look bored.  This is not the case when demoing for Rio Grande Games.

Since Jay publishes so many games, as demoers we always have to be prepared to teach several games.  This year was no exception.  At the booth we were demoing Change Horses, Eketorp, In the Year of the Dragon, Ming Dynasty, Key Harvest, Hanging Gardens, Tzaar, Carcassonne, Nefertiti, Airships, Cuba, Metropolys, Amyitis, and Oregon, Utopia and Hamburgum. 

We had so many games to demo that even with 5 demoers, as soon as I would finish explaining a game, another group of people would sit down and need a rules explanation.  The result of this is that I ended up talking straight through from when the doors open at 10:00a till they closed at 6:00p.  The upside to this is that since I truly enjoy teaching games, the time flies by.  The downside is that by Sunday, my voice is so strained from constant use that I start to sound like Lauren Bacall.

As usual, we demoers found out over time that we either had some rules wrong, or would interpret some differently from one another.  And of course, there were the little fiddley rules that were easily forgotten during a rules explanation.

Even though I didn’t have a whole lot of time to walk the main hall or explore the smaller halls where gaming events were taking place, I was able to see some interesting sights, such as a woman walking around as, I believe, Sailor Moon, in a short skirt and carrying an umbrella, or the bald man who had glued different colored 4 sided dice to his head, or a giant Picachu walking around, a woman with a chicken hat, tattoos of game components, or a man dressed up as a pirate talking on his cell phone.  One could even see Reiner Knizia walking around, although I understand he couldn’t stay for the whole show because he had to head back to Germany for the announcement of the winner of the SDJ.

Friday night Jay threw a party celebrating the 10th anniversary of Rio Grande Games, complete with cake, ice cream, and blue and orange meeples on every table.  During the show, Jay remarked that when he started RGG, he was already retired RGG, and his goal was simply to make some of the good German games available in the US.  He never dreamed that RGG would end up publishing its own games that were licensed in countries all over the world.

One of the few purchases that I made this year was at a booth(campaigncoins.com) that made different coins that could be used as game components.  I thought these would make great souvenirs for my nieces and nephews. 

My favorite memory of this show came on Sunday.  A father and his two children, a boy about 9 years old, and a girl who was about 12 had sat down at the table that had Eketorp.  I couldn’t help noticing that girl had her head down and seemed upset about something.  When I approached and offered to explain the game, the father and son wanted to learn the game, but the daughter clearly did not want to play the game.

If you’re not familiar with Eketorp, it it s family game where the players use their vikings to collect bricks to build their castles.  The bricks are in short supply, though, so the players’ vikings often have to battle each as well as attack the other players’ castles to acquire bricks.

I assessed the situation, and tried a different tactic than I would normally use when introducing the game.  When the daughter said that she didn’t want to play the game, I said “Really?  Well, in this game, you have several vikings at your disposal to collect bricks to build your castle, but you can also use them to attack other player’s castles.  Would you have a problem attacking your dad’s castle?”

At this, the girl perked right up and said, “No!”.

Now I had her full attention. 

I explained the mechanics of the game, and when I got to the part where the simple combat is resolved (each player placed a numbered battle card face down, reveals it, and the player’s viking with the smaller number goes to the “hospital”) the dad played along with an example involving his daughter by purposely playing a low card so that his viking lost a fight and was sent to the hospital.  You would have thought that she had just received a pony for her birthday.  She couldn’t wait to play the game and knock down her dad’s castle.

After my explanation, the family started playing the game, and I was called away to explain a different game to another group.  About 45 minutes later, the father came up to me and said, “Thank you very much for the way you taught the game.  My daughter really enjoyed it.”

I think I may have come up with a new slogan, “Rio Grande Games: Helping families work through their differences for 10 years.”

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