TLDR: An ambitious event, with its heart in the right place. Some good gaming with massive potential for growth. One to watch.
Several years ago (a decade?) there was a successful Games Convention in Dudley in the West Midlands. For some reason it stopped running.
Last year its organiser decided to bring it back. It was a mixed success. Full of ambition, this year he decided to double down and expand it to two days. His philosophy seems to be “If you build it, they will come” and I cannot fault him for that. Its ambition is one of the reasons that I am happy to support this event.
Last year, I chose to offer my one hour demonstration #TTRPGs in the main/trade hall. They got very little footfall. So this year I elected to offer full/four hour games in the side rooms of the event.
Prior to the event, communication is mainly through Facebook. There is a web-site but most traffic seems to be via Social Media. I submitted five games well in advance and these were posted on the Facebook page and web-site. Game booking is via sign up sheets on the day and there is no prebooking.
As I was on half-term holiday from the job that pays my wages, I chose to make a weekend of it and travel to the event Friday evening, even though there were no official events arranged for that slot. I figured enough people would be staying over that I’d be able to meet up with people and - maybe - arrange an ad hoc game. Last year there had been an outing to a Black Country pie shop, so I assumed something might be on. Anyway the hotel is still inexpensive - even though the prices had gone up from a ludicrous £25 per night in 2019 to a more reasonable £45 a night in 2020.
Though Dudley is right next door to Birmingham, travelling there on public transport is a non-trivial activity. Like EVERYONE else, in 2019 I’d assumed that one the two train stations with the name “Dudley” was near Dudley and had ended up having to get a taxi from the station to the Hotel. This year I tried to carefully plan ahead but every travel planning web-site gave a totally different route depending upon the time of travel. Walking, bus, train and tram were all recommended in various combinations. Eventually I chose to travel by train again but, this time, researched the bus from the station to the hotel.
I arrived early evening on Friday. The Hotel of the event is magnificent edifice. Over 100 years old, in it’s day it must have been fantastic. It still has a really impressive sweeping staircase from the reception to the bedrooms. Getting in wasn’t easy. All of the front/road-facing doors to the building were locked and signs were displayed saying the building was protected by a security company. Access is through the doors to the car park. Like so many of the UK’s Hotels, this venue is one I describe as “fading glory”. The Staff - mostly very young this year - compensate for this by being extremely courteous, helpful and professional.
It is also the most haunted Hotel in the country. The convention organiser is STILL trying to get the owners to let him arrange a Call of Cthulhu game in the basement at night but they seem reluctant.
After checking into my room, I went down to the bar for a drink, some food and to see if anyone was around. I ordered soup of the day and faggots (it being the Black Country) but - with those being unavailable - (I was offered anything I wanted off the menu for the price of the faggots as compensation), I ended up with a burger. The soup appeared to be freshly made and was good. The burger was burnt meat. Just the way I like it.
In the end, only two fellow referees came in for a chat - they were staying in the premier inn over the road. The loud music seemed to indicate that the Hotel’s banqueting suite- the main venue for the convention - was booked out to a family event that night. The bar was mostly full of people from the local “ghost hunting” club.
After some nice chat and more beer than I usually drink - inexpensive for a hotel but still not cheap - I turned in.
I got up early and went down to the Hotel Breakfast. I wasn’t impressed - compared to other venues I stay at or the offering last year at the same Hotel. I went to the banqueting hall to find the Organisers and Traders setting up. There wasn’t anything for me to do, so I took the opportunity to nip out and walk up the hill to the city centre to stock up on food for Sunday’s breakfast.
The room I was playing in was a short walk from the Trade Hall. I went in and laid out the character sheets for my first game (Blakes Seven) so that anyone looking would know where I was. This room was a twee setting which would not have been out of place in an Agatha Christie murder denouement.
The main hall was ringed by an eclectic variety of traders. I didn’t look too closely but I think its the kind of place you’d struggle to buy mainstream games but might be lucky in finding exactly that game you’d searching for for months. There were lots of tables set up in the central space where short demonstration games - mainly board games - were on offer. There were LOADS of people I knew from other events and I lost a lot of time in greetings and catching up.
There was some confusion over sign up sheets. Once I’d asked where they were and found them, they covered a large table. All of the sign up sheets for all of the games for both days of the convention - and loads of blank sign up sheets - had been put out together on the table in no particular order, with a single pen. The 5th Ed game was full and running, but no other game had a full table yet as people were only just arriving. I took into upon myself to re-arrange the sheets into an order that made sense to me, grabbed as couple of extra pencils from reception and suggested the people who hadn’t got as game yet join the one signed up player to my Blakes Seven game.
