Welcome to ENWorld DC Area Gameday II -- Saturday, March 15 2008
Welcome old friends and newcomers!
The second* ENWorld DC Area gameday is set for Saturday, March 15th. Same location as before. For those that attended the previous iteration, we're open to suggestions on how to make this one even better.
More info to follow as we get things organized. For those wishing to run games, please hold off posting them until we come up with some guidelines and procedures. Given the limited space, I want to make sure things run a little more smoothly this time.
Did we start games at 9am (can't remember if that was this gameday)? That was a bit early for us to travel into DC if I remember correctly and made for a really long day.
Otherwise I think it was fabulous and we'll try to make it again.
We started at 9:30 last time. It was a little early for me, too, since I can't get the keys to open the door until 9, and people were already queueing up, which made it hard to do set-up and such. I'd prefer a slightly later start, myself.
The hard limit is 1am; I'd put an effective cap at midnight so there is time to quickly wrap up games that were running long, do clean-up, etc.
Last time, we wanted to do the group dinner, which means stopping around 8pm. Even then, we didn't get out of the restaurant until midnight (granted, 30 minutes of that was the restaurant screwing up the bill).
There was also some talk about making the lunch break longer, so that people in morning games that ran long could still run out and grab something, or so that people that wanted to eat at a 'real' restaurant weren't rushed to get back.
The hard limit is 1am; I'd put an effective cap at midnight so there is time to quickly wrap up games that were running long, do clean-up, etc.
Last time, we wanted to do the group dinner, which means stopping around 8pm. Even then, we didn't get out of the restaurant until midnight (granted, 30 minutes of that was the restaurant screwing up the bill).
There was also some talk about making the lunch break longer, so that people in morning games that ran long could still run out and grab something, or so that people that wanted to eat at a 'real' restaurant weren't rushed to get back.
Well, if we leave sessions at 4.5 hours, a 10am start puts the lunchbreak at 2:30. If you break for lunch for 1 hour, the second session starts at 3:30 and goes until 8. Any longer/later than that, and you're not really breaking for "lunch" anyway...it's an early supper, and likely to leech away people from any possible group dinner.
My suggested solution for the somewhat short lunch is to collectively order pizza in for whoever wants some. That's what they do at the NC Gameday (generally), and it works well for those pressed for time. I'd be willing to organize that if it meant we could leave the lunch break at something less than 1.5 hours.
In any case, my impression was not that the lunch break was all that short, anyway. It just seemed that way because at least one of the games (the awesome Deadlands game, for example) didn't get started until almost 11am...
__________________ National Capital Area Gameday, 24-25 October 2009 www.dcgameday.com My Story Hour: A Kingdom of Ashes. Updated 07/01/05! Zombies! Pirates! Giant Lizards! Intrigue! The Universe commands you to check it out!
Wii #0817 9834 1380 0807
Last edited by The_Universe; 9th January 2008 at 09:54 PM..
My suggested solution for the somewhat short lunch is to collectively order pizza in for whoever wants some. That's what they do at the NC Gameday (generally), and it works well for those pressed for time. I'd be willing to organize that if it meant we could leave the lunch break at something less than 1.5 hours.
I second the "have food delivered" idea. Also, are we planning about a third session in the evening then?
I second the "have food delivered" idea. Also, are we planning about a third session in the evening then?
I'm more than happy to arrange so that it's at least an option.
Do we prefer a third session to a group outing? I tend to find the two sessions pretty exhausting, but there's no reason to deny people with more endurance than I an opportunity to keep playing.
__________________ National Capital Area Gameday, 24-25 October 2009 www.dcgameday.com My Story Hour: A Kingdom of Ashes. Updated 07/01/05! Zombies! Pirates! Giant Lizards! Intrigue! The Universe commands you to check it out!
Wii #0817 9834 1380 0807
I'm more than happy to arrange so that it's at least an option.
Do we prefer a third session to a group outing? I tend to find the two sessions pretty exhausting, but there's no reason to deny people with more endurance than I an opportunity to keep playing.
