Dragonmeet

24/12/2024

Just a little good news for Christmas...

We just signed for Excel next year...

Next years show will be the 29th of November, with networking and industry events occurring on the 28th as well.

Merry Christmas Everyone

Here's to a better New Year...

06/12/2024

Dragonmeet Awards - Best RPG

Dragonmeet Awards – Best RPG – Joint Bronze – Shiver

Shiver was a revelation when it first hit the scene some years back, a simple yet imaginative system combined with a clear love of the Genre and mechanics like the Doom clock to speed things along, and it remains so now. More than half the judges already owned this and enjoy playing it, and with the expansions coming out soon, it continues to go from strength to strength.

Available at https://www.parablegames.co.uk/

Dragonmeet Awards – Best RPG – Joint Bronze – Salvage Union

Pacific Rim, only done right, with monsters of legend and a truly apocalyptic world to play in. This game is a fantastic scramble of how the world might look if everything had gone to hell and everyone was just cobbling together what they could. That the front cover looked like a Haynes Manual for a Jaeger really didn’t hurt first impressions, but when opened, the wealth of information and background in there made this a certain winner.

Available at https://leyline.press/

Dragonmeet Awards – Best RPG – Silver – Stealing Stories for the Devil

“So, it’s Inception, but you can literally lie to reality and have it believe you while you’re committing crimes…” Words of one of the judges…

Again bending the rules of Genre and play, MCG come up with a phenomenal high concept of carrying out heists whilst being able to change reality in a number of ways. This is not all of it to be sure, but we’ve got limited words in which to describe this mind boggling game. Simple to play despite the concepts, and wide reaching in its nature, expect to see this one on the convention circuits soon.

Available at https://www.montecookgames.com/

Dragonmeet Awards – Best RPG – Gold – Dragonbane Core Set

When judging, you sometimes get something that unites opinion, that meets all expectations and then exceeds them. In 2024, this was that game. The only entry to win a top five position in every judges score card, and scoring more than double that of any other entry, this is the perfect blend of ease of play, accessibility, artwork, and enjoyability. We look forward to seeing what will come next for this.

Available at https://freeleaguepublishing.com/

06/12/2024

Dragonmeet Awards - Best Adventure

Dragonmeet Awards – Best Adventure – Bronze – A True Relation of the Great Virginia Disastrum

This particular entry was so different in tone and direction from the other entries that had come in from LOTFP, and that alone piqued the judges interest. Containing everything needed for a protracted campaign, and with separate books on the environs, creatures, and landscape of the sandbox, as well a production values that were amongst the best in the awards. A surprise, but a very welcome one.

Available at https://www.lotfp.com/RPG/ (warning, some NSFW)

Dragonmeet Awards – Best Adventure – Silver – Darkest House

Making new things from old concepts has always been something that Monte Cook Games has excelled at, and this is no different. Designed to fit into any campaign, any system, the judges loved the scope of what could be done with it, the possibilities, and lets not forget, the most QR codes that anyone had ever seen for all the additional information that couldn’t be fit in the book. Truly atmospheric and one that drew a lot of attention.

Available at https://www.montecookgames.com/

Dragonmeet Awards – Best Adventure – Gold – Runequest Starter Set

There is no substitute for experience, and Chaosiums long history of excellence in the production of adventures shines through in the Runequest Starter Set. It was a consideration for many of the Judges that Masks of Nyarlatothep should be the one that wins through, but many of them have played Masks, and it’s not a beginners campaign. The ease of getting players into the Starter Set adventures was sublime. A masterclass in maintaining enthusiasm through multiple scenarios, this was a stand out winner in the category.

Available At https://www.chaosium.com/

06/12/2024

Dragonmeet Award Results - Best Expansion

Dragonmeet Awards – Best Expansion – Bronze – The Weird

Lists of things have become increasingly popular over the last few years, and this book contains lists of things that you never thought you’d need (and in some cases, never will need), but the sense of whimsy and imagination that’s gone into it is very evident and even if not rolling randomly, it provides literally thousands of ideas for things that can go into games.

