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I read in a con report that someone had two good games and two bad games.
A 50% hit is a poor result indeed.


So what are your experiences with convention gaming?

Have you been stung by a few poor games?

What can be done to 'police' GMs/players and get good games?

What can con organisers do to maintain high standards?

I've only played in a few games at cons, and most of those were being run by reps from the company that published them as intros to their systems. Two of the three of those were positive experiences that got me interested enough in the games to want to play the games. Then there was Cadwallon. That was the worst demo I've ever sat through for anything, and I'm counting the video I watched at the dentist before my wisdom teeth were pulled. The three other people looked at each other during the "game" and instantly developed telepathy. All four of us got up and made excuses for why we had to leave quickly. I left dice at that table to get away.

So what I'm saying is about two thirds of the games I've played at cons have been good.

The key to providing a great game at a convention is to have a great DM. DM's need to know about what they are going to do, bring it, manage the entire process, and get the game to a close before you get to the end-time. The reason for this is space. Convention games are about managing time and space. Some people I know even bring timers.

It helps to have a meeting with all of the DMs before the con starts and explain time and space, and also have some way to manage stuff for the players (an HQ of some sort that is accessible to the players).

As a DM, have a sense of dynamism. Keep in mind that the activity is a game.

Worst con game experience of my life: Hackmaster at GenCon 02  (I think). It just took too long, and it went nowhere, which everyone kept assuring me was the point. You have to know when to leave. (Oh, and it was actually a demo, see below..)

I think demos are almost always bad. If it's not a real game, I wouldn't bother. Demos are like "ok, so if we were really playing, here's what you would do now.." and then maybe you get to try out a mechanic..  I dunno. I don't care about that so much. I avoid demos. Every once in a while, a demo disguises itself as a game. So people join up with the idea of hey, we're going to play this one game.. and then it turns out to be more or less just a demo.

I used to only play con games if a) I knew the GM, or b) I wanted to try the game out. I lean more towards real time slots of new games than demos, but I'd do the occasional demo.

These days I add c) it's an LFR game. I don't find the quality of an LFR game is predictably better than any other con game, but the community is fun and there's some satisfaction of progression. (No, I don't play for that reason, it's just a pleasing added element.)

When I'm running at cons, I really focus on enhancing player fun. I'm gonna be seen as an agent of the con organizer, and thus my job because more about fun than it'd be at a home game. I'm more relaxed about rules, I'm more inclined to say sure, why not? If someone's being quiet, I'll ask them a couple of direct questions, although I'll back off if they're still quiet cause maybe they just want to hang out on the sidelines.

I would rather make a new player happy than an old player, because I want the new player to come back.

I have no idea how to police this as an organizer cause I haven't done that.

Let's see. The last Con Game I played was some RPGA at A-Kon last year.

Before that, it was two sessions of the National Security Decision Making Game at Gencon 2001 (if you ever get a chance, DO IT. Frickin' awesome 8-hour geopolitical simulation done by some Annapolis guys).

Before that... probably Origins 1984, Traveller (cheated out of a win by a ref who didn't give us the MOST IMPORTANT CLUE in the game - argh!)

So, yeah, not a lot of experience myself. But the experiences I had were all pretty good.

I would be interest to get insight from anyone as I will be running my first Con game at Gencon this year.
AM - re timings I have a 5 hour slot and as its an Amber game and in Amber there is a lot of fun in Character Generation. I was planning to spend about 30 mins to 45 on this. There are 8 pregenned characters and a number of roles, secrets and items. To capture the fun of the Amber auction. My plan is to give each of the 5 Players 10 points to spend. They will use this in an auction to select which PC they want (based on a trump image and a brief description), then if they want to bid for a role (in game roles such as cpatain of a ship or a diplomatic post), secrets or a couple of juicy items. Hopefully this will be fun and set up the Amber dynamic of competative coperation I am after.
then I will explain my variant rules on partial powers and skills , which are also explained on the character sheets angive folks time to familiarise themselves with their stuff - this last bit should take 15 minutes. Leaving us with 4 hours of game time with me aiming for a 3 1/2 hour finish on the basis that stuff will over run.
The actual adventure is pretty open but limited to a single location and a single final goal. My plan is to chop it into 7 30 min sections (very roughly and the sections are loosely defined and there are about 30 they could end up with) with the option to pull less critical sections if the previous ones overrun. The aim here is to ensure that the players get to finish the thing and have a satisfactory denoument.
Now I have resisted the obvious option of railroading them, which is how most con games I have played have been written, but if they stumble for more that 10 minutes with no momentum I have some events to throw at them to push the game forward.
Does that sound like a sound structure?
I am worried that the hour up front with no 'game' is too much and I had thought of just diving straight into an action scene (probably a chase) but the auction in Amber terms is such a key mechanic that I thought it was worth the investment. That is why I asked for a 5 hour slot rather than a 4 hour.