I'm torn -- I know that I too will likely be tired, and that I'd love the idea of a social event capping the day... but I'd also love the thought of another session just because you can never have enough gaming!!
Or we could do both... a third session AND a social event, and peeps can choose. Eh, maybe not.
I dunno... I guess it really boils down to Rodrigo's preference on this, since he's got to play Hall Monitor on the room.
I like the 2 slots, group dinner and shorter lunches w/delivery ideas. They did pizza and subs delivery at Albany GD and that worked really well. Keeping lunch to 90 minutes or less is a good idea.
10am start time is also a good idea.
__________________
Dr. Chuck Jones wrote the book on these situations.
I like the 2 slots, group dinner and shorter lunches w/delivery ideas. They did pizza and subs delivery at Albany GD and that worked really well. Keeping lunch to 90 minutes or less is a good idea.
10am start time is also a good idea.
My personal preference is that, if we're starting at 10am, we leave sessions at 4.5 hours, we break for lunch for 1 hour, and, as my post above, some sort of "order in" option (probably Pizza) is provided to those pressed for time (see my above posts for details).
I still like the group outing idea after the gameday, but it definitely needs to be better organized this time than it was in our inaugeral version. For example, we need to know *exactly* where we're going, and we need to NOT go to the place we went last time.
__________________ National Capital Area Gameday, 24-25 October 2009 www.dcgameday.com My Story Hour: A Kingdom of Ashes. Updated 07/01/05! Zombies! Pirates! Giant Lizards! Intrigue! The Universe commands you to check it out!
Wii #0817 9834 1380 0807
Well, going by what happened last time, I had to leave after the raffle at the end of the GameDay. I was really beat and since I live in Bel Air, I've got a two+ hour commute to make. It'd be my preference to have the two gaming sessions and then break for dinner afterwards.
I like the 2 slots, group dinner and shorter lunches w/delivery ideas. They did pizza and subs delivery at Albany GD and that worked really well. Keeping lunch to 90 minutes or less is a good idea.
10am start time is also a good idea.
I'm down with this idea as well. Of course, if folks want to break for lunch and wander out they certainly could. Its' just nice to have the option of not having to rush out if your first game went long and grab something before you have to run/play in your next game.
I'm looking forward to hang'n/gaming with you all again!
I still like the group outing idea after the gameday, but it definitely needs to be better organized this time than it was in our inaugeral version. For example, we need to know *exactly* where we're going, and we need to NOT go to the place we went last time.
Werd.
OK, so a third session is overly ambitious. No problem. We DEFINITELY need to find a place to eat, and one perhaps closer to the venue. There's some eateries at Dupont -- Buca di Beppo comes to mind if we wanted to keep it Italian, in the same price range (more or less), and they can definitely handle large groups if we call them ahead of time.
Buca di Beppo (from what I've heard) would probably be a good choice for this kind of thing. When we get closer to the actual event and have a better idea of how many attendees we're looking at, we should look into getting some tables reserved.
As for the games themselves, I'm thinking we should open up for GMs to announce their intention(s) to run games about 6 weeks before (approximately 1 February), and then have player registration begin officially 2 weeks later (approximately 15 February). We can still use the boards to handle all of that, and just urge potential attendees not to jump the gun.
__________________ National Capital Area Gameday, 24-25 October 2009 www.dcgameday.com My Story Hour: A Kingdom of Ashes. Updated 07/01/05! Zombies! Pirates! Giant Lizards! Intrigue! The Universe commands you to check it out!
Wii #0817 9834 1380 0807
Buca di Beppo (from what I've heard) would probably be a good choice for this kind of thing. When we get closer to the actual event and have a better idea of how many attendees we're looking at, we should look into getting some tables reserved.
As for the games themselves, I'm thinking we should open up for GMs to announce their intention(s) to run games about 6 weeks before (approximately 1 February), and then have player registration begin officially 2 weeks later (approximately 15 February). We can still use the boards to handle all of that, and just urge potential attendees not to jump the gun.
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