You are hereby invited to submit a game or scenario for Fastaval 2010, March 31 – April 5, Århus, Denmark. At first we need a synopsis – a short description of your idea. After the deadline we will select which games are set up at the con, and you will receive more information.
Fastaval is interested in the broad spectrum of rollplaying games and scenarios from larps, story games to structured freeform. The games are selected so there is a divers program with different genres and style. All games on the program will participate in the Otto Awards where a jury will honour the best games in 6 different award categories.
The final contributions should be instructions for a game session. The instructions are not required to be translated to Danish (English or Norwegian, Swedish is fine), but it should be self explanatory so a game master or a group can host/play the game from the instruction alone.
You are not required to attend the con, to make a contribution, but we highly recommend it.
Send your synopsis to rollespil at fastaval dot dk containing the following information: o Worktitle o Contact information (name, address, email) o Short description of contribution (one page at most) o Expected play time
The synopsis deadline for internationals is Sunday the 25 October 2009. You will receive more information after the selection and participants with approved synopsis will be offered assistance with concept development, play test and production.
Final submission of the completed games deadline is Monday the 15. February 2010.
I highly recommend taking part in this! Fastaval has a community that does good work and play. There is a strong emphasis on making a product that is usable for someone else to run, but they have willing talented GMs and excellent players who will do good things with your work and give you back a lot of feedback. They actually have players fill out surveys after playing. Kristoffer, is that information available to the designers after play?
Thanks for your kind words on our con. Yes the feedback is scanned and then send to the designers after Fastaval.
One that subject of feedback: We are talking about doing more in terms of getting the players and the writers together after play on the con - one way of doing that could be a fixed meting place and time after the sessions were players can meet the writer/writers and vice versa to discuss their experiences, but we are also thinking in other directions.
@Emily: Aw, talking to my guilty conscience here. As Kristo says, the feedback is available to designers after play, but it is one part of Fastaval that has never really been running smoothly. For example, I'm pretty sure that I've got the feedback surveys for Under my Skin lying around somewhere - I could write them up in a mail for you, if you're still interested?
On a more general note, it has always been the intention of Fastaval to give solid, constructive feedback to its designers/writers. But as mentioned, this has never worked as well as we'd like it to - primarily because so much energy goes into preparation and the event itself, that when it's over, everyone seems to just go back home and slump on a couch, making it hard to pick up all loose ends. I've been responsible for designer feedback for the last two years, and it certainly didn't go as planned. But as Kristo says, we're now trying to rethink how to do that part - and as you observed, all designers should be able to get ample feedback from players and gamemasters if you actually come to Fastaval.
I'm so glad to hear that I am not alone in becoming a bump on the couch after putting a game out! I felt like I got excellent verbal feedback at the con. The good and the difficult. But I'd be happy to see what people wrote, but no pressure Kristoffer. You guys do a great job with the con.
I'm encouraging friends to attend Fastaval--Julia Ellingboe and I are working on a game that may be of interest. She sent in a description of it, so I look forward to continuing to be involved. It turns out that I won't be able to travel next spring after all (my housemate is due to have a baby around then!), but I do hope she and others make it out there. She's got family in Sweden, so she really *should* go to Fastaval and then Knutepunkt (how do you spell it when it is in Sweden? :). Those are some incredible communities. I should look into finding out more about the grants and other opportunities people can apply for to help in making the trek out there.
Great, I really hope to see some new people over here for our special brand of Easter festival. :-) Sorry that you can't make it back, but at least it's for a happy reason! And regarding the grants, I've yet to see anything about next year's opportunities, but I'm hoping there'll be some kind of opportunity for your friend and others to seek out.
Speaking of which, I also hope you and Julia make the cut. Fastaval's coordinators have received more than 60 proposed game entries, which means they have to turn down about half of them - otherwise we'll simply run out of available players. :-( The full list of accepted games should be out tomorrow - quite an exciting thing for us over here in Denmark. I'll be on the list, writing a scenario about soccer hooligans in cooperation with the other Kristoffer of this thread.
(most of us Scandinavians speak similar languages, so it's Knutepunkt in Norwegian, Knutpunkt in Swedish, Knudepunkt in Danish ... and Solmukohta in Finnish :-)
What a great response to the call! No sweat if ours is not in there. We've been approved to run it at Intercon here in March. But I look forward to seeing yours and the rest of the new crop of games from Fastaval whatever they may be!
Previews are due by the end of the month. Any words of wisdom on what they should be like? Other folks who are working on them too, what are yours going to be like?
Ask Klaus & Kristo to clarify - I think previews is a new thing this year. Usually the first official deadline is to hand in the teaser text for the program. But they may have an idea for how to help people get more work done sooner. Maybe they are for other people to read and provide feedback to you, but I'm just guessing. If this is the case, it is sort of an initial draft.
i Frederik! Thanks. I'll have to email to see how long they want it to be. It sounds more like a description of the game, than a draft. Which is a relief!