Available at https://www.montecookgames.com/

Dragonmeet Awards – Best Expansion – Silver – Shiver: Legends of the Silver Scream

Shiver is a game that’s been up and coming on the horror gaming scene and Parable games understanding of the genre as a whole has been clearly shown in a number of their other products, but this one in particular had the interest of many of the judges, particularly those who love films. An excellent journey through the tropes of cinematic horror and how to incorporate them into your game.

Available at https://www.parablegames.co.uk/

Dragonmeet Awards – Best Expansion – Gold – Dragonbane Bestiary

It certainly was Free Leagues year at the awards, and the bestiary was another example of tapping into the zeitgeist. Fusing old school ideas with vivid imagery and monsters that didn’t just roll to hit but had attacks all their own appealed to both the long term players and the new ones, and the ease of use made it a sure win.

Available At https://freeleaguepublishing.com/

06/12/2024

Dragonmeet Award Results

These will be going up on the website shortly.

Dragonmeet Awards – Best Accessory – Bronze – All Rolled Up Dice Bag

All Rolled Up have been a staple on the convention scene for the best part of a decade, and their signature product, revised and redesigned over the years, was almost certain to feature in the awards. A simple design that’s been often copied, never surpassed.

Available at https://www.allrolledup.co.uk/

Dragonmeet Awards – Best Accessory – Silver – Erens Arcane Compendium of Characters

This charming entry was a revelation to most of the judges, suddenly having hundreds of characters available at a moments notice, all of them fully fleshed out, motivations, ideas, mannerisms and everything else you need to make a compelling NPC with no effort at all. While not all the judges are GMs, the usefulness of this was undeniable.

Available at https://erenangiolini.com/artventuring-guild

Dragonmeet Awards – Best Accessory – Gold – Giant Book of Battle Mats

The gold came down to the two entries from Loke, the Revised Giant Book of Battle Mats, and Castles, Crypts & Caverns, with the Giant book edging out the judges favour. Sometimes bigger is better. That said, the modularity of the CCC books was also held in high regard, particularly for longer games. Either way, the original and still the best maps out there.

Available at https://www.lokebattlemats.com/

30/11/2024

Dodd, from Novotel, out. Great con, great people, back next year.

29/11/2024

Traders, upper hall open to setup

29/11/2024

We sold out...

So we went to look for somewhere else this morning...

Apparently this is the way...

28/11/2024

The Dragonmeet Awards

Well, we knew there was going to be interest when we started doing the awards.

We didn’t know there was going to be this much interest…

The images that follow are all the physical entries that we had into the awards that arrived in time, we know there were other entries, but in some cases, they arrived long after the judging had begun and weren’t included as a result and in some cases, the covers featured explicit artwork, which we're not showing. Totalling more than 130 different MRB’s, Expansions, Adventures and Accessories and ranging from single page specials like Honey Heist, to the Immense Immersion of Invisible Sun. Rather than making a complex judging system, we had two rounds of judging for each one.

Round 1: Would you buy it…? (Or have you already bought it)

This is the simplest way of getting to the shortlists. Would the judges buy the product they were looking at. If they’d already bought it, then they’d already judged it and it automatically went through to the next round. We thought this only fair, as the first year of the awards encompassed several years, and objectively, if you already have it, then you already thought it was good enough.

Round 2: Which would you buy first…?

In this round, all the judges had to choose five products from their original list, and place them in order of which of them they’d want most. These points were then added together to get a total, which in turn produced a winners list in each category. Where there was a tie, we could have gone into who got higher votes more often, but the truth is that they scored the same.

They both win…

We only had one of those this year, but it’s how we’re going to do things going forwards.

The full list of winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on Saturday morning at 09:30 in the Bourg Suite on the Mezzanine level, the award will be kicking off sharp and on time as there’s more than a few to get through, and we don’t want anyone to miss the hordes of attendees (up 20% on last year, tickets are nearly run out) coming to the show this year.

We will be posting a full review of each of the winners with the judges thoughts after the show, we’ve just been too busy with preparing for what will be the largest Dragonmeet ever (again) to write it all down.

Also, did we mention there’s a big announcement this year (possibly two?)

Don’t miss the opening ceremony and awards this Saturday.

28/11/2024

ALL VENUES HAVE LIMITS TO THEIR CAPACITY.

IN LESS THAN A HUNDRED MORE DAY TICKETS, WE REACH OURS, NOT JOKING...

