Anyone Have Experience With "Pickup" Games?

[SiderisAnon]

Does anyone on EN World have experience with running or participating in "pickup" type D&D games? By that, I mean games run at a local gaming store (or other location) where the DM pledges to come in and run a game on X day at Y time and people can sign up or just show up if there's still slots open.

I find myself without much in the way of gaming because real life has gotten in the way of my gaming group. For the last several months, we've been hitting less than half our sessions and sometimes missing 4-6 sessions in a row. We've finally cut the schedule in half and are still missing sessions. I rather miss DMing regularly and so I'm looking at a way of spending some more time at my hobby.

In the past, I've tried finding games through my local gaming shop, but I've run into a few nightmares along the way. I also find traveling to various people's houses difficult due to a medical issue. (I can get in and out of our current gaming location and the local gaming shop fine. I cannot run at my own place.)

I admit, I like the idea of what the RPGA tries to do. I'd love to do that at the local gaming shop. Unfortunately, the people running RPGA here are rubbish. They are so disorganized that you're often running a totally different module than you prepared, things inevitably get started late, and they often fail to report the modules run to the RPGA. They're "in" with the owner of the store, so there's nothing that can be done about them.

However, I was thinking of running something at the shop on a different night, possibly weekly. I was thinking pickup type game because it wouldn't require people to commit to showing up (except me) and could allow me to deal with a variety of different players. (With the option of removing truly horrible ones, which I don't have with the RPGA because the guys running it never report things like cheating, striking another player, and other infractions. The only guy I got removed was because the store banned him out because there were so many complaints about him.)

I guess I'm basically thinking a tournament type game once a week (or every other week).

I haven't given detailed thought for what sort of characters. I'd want to have some pregens available, and would possibly run all pregens just to keep things honest. I'd probably keep the game in the 5th to 10th level range, which is what I see as the "sweet spot". It would be 3.5 D&D, mostly because I don't own and don't wish to spend the money on 4th. (Please, no edition wars. I don't have any opinion of 4th other than I don't have the money for it.)

I'm not worried about having to adapt my material on the fly. After more than 20 years of DMing, the seat of my pants and some dice are all I need to game with.

I've also thought about trying to do this online, or just forming some kind of regular group online. I've just never done any real chatroom type gaming, so don't know how well it would work for me. (I do have DSL and a good computer, so technical resources wouldn't be a problem.)

So, does anyone have any experience with "pickup" games or anything similar? Anyone have any suggestions?

It's Albuquerque, New Mexico, if it matters. There is only one gaming shop in the city and it's mediocre in my opinion. (I used to live in New Orleans and before that Chicago, so I'm probably spoiled.)

 

[Gilladian]

Well, as long as you realize that many of your players will be people who, for various reasons ranging from age (too young, mostly) to personality issues, can't get into a steady gaming group on their own, it can be a fine thing.

I played almost exclusively at a game shop with "pickup" games being the norm for the first several years of my dnd obsession.

I don't remember any rules or limitations on characters other than the DM sitting down and saying "This adventure is for x levels. Who's got what?" Cheating will happen whatever you do. Have pregens, but let people use their own characters, as well, with a brief look-over from you. Don't allow classes or races that you don't have advance knowledge of.

DO make a firm rule about how many people can play. I remember running 2e games with 12 people at the table. It was doable, but not always fun. I finally set the limit at 10 people. And then said if you were not at the table by 3:00 when the game was scheduled to begin, your place was open for the person who had shown up and waited longest to play. For 3e I would definitely set a limit of 8, or even 6, depending on your preferences and the game room setup.

Have FUN! You'll make new friends, learn a LOT about people, and no matter how practiced a DM, you'll improve your skills in such a challenging situation.

Oh, and try to do some sort of short-goal dungeon delving based around a guild, or a traveling caravan, or such, that gives lots of flexibility for bringing people in and out.

 

[Chainsaw]

I played in a 4E Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) pick-up game a while back. We played once a week for about four hours. Attendance ranged from one table of four people to two tables of six people. Skill level ranged from 'friend of a friend' who'd never played before to guys who'd DM'd every edition. Regular players were encouraged to take a turn DM'ing. Here's how the host kept it organized.

1. Reservations requested, but not necessary. Try to encourage 'reserving a spot' from session to session by posting a flier with your contact information somewhere in the store. When we played, anyone interested was asked to sign up a few days ahead of time (e-mail distribution list format) with the level/type of character they intended to play. Naturally we had some unexpected guests (friends of friends, etc) or some folks drop out at the last minute, but usually this wasn't a problem. Most people know by 1-2 days ahead of time whether they can make it.

2. Keep it simple. The sessions were all self-contained adventures - rarely contuinuing from one session to the next (as this would require longer-term commitment that didn't jibe with 'pick-up' style). This eliminates the problem of no-shows screwing up your climactic battle scene.

3. Set a firm start/end time. The sessions had pretty strict start/end times. If you're late, you don't get to play. Thirty minutes before end-time, all the bad guys roll d12s to attack (haha). We also played at a guy's house though (he was a saint).

4. Be nice, but firm on rules. Get comfortable explaining the rules over and over for new people, but also get comfortable telling people "No, we don't do it that way."

5. Character creation. Be prepared to help newbies create characters (tell them to come ahead of time). Pick a standard system for ability scores.. don't let people show up with scores they rolled themselves at home (they always tend to roll 16-18s when no one's looking).

