What Makes a Convention Game Great?

So - as I'm basking in the sweet, sweet glow of Gen Con, I'm wondering what y'all think makes a Con game great. What gives an adventure that extra "umph" that makes it something remarkable?

Is it giving the players well written characters complete with backstory? Is it simply getting the right group? Is it the props? A DM that really knows the rules? A clever story? What makes a one-shot something to write home (or at least your friends at ENW) about?

It's the people. With a good group the DM just sits back and enjoys the show. That's what I do and with the right players it can really make the DM look a lot better then he actually is.

That guy there? Standing up and leaning on the table?

That's what makes Con games great.

It takes everyone being on the same page. It takes players who understand that the parameters for game-day games are different from their normal campaigns, and that they need to just go with it. I almost had to strangle one guy in the T20 game because he would not let go of something that was completely erroneous to the story but that he though was 'in character'. 'In character' is fine, but you've got to understand that you can't just pack up at the end of the night and pick things up tomorrow. Like Cinderella, everything goes *poof* at midnight and you don't get to keep the magic sword or the magic stagecoach.

It requires a DM comfortable enough with the game to keep things flowing. Don't stop and check rules -- wing it and keep things going. Don't worry about players skating by on things that they wouldn't get away with in an ongoing game. Cinderella.

For prep, running the scenario beforehand helps, or if you can't, vet it with another DM. The more or less fixed time limits of con games can help from a dramatic tension point of view, but it can be really frustrating if you get to the point where you have an hour to play and two hours of material. If you can plot your adventure with enough flexibility to omit whole chunks and still keep the essence, you're golden.

Get those right, and you've got a good game. If you get players that have good chemistry, you're going to have a great game. One of the advantages I think we have as ENWorlders is that even if we've never met, we all sort of know each other. The common background helps, and the sense that even if the game ends at midnight, our on-line interactions will continue, gives a cameraderie that the 'official' games lack.

Queen_Dopplepopolis said:

So - as I'm basking in the sweet, sweet glow of Gen Con, I'm wondering what y'all think makes a Con game great. What gives an adventure that extra "umph" that makes it something remarkable?

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In my experience: Piratecat at the helm.

He's run my favorite con games of all time.

You guys are exceptionally kind! Thank you - I'm really glad you had as much fun as I did.

If I have one sneaky advantage, it's that I ran almost 200 one-shot games for the RPGA way before EN World was even started. That was back when the RPGA had judge rankings and feedback, so every time I ran a game I'd usually take away at least one piece of constructive criticism about what to do better. It helped immensely. (In fact, I stopped running RPGA games partially because they did away with this.)

So, let's see if I can distill any of that. I'd divide a great con game into three pieces (and I can give examples of any of these upon request): character builds, plots and DMing tricks. I'll just mention the most important bits. There's a lot of text, so i'll drop it into spoiler boxes to make things easier to read.

1. How the characters are described

[sblock] - The more the players have to do, the easier the DM's job. If I give the players a metaphorical sports car, I won't have to pull them everywhere on a creaky cart. And I'm lazy as a DM, so I prefer to spend a lot more time designing the characters than I do the plot.

This means that writing down the character descriptions and interactions (with the other PCs) is the first, and most important, step. For most games it's far more important than perfectly optimized combat stats. When planning your convention game, put the plot aside for a moment and think about how the PCs should interact. Create interconnections between each of them, so each hero has a connection of some sort (hate, unrequited love, jealousy, loyalty) with at least two other heroes -- and mix them around evenly. I usually position six circles on a sheet of paper, label each one with a hero name, and then draw "relationship" arrows with notes next to them towards the other circles.

Conflict is good. You certainly don't want a free-for-all, but seething tension (either love or hate) is your friend. A party that gets along perfectly is a boring party.

I'd say it takes me maybe an hour to do an average character; that's about 40 minutes to write character personality and motivations and interactions, and 20 minutes to note down stats. It always takes me longer to do PCs than to write the actual plot. People who write a con game and leave the characters 'til last because "they're easy" sometimes get surprised.

- History is not personality. Some people accidentally confuse the two, and write three paragraphs under the personality section describing what the hero has done, where he has been, and what he knows. This should generally be tossed out the window (to be summarized briefly in game, since usually it doesn't matter) and replaced with two paragraphs on how he goes about life, what he thinks of people, and what interesting quirks or habits he has.

- "And I described it... with adjectives." Arrgh, you say, I have no time to do that! Never fear. I'd rather have 6 adjectives describing a PC than anything else. give me six adjectives, and I can play a PC with no problem. The best thing is, writing down that the wizard is "heroic, foolhardy, generous, lovestruck, wealthy and vain" takes maybe three minutes and paints a very clear picture of their personality. If you're strapped for time, do this same thing for each PC interaction, only using three adjectives.

- Stuff and pictures. Googling a photo or illustration of each character is cool, but not essential; it's pretty easy for a Modern game, though. I prefer to tell a story through a hero's gear. One of the heroes in one of my GenCon games had a small bag full of her opponent's teeth that she'd kicked out over the years; another had love letters from seven different girls. with stuff like that in your inventory, a canny player can gain hints that don't need to be spelled out in the personality section.

