Another GenCon Rant thread - the Pickup Game area

[Holy Bovine]

pickup game. damn 3 out of 3 of my events were cancelled. and they were scheduled paid for events. the GM didn't show for any of them.

That would have me more angry than anything. When I GMed for GenCon many years ago I was at my table at least 15 minutes early and had my stuff ready to roll on time.

Of course some of the players were upwards of 30 minutes late and some were actually surprised if I started the game without them (RPGA members mostly). I felt 5 out of 6 showing up was more than ample to start playing. *shrug*

 

[Mark the Hammer]

Pick-Up Games

I understand that they probably don't want to support Pick-Up Games, but almost all of the games that they offered were sold out MONTHS before the Con. People are paying to get into the convention and I think that they could have a few rooms set aside for pick-up games. People coming to the Con will still register to play games, this is for the people who got locked out becuase they did not register soon enough or GMs not showing up (it happened to me twice, got my money back, but I still had time that I had set aside for gaming to fill). If they don't I'll just do what I did this year, there seemed to be lots of people wandering around looking for games....

 

[der_kluge]

Yes, there *was* a pickup games area. It was room 140 on the map. It was listed as "Open Games". But it was just the one room.

I can understand their desire to quell pick-up games and charge for games, but they doesn't diminish the desire of players to just play games. And yes, I ran an official game, and it filled up within the first day of event registration opening up online. So, unless you were fast and diligent online, you had absolutely no chance of getting into it.

If they want to encourage the use of generic tickets for games, then they need to offer some kind of incentive for gamers to even collect them. I had no reason to collect generics, and it seemed to me like a complete waste of money. I don't have such a high opinion of myself as a game master that I'm willing to take $3 from anyone to play in one of my games.

But, they might encourage more people to run more games if they offered a 2:1 redeeming value for generics so that GMs could turn generics back in and get some money. That might be a slight financial justification for someone to run a game. So, in other words, I could collect $18 of generics from 6 players at a table and then redeem them for $9 back at the event HQ booth. Run enough of those games, and you could pay for your badge in no time.

 

[billd91]

I don't think I've ever seen any 'official' support for open gaming at Gen Con other than providing some tables and bulletin board space. So I'm not surprised this year was any different.
Now that I think about it, I don't really recall seeing all that much bulletin board space, at least not compared to the amount I always saw when Gen Con was at the Mecca.

As far as generic tickets go, I've seen most events take them, even events with only 6 players per session (like with mine). Truth is, people pre-reg for things and then have schedules change. People with actual legit tickets for events won't be able to attend for a variety of reasons so you accept the first generics to show up. No big deal. And the bigger the event, like the RPGA Living whatever campaigns or substantial tournaments, the more likely you'll be able to get in with your generics.
I think people generally recognize this and see getting generics as a good way to have a very flexible schedule with relatively few barriers to participate in the gaming. So, there were long lines for generic tickets.
Technical difficulties around the registration booths didn't exactly help matters. But, after the first day, I had short waits in that area. And the Will-Call line for picking up pre-reg tickets had no wait at all. Even on the busy Wednesday night.

 

[CaptainCalico]

Actually in past years pickup games were not accomodated and discouraged because of space concerns. This year the staff made a point to have a space for pickup games - sadly it was just not well organized - probably because there were a million other things to be organized.

Instead of getting huffy how about this - folks here on EN world who really like pickup games get together, come up with a list of needs for a pickup game space and go to the GC LLC staff with a proposal for next year. Harried as they were, everyone on the staff that I talked to seemed really pleasant and eager to hear feedback.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

I didn't notice much different this year than previous years. While I don't do pick-up games since I have a really full schedule working for Rogue Judges leaving me only time for 2 events to play in and 6 hrs in the dealer hall, overall everything from a judging angle seamed to go mostly well. The one noticable thing about judging was that there was no list of how to turn in tickets like in past years, but then nothing has changed so this problem was limited to first time judges. You only collect tickets if you are running an official event and then you collect both regular and generic tickets and turn them all into Event HQ which I never noticed having any lines. I am not sure about role playing pick-up spaces but I can assure you there were plenty of open tables in the boardgame room that were being used for pick-up games, which ones they were however kept changing as various regular events were run (We were assigned 9 tables of which we used 6-all of depending on events and allowed the use of the others for open gaming when we didn't need them). Overall, except for the long badge and ticket lines which is covered elsewhere, I thought from my perspective that things were either the same as before or better.

 

[Twin Rose]

I went there because I had signed up at the ENPublishing booth to run a game at 5:00 on Friday, I believe. I went there thinking I could get a table, and they were all full. I ended up canceling because of insufficient space. I went back to Canadia, and we ended up playing in the lobby of the Embassy Suites, which was perfectly fine to us, as it was spacious, not too noisy, and had access to a bar and a little restaurant thingy. On top of that, the cleaning crew was very helpful and friendly and didn't mind us playing there till the wee hours of the morning.

I don't think anyone started a sheet there that didn't end up full of players, and many did find their way back to Little Canadia. I'm glad that worked out. And I don't think it took up much space at our booth at all for people to be able to come, get their name tags, and sign in ... Worked very well, though sometimes it did get crowded and hard for me to do software demos!

Was very glad to have EN Publishing join us at our booth this year, really gave me a chance to touch bases with the players here on ENWorld.

 

[TroyXavier]

Well no wonder I never found it. Why I kept leaving early, as I didn't have any money to spend and didn't know where the pickup game room was.