Quote from: jibbajibba;386929I would be interest to get insight from anyone as I will be running my first Con game at Gencon this year.
AM - re timings I have a 5 hour slot and as its an Amber game and in Amber there is a lot of fun in Character Generation. I was planning to spend about 30 mins to 45 on this. There are 8 pregenned characters and a number of roles, secrets and items. To capture the fun of the Amber auction. My plan is to give each of the 5 Players 10 points to spend. They will use this in an auction to select which PC they want (based on a trump image and a brief description), then if they want to bid for a role (in game roles such as cpatain of a ship or a diplomatic post), secrets or a couple of juicy items. Hopefully this will be fun and set up the Amber dynamic of competative coperation I am after.
then I will explain my variant rules on partial powers and skills , which are also explained on the character sheets angive folks time to familiarise themselves with their stuff - this last bit should take 15 minutes. Leaving us with 4 hours of game time with me aiming for a 3 1/2 hour finish on the basis that stuff will over run.
The actual adventure is pretty open but limited to a single location and a single final goal. My plan is to chop it into 7 30 min sections (very roughly and the sections are loosely defined and there are about 30 they could end up with) with the option to pull less critical sections if the previous ones overrun. The aim here is to ensure that the players get to finish the thing and have a satisfactory denoument.
Now I have resisted the obvious option of railroading them, which is how most con games I have played have been written, but if they stumble for more that 10 minutes with no momentum I have some events to throw at them to push the game forward.
Does that sound like a sound structure?
I am worried that the hour up front with no 'game' is too much and I had thought of just diving straight into an action scene (probably a chase) but the auction in Amber terms is such a key mechanic that I thought it was worth the investment. That is why I asked for a 5 hour slot rather than a 4 hour.

Definitely sounds like a sound structure, and Amber needs it's auction, (although I guess you could get away without running one at a con). It seems like the really important thing in Amber is to know the player characters, and it takes some time to get there.

The big US Cons routinely get 5 hour slots, but it's really important to bring it in under that, because that includes some time to move to the next event or possibly refuel.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;386934Definitely sounds like a sound structure, and Amber needs it's auction, (although I guess you could get away without running one at a con). It seems like the really important thing in Amber is to know the player characters, and it takes some time to get there.

I like the take on the auction. I'd talk to some of the Ambercon people; they know a lot about running Amber at cons, albeit Ambercons are pretty different from your average gaming con. Lots of fun, though. But Jibba's plans sound solid.

Heh. I played with Wujcik at Gamicon once. I think we had a six hour slot, and five people? We spent the whole session on character creation and one-on-one setup play. No PC interaction at all, and we never got to the plot. It was amazingly fun. I'm still kicking myself for not playing in his weird SF game instead, though...

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;386903The key to providing a great game at a convention is to have a great DM. DM's need to know about what they are going to do, bring it, manage the entire process, and get the game to a close before you get to the end-time. The reason for this is space. Convention games are about managing time and space. Some people I know even bring timers.

It helps to have a meeting with all of the DMs before the con starts and explain time and space, and also have some way to manage stuff for the players (an HQ of some sort that is accessible to the players).

As a DM, have a sense of dynamism. Keep in mind that the activity is a game.

Worst con game experience of my life: Hackmaster at GenCon 02  (I think). It just took too long, and it went nowhere, which everyone kept assuring me was the point. You have to know when to leave. (Oh, and it was actually a demo, see below..)