28/11/2024

This years programme available on the website

https://dragonmeet.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Dragonmeet-2024-brochure-spread-reference.pdf

26/11/2024

Just so we've covered all the bases, Trader information for getting in and out and all the other details can be found here...

INFORMATION FOR TRADERS, EXHIBITORS & Sponsors This page contains all the information you need to ensure that you get the most out of Dragonmeet, so please be sure to read it thoroughly, and don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions. To edit any already-provided logos, banners or ad...

20/11/2024

Those who volunteer at conventions are the lifeblood of their communities, most of them see very little of the shows that they run, and for many, running the show for their people is how they get their enjoyment.

This year, Dragonmeet is proud to have our first Second Generation choir member. Snapshot and Runaround will be taking turns to show them around the show, but everyone say hi to Snaparound.

Also for those playing callsign bingo, we'll accept this one might be asleep on duty...

18/11/2024

So the Maps are finally here.

And they're a bit shiny...

We've done both the full colour maps to show the layouts and single floor layouts as we did last year, and we've also done plain text versions (the basic versions are up now, we're still making them pretty), all of which are downloadable from
https://dragonmeet.co.uk/maps

As before, Jog has offered to do a personalised version of each map, free of charge, for each trader if they want one. If you do want to take advantage of this, please contact him at [email protected]

Now is also the time to check through the maps and make sure that everything is in order, company name, positioning, and anything else you can think of, printing the programmes will be occurring in a few days, so if there are any changes, we do need to know as soon as possible.

Less than two weeks to go, largest Dragonmeet to date, again...

And another announcement coming out later this week.

MAPS The layout of the Novotel London West can be daunting, particularly to first time visitors to the convention – but never fear! We’ve got some of the best maps in the convention game to help you get around and make the most of your day. Below you’ll find the map of the whole of […]

15/11/2024

Last batch of on the day games are now up, we've hidden all the things that have sold out because so much of it has...

01/11/2024

First Sunday, Muppet Meet, and Saturday Evening Shows

For some years now, there's been questions of why doesn't Dragonmeet go to two days or even three, and while we've tried a few things, the simple thing comes down to cost. A single day running a show in London is the same cost as running something for several days anywhere else in the UK, and that puts it out of range of most traders and attendees, which is not something that we're happy with, as Dragonmeet is and has always been for everyone.

With this in mind, we've partnered with Soul Muppet to bring a second day of seminars and content to the Novotel to see how many people are interested in a multi day show. We're not charging for entrance to this second day, but it will be seminars and networking, rather than the full show again, all of which you can get tickets for on our website. We're ticketing the events because we want to gauge interest in advance, but there will be no charge for them, and they go live today at 6pm. Full details for the panels available can be found on the seminars page.

In addition, we're continuing the ideas started last year with a live show by Jason Buck, ,

Dragonmeet presents Jason Buck Story Teller

Tickets must be bought for this event, and they'll be available from 18:00 this evening

'The Dragon Club Stories'

Once every one hundred years, a group of people meet – the same group of people. They meet in comfortable surroundings, and retell their histories and their stories - and you may not believe it either, when I tell you of their stories, their histories – the stories of The Last Dragons.

Jason Buck is an award-winning performance storyteller, voice actor, and veteran GM across many different game genres. This is his third year at Dragonmeet and his talks are often over subscribed!

"Jason Buck is a man made of myth, magic and mead. His stories are filled with adventure, his beard is full of unexpected twists and his tankard filled with a poet's brew. Sit around the fire and listen to his tales - you won't be disappointed." Abbie, Strange Times Storytelling Club

And on the subject of tickets, given the success of last year, we have limits to how many people we can have in the venue at any time, and we're getting close to that now, we'd recommend anyone coming should get their tickets soon

30/10/2024

So this has come to light in the last couple of days, happens every year and they appear to be marketing rather agressively this year.

If you get something like this, rest assured, it's scamming b******* looking to make a quick buck, whatever data they have isn't ours, and never will be. _Every_ major convention gets this just before the show starts, and every time, its just scammers.

I have, however, said that I'm very interested in counts and costs, lets see how long it takes before they realise who they're talking to...

13/10/2024

Game Bookings are Live!

Dragonmeet is one of the most vibrant tabletop gaming conventions and the best of it's kind in London. With us missing last yea...