GenCon 2009 Event Submission

[Feanor Liberius]

I've been pinged!

Wednesday sounds good. We can discuss place as things approach - we've got options...

 

[Ycore Rixle]

As it is my first year, do you suggest going RPGA or not? I'm more of an actor/roleplayer than a min/maxer, so are there DnD 4th games that cater more to that, or do they just run you through modules?

I would recommend the RPGA. Those games can be a lot of fun. Especially since you say that you want some ideas for the systems that you're into. If you like the PHB2, then I bet that you'll like the RPGA.

That said, there's not a whole lot of roleplaying there - at most tables. There are definitely some RPGA games with tons of great roleplaying. But especially at Gen Con, at a random table, you have a decent chance of getting a table that is not heavy on roleplaying. If you line up some tables ahead of time - not sure where, maybe warhorn dot net or your regional LFR mailing list - then you probably have a good shot at some nice roleplaying. Back in the day, I played in some awesome midnight LG games with tons of good roleplaying, but those were set up with people who knew each other, not just pick-up groups.

Other places to look are the one-shots that people run - just keep looking at this forum and people will start posting more stuff eventually. I'm pretty sure Goodman Games is doing a 4e tournament this year. And of course there's the RPGA D&D Open tournament, which is extremely tactical and not at all roleplaying-y.

Well that was kind of rambly, hope it helped!

 

[JBeatnik]

How do these tournaments work? Do you fight other players?

 

[Ycore Rixle]

No, you don't fight other players. Rather, multiple tables of players, each with a different DM, run through the same adventure (lately, this has been a linear hack-and-slash). Ahead of time, the adventure author assigns point values to certain achievements: no one in your group dies, you find the X treasure before Y steals it, you kill Z without harming A, etc. Compare the points that each table earned, and then you advance to the next round if you're in the top whatever percent.

There are other ways too. That's just a general idea and the way the RPGA usually does it in the official D&D Open.

 

[Jengenritz]

Rather, multiple tables of players, each with a different DM, run through the same adventure...you advance to the next round if you're in the top whatever percent.

That's a pretty good encapsulation of how it goes. To elaborate a bit:

If you can, you get a team with four friends (for 5 total players) and sign up to play the tournament's entry rounds on either Thursday or Friday.
If you advance, you're automatically in round 2 (on Saturday), and so on (with round 3 being on Sunday).

If your friends can't make it to Gen Con with you, we'll put you in a pick-up team, some of which do surprisingly well.

Before you get to the con, you go to Goodman's site and download the Player's Pack, which contains the pregenerated characters and the player's beginning.
There will be seven pregen options this year, and your team will select the five you want to play.

The URL for the Player's Pack will be posted at Goodman's site and will be in an email you receive when you sign up for the event.

Some of this year's tournament backstory is being posted here. This is flavor, nothing mission-critical.

Anyone has any other questions about the Goodman Games DCC Open Tournament, feel free to PM me, or head on over to the GG board and ask away. I use the same ID there as here.

 

[DonTadow]

Last year we started a new tournament and are continung it this year. I think we have been hearing gripes about the open for almost a decade and just decided to try to figure out something that was a good game balance. Designing good characters, making good decisions, being a team player, critical thinking, etc and then tried to make something that was fun for the players. Instead of having one module thats the same for everyone we created a branching adventure that offers different (yet balanced) challenges for everyone based on there adventure. In the last few years, I"d grown to detest most D&D adventures because they seemed to be more about a dm telling a story than the players making thier own story.

Tournament Description
* The tournament judges the entire array of player skills Players will be judged by no less than 3 DMs as well, testing their ability to adapt to change in styles.
* Players play through the entire adventure, not just 1 or 2 encounters and then are eliminated.
* Our scoring system is not based on small objects that must be made, but on global comprehensive objectives. This gives players a real role playing experience as they have only their full toolset of creativty to accomplish things. More than just objectives, players are also judged on how they play the game. We have created a mixture of objective and subjective scoring for this event.
* Playing through a normal tournament is a minimium of 12 to 14 hours. Our tournament wraps up in 7 hours with about 30+
* Players design their own character. No one gets screwed because they had the "bad" character sheet. Part of being a great role playiing game player is building great and useful characters that transcends the stat sheets. Players also have time to write a brief background, which may/may not come into play. Because these are Iron calibar DMs, the adventure will be tweaked depending on your origin and team background.
* Encounters provide a balance of tactical challenging combat, brainteasing puzzles and multifaceted traps.
* The adventure is designed so that the PCs decisions impacts their experience in a non-linear fashion. Where as there is an "end goal" how you reach that goal will impact what that goal is and what happens during it. Every team also gets some type of closure on their adventure, so even the team that decided to wander around the grove all day, fighting Fey Devils would experience the end results of their actions.
* 3 different DMs judge the action. So their is a great minimization of being screwed by a bad DMs. You also get adifferent experience for each DM.

We're always in need of extra Dungeon Masters to help us run it. Currently we are eight strong and looking for 3 or 4 more.

 

[Mark]

Okie doke. The XLS of events has been put out today (Sunday 3pm) so let's get some individual threads started up on the various events that are running.

 

[JediSoth]

I've got some events posted over at OK -- Your Turn (Monte Cook's message board). I'm not going to cross post them just yet, though.

I haven't even signed up for anything official yet, and my Gen Con is looking slam-packed again.

 

[Lanefan]

Here's my game info (edited for brevity, additional info, and clarification):

Game ID RPG0901880-83
Gaming Group / Company The Ysabeau Chateau
Title An Old School Adventure

@ Jeff

I was in at event-reg. opening and signed up for the Thursday night sailing; by the time I got to pre-checkout it was already showing 0 tickets left, but I'm in! (meaning that event sold out in less than 4 minutes...good job!)

Lanefan

 

[Mark]

My Medieval Fantasy Combat Miniatures Games have been accepted and are a part of the excel sheet. I'm running many slots and they will be as simple or difficult as the participants feel they can handle.

The Event Numbers are -

NMN0904146
NMN0904150
NMN0904151
NMN0904152
NMN0904153
NMN0904155
NMN0904156
NMN0904157
NMN0904158
NMN0904159
NMN0904161

I hope to see you there!