I think demos are almost always bad. If it's not a real game, I wouldn't bother. Demos are like "ok, so if we were really playing, here's what you would do now.." and then maybe you get to try out a mechanic..  I dunno. I don't care about that so much. I avoid demos. Every once in a while, a demo disguises itself as a game. So people join up with the idea of hey, we're going to play this one game.. and then it turns out to be more or less just a demo.

I fully and utterly concur. It gets worse with slackluster organization, AM is too well mannered to describe the crap that has been served to convention attendants.

I'm glad to see people here realise that a strong part of a good con game is having the game organised in advance, and having control over it.

I came here specifically to rage at some fucking assholes over TBP. They seem to think that half drunk, half hungover indy GMs, who fuck about with their buddies kissing each others ringpieces over their "creative" games that have had no prior planning, no plot, no structure, no intent, no direction and GMs with NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT THEY'RE DOING, is what makes a good con game.

There's people over there giving good advice: Make sure the scenario is written in advance, make sure the blurb (at the very least) has been submitted well in advance, if you have multiple guys running the same scenario make sure it's been distributed in time for any questions to be answered, make sure the game has been play-tested for any issues. All stuff I know makes for a good game, all stuff that the best GMs make sure they do.

But those assholes over TPB seem to think that this stifles creativity. NO YOU MORONS! What it stifles is the GM and his buds sitting around making shitty jokes about the game, like it's one long MST3K, except with inbreeding nerds making the quips instead of a robot and their bum chums guffawing along rather than having an actually publishable piece of entertainment.

Now I'm not anti-indy game. It's just that 95% of them (I exaggerate, it's only about 90%) have been run by the same stereotype who does nothing to prepare and thinks that all of us taking the piss out of his game constitutes groundbreaking roleplay. The two good indy games I've played have been run by Swedish dudes (there's something about Swedish GMs and their indy games.) Both of them had put shitloads of work into collaborative creative games. They both had played through their games with other people who were informed about about their system. All this meant that when it came to new players who didn't "get" their systems, they had examples of how we could play, or how they could spin it to be better for the game.

I fucking hate this idea that every fucking GM is some special snowflake, with the innate creative ability of Ursula le Guin, and with the literary ability of Gene Wolfe. Chances are you're not shit, fair enough, but similarly chances are you're not good enough to get your creativity published (outside the more miss than hit small press world.) And yes, I'm fucking sure there are people who think your particular brand of stink is gaseous nectar, but equally chances are most fucking don't.

Conventions and scenarios take work to be good. People put at least six months effort into making sure that they create a good environment for other people, paying punters at their con. Don't shit all over it by thinking you're so fucking amazing you can breeze in and any old crap that exudes from your fucking hole is genius.

Quote from: Darran;386864I read in a con report that someone had two good games and two bad games.
A 50% hit is a poor result indeed.

So what are your experiences with convention gaming?

I was going to conventions back when I was in university. I refereed (tournaments) and organized (conventions) as well during the same time period. So my experiences in this regard aren't recent, or from the US/North America.

Quote from: Darran;386864Have you been stung by a few poor games?

As a player? Oh yes, I'd say regularly, actually, but less than half the time. Maybe one game in four, something like that?

Quote from: Darran;386864What can be done to 'police' GMs/players and get good games?

You really can't. What you can control is the set-up of the game tables themselves, make sure the convention module is a good one that is convention-play specific, but beyond, in terms of policing the GMs and players... you just can't. It's the law of statistics, you know. One out of a few GMs and/or players is going to suck. That's about it, really.

Quote from: Darran;386864What can con organisers do to maintain high standards?

Standards of play? I don't think there's any way to "control" participants in a tournament. Speaking of tournaments specifically, making sure that referees are moving along from table to table and checking out each group regularly is important. Making sure that referees actually know what they're talking about, too. Again, making sure that the adventure/module serves its convention purpose well, provides the right kind of details for the GMs to focus on the right things during play, and so on. All these things you can control, so take advantage of them, instead of trying to "police" the experience.

