TableTop Scotland 5th September - 7th September - Preamble

 My history with Scotland

When I was first doing the rounds of UK conventions in the early part of the 21st century, I travelled the length a breadth of the country. From Devon to Edinburgh.

I forget the name of my first Edinburgh convention, but it was based at the University. The first time I came I was demonstrating my Trad Superhero Game, Squadron UK.

I had to take the figures and play-mats in to work, dash to the station at the end of the day, and lug them all up on the train. It took hours and cost a lot of money.

When I got home, I discovered that it was actually cheaper to fly to Scotland than catch the train. (That doesn’t make any sense to me.) And it was faster.

The only problem was that bringing luggage put the air fare up a lot. The figures and play-mats had to go.

So I wrote a whole new game. The Comics Code.

This was a complete departure for me. No figures. No terrain. Completely Theatre of the Mind. Just 2 six-sided dice.

But, most importantly, it was a small paperback book that I could fit in a flight bag alongside my spare socks and undies.

It revolutionised my approach to game design and spawned a whole range of similar titles - many of which I’m playing this weekend. I owe Scotland a lot for forcing me into a whole new area of games design.

My history with Tabletop Scotland

TableTop Scotland seems to have been set up with the intent to give Scotland a large, professional, tabletop games convention like UK Games Expo in England. I have always wanted to come but, originally, it was in Perth which was a bit too far for me to travel. And, since its move to Edinburgh, I was on my convetion hiatus.

But now I’m back on the scene, I’m retired, and I can finally attend and see if it’s as good as I always hoped. It needs to be because it may turn out to be the most expensive convention for me to attend.

Planning

Tabletop Scotland is now based in The Highland Centre, which is right next to Edinburgh airport. If you’re flying up that means you don’t need to get a bus or Taxi into the city which is a real saving.

It is really well planned. The web-site is clear and informative, even months in advance of the event.

I had to make my plans to attend really early in order to get the best price on flights and to reserve accommodation. (I was worried that if I left it too late, it might be like UK Games Expo, with all the local hotels being booked out.)

As I’m now retired - there’s no reason I HAVE to fly up. I could try to book cheaper train tickets by booking in advance. I could travel very cheaply by coach. But that might mean having to book extra nights’ accommodation, which would wipe out any savings. So I decided to indulge myself and book air tickets.

The web-site lists many nearby hotels and it was an easy job to find one which was a good compromise between cost and proximity to the venue.

Because they are so well organised, I had to submit the games I wanted to Referee months in advance. There are seven organised TTRPG slots. Friday afternoon and evening. Saturday Morning, afternoon and and Evening and Sunday morning and afternoon. I can’t remember why, but I decided to offer to run in three of the seven slots. At the time of submitting the games, I hadn’t played any TTRPGs for over 5 years, let alone Refereeing them, let alone at a convention.

I offered to run scenarios I was preparing for the StabCon convention. A fantasy one, a science fiction one, and a playtest of the horror game I was designing. I thought I’d spend the rest of the time offering “Games on Demand” or playing.

Nearer the event, a message went out asking for Referees to offer “Games on Demand” so I threw my hat in the ring there - offering to run in three of my remaining four slots.

I also noticed a Referee was offering to run one of MY games - The Comics Code. This was a rare opportunity to I signed up to play in that game. It is so rare I get to the chance to play one of my own games. I call signing up to play in a game you’ve designed “designer bombing”.

That was me, all set up, months in advance because this convention is just so well organised.

Nearer the event I was asked for details of the games I could offer.  I submitted four short games I could offer - my D&D lite intro, my Steampunk Scenario about the missing dinosaur, a “Dr Who without the Doctor” game and (because I’d just watched the first two episodes on TV) a scenario based on Alien: Earth. I had no idea of what that was going to be, I just knew I could easily run something.

Nearer the event I produced pregenerated characters for the Games on Demand games and received detail as of the three times I’d be asked to offer my games.