6. No evil. No one was allowed to play evil characters.. so no stabbing the shop keeper, the guards or your buddy in the back. No stealing, etc. Can be very disruptive with a group of people that might not know each other.

I'm sure there are some more things we did that made it run smoothly. I'll post them as I think of them.

Honestly, it CAN work really well, but you have to lay some groundrules and be prepared to enforce them.. otherwise random strangers will be trying to WIN every session with godlike characters.

 

[Mark]

Try starting up regular gamedays in your area. We've been doing them locally, three times a year, for the past eight years, organized through EN World and hosted by a local gamestore, and they work out very well. You might be able to corral more regular players through the contacts made while organizing the gamedays.


Here's our latest organizing thread -

http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...hicago-gameday-24-saturday-november-14th.html

And the subsequent sign up thread -

http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...chicago-gameday-24-november-14th-sign-up.html

It might not get off the ground quite as quickly but with time and some effort it can be a regular part of the gaming fun in your area.

 

[SteveC]

Many moons ago, in the age of 1E, I used to play in an "open world" gaming club at the UW. Basically GMs ran games and you could just play a character in it. The GMs would have lists of house rules that you'd have to live by, and they could veto anything they didn't like and then you'd just have to fetch a different character. It worked surprisingly well for several years.

In 4E this is a lot simpler, especially if you just follow the rules from the RPGA for living forgotten realms in terms of items. I think it could really work, but then I don't know the players in your area, and freely admit it could be a disaster.

Currently our FLGS runs delves with pre-gen characters each week, both for 4E and Pathfinder, and that's been popular with the younger players (mostly highschool aged). I think you have some excellent "table rules" already discussed upthread, so I'd take a lot of them into consideration and draft a formal "rules of the game" for the players to look at. I think the management of your store might appreciate that as well, so you don't have any hard feelings.

This can definitely work and be a good time...I wish you luck!

--Steve

 

[Festivus]

As someone who wrangles up a monthly meetup I have a few things to add to Chainsaw's list:

Pregens - Have a half dozen pregenerated characters available for those who just walk up and want to play. If you are hosting at a game store the owner might be happy if they pick up a set of dice.

Regular Schedule - We meet on the first saturday of every month. I see many of the same faces each month, so I know people set aside that day for the meetup. Knowing when games are likely going to be helps folks to make it.

Keep it open - We don't restrict our meetups to just LFR 4E. We want all games, as long as they are RPG games. Allow for walk ins. We always have a table running at our meetup that is for new players, so as to not have them feel intimidated by the gronards, and contrarywise.

 

[Chainsaw]

Festivus is absolutely right - have some pregens for newbies that show up at the last minute and try to keep a consistent meeting time. We held the pickup game on the same day of the week at the same time each week. I think this makes it more attractive to players.. as they always know when the game's open and will be better able to reach out ahead of time. Getting a feel for what levels of characters are coming will make it much easier to play. If you get a guy with a level 15 wizard and another guy with a level 2 rogue, creating a challenging adventure on the fly might be tough. Typically we play "down" and everyone always has a spare low level character to play - this is to foster the hobby among new players. I suppose you could also have higher level pregens. Anyway, I'm just rambling now.

We typically stuck to LFR, but I would have been happy mixing it up depending on demand.

In retrospect, the pickup games turned out to be a *great* way of vetting potential players for a more traditional game (do they come on time, are they clean, are they rules lawyers, do they role play, are they team players, are they powergamers, etc, etc).

 

[Dedekind]

Some local RPGAers in my area have been using warhorn.net to schedule regular games. Basically, it lets you create X tables on a specific date and people can sign up to DM, play, or both. It doesn't have to be LFR and you can include adventure descriptions and house rules. Also, it allows waitlisting, so people can sign up for the possibility of a seat.

As far as pick up games are concerned, Dungeon Delve would probably be fun and you wouldn't have to worry about RPGA numbers.

Finally, if you get a big enough crowd, hopefully you will find some people you can play with and maybe start a regular group.

 

[SiderisAnon]

Thank you for the specific suggestions. There are some good ideas there.

In checking the web site for my FLGS, I found out they now have an "open RPG night", so they may already have pickup games going on. I'm going to drop by this week and see what details I can find out. (They also don't seem to have RPGA scheduled at all anymore, which may be a result of the shop having a new owner since I last played with the local RPGA people.)

It was mentioned about having a way of having continuity even when characters change. I had been thinking about running a game where the PCs are part of an expeditionary force sent by a good temple or temples which was dealing with a region recently devastated and the evil that is now coming out of the area. Each adventure would be hooked in by the current PCs being the ones available for assignment to the current problem. Different folks are around at different times because others are off doing something different. To give the game more of a campaign feel, I was thinking of having changes to the world based on the success or failure of various missions. I might also have the magic items available to PCs be based on what's been brought back in the past. (i.e. Your 6th level PCs may have X gold worth of items from this list. Here are some pregenerated packages if you'd like.)

Thank you for the suggestions.

 

[Chainsaw]

Some local RPGAers in my area have been using warhorn.net to schedule regular games. Basically, it lets you create X tables on a specific date and people can sign up to DM, play, or both. It doesn't have to be LFR and you can include adventure descriptions and house rules. Also, it allows waitlisting, so people can sign up for the possibility of a seat.

My group uses warhorn as well - very helpful service.