- "Wait, what am I supposed to be like?" Make sure a hero's personality matches what the other heroes think of him. Nothin sucks more than if you find out everyone else thinks you're a cheapskate that mumbles, but your own character sheet never mentions it.[/sblock]


2. Plots

[sblock] - Less is more. I plan 3 notable encounters max, so long as I have a PCs that encourage roleplaying between them and a couple of interesting NPCs for me to to roleplay as well. I also plan one of those encounters to be a "throwaway" encounter that I can ditch if I'm running out of time. Con games invariably start late, so it's a good idea to control timing a bit and still let the players get to the adventure's climax.

- Don't write, outline. This is my personal preference when no one but me will be running the game. I never write exhaustively what happens; instead, I work off of a single page of outlined notes that flowcharts the adventure. i will rough out stats for major combat encounters, though, to save time.

- Challenge the players. Make them make tough decisions. Make them roleplay with NPCs to find out the good information. Make them think through tactics or strategies, and remember not to become attached to your clever NPCs and plots! They're only there to challenge the heroes anyways, so reward clever planning instead of punishing it.

- Not all NPCs are antagonists. Make sure you add nice, friendly NPCs into your game, too. your less paranoid players will thank you for it.

- Loot is irrelevant. It's a 4 hour game. Forget all cash, loot and xp unless it is essential to the game's plot. No one wants to spend time splitting up treasure that will never get used.

Design narrow-wide=narrow. I write my games to be linear at the beginning, moderately linear at the end (in that they usually lead to an anticipated big climax), and totally open to different strategies in the middle. It seems to work pretty well; it allows free choice for most of the game, and still delivers a cool finish.

- Cinematic endings. When I plan a game, I think of a cool possible ending first then plan backwards from there. Go for the showy and flashy set pieces, and those fights become a lot more fun and memorable.[/sblock]


3. DMing tricks

[sblock] - Avoid boredom and rules. Take care of any tedious character tasks (spell selection, gearing up) BEFORE the game -- just let the player change things they don't want. Likewise, looking up rules during the game can stop a dramatic encounter dead in its tracks. If you can't find a rule in 60 seconds, make something up and stay consistent for the rest of the game.

- Spread around your attention. Every con table has at least one quiet player. Make sure you pay them equal attention. Ask them what they're doing, involve them in conversations, have NPCs talk to them, and so on; quiet shouldn't mean ignored.

Don't encourage the disruptive player. If someone's play style is antithetical to your own or they're disrupting the table, don't feel bad about taking them aside for a private conference and ask them if they could stop that for the rest of the game. Most times it solves the problem, and everyone has more fun as a result.

In the same vein, don't devote more attention than normal to players who are needy and attention-grabbing. Pay only a little bit of attention to them when they're being disruptive, pay lots of attention to them when they relent, and you'll soon have the problem solved as they figure out that NOT being disruptive gets them attention.

- Playtest. Playtest, playtest, playrtest - even once. I love to reuse adventures at different game days and cons, because they keep getting better! I think I've run the MnM game 11 times now since last December, and I originally conceived of it for use here at GenCon. Ask Maverick Weirdo; the first time I ran it, it was pretty shaky. Playtesting answers pacing questions and shakes out iffy plotting.

- Pacing. Don't hesitate to sacrifice encounters just so you can get to the good stuff. I'd much rather skip a minor combat encounter if it means I get to the end of the adventure! Talking about pulp gangster novels, Raymond Chandler wrote, "When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand." It's great advice; before things get boring, introduce time pressure or some sort of conflict. that way the session never drags.

- Painting images. Use scent, and sound, and color when describing what people see. It really helps immerse people in the game.

- Reward creativity. Let clever plans succeed. If they out-think you, they damn well deserve an advantage! I think I might run games just to see how players will surprise me, and it's a constant delight. That's actually my favorite moment in gaming: when a player pulls something unique that I never saw coming, and it changes the whole course of the adventure in a direction I didn't expect. Don't try to railroad or redirect PCs before this happens. [/sblock]


Phew! That's everything I can think of. Comments, improvements?

Piratecat's advice is excellent. Let me add three more points, one of which is a totally super-secret point.

First, have more than one GM. Every game I have run at a Con has had two GMs at the table. In one game we ran four different games that were all happening at the same time, which required 8 GMs! One GM is the primary, and the other handles requests and plays key NPCs. The backup GM can also handle rules questions so that you can keep the story.

A second point. Props. I was part of a team that ran Call of C'thuhlu games for four years, and we had a consistent following that grew each and every year. The thing that the players told us that really made the game was that we had props. One year we had a game where all the characters were in a bunker planning for a Y2k "End of the World" scenario. We had a walki-talki that was used by the group to directly contact agents they deployed in the field. The players told us they LOVED it. Another year we had a sci-fi C'thuhlu, and one character had a SPACE GUN. We actually brought a cheezy blaster pistol with us and the group used it to symbolize who had the one and only real weapon, which became important at one point in the plot. Afterwards, the players said that it made the game much more tense.