AM's suggestion of a meeting of GMs (and meeting of referees too, if any, for tournament-type play) prior to the con is one of the surest way to make sure everyone's on the same page. This works wonders in practice.

Quote from: Buceph;386978I'm glad to see people here realise that a strong part of a good con game is having the game organised in advance, and having control over it.

I came here specifically to rage at some fucking assholes over TBP. They seem to think that half drunk, half hungover indy GMs, who fuck about with their buddies kissing each others ringpieces over their "creative" games that have had no prior planning, no plot, no structure, no intent, no direction and GMs with NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT THEY'RE DOING, is what makes a good con game.

There's people over there giving good advice: Make sure the scenario is written in advance, make sure the blurb (at the very least) has been submitted well in advance, if you have multiple guys running the same scenario make sure it's been distributed in time for any questions to be answered, make sure the game has been play-tested for any issues. All stuff I know makes for a good game, all stuff that the best GMs make sure they do.

But those assholes over TPB seem to think that this stifles creativity. NO YOU MORONS! What it stifles is the GM and his buds sitting around making shitty jokes about the game, like it's one long MST3K, except with inbreeding nerds making the quips instead of a robot and their bum chums guffawing along rather than having an actually publishable piece of entertainment.

Now I'm not anti-indy game. It's just that 95% of them (I exaggerate, it's only about 90%) have been run by the same stereotype who does nothing to prepare and thinks that all of us taking the piss out of his game constitutes groundbreaking roleplay. The two good indy games I've played have been run by Swedish dudes (there's something about Swedish GMs and their indy games.) Both of them had put shitloads of work into collaborative creative games. They both had played through their games with other people who were informed about about their system. All this meant that when it came to new players who didn't "get" their systems, they had examples of how we could play, or how they could spin it to be better for the game.

I fucking hate this idea that every fucking GM is some special snowflake, with the innate creative ability of Ursula le Guin, and with the literary ability of Gene Wolfe. Chances are you're not shit, fair enough, but similarly chances are you're not good enough to get your creativity published (outside the more miss than hit small press world.) And yes, I'm fucking sure there are people who think your particular brand of stink is gaseous nectar, but equally chances are most fucking don't.

Conventions and scenarios take work to be good. People put at least six months effort into making sure that they create a good environment for other people, paying punters at their con. Don't shit all over it by thinking you're so fucking amazing you can breeze in and any old crap that exudes from your fucking hole is genius.

Hehehe funny largely because another idea I have is an improv game where the players vote on the type of system they want to use then the sort of genre and stye they want to play and I ad lib the system the chargen and the adventure off the fly and we play a 3 hour session..... I was thinking of trying this with some mates to see if it has any legs. Though I wouldn't dream of launching it on anyone who wasn't aware of what it was up front.
(I am in no way Indie by the way so whatever emerged from this process would feel like a standard trad game but it woudl be pretty interesting to see what that might be.)

Quote from: jibbajibba;386982Hehehe funny largely because another idea I have is an improv game where the players vote on the type of system they want to use then the sort of genre and stye they want to play and I ad lib the system the chargen and the adventure off the fly and we play a 3 hour session..... I was thinking of trying this with some mates to see if it has any legs. Though I wouldn't dream of launching it on anyone who wasn't aware of what it was up front.
(I am in no way Indie by the way so whatever emerged from this process would feel like a standard trad game but it woudl be pretty interesting to see what that might be.)

Don't take my rant the wrong way. I have no problem with improv'ed games. I often play in them with my friends. What I do have a problem with is someone doing it for paying customers at a con. People work hard to ensure their con is good. And in general they're horrendously thankful of people who take the time to run a game for the con. It's people who think they can just mess about, and not put effort into trying to make a game the best it can be for a convention that I don't like. People who seem to think that whatever spews from their hungover mouth is going to be good.

It's ruined 90% of the indie games I've played in at cons. Almost all of them have had GMs who think that because they're "creative" (both the game and the GM) that they can improvise it on the spot. They put no work into it and it invariably comes out crap. The two indie games I loved had GMs who had playtested it, and refined the game. They knew the system, they knew how to play it for newbs, they knew what the permutations were, and they knew how to help people with no prior experience with indies get the most out of it. They actually put work into what they were doing.