We started the game with 3 players but were joined by 2 others who arrived at the convention a little bit later. The game went well with the usual combination of people who know and love the old series and youngsters who’d never heard of it. We ended up with Avon, Vila, Jenna, Soolin and Gan in play. The game was fun as usual with the “storyline” and special effects rules bringing in Jenna’s ex-partner, their young daughter and Vila’s younger sister. The climax had Avon revealing himself as a Federation Agent who’d lured them all into a trap only to be shoved into an alien deathtrap by Jenna as Gan said “Hang on, I think this is just one of Avon’s clever plans.”
One of the players then flattered me by pulling out a copy of virtually all of my games and asking me to sign them. Apparently I’d already signed his copy of “Golden Heroes” back in the 1980’s.
Though I finished early, the official gap between games is only half an hour so I ordered a couple of cobs at the bar assuming they were premade. Unfortunately they are bespoke orders like all other food. But I finished them just in time for my afternoon game.
This was a classic White Dwarf scenario - one of my favourites - run using my “d6 Hack” rules. Old school gamers just wanting to get back to the good old days. Great fun. The only issue was that my rules make the game run much faster and I was considering what I could tack on the pad things out. Then, luckily, the players messed up the climax and we ended up with them holed up in the dungeon surrounded by bad guys. There were too many bad guys for them to fight their way out but the dungeon was incredibly defensible. So we had a Mexican stand-off. Fortunately, I think I managed to work my way out of it. The party ended up selling out the NPC who’d hired them - blaming him for the death of the bad guys’ “God” - in return for being allowed to leave. We finished a bit early but I explained to the players that this would just give them more time to order tea.
I ordered a spicy Tortilla wrap in the bar. With soup of the day again. (The chef, it turns out, is a D&D player who wrote things on the chalk boards like “Need to slay some Ice golems? Try our hot vegetable soup” and something about flaming hot peanuts and dragons.)
The organiser told me that things were quietening down and that I could run my evening game in the main hall. He was very pleased how the day had gone. There’d been some problems with trains through Birmingham (no surprise to me) but they’d still had 70 people arrive and the demonstration games in the main hall had been running pretty non-stop.
As it turned out, I had insufficient people for my evening game and so switched to a game of “The Man in the High Castle” mashed up with Call of Cthulhu. Good game with good RolePlaying but slightly more slow-burn than the games I run.
Having decided not to partake of the Hotel breakfast I was able to lie in a bit and eat my supermarket bought goodies in my room. I went down, left the character sheets in the room again (Dr Who this time) and went to check out things in the main shall. Again I only had one player signed up for my game. Eventually the available gamers coalesced into a Pathfinder game. I found a late arriving couple trying to make sense of the table of sign up sheets and directed them to an excellent German “plushy toys trying to survive in the real world” game everybody had been raving about. This left me at as loose end so I told the organiser I was happy to run drop in games if anyone arrived late and was looking for something to do.
Nobody did. Given that I only had one player signed up for my afternoon game, I made my excuses and left. (It being Sunday this required a totally different return route from the one I’d used to get there on Friday. Go figure.)
With its larg(ish) central trade hall, side rooms and number of TTRPGs on offer, in a hotel, Dudley Bug Ball has capacity for more than double the number of seventy people who arrived. It has ambition and no major flaws as an event. It’s location works against it - though Dudley is apparently being redeveloped and there will soon be a direct tram from Birmingham to the Hotel. Also, the convention organiser has recently run a highly successful campaign to bring back a classic TTRPG and this took time away from promoting the event this year. What it needs is far more promotion and a little bit more organising of the TTRPG sign up sheets. A lot of convention goers like to have things laid out one a platter for them.
Despite this, I had an excellent day out on Saturday. Next year I won’t attend Friday night, just organise to offer games on Saturday and keep my options open for the Sunday. I’ll also offer new scenarios rather than tired-and-true classics. I know so many people at this convention that most of them have already played many of my adventures. I’ll get more signups that way. On that basis it will be a very cost-effective event.
If people ask me, I’ll probably recommend treating it as a one day event. There’s plenty to keep anyone occupied for a day. Then extend their attendance as the event grows as, hopefully, it will. It’s an event with ambition and it’s heart in the right place and deserves supporting.
My costs:
Travel - £0 - bus usual bus/rail pass covered all travel
Accommodation - 2 x £45 = £90
Entry: £0 (as Referee I got a free pass)
Food/drink - c. £70
Total: £160
Cost per game: £54
Cost per game hour: £14
BUT if I’d been sensible and not booked Friday evening, I could have cut this to:
Cost per game: £30
cost game hour: £7.50
This will drop even more if I chose to play games on Sunday.
