Ambercon 2011 * April 14th-17th, 2011 * Detroit, Michigan

Someone on the ADRPG community on Live Journal posted to me asking what was involved in the task of creating the AmberCon game book. Here is my response:

The main work takes place over the month of February this year and involves taking all the game submissions and putting them in order across the 8 slots so that there is 1) coverage for all members and 2) a variety of game types in every slot.

There are other considerations, such as that we can only have a certain number of larger games per slot due to space issues, or that we don't want to schedule some poor GM to run three slots in a row unless they specifically request it. Often the task involves contacting GMs by phone and email to determine their flexibility when it's not ideal for them to get their first choice slot for a game.

When the book is all done, you have to coordinate with the person who creates the on line gamebook to get it onto the site.

The deadlines on this task are very specific and very tight; the book must be complete before the advertised date so that the GMs can preview and approve it; then it has to be tested; and finally the book can be opened on time for player registrations.

The wonderful and talented Amber Cook, who does this with me for AmberCon NW (a similarly-sized convention), takes several hours daily over a couple of weeks to sort it out, though we are creating some new processes with the way this site handles game submissions that should make the task a little faster.

Since we will be coordinating at a distance (I assume...? I'm in Portland, Oregon), it would involve having good IM and/or Skype/phone access along with computer access.

So that's the scoop on that. :-) If you are interested in learning more about it, please contact me ASAP at simone@ambercon.com.

Obviously we would be most interested in working with someone who could provide continuity at least through ACUS 2010. Note that because the '10 convention is a month earlier, next year's game book work will take place in January rather than February.

--Simone