It's the arrogance that you can shit out something with no prior thought to people who have come a long way, and paid a lot of money to game is ridiculous. Sure some are going to be creatively brilliant and be able to do it, but most aren't that good. These guys just think they're that good, and invariably it ends with me and my friends leaving the game as quick as we can and taking the piss out of it in the pub the whole night long.

But like I said, sitting around with friends and seeing how things go can be a great amount of fun. But your regular group is going to tell you it's shit if it's shit. Then you're going to go back to your normal play. Con goers don't have this advantage and just end up not coming back to the con.

So what are your experiences with convention gaming?

I have been doing several cons every year for 28 years.   Overall, they have been great experiences.

Have you been stung by a few poor games?

Very few.  But I do mostly GM.

What can be done to 'police' GMs/players and get good games?

Nothing.  GMs are volunteers, not employees.   This isn't the 70s or 80s, so cons are fortunate to have any RPG GMs.

Every "policing" method (player ratings, requiring meetings, etc) only pisses off your good GMs.   Don't piss off your good people.   Think carrot, not stick.

What can con organisers do to maintain high standards?

Reward GMs who fill up tables.   If a GM is a draw, do something to make him want to run more events and come back to your next event.

Also, cons thrive on attendance.  Small cons have small selection of GMs and events so they often die out because people don't want to be part of something paltry.   Thus, cons need to do whatever it takes to get lots and lots of people.  

The LA cons used to get 2500+ people three times a year.   Now they are lucky to get 1000.    It is much easier to keep people than get people to return to your event so doing everything to maximize the atmosphere of a "happening event" is crucial.

Quote from: jibbajibba;386929I would be interest to get insight from anyone as I will be running my first Con game at Gencon this year.

Cut your Chargen down to 30 min max.   No matter what, you gotta be in the action by 45 min into the session.  Preferably sooner.

Expect noobs.   Noobs who never heard of Zelazny.  Noobs who wonder why this game lacks dice and wonder if its a LARP.

Get your buddies together to do a playtest.   See if it really takes 3.5 hours.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;386903I think demos are almost always bad.

RPGs demos are a mixed lot as are playtests with authors.   If possible, quiz the GM beforehand to get a sense of what the session will be.

I playtest my stuff at cons, but always in the context of an adventure instead of a show & tell.

I've had a good run at Conventions, both as a player and a GM.
I haven't had so much games that were bad, so much as games that were "meh".
But admittingly, I play games at Conventions not so much for "Hey, I want to play!" as much as "Hey, I'd like to try something new!".

Quote from: Darran;386864So what are your experiences with convention gaming?

I generally like conventions more for hanging out in, getting new stuff in, etc, than for actually gaming.

QuoteHave you been stung by a few poor games?

A few times yes.

QuoteWhat can be done to 'police' GMs/players and get good games?

Pretty hard to do.  Even people who organizers might have played with and thought of as good GMs may end up choking in the Con environment, where you have to do things totally differently than you do at home.
I suppose the barest fundamentals would be to make sure that any GM to a con arrives with... scratch that, first make sure they ARRIVE, period. Then that they arrive with a general adventure concept that will fit in a 4 hour time slot and that is detailed enough that the GM won't be trying to wing it too much, and simple enough that the whole thing won't get bogged down in quagmire.
Maybe provide some tips on how to run a con game.
Force GMs to come with premade characters unless they can give really really good reasons why characters should be generated in the demo itself.

Oh, and structural things too that have nothing to do with GMs. Don't put the RPGs section right next to the DJ with the rave music blaring at full intensity. I seriously had to sit through that once.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;387653I suppose the barest fundamentals would be to make sure that any GM to a con arrives with... scratch that, first make sure they ARRIVE, period.

It always surprises me how many cancellations there are, at each convention.

Considering I have to time these Conventions with The Boss (i.e. my wife), it would take an act of God to keep me from meeting my obligation; I volunteered, so I need to make good on my word (especially since I'm getting a free pass to the Con!).

Of course, folks also think I'm strange, since I spend more time running/I] games at local Con's, than playing.