Finally, the super-secret one: have a ringer player. Our games were always for six players, but we had a seventh one there every time. This player was a plant, who was usually working for the bad guys (but not always). In the Y2K game, for example, the plant was the White House Communications Director who would try and move the game along when it was slowed down, and also subtly redirect certain actions ("yes, we have polling numbers on nuking Ohio, and they're very low...maybe we could look at another option...")

Those are my ideas, but Pirate Cat has pretty much nailed it (as would be expected).

--Steve

Being able to play in one!

Seriously, I had a heck of a time trying to find ANY game to play. In part, that was likely due to several commitments that I had and a generally introverted nature but the scheduling/finding of games was a nightmare. I got to play in one game at midnight on Sunday.

Next time, I'll know to look on the boards for the "Gencon Games" section but this year I spotted it 2 days before Gencon.

As an example, here's the character sheet for the super-villain Migraine, a disembodied brain, from the MnM game I ran at GenCon. It has a little too much plot stuck in there for my taste, but should get across what I was saying above.

Migraine

Personality: They call you mad. You! You, who have come so close to controlling the entire world, who once built a empire of loyal minions, who performed hideous experiments on unwilling victims in order to build a race of psychic zombies, who chose to shed her clumsy body in his race for glory. You, mad? Hah!

And yet, it is your very genius which has brought doom upon you all.

Until recently you maintained one of the most powerful criminal organizations in Freedom City, rivaled only by Doctor Primus’s. One of your many projects was using physical brain surgery to create psionic thralls. One of your subjects is Project Rapture, a former secretary named Edith Fellman. Edith had a mutant gene that you accidentally triggered during the experimentation when you accidentally awoke her buried mental powers.

Whoops.

Edith has her own taste for domination and command, and she is much more powerful than you. She boasts an almost unstoppable ability to control emotions, making people love and worship her permanently. She took over your own criminal operation in a matter of days. She could have made you fall in love with her as well, but she decided to do something far crueler. Instead, she psychically lobotomized you and stripped away many of your powers just as she had stolen your empire. By now she has subtly converted almost all of the heroes, villains and political entities in town to her way of thinking. You know that she plans to wipe out any person that she can’t convert, and has an eventual goal of controlling the entire world! Come, now. You’re a megalomaniac yourself, but that is just silly. It’s yours, not hers.

Starting by taking a young villainess under your wing as a protégé, you are working to create a team of unconverted heroes and villains who can stop her before things go too far. You hate all these people, and are certain to eventually betray them, but Rapture is a much larger threat. If your team can deal with her, the world stands open before you. You must not fail!

Goals (which may earn you hero points!): Educate people as to Rapture’s danger. Forge these unconverted heroes and villains into a team. Don’t just defeat Rapture, teach her a lesson. Don’t let anyone know that you accidentally created her! Gain additional power for yourself, make your foes grovel before you, and cackle madly on a regular basis.

Tactics: Use your life support tank’s concealment power to keep from being obvious in combat (it’s invisible, but does make a thrumming sound.) You have very powerful ESP and can see almost anywhere you wish to, although this might throw your mind open to mental attack if someone senses you. You can sense powerful minds nearby, and you have a moderate-strength mental shield to help protect you from psionic enemies. Your real power is your mental blast; you can liquefy a foe’s synapses, read minds, create mental illusions, control peoples’ thoughts, or even lift objects with the power of your psyche. You can’t do more than one of these things at once, though, so if you have someone mind controlled they will slip free the first time you use telekinesis to lift a car. You have a minion whose job it is to gently swirl your Braincase, effectively massaging your frontal lobes. He’s inconsequential, but can perform useful chores for you when needed.

Other heroes and villains you may end up working with:

Knockout: This young girl has a vile personality, but you needed a protégé who was strong, tough and stupid. A third-rate super-villain, she is to be your battering ram.

Doctor Primus: Your old rival. You don’t know what lurks beneath his suit of power armor, but he is a nefarious mastermind just as you are. Rapture has subverted his criminal organization just as she has stolen yours, so he will want revenge, but if he learns that you created her he is going to be very upset.

Loophole: The real Loophole was a reasonable super-villain. This one is just some whining clerk who discovered an extremely powerful suit. He excels at teleportation, and can use an enemy’s power against them; he’ll make an excellent tool.

Yodeling Roach: You actually created him during your insect experimentation phase, and you set him free in the sewers in the hopes he would eat people. Instead, he became a superhero. Sigh… you can’t win them all. He’s a giant cockroach who can control sound, and should be easily manipulated by promising him the affection and acceptance that he craves.

Killswitch: This ignoramus incorrectly believes himself to be the smartest thing on the planet. Ha! His intellect pales beneath yours! Be sure to continually show him how stupid he is compared to you.

Pinnacle (Rutger Paragon): an idiot billionaire who spends his time going to parties and rutting with his meat-parts. Supposedly a hero, but no threat to one as powerful as you.

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This is all very interesting stuff, the kind of thing I was asking about over at Circus Maximus. What would help even more is to see an example of the kind of adventure that has been run at a con.