Quote from: Spinachcat;1030192Of course, but its easy enough to just recruit good players instead.

Sure the way to go is to recruit good players. But I been in so many different social situations in regards to tabletop roleplaying I find that to be a simplistic answer. For me it rare to have an outright asshole even at conventions and game stores. More prevalent are cases of a person that is  OK but..... (insert annoying quirk here).

Quote from: Spinachcat;1030192The organized play crowd is there for XP and loot for their organized play characters and rarely venture out of their zone. The crossover players who play both org play and other RPGs usually know the score so their expectations are not an issue.

Between running a game club in college in the 80s, small cons and larps in the 90s, I have had a lot of experience with what it takes to to run a shared world and events involving multiple gamers. While I will follow the rules as written (both in-game and out of game) I will only follow what written. Whatever unwritten social conventions, expectations, or "customs" exist I reserve to the right to ignore them in favor running a fun and interesting game. Because of this I don't get along with the people behind organized play.

Most of the time this works out to be fun and enjoyable for the players, but then there are the time when they don't know tactics or fail to work together and literally get slaughtered. Happen once when I did a session of 4th edition for a local game store. They complained but there was nothing they could do because I followed every procedure to the letter. Fourth edition combat for the most part is everybody hit point fluctuating up and down and whichever side craters first will wind up in a death spiral. For that session the PCs dicked around in the fight and one person went down and soon the rest of the party were following like dominoes.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1030072Actually, GaryCon is about a huge-ass bunch of uber nerds showing up in one place is all. Of which hardly any can role-play. And it's boring for kids to sit around at a table while their dads do basically nothing but shoot-the-shit with each other, and stare at a boring grid poster map with pieces not moving on it. Most boring board game ever is what kids think.

Hush, dear, grownups are talking.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1030084Is it?

I haven't attended any GaryCons, so my comments come from a position of no personal experience. But I remember when Pathfinder was first allowed in, and the worry expressed was that GaryCon was becoming less about old school gaming and more about following what is current/popular and "growing the con." I know those concerns were downplayed by the powers that be (it's about gaming...Gary loved gaming...it's about honoring Gary and the gaming he loved...etc). Maybe they were right. Maybe not. Again, I don't know.

I know I heard at least one attendee from this year commenting that most Pathfinder and 5e games were upstairs, and the AD&D games tended to be down in the basement or out at the ass-end of the lodge. If true (in general), that is what it is, and I get it, but it would seem to suggest that the con is more focused on servicing the "modern/current" market (and maybe "growing the con") than it is about actual old school gaming. Honoring Gary? Sure. All about old school gaming? Open question, in my mind.

I know you can find good old school gaming at GaryCon if you seek it out. I'm not saying you can't. But my impression is that "old school" is more "honored" than practiced.

My personal take on cons is "the smaller and more focused, the better." I'm not into "general geek-culture" cons. I'm not into 5e/Pathfinder/etc. I'm not looking for Star Trek video rooms or cosplay or anime. I want to go to a small gathering of gamers and sign up for games of original D&D, 1e AD&D, DGUTS, Tractics, FITS, Chainmail, golden age Avalon Hill, et cetera. Small cons and even "mini-cons" held at someone's house or at a local hotel or restaurant suit me just fine.

I'm not going to get into fucking rumormongering.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1030072Actually, GaryCon is about a huge-ass bunch of uber nerds showing up in one place is all. Of which hardly any can role-play. And it's boring for kids to sit around at a table while their dads do basically nothing but shoot-the-shit with each other, and stare at a boring grid poster map with pieces not moving on it. Most boring board game ever is what kids think.

You've obviously never gone. I had my kids attend and they have fun. So has my non gaming wife.

Also, dude, I've seen your videos, glass houses my man

Quote from: Spinachcat;1030083Do you explain this upfront to the players?

No.  Well, I said it's "Old School D&D," and I thought that was enough.  I was mistaken.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1030083I mostly do Adventure Coupons at cons.  

I'm trying to give the experience of the actual early days of D&D, the game that caught our attention and spread like wildfire, BEFORE there were modules or pregens or quest coupons.  People used to walk by a game in progress, watch for five minutes, and sit down and play.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1030083I do this because I have NO FUCKING PATIENCE when most players draw-as-slow-and-confused-as-fuck.

I'm a sadistic bastard and I enjoy throwing handfuls of wandering monster dice until the players are all dead.  Which happened this year.

I thought they'd get the point when they went past the "PLAYER CHARACTERS WHO STOOD AROUND WITH THEIR THUMBS UP THEIR ASSES DITHERING UNTIL THEY GOT EATEN BY A WANDERING MONSTER MEMORIAL GARDEN," but maybe not...

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1030210I'm not going to get into fucking rumormongering.

As someone that went there this year, it is easy to see from the online sign-up. Just look at how many AL games there are. It is a big percentage but you can also easily see that there an absolute ton of older games as well. You can focus on pretty much whatever you want to or bounce around and enjoy as much as you have time for.

I really loved the Legends of Wargamimg area (which you posted about in a different thread).just having so many different games all set up and being played in the same place was great to see.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1030089I did not know this. I had thought GaryCon was old school focused event.

Bummer.

The post you quote is pure, 100% bullshit.

Quote from: Ulairi;1030158I have gone to each of the last 3 GaryCons and it's been a great place to play old school games. I think the biggest reason younger gamers or newer people aren't about maps is that WoTC has done almost everything they can to downplay the role of dungeons and mapping in the games. Like somebody said the game is pitched about storytelling and character development.

Why didn't I see you there?  I would have let you buy me a beer!

Also, FUCK giving players a map!  FUCK IT, FUCK IT, FUCK IT!  Player mapping is a vital part of Old School D&D, and if you aren't doing it, you ain't OLD SCHOOL.

Which is a BIG reason I'm getting sick of the fucking "Old School Renaissance."  They've invented shit they call Old School, instead of, you know, TALKING to Ernie Gygax or Tim Kask or Jim Ward or Dave Wesley or Dave Megarry or...

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1030220Also, FUCK giving players a map!  FUCK IT, FUCK IT, FUCK IT!  Player mapping is a vital part of Old School D&D, and if you aren't doing it, you ain't OLD SCHOOL.

I disagree.

I disagree because of things I read and heard about from accounts of people from back in the day like this from this post using this search.

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My experience is that people were all over the place with this stuff then and now.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1030219Why didn't I see you there?  I would have let you buy me a beer!

I'm sure you did. I'm the white dude that looks like he could be an engineer/accountant.

Next year my man. I'm up in Whitefish Bay so the drive down is pretty easy plus we have family in Lake Geneva for the kids to stay with so I always look forward to it each year.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1030118Yeah this is simply the 5e experience system working encouraging killing things. The old xp for gold isnt great either, but it's better than xp for killing stuff.

No, actually it does not.  It's the DMs that do that.  And that's been happening since, according to my friends, it's been like since Rules Cyclopedia.  Personally, my experience says from at least AD&D2e.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1030220Also, FUCK giving players a map!  FUCK IT, FUCK IT, FUCK IT!  Player mapping is a vital part of Old School D&D, and if you aren't doing it, you ain't OLD SCHOOL.

Which is a BIG reason I'm getting sick of the fucking "Old School Renaissance."  They've invented shit they call Old School, instead of, you know, TALKING to Ernie Gygax or Tim Kask or Jim Ward or Dave Wesley or Dave Megarry or...

I thought that a big part of early, true old school D&D was putting the Wilderness Survival map on the table and hex crawling and then fighting whatever monsters using basically the Chainmail combat rules, and that Blackmoor and Greyhawk grew out of that style of play, but it is possible the written and oral accounts of those days are all lies and there's was no map on the table.

I do agree that the DM describing and a player or two mapping dungeons was the default in the earlier years.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1030250No, actually it does not.  It's the DMs that do that.  And that's been happening since, according to my friends, it's been like since Rules Cyclopedia.  Personally, my experience says from at least AD&D2e.

Honestly, there is some truth to this. The game rules (and what they incentivize), and the original pre-boom crowd that the game started with spread out in the greater world and said, 'here's this wonderful game that tests your inventiveness by incentivizing you minimizing your subject-to-risk while maximizing your achievement of this goal (gp=xp), and large swaths of people said, 'yes, but combat is the fun part, why would we minimize that?'

Quote from: Myrdin Potter;1030251I thought that a big part of early, true old school D&D was putting the Wilderness Survival map on the table and hex crawling and then fighting whatever monsters using basically the Chainmail combat rules, and that Blackmoor and Greyhawk grew out of that style of play, but it is possible the written and oral accounts of those days are all lies and there's was no map on the table.

I do agree that the DM describing and a player or two mapping dungeons was the default in the earlier years.

In theory, hexcrawling is very much like in-dungeon mapping. Sure, you can see the hex (and basic terrain) well ahead, but you are finding out what is in the hex